OPINION:
The Washington Post stunned the nation recently with a comprehensive, state-by-state report, showing that homeschooling has become our nation’s fastest-growing education option in the years following the pandemic. The story, “Home schooling’s rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education,” is aptly titled. Census Bureau data shows the number of homeschooling households has doubled since 2016, reaching 4.3 million.
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Homeschooling was virtually nonexistent as recently as 40 years ago. How did this happen?
The reasons vary.
Many parents see that a public school system designed to turn out millions of identical copies utterly fails to handle the needs of gifted or special needs students. They are justifiably fed up with public schools prioritizing new learning trends over the individual needs of their child (for example, Oregon recently did away with any standards for graduating public school students from public from high school).
Other parents are voting with their feet by embracing homeschooling as schools are struggling to create a safe environment for students and are unable to empower teachers to deal with student misconduct, resulting in chaos in our classrooms and bullying.
And finally, parents are no longer willing to place their children on the front lines of culture wars over religion, world politics, transgender issues or how history is taught. They’re seeking alternatives to the aggressive march of public schools replacing academics with ideology, regardless of political alignment.
Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: homeschooling has progressed from fringe, to movement, to an enduring educational institution.
At the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, we have been on the front lines supporting parents through all of this. We were founded in 1983, when homeschooling was illegal in most of the 50 states and when parents faced prison time for exercising their constitutional right to choose the best education for their children.
We fought in the courts and legislatures to defend these brave pioneers of the homeschool movement. But no one could have predicted that it would take a global pandemic to establish homeschooling as a mainstream and enduring institution.
The Post’s own reporting shows this is exactly what happened. Millions of parents (and children!) got a taste of the freedom, opportunity, and flexibility that homeschooling can provide when public schools shut down in 2020 across the nation. And, as The Post’s own numbers showed, these parents never looked back. They embraced homeschooling, and the numbers have remained remarkedly steady even as public schools reopened and mask mandates were repealed.
It wasn’t just school closures or mask mandates. Many parents were already unhappy with their child’s education. And when the pandemic hit, many who were forced to homeschool saw firsthand that it was not only possible but worked well for their child. All they needed was that final nudge.
It was remarkable to see The Post highlight this seismic change in education in the United States. For several years, The Post has tried to attack homeschooling as something that only “MAGA Republicans” or “fundamentalists” or “Christian nationalists” would choose. But The Post’s own reporting demonstrates that the massive growth of homeschooling nationwide cuts across all demographics, ethnicities, and political affiliations.
We have seen this for ourselves.
Homeschooling is something that parents from every background are embracing. In fact, it’s possible that there are even reporters at the Post who have seen the incredible benefit of homeschooling for their own children and have embraced this ancient – and yet stunningly modern – educational model.
This progression of homeschooling is personal for me, too. My parents started homeschooling me in the late 1980s in upstate New York. In 2001, I graduated from my parents’ homeschool program in rural Pennsylvania. Today, my wife and I homeschool our two elementary school-aged boys in northern Virginia, enabling them to enjoy the benefits of a rigorous academic program, while also being able to incorporate growing a garden, the great outdoors, and travel around our nation and world in our school days.
Homeschooling in all its iterations is here to stay. Parents are embracing this educational model because it works and children benefit from it. We at HSLDA stand with homeschooling families as they give their children the flexibility they need to grow, learn, and thrive.
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Will Estrada is a husband, homeschool dad, attorney, and serves as senior counsel at Homeschool Legal Defense Association.
The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit advocacy organization that makes home schooling possible by protecting home-schooling families and equipping them to provide the best educational experience for their children. We have been trusted for over 40 years to care for home-schooling families as we safeguard their freedom and secure the future of home education.
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