Arlena Brown, a 36-year-old mother in Henderson, Nevada, had considered homeschooling her three children, but it took the pandemic to open her eyes to how homeschooling could improve their lives.
"Parents are seeing the value in being able to teach their own kids what they feel is necessary for them to learn," Brown told Newsweek. "Parents feel more empowered."
The world shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic turned homes into schools, exposing millions of American parents to the concept of nontraditional education. While teachers bore the brunt of lesson plans and putting together virtual learning modules, parents experienced a new way of life, and thousands decided to not return to an in-person school.
Brown's children each have individualized needs—one has a learning disability, one has autism and one is borderline gifted. Combined with the fact that they move around the country and take a lot of road trips, she said homeschooling is the "ideal" choice for her family. Once her 4-year-old is ready for school, they'll follow in their siblings' footsteps.
As a homeschool family, Brown said they get to choose what to learn and not to learn. She also doesn't have to worry about bullying, which has become an increasing problem in schools since the pandemic. A 2023 survey from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America found 40 percent of the over 130,000 students surveyed had been bullied at school, a 14 percent increase from 2019. Dr. Jennifer Bateman, senior vice president of Youth Development, called it the highest the organization has ever seen.
"As the number of parents withdrawing their children from public schools continues to increase, traditional models must either evolve to better meet students' and families' needs or face declining enrollments and increased competition," Amir Nathoo, CEO of Outschool, an online learning platform, told Newsweek.
An estimated 50 million students are going back to school this fall, but an increasing number of parents are choosing to keep their kids home. In 2019, only 2.8 percent of children were enrolled in homeschool education, according to data from the Census Bureau. By 2023, that number was up to 3.8 percent, and the latest data available for 2024 indicates 4.2 percent of kids are being homeschooled.
Mimosa Jones Tunney, founder and president of The School House and the American Emergent Curriculum, an online learning platform, estimated that America adds about 50,000 homeschool students a month.
"It's the greatest mass exodus in education we've seen since public school began in the later part of the 19th century," said Jones Tunney in an interview with Newsweek.
Homeschooling is traditionally thought of as something that's reserved for the deeply religious or overly conservative, but the modern world is breaking down those stereotypes. A study from the Center on Reinventing Public Education found an increasing number of Black and Hispanic families choosing to homeschool their children. Robin Lake, director of CRPE at Arizona State University, told Newsweek that parents they spoke to predominately cited bullying, unsafe environments, more individualized attention and an emphasis on family life for why they decided to switch to homeschooling.
"We have gotten to a place in society where we expect to be able to customize how they live large chunks of their life. How do we work? Is it remote? Can we travel?" said Joel Grewe, executive director of HSLDA Action, a homeschool advocacy organization.
"We struggle to build that customization in our education system, and homeschooling is the ultimate customization of education. And so, in a sense, I think it's a very logical extension of how we look at society and say, 'Hey, we customize how we do every other part of our life and now it's how we educate our kids.'"
Hands-On Learning
With homeschooling accounting for such a small portion of the population, most Americans will go their entire lives without ever meeting someone who didn't go to a traditional school. So, for many people, the image of homeschooling is still a child sitting at the kitchen table while their parent dives into regimented math, science and English lessons. But that's not quite how it works. Homeschooling is often a community effort, known as a co-op. It takes different forms, but for some groups, it means parents from different families taking ownership of teaching specific topics to a small group of kids. For others, it's participating in a program that virtually connects parents with homeschooling coaches, resources and other parents.
Engaged Detroit was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic and serves as a virtual hub for Black parents who are homeschooling their children. Parents get help cultivating curriculums and goals for their kids, access to educational resources and opportunities for them to go on field trips.
Grewe, who was homeschooled as a child, emphasized the benefit of field trips for his kids, who are also being homeschooled. "You want to go learn about your state's history? We're going to take a week and we're going to drive around our state and see all the history in person," Grewe said. "You want to learn about how something works? We're going to go to the place where they do that and we're going to see it happen. I've got all boys, and they learn really well, hands on. Far better than just having someone talk to them."
Riley Brown, Arlena's 13-year-old daughter, didn't want to make the switch to homeschooling. But now that she's gotten used to it, she likes that it's self-paced. "Other kids my age can't wake up when they want to or they can't do their work when they want to."
The shift from in-person learning to virtual during the pandemic was a shock to the way of life for many families. Figuring out how to get young kids to engage online was no small task for parents and adapting to new technology took some getting used to. But that same technology has made homeschooling a more viable option for parents who want to continue to customize their child's education beyond the pandemic.
