Home-schooling doubles during pandemic, census report shows

The number of households in which students are being home-schooled has doubled during the pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau says.

About 5.4% of households with school-aged children reported home-schooling last spring, but that number jumped to 11.1% by fall, according to a census report released Monday.

“It’s clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet their health and safety needs, their childcare needs and the learning and socio-emotional needs of their children,” the researchers wrote in the report.

“From the much-discussed ’pandemic pods,’ (small groups of students gathering outside a formal school setting for in-person instruction) to a reported influx of parent inquiries about stand-alone virtual schools, private schools and homeschooling organizations, American parents are increasingly open to options beyond the neighborhood school,” the report states.

The report, called the Household Pulse Survey, examined the breakdown of home-schooling rates among different races and by states from the first week of the survey, April 23 through May 5, to Sept. 30 through Oct. 12.

Home-schooling rates climbed the most among respondents who identified as Black, increasing fivefold from 3.3% in late spring to 16.1% in the fall. In Hispanic households, home-schooling increased from 6.2% to 12.1%. Asian households reported a 4.9% rate in the spring and 8.8% in the fall. Non-Hispanic White households reported a 5.7% rate in the spring and 9.7% in the fall.

Bill Heuer, director of the Massachusetts Home Learning Association, said the remote and hybrid instruction models schools adopted during the pandemic had a significant impact on minority and low-income groups. They might not have been able to access the technology and resources for virtual learning and, instead, turned to options such as home-schooling.

The report also found significant differences in home-schooling rates among states. Some states saw no major change, while others such as Alaska and Nevada reported dramatic increases.

Alaska reported that 9.6% of its households were home-schooling in the spring, compared to 27.5% in the fall. Nevada reported a jump from 2.5% in the spring to 13.1% in the fall.

Although the census survey reported a less than 2% increase in home schooling rates among households in Maryland, the state has seen an increase in home schooling in all counties except Somerset County, according to Alessa Keener, educational advocate for the Maryland Homeschool Association.

The rise in home-schooling ranged from 15% to a little more than 200% during the pandemic depending on the county, with the vast majority seeing a 45% increase on average, she said. While the census report counted households, the home-school association pulls from state data, which counts individual students.

There were more than 40,000 students being home-schooled in Maryland as of October compared to 27,754 home-schoolers for the 2019 to 2020 academic year, said Ms. Keener, citing state education department numbers.

J. Allen Weston, executive director of the National Home School Association, said it is difficult to truly track the number of home-schoolers nationwide, noting that 12 states do not require home-schoolers to register and 14 states require registration but do not keep count. Mr. Heuer of the MHLA also noted that the definition of home-schooling varies from state-to-state.

Ms. Keener noted that parents pulled their children out of school during the pandemic for a variety of reasons ranging from health concerns to doubts about the effectiveness of distance learning. Some families saw their kids thriving with home schooling, she added.

Ms. Keener said she thinks home-schooling rates will fall after the wide distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. She expects Maryland will have 29,000 to 30,000 home-schoolers for the next academic year, an increase from its pre-pandemic tally of 27,754 but a decline from the 40,000 home-schoolers the state currently has on record.

But Mr. Weston said he expects the number of home-schoolers to rise steadily.

“We do not believe that the release of any vaccine will slow down the mass exodus occurring from the public schools. People now have a much better understanding of what the public schools are doing to their children and they understand that home schooling is something that they can in fact do and that once they do it there will be numerous benefits,” he said.

“The world has gotten a taste of what freedom feels like away from the regiment of the government schools. More and more families are withdrawing from the schools looking to revert to the freedoms that came from being able to schedule life on their own terms,” Mr. Weston said.