According to the National Home Education Research Institute, 3.7 million K-to-12 age children were homeschooled in 2020/2021. This is 6% to 7% of the children in those grades nationwide.
One reason for homeschooling is financial:
Taxpayers spend an average of $15,240 per pupil annually in public schools, plus capital expenditures (National Education Association, 2021). Today’s roughly 4.5 million homeschool students represent a savings of over $68 billion for taxpayers. This is $68 billion that American taxpayers do not have to spend.”
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Other reasons include a belief that home education is better than the education children would receive in public schools, avoidance of violence in some public schools, the opportunity to determine the curriculum and the ability to pass on individual family values to children.
According to the recently released “Which States Are Seeing the Biggest Interest in Homeschooling Amongst Parents?” study from My eLearning World, a primary reason for the homeschool movement was safety from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although children who contract the virus often do not get as sick as adults, they may spread the disease to parents and grandparents.
Another finding from the study was that 72.2% of people who began to homeschool their children because of the pandemic will not put these children back into public schools later.
Mindnet Analytics helped conduct the research. Google Trends was used to gauge interest by state. The results were based on search terms related to homeschooling. Additional data was provided on political leaning, income and other demographic information. States were rated on an index that ran from 100 to zero.
The state with the largest interest in homeschooling was Alaska with a score of 100. Idaho was a close second. Here are the 20 states with the most interest in homeschooling:
- Alaska (100)
- Idaho (95)
- Vermont (92)
- South Dakota (91)
- Arkansas (88)
- Delaware (87)
- Kansas (87)
- Montana (87)
- New Mexico (87)
- West Virginia (87)
- Hawaii (86)
- Missouri (86)
- South Carolina (86)
- Tennessee (86)
- Maryland (85)
- Oregon (85)
- Virginia (85)
- Iowa (84)
- Kentucky (84)
- Mississippi
Click here to see the 22 best school districts in America.
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