"It doesn't require as much work as it used to," Lake said. "It's easier to plug into this kind of homeschool infrastructure, and that's probably decreasing the barrier for a lot of families."
A 'Huge Undertaking'
It's not easy playing the joint role of parent and teacher, though. Even with all of the resources parents have, homeschooling is still a "huge undertaking," Nat Malkus, senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said. While technology increases access, the explosion of virtual classes during the pandemic created a boom for at-home learning programs which can introduce substandard programs being adopted in homes, said Malkus.
There also aren't a lot of guardrails in place to monitor education standards for kids who aren't enrolled in traditional education, and he doesn't foresee a massive change in regulation even if the population of homeschool students grows.
"I don't know that a state Department of Education or any organization really has the capacity to evaluate homeschooling, and certainly I don't think they have the political desire to wade into those waters," Malkus said. "There's very little oversight on homeschooling as is, and I think the homeschooling community is pretty virulently independent and I don't see that changing."
There's debate on how to measure progress, but Lake said there needs to be basic information on how kids—especially those most vulnerable—are being educated within the realm of parental choice.
That lack of oversight with homeschooling has created problems for some students when they finish their education. Grewe said HSLDA Action has dealt with discrimination cases where a person didn't initially pass a background check for a job because their high school diploma didn't show on the record. Some companies, he said, struggle with applicants who don't fit into a predetermined box.
Since homeschool students aren't participating in the traditional testing systems, there isn't "strong evidence" to advocate for—or against—homeschooling, Lake said. As a researcher, Lake finds it problematic to not have hard data, but said anecdotal evidence suggests homeschool students adjust "quite well" into higher education.
In 2017, then-Harvard Dean of Freshman Thomas A. Dingman told the Harvard Crimson that homeschool students seem to adapt fine to college life, and they've had "lots of success."
Socialization of homeschool children can be a concern, but Grewe said an advantage to it is that kids get both horizontal and vertical socialization. Horizontal refers to their ability to interact with their peers—which kids are generally able to do regardless of their educational environment—and vertical refers to an ability for a child to socialize with people outside their age groups.
Cat Eugster took her two children out of traditional school in San Diego, California, in the fall of 2023. She said she wanted to be more involved in her children's education and improve their overall mental health and wellbeing.
"I think when people think of homeschooling, they see a parent who plays the traditional teacher role," Eugster said. "The reality is you have so many choices to provide a well-balanced education for your child that truly meets them where they are and gives them a solid education that will prepare them for whatever future path they decide to follow."
Elijah Eugster, Cat's 12-year-old son, was nervous about being homeschooled, but, like Riley Brown, enjoys the flexibility of his at-home education. He misses his friends but said they "try to stay in touch."
"Homeschoolers generally performed well above in that area, mostly because they're used to encountering a broad variety of age groups and that has proven to be an asset in the business environment," Grewe said.
A study from the National Home Education Research Institute found home-educated students score 15 to 25 percentile points above public school students on standardized testing. There's little data on how college acceptance rates for homeschool applicants compare to brick-and-mortar applicants, in part because they're grouped with charter school students. But homeschool advocates often point to the University of North Carolina as an example of the benefits of homeschooling. From 2012 to 2015, the school accepted 42 to 47 percent of homeschool applicants for their Chapel Hill campus, higher than the overall acceptance rate of 27 percent to 30 percent.
Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard law professor emeritus, pushed back on some studies that have come out about homeschooling, though. In an article for the Arizona Law Review, she wrote that testing data could be skewed because of the lack of oversight and because studies often focus on successful homeschool cases, ignoring the most at-risk subsets. Bartholet attributed the rise in homeschooling to Christian conservatives making it more mainstream. But for some parents it was the opposite; the conservative push in schools prompted them to homeschool.
Coral Springs, Florida, parent Lindsay Poveromo-Joly told Bloomberg last year that she started homeschooling her kids in 2022 when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis started banning books.
"I always thought home-schooling was for people who didn't want their children to be vaccinated or to learn accurate science," she said. "But it's the opposite, and the anti-vax free-for-all is what's happening in the public schools."
One Size Doesn't Fit All
Education has become a flashpoint in the culture war breaking out in the United States and has been cited as contributing to the rise in homeschooling. The reality is more complicated. On the back of the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rose to national prominence by way of his fight about parental rights. He banned schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity and limited what could be taught about racism in the context of U.S. history. His critical race theory ban also prompted the blocking of more than 40 percent of the state's math textbooks.
