Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Home schooling sees dramatic rise in popularity

Overreaching government? Religious liberties threatened? A desire to provide more for their children?

There are many reasons why parents choose to educate their children at home and, from the latest statistics, it sounds as if home schooling continues to grow in popularity.

Lindsey Burke researched the subject for the Heritage Foundation and found there was a 74% increase in home schooling the past 10 years. She cites the most popular reasons given by parents:
The homeschooling survey also reveals the most common reasons cited by families as the basis for their decision to educate their children at home. The most frequently referenced reasons included the ability to provide moral or religious instruction (36 percent), concern about the environment at other schools (21 percent), and dissatisfaction with the academic instruction provided at other schools (17 percent). The number of parents reporting the ability to provide moral or religious instruction as a rationale for homeschooling their children increased by 11 percentage points (from 72 percent in 2003 to 83 percent in 2007).

Additional reasons parents homeschooled their children included "other" reasons (14 percent), desire for nontraditional education (7 percent), special needs (4 percent), and physical or mental health problems (2 percent). There was a 12 percentage point increase in the amount of respondents choosing "other" reasons, from 20 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2007. This increase could indicate an expansion in the types of demographic groups homeschooling their children.
Read all of her article to learn the benefits of home schooling, trends and anticipated growth, and what is needed to protect home schooling in the future.

It's another school choice.

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