National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics has helped to fill a sizable information void with this twenty-page report on home schooling. Based on a household survey conducted in 1999, it supplies better data than we've ever had on how many homeschoolers there are and who they are. As of spring 1999, we learn, some 850,000 youngsters-about 1.7 percent of all U.S. schoolchildren-were being home schooled. Three quarters were white. Their family incomes were not appreciably different from the general population but parental education was higher. (Almost half the homeschoolers had a parent who was at least a college graduate, compared with about one third of non-homeschoolers.) They were somewhat more apt to have two parents at home-but less likely to have both parents working. (That probably explains why their family incomes are no higher even though the parents' education level is.) Homeschooling families are also larger: 62 percent have at least three children compared with 44 percent of non-homeschoolers. A particularly interesting finding is that almost one fifth of homeschooled children also attend a regular public or private school on a part-time basis. In other words, their schooling is a blend. The study also seeks to shed light on why parents decide to homeschool their children. The two leading reasons, by far, are the parents' belief that they can give their child a better a education, and religious reasons. You may want a copy for yourself. If so, the publication number is NCES 2001-033. The NCES staff contact is Stephen Broughman at (202) 502-7315 and [email protected]. The toll-free ordering number is (877) 4ED-PUBS. The NCES website is http://nces.ed.gov and the report itself can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001033.
