The Washington ComPost Admits Homeschooling is Exploding
But gets the reasons wrong as usual.
The Washington Post admitted that homeschooling is growing, everywhere. Among the conclusions:
*”In states with comparable enrollment figures, the number of home-schooled students increased 51 percent over the past six school years, far outpacing the 7 percent growth in private school enrollment. Public school enrollment dropped 4 percent over the same period, a decline partly attributable to home schooling.”
*” Home schooling’s surging popularity crosses every measurable line of politics, geography and demographics. The number of home-schooled kids has increased 373 percent over the past six years in the small city of Anderson, S.C.; it also increased 358 percent in a school district in the Bronx.
* “In 390 districts included in The Post’s analysis, there was at least one home-schooled child for every 10 in public schools during the 2021-2022 academic year, the most recent for which district-level federal enrollment data are available. That’s roughly quadruple the number of districts that had rates that high in 2017-2018, signifying a sea change in how many communities educate their children and an urgent challenge for a public education system that faced dwindling enrollment even before the pandemic. “
Folks, this 10% number is exactly what Brennan Dean, the head of Great Homeschool Conventions, one of the leading homeschool convention providers, told me last year. However, the head of “Teach Them Diligently,” another large convention provider, estimated that number to be double the 10%.
So this paragraph is key:
*”Despite claims that the home-schooling boom is a result of failing public schools, The Post found no correlation between school district quality, as measured by standardized test scores, and home-schooling growth. In fact, high-scoring districts had some of the biggest spikes in home schooling early in the pandemic, though by the fall of 2022 increases were similar regardless of school performance.”
This isn’t the right question. You can have “competent” or even “good” schools in terms of test scores but if the testing is all ideological feces, IT DOESN’T MATTER! Just cause you can turn out good little transoid Palestinian-loving commies with high scores, ordinary people will bail by the thousands. The Compost did not ask the right question.
In all my homeschool conventions, I have never once had a parent say they began homeschooling because the technical quality of the school was not up to snuff. Every single reason offered, so far, came down to “I want to teach my kids my values, not have some public school leftist teach them his.”
MOREOVER, this number under other circumstances would be much higher! consider that my curriculum at www.wildworldofhistory.com is a high school curriculum. One of the more common statements I hear from parents who do not adopt my curriculum is ‘Our son/daughter only has 2 years to go and we don’t want to pull them out now.” In other words, parents are grudgingly putting up with a poorer education for the social stability of their kids.
How much more can homeschooling grow? In Arizona, the state adopted a “money follows the child” policy so that parents can get their education dollars back for a charter, private, or homeschool education. Many who have bailed on the public schools are giving private and charter schools a try. This will be somewhat successful—-better discipline, learning environment—-but eventually the woke there will also come home to roost.
Just spitballin’ but I’m guessing homeschool can at least double again, to between 20% and 30% of all students nationwide.
Larry Schweikart
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