NOT A FAD: “Homeschooling Is on the Rise. What Should That Teach Education Leaders About Families’ Preferences?”
Instead of focusing on getting schools back to a pre-pandemic normal, education leaders ought to look at addressing the needs of the kids and families who are being underserved by the nation’s K-12 system. In our new report, The Overlooked, my co-authors and I estimate that 11 million students have not had their needs met by K-12 schools since the start of the pandemic — roughly 1 in 5 of America’s schoolchildren. Over the past 18 months, the rate of families moving their children to a new school increased by approximately 50 percent; hundreds of thousands of children who should have enrolled in school in fall 2020 did not; and the families of approximately 1.5 million children are frustrated with the lack of a remote schooling option this fall.
The best way for policymakers and education leaders to understand where they are falling short is to take a close look at how families have changed their educational decision-making. This starts with looking at how families are voting with their feet.
While traditional public schools and private schools lost enrollment from 2019-20 to 2020-21, there were gains in public charter schools, microschools, learning pods and the biggest enrollment winner: homeschooling. Data suggest that approximately 1.2 million families switched to homeschooling last academic year, bringing the total number of homeschooled students to 3.1 million. According to the Census Bureau, Black and Hispanic families now have the highest estimated rates of homeschooling, at 16% and 12%, respectively.