It's already a part of state law, but a Missouri senator wants the state's voters to guarantee "the right and duty of parents to raise and educate their children" as they see fit.
If the House and Senate agree, the proposed amendment would be on next year's August primary or November general election ballot, with the question: "Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure that parents have a fundamental right to choose to educate their children in public schools, private schools, parochial schools, or in-home education, or a combination thereof?"
Freshman Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, proposed the amendment, and told the Senate's Education Committee Wednesday: "(It) is a right that has been acknowledged and supported in nearly every society throughout history - including our own American society.
"In the United States, a line of Supreme Court cases reaffirmed the fundamental right of parents to educate their children, including in private religious schools and, more recently, in home schools."
But if you look around the world, he said, religious freedom isn't a given.
"Certainly in Europe, there are countries that completely ban home schooling," Onder said. He cited attacks on religious freedom in Germany, Sweden and Ireland.
"In New Hampshire, a young girl was ordered by a New Hampshire Supreme Court judge out of home school and into public school - because "her vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to her counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.'"
And in northwest Missouri's Nodaway County, Onder said parents were tasered and tear-gassed, and the children temporarily removed from their home, because someone reported the house was messy.
"There's always two sides to every story but, I think, if it wasn't a home school family, I don't think that episode probably would have occurred," he said.
Even though Missouri law already protects parents' rights to educate their children, Onder said, having the protections in the Constitution would protect Missourians from changing political or judicial philosophies.
"Our fundamental rights should not hinge on the next legislature or the next Supreme Court justice or the next 5-4 (U.S.) Supreme Court decision," he said.
Former lawmaker Joe Ortwerth, lobbying for the Missouri Family Policy Network, agreed.
"For nearly 100 years the federal courts have acknowledged this right of parents to make this choice," he told the Senate committee, "to put their children in public schools, private schools or in home education settings - and have gone so far as to describe it as a "fundamental right.'
"Unfortunately, it's not delineated anywhere in the federal or state Constitutions, and we believe that fundamental rights should not rely on the good will of federal or state judges."
Ortwerth said some groups have been working on the language for several years, and that the proposed amendment "is lifted almost entirely from the current statute. What we're trying to do is to elevate it to a constitutional standard in our state."
The committee took no action on the proposal Wednesday.