It’ s a Great tIme to Be a HomescHooler
Eric Smitherm
According to new data released this month by the U. S. Department of Education, the number of homeschooled children has doubled since 1999 to 1.8 million children in 2012, or 3.4 percent of the overall school-age population.( As a comparison, about 4.5 million children are enrolled in U. S. K-12 private schools.) According to the DOE data, the geographic distribution of today ' s homeschooling population is evenly split, with about one-third each in rural, urban, and suburban areas. " Concern about schools ' environments " remains a top driver for homeschooling families, with 9 in 10 survey respondents indicating it was an important reason in their decision to homeschool.
Homeschooling networks are diverse, active, and far-reaching.
A lot has changed for homeschooling and education choice since the late-90s. Homeschooling has become much more mainstream. There are numerous resources for homeschooling families, including community-based, self-directed learning centers scattered across the country. Education choice is in high demand and family empowerment grows. With President-elect Trump’ s appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, the umbrella of education choice promises to widen for more families. As The New York Times reports: " Ms. DeVos will probably be a boon to the relatively small, growing population of families that home-school their children."
While I still get asked that knee-jerk question about socialization that I so naïvely asked years ago, I find it happens less often. Many people know homeschoolers, and some have even considered the approach themselves. Homeschooling networks are diverse, active, and far-reaching, connecting homeschoolers to each other and their community ' s resources in myriad ways. Organizations and businesses, museums and libraries, nature centers and community colleges recognize homeschooling ' s popular rise and offer classes and resources to meet different needs and interests. Free, online learning resources like MIT’ s OpenCourseWare, HarvardX, Khan Academy, Coursera, Duolingo, and many more allow for easy, on-demand access to a range of topics and subjects. Facilitating learning and pursuing knowledge has never been easier or more accessible.
It ' s a great time to be a homeschooler!
Continued From Previous Page
25