[Boxsford]

It finds home-schooled children more likely to be middle income, white, from larger families, and from two-parent families with one parent not working.

I read an article from Home School Legal Defense Assoc. newsletter on blacks homeschooling. Really interesting, but sad. I don't know how many of you are aware but blacks take a great deal of flack from their own race if they choose to homeschool their children. They feel that they went through a great deal of suffering to be allowed to educate their children along white folks and that blacks who choose to teach at home are letting all the black people down that fought so hard for those rights.

[tutstar]

bump for later

[Boxsford]

as home schooling grows, calls will continue for existing public schools to provide services that cannot be provided easily by home-school families themselves—such as advanced courses and extracurricular activities.

They're delusional! Homeschool families have already figured this out and are doing nicely indeed without the public schools assistance. They just don't get it at all. Parents pull their kids out because public schooling can't teach the basics and they think we will need them to teach them advanced courses! har!

[Boxsford]

We have just begun to see the emergence of home schooling as an important national phenomenon. Unless the needs of parents are met in different ways, it is likely that home schooling will have a large impact on the school as an institution in coming decades.
*********************************************************************

Another gem! Let's hope that large impact will be the end of government schools.

[Harrison Bergeron]

'A group that is especially likely to be home schooled consists of two-adult families with one not working (as will be shown below). In this group, 60 percent of non-enrolled children are home schooled. The regression of non-enrollment on years shows an equally large and significant coefficient for this group as it does for all school-aged children.

[lainie]

I'm not familiar with this outfit; is this a friendly or hostile organization? I know it says scholarly and peer-reviewed, but, well, we all know how little that matters.

[Slyfox]

I've got a trend worth pondering. The standard number of home-schooled kids in this country is said to be anywhere from 1 to 2 million. That statistic was being used eight years ago when I started home-schooling. I now know personally at least a dozen new homeschooling families that were not teaching their children at home eight years ago. If every family home-schooling eight years ago could say today that they know at least a dozen new home-schooling families with at least three kids in each family, what does that say about the true number of home-schooled kids in this country?

For those of you who were taught fuzzy math, let me figure it for ya.
That's at least 1 million home-schooled kids in each state in the union.

[Bonaparte]

fyi

[Faraday]

Interesting article. Following is the conclusion section which addresses some of the questions/points raised in the comments:

Conclusion

The data examined here show that it has established itself as an alternative to regular school for a small set of families, and is poised to continue its growth. In 1999 around 790,000 children between the ages of 6 and 17—around of 1.7 percent of the population that age—were being schooled at home, and in the late 1990s the number was apparently growing.

Home schoolers and their families were different from regular school attenders and their families, but the differences weren't that large. Some of the distinctive characteristics of home schoolers seemed to be decreasing. Home schoolers were likely to be non-Hispanic White, but there was some evidence of fading racial differences over time. Some distinctive characteristics of home schoolers seemed not to be changing very rapidly, but the characteristics needn't be thought of as limitations to future growth. Households with home-schooled children had moderate to high education and income and were located in the rural or suburban West. Home-schoolers were likely to live with two adults, with one not in the labor force or working part time.

We have just begun to see the emergence of home schooling as an important national phenomenon. Unless the needs of parents are met in different ways, it is likely that home schooling will have a large impact on the school as an institution in coming decades.

[ladylib]

With all the nonsense kids have to go through today when they attend public schools -- poor curriculum (but high-stakes tests), socialistic indoctrination, moronic zero-tolerance rules that can destroy a kid's life, being constantly watched as if they were potential criminals (prove to us you're not a criminal), etc., etc., if more kids knew about homeschooling and how easy it is to access good curriculum sites on the web, do you think they would be satisfied with public schools? As soon as the dissatisfied kids and their parents find out that you don't need a government high school diploma to get into a good college, don't you think they'll look at different alternatives? This movement is going to grow.

[glockmeister40]

Here's what I really want to happen: For every child homeschooled, the parents get the dollars that the public school would have gotten for that child.

For example, if my local public school gets $3000 per kid and I am homeschooling my two children, I get $6000. That would help pay for the homeschooling stuff and the kids would get a better education to boot. This benefits society by having better educated kids entering college and the workforce. Also, this $6000 wouldn't be wasted supporting a defunct educational system.

[Wordsmith]

bump for later...

My wife is black, and has primary responsibility for the homeschooling of our 3 boys. The black heritage has many often-neglected characteristics that are supportive of homeschooling...

[Artist]

Homeschooling bump.