However, a Washington Post survey from 2023 indicates that culture wars in schools aren't the main driving factor of homeschooling. The majority of both homeschool and non-homeschool parents believe teachers aren't trying to sway students to one political leaning or another.
In fact, only 11 percent of homeschool parents cited "indoctrination" as the main reason they decided to homeschool. The majority of parents had safety concerns or were generally dissatisfied with the education their child was receiving.
In a traditional classroom, a teacher has to follow a certain set of lesson plans that work for a group of kids. At home, Eugster can be proactive about her son's learning and adjust to his needs. If he's struggling with writing, they make more time for that. If he's mastered a subject, they move on.
CEO of Outschool Nathoo attributed some of the exodus from the public school system to it not keeping pace with the dramatic changes happening in the world over the past 50 years.
"It has become clear to many parents that a 'one-size-fits-all' education system no longer meets the needs of their children nor prepares them for a future in a world we cannot predict," Nathoo said.
The Battle for School Choice
In 2021, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win the gubernatorial election in Virginia since 2009, and he did it with a platform based largely on education. His victory showed Republicans how the topic of education could mobilize voters. He leaned into school choice with promises to open 20 new charter schools, and his administration pushed for a new Education Savings Account program that would offer parents more financial control over their children's education. Under the bill, which failed in 2023, parents would have gotten a portion of their child's state-allocated funding for education to use for home instruction. And he's not alone.
Iowa and Utah passed Educational Savings Account legislation that allows parents to choose how their child's allotted percentage of state education funds are spent, and Governor Kevin Stitt urged Oklahoma's legislature to do the same. Without expanding ESAs, he said, the state would get "left behind."
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University, sees the push toward homeschooling as an attack on democracy. She told American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten in March that politicians are going after schools to destroy "liberal democratic models of secular education." By pushing people to homeschool kids, children can be "indoctrinated."
Few have been as dogged about school choice than Texas Governor Greg Abbott. While he faced disappointment last year when the Texas legislature failed to pass his education legislation, Abbott feels confident that he has enough votes to get his voucher program passed this session. Part of that is because Abbott campaigned heavily in the Republican primaries for candidates who supported his proposition. Under his original proposal, homeschooled students would be eligible for $1,000 for education-related costs. Vouchers can be helpful, Lake said, but $1,000 likely isn't enough to convince people to pull their kids out of public school, and the cost of homeschooling still remains a barrier.
"A lot of families who homeschooled during the pandemic and really loved it, especially families of color, would like to continue, but they just weren't able to afford it," Lake said. "How are you going to do it without the funding mechanism to allow yourself to stay at home with [your] child? So paying for it is critical. And then having access to an infrastructure to support it."
Even with the increase in popularity for school vouchers, conversations on school choice still heavily favor parents looking to switch from public schools to private or charter schools rather than homeschooling. And for some homeschool parents, they worry that money comes with strings attached.
It's the "nature of the government" to regulate what people do, and that shift could start with vouchers, which can often be used for homeschool education, Faith Bussey, president of Texans for Homeschool Freedom, told The Texas Tribune.
"We've already built this infrastructure without any help from the government," Jube Dankworth, a Houston resident who homeschooled her kids before it became legal in Texas in 1987, said.
Government regulation on homeschooling isn't something that will be pushed through smoothly. Homeschool parents left traditional education because they wanted educational independence from the government, why return to it?
"The cons [of homeschooling] are that we've squandered an immense opportunity to have our children learn and thrive as a nation. We have no quality control now. And it's our own doing," Jones Tunney said. But, Lake said, it's possible that as assessments become more sophisticated, America could get to a place as a nation where there's agreement on how homeschooling is monitored.
The future of homeschooling is uncertain. Will newer parents who didn't experience homeschooling during the pandemic still embrace it as their children reach school age? Malkus doesn't expect them to, but he also said he didn't expect to see the rise in homeschooling we're seeing now. The future of homeschooling likely depends on its popularity.
After four years of homeschooling her own children, though, Nevada parent Brown only has one regret. "The only con is that we should have started sooner," she said.
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Jenni Fink is a senior editor at Newsweek, based in New York. She leads the National News team, reporting on politics and domestic issues. As a writer, she has covered domestic politics and spearheaded the Campus Culture vertical. Jenni joined Newsweek in 2018 from Independent Journal Review and has worked as a fiction author, publishing her first novel Sentenced to Life in 2015. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona. Language: English. You can get in touch with Jenni by emailing j.fink@newsweek.com.
Jenni Fink is a senior editor at Newsweek, based in New York. She leads the National News team, reporting on ... Read more
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