The unprecedented surge in homeschooling, believed to have been driven by the pandemic-induced shift to the remote learning model, continues to gather momentum post-COVID-19, and students of color are leading the way, according to a report.
Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy chair for the Washington Homeschool Organization, told The Epoch Times that many minority parents who have been leading the exodus out of public education believe that the system has failed their children.
“It has been becoming increasingly evident that we have a school-to-prison pipeline, especially in some of our most vulnerable communities, and what we are witnessing is a lot of [non-white] students beginning to understand that it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Ms. Stuber.
“Parents see that they don’t have to be condemned to a public education system that in too many ways has failed them, that they do have alternatives,” she added.
The COVID-19 pandemic, when students nationwide were forced to learn from home, facilitated a shift in perceptions and ended many long-held stereotypes about homeschooling, according to Ms. Stuber.
“The beauty of the pandemic is that, in many cases, it took away the last remaining fears of homeschooling, and once parents got a taste of what it was like, many thought, ‘Oh, this isn’t as hard as I thought it would be,’” she said.
Further amplifying the growing number of homeschooled students are parents who, post-COVID-19, decided to send their children back to public school, only to return to at-home learning soon after, according to Ms. Stuber.
‘Growing Homeschooling Coalition’
The number of American children exiting the public school system has been growing for years. In 2019, prior to remote learning, approximately 2.5 million students were homeschooled in the United States. This number has surged, with recent data from the National Home Education Research Institute indicating that 3.1 million students are being homeschooled nationwide. Conversely, public school enrollment fell by 3 percent between 2019 and 2020, with many families withdrawing children from public education and signing them up for educational alternatives.State-level statistics for the 2022–23 school year showed the downward trend continuing, as the drop in public school attendance led many districts to cut staff or even close schools.
In several major cities, empty public school buildings have led to calls to have the unused space converted into homeless shelters.
Teacher unions in Boston, Los Angeles, and Oakland have made similar demands. The Oakland Education Association’s contract included a memorandum instructing the city’s school district and the union to identify “possible locations that could be developed into housing for unhoused and housing insecure” students.
The flight from public schools can be expected only to increase as homeschooling grows in popularity, according to Ms. Stuber, who added that past stereotypes that home education was the exclusive domain of the religious right have become antiquated and that the modern movement has found its growth from a diverse range of political ideologies.
“It isn’t just those on the religious right anymore, not at all,” said Ms. Stuber. “Today, we are seeing people on both sides of the cultural divide, and this growing homeschooling coalition has become a force to be reckoned with.”