While some states allow parents to withdraw their child for homeschooling at any time during the school year, others require parents to provide advance notice, ranging from a few days to a full month. Parents may inform the state of their intention prior to the school year or while school is in session. Some states such as New York require parents to submit their proposed curriculum along with a letter of intent.
States such as Connecticut and Nevada require homeschooling parents to submit a curriculum that's equivalent to the state's, imparting the same knowledge that the child would receive from a public-school education. Other states, including California, don't mandate specific curricula for homeschooling. Parents can use any pedagogical methods they find appropriate for instructing their children, and parents can supplement or replace standard textbooks and worksheets with hands-on activities, like interactive computer learning and videos, as long as the child learns what's required by the state. States allow parents to make reasonable curriculum adjustments to accommodate their child's pace of learning, abbreviating the duration of subject areas a child quickly masters and extending time spent on a subject the child struggles with.
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) reports that as of 2006, 42 states don't mandate specific educational requirements for parents to homeschool their children. Other states such as Georgia and New Mexico require homeschooling parents to hold a high school or college diploma to homeschool their children. In states like Nevada, failure to meet equivalency standards can result in the state requiring parents to return their children to public school.
States such as Oklahoma don't have requirements for reporting a child's academic progress, but most require some form of reporting. States such as Hawaii require parents to submit progress reports to the state, and states such as Pennsylvania require parents to provide portfolios of children's schoolwork for education personnel to review. Most states require all students to take standardized achievement tests periodically.