Why Homeschooling Is Becoming More Popular

Homeschooling is on the rise, especially in minority families. According to a U.S. Department of Education study, the number of homeschooling families has risen 77% since 2001 and has continued to grow recently. Joyce Burges, founder of National Black Home Educators, has been homeschooling for 20 years. She believes that “African Americans are choosing homeschooling because they are seeing a failure of our traditional school system.” After her oldest son’s GPA fell 2 points, she and her husband were asked to meet with a counselor at the school. He would either need to be held back in the same grade or transferred to yet another failing school. They chose to homeschool him instead. Now, she teaches her youngest daughter at home, along with other students in Louisiana.

Burges website National Black Home Educators (www.nbhe.net) was founded 10 years ago and provides resources for homeschooling families. It is now global, present in 22 US states, Canada, and Africa. When traveling around to speak at homeschooling conferences with her husband, Burges found that other African American families are most concerned with the curriculum in traditional schools. The Burges family similarly found African American history lacking in their public schools. At home, she is sure to focus on teaching about African American heroes like Frederick Douglass, Condoleezza Rice, and George Washington Carver to name a few.

Private schools provide a wide breadth of curriculum; public schools are free and receive government attention. Yet, a growing number of families are choosing to do it themselves at home. The National Center for Education Statistics published its most recent study in 2003. When asked for the number one reason for choosing to homeschool, one-third of homeschooling families expressed concern about peer pressure, lack of safety, and drug availability in schools. Another third chose to homeschool in order to provide moral or religious instruction for their children. Other reasons listed include greater flexibility in time or content as well as special needs due to mental or physical health issues. Families with three or more children tend to homeschool more frequently than smaller families. Homeschooled families fall into the different income brackets approximately equally, while half of private school families fall into the income bracket of $75,001 or more. Therefore, while homeschooling is realistically a cheaper option than private schooling, homeschooling seems to be chosen because of deeper issues than costs since homeschooling families fall into all income brackets equally. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, studies have shown that homeschoolers generally perform at least one grade above their peers taught in traditional schools. The child