Newly-Released Report Proves That Homeschooling Is Booming
The number of homeschooled students nearly doubled since 1999, according to statistics in the newly-released School Choice Report.
This report, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), indicated that the number of homeschooled students has increased from 0.9 million to 1.7 million.
Actually, these statistics confirm what most of us already knew: homeschooling is growing in popularity.
The NCES is the organization of the U. S. Department of Education, which collects and analyzes school-related data.
Homeschool parents were surveyed about topics including their reasons for homeschooling, the grade levels of their children, ethnicity, how many parents and children are in each household, and where they live.
Why are people homeschooling?
Researchers asked homeschool parents to identify their reasons for homeschooling.
The number one reason parents decided to homeschool was concern about the school environment. Specifically, parents were concerned about their child’s safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure at school.
The second most common reason was dissatisfaction with the school’s academic instruction.
The third most common reason was a desire to provide religious instruction.
The top 3 reasons parents said they chose to homeschool are:
- They were worried about the school environment.
- They were dissatisfied with academic instruction in schools.
- They wanted to provide religious instruction.
In addition, there were several other reasons parents said they chose to homeschool. These included caring for the special needs of a child, a desire to provide a non-traditional approach to education, physical or mental health concerns, and a desire to provide moral instruction.
Which grade levels are being homeschooled?
Of the 1.7 million children being homeschooled, the largest group of students were in elementary school. Here are the percentages of elementary, middle school, and high school students were being homeschooled at the time the data was collected:
- 45% were kindergarten through 5th grade (0.8 million students)
- 24% were 6th through 8th grades (0.4 million students)
- 31% were 9th through 12th grades (0.5 million students)
More homeschool statistics from the report:
- There were more White and Hispanic homeschooled students than Black and Asian homeschooled students.
- More homeschoolers lived in rural areas than cities and suburban areas.
- The percentage of homeschooled students who lived in households with three or more children was higher than those with one or two children.
- There were more two-parent households than single-parent households.
The School Choice Report was released on September 25, 2019. Therefore, you can read the whole report yourself if you’d like. Here’s the link: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/schoolchoice/
The statistics confirm that homeschooling is growing in popularity. Families are choosing to homeschool for a variety of reasons, including concerns about the school environment.
Check out my article, “The 5 Important Benefits of Homeschooling,” to read about why homeschooling is beneficial for children.
Pin it to share:
Comment your thoughts about this report below.