What is Driving the Rise in Home Schooling?
Black, Asian, and Latino families are leaving schools at much higher rates
The Washington Post reports
The percentage of children in home schooling has nearly tripled since mid-2019. By May of this year, the U.S. Census Bureau found more than 1 out of every 12 students were being home-schooled.
Even more remarkable are where those gains came from: Even though home schooling has often been considered the domain of religious White families, the most significant increases were seen among Black, Latino and Asian households.
Between 2019 and May 2021, home-schooling rates jumped from about 1 percent to 8 percent for Black students — a more than sixfold increase. Among Hispanic students, rates jumped from 2 percent to 9 percent. The increase was less dramatic for White families, where home schooling doubled from 4 percent to 8 percent over the same time period. Between 2016, the year of the most recently available data for Asian American families, and May, home-schooling rates went from 1 percent to 5 percent.
Why are minority families fleeing the public school system in droves? The Post blames systemic racism, and I suppose you could characterize parts of the problem in that way. But can that explain the exodus of Asian Americans, who on the whole perform better than whites? What of the many minority parents receiving home school funding from the Koch brothers or the Walton family? It may be that public schools are simply failing.
Whatever the cause, homeschooling has momentum and may continue to grow long after the pandemic as attitudes change and new at-home options emerge:
Over the course of the summer, said Janice Oliver-Iraci, a former elementary-school teacher in Sacramento, attitudes in her district shifted. “Back in March, everyone was bowing down to teachers for teaching their kids online,” she said. By August, not so much. Oliver-Iraci tapped into the booming homeschool market, offering drum circles, yoga, and arts and crafts classes to kids aged 3 to 12. She charged $20 for a one-hour drum session. She’s now offering a 20 percent, back-to-school discount for select art classes, bringing the price to $16. Parents register online and pay via PayPal.
Oliver-Iraci is not the only one making money from homeschoolers. Over the last year-and-a-half, a whole homeschool economy has emerged: Parents are buying textbooks, boxed science kits, arts supplies and how-to guides for DIY curricula. Companies like Time4School, Homer, Build Your Library, Bookshark and Easy Peasy Homeschool are becoming one-stop shops for parents who are now teachers.
More from Suzy Weiss here, interesting throughout. Pointer from Arnold Kling.