Homeschooling hits record numbers

Whether it’s called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed education has been growing in popularity in America for years, along with frustrations at the rigidity, politicization, and frankly poor outcomes of traditional public schools. This growth became exponential during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and disruptions to remote learning forced many families to experiment with teaching their children. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also reduce interest in homeschooling. Now we know that didn’t happen. Americans are increasingly inclined toward DIY education.

“In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continues to grow across the United States, growing at an average rate of 5.4%,” Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month. “This is almost triple the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of about 2%.” He said homeschooling numbers in more than a third of the states from which data is available are the highest they have ever been, even higher than the peak of many public and private school closures during the pandemic.

After COVID-19 public health measures were suspended, homeschooling declined slightly as parents and families returned to old habits. That didn’t last long. Homeschooling began to increase again in the 2023–2024 school year, an increase that continued last year. Based on numbers from 22 states (not all states have released data, and many states do not track homeschoolers), four report declines in the ranks of homeschooled children — Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Tennessee — while others report increases ranging from about 1 percent (Florida and Louisiana) to 21.5 percent (South Carolina).

The growth in homeschooling in the latest data is likely underestimated because not all DIY families comply with registration requirements where they exist, and because families who use portable funding available through the increasingly popular education savings accounts to pay for homeschooling costs are not counted as homeschoolers in many states, including Florida. As a result, Watson says, “We treat these counts as the minimum number of homeschooled students in each state.”

Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population across the United States at about 6 percent of students, compared to about 3 percent before the pandemic. Continued growth means that the share of DIY-educated students is increasing. This is quite a change for an education approach that was certainly not mainstream a generation ago.

Watson comments, “This is not a pandemic hangover; this is a fundamental shift in the way American families are thinking about education.”

Homeschooling is a major beneficiary of changing education priorities among American families, but it is not the only one.

“Five years after the start of the pandemic, there has been a substantial shift away from public schools toward non-public options,” Boston University’s Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis wrote last summer. education nextLooking at Massachusetts – not the most favorable regulatory environment for traditional public schooling options – they found that the state’s school-age population has declined by 2,6 percent since 2019, local public-school enrollment has declined by 4,2 percent, private-school enrollment has declined by 0,7, and homeschooling has increased by 56 percent, “Due to regulatory limitations in Massachusetts, charter school enrollment is flat,” he said,

In research published in August, Dylan Council, Sophocles Goulas and Phaedra Monachou of the Brookings Institution found similar results at the national level. “The COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of families to rethink where and how their children learn, and its impact continues to reshape American K-12 education,” he said. If “parents continue to opt out at the pace seen since 2020, traditional public schools could lose 8.5 million students, falling from 43.06 million in 2023-24 to 34.57 million by mid-century.”

It’s not hard to figure out what motivates parents to seek alternatives and turn to the various forms of DIY education grouped under the heading of homeschooling.

Goodman and Francis commented, “Parents’ sense that K-12 education is going in the wrong direction was fairly stable from 2019 to 2022, but reached its highest level in a decade in 2023 and again in 2024, indicating continued or even increasing disillusionment with schools.”

Notably, EdChoice’s Schooling in America survey found the percentage of school-age parents saying K-12 education is moving in the right direction is 41 percent — down from 48 percent (the highest score recorded) in 2022. Fifty-nine percent say K-12 education is on the wrong track—up from 52 percent (the lowest score recorded) in 2021.

When asked if they are satisfied with their children’s education, public school parents consistently rank last, behind parents who choose private schools, homeschooling, and charter schools. Importantly, among all parents of school-age children, homeschooling has a 70 percent favorability rating.

The reasons for moving away from public schools certainly vary from family to family, but there have been notable developments in recent years. During the pandemic, many parents found that their priorities regarding school closures and health policies were anything but But Priority for teachers.

The closure gave parents a chance to experience the potential of public schools with remote learning, and many were not impressed. They are also unhappy with the poor quality and often politicized lessons taught to their children, angrily conflating education with declining learning outcomes. This doesn’t mean all parents want the same things, but the one-size-fits-some nature of public schooling makes curriculum battles inevitable — and prompts many to opt out in favor of alternatives, especially including homeschooling. It appears this change is here to stay.

“What’s particularly striking is the resilience of this trend,” concluded Watson, of Johns Hopkins University’s Homeschool Hub. “States that had seen declines have bounced back with double-digit increases, and we are seeing record enrollment numbers across the country.”

Once an alternative way of educating children, homeschooling is now an increasingly popular and mainstream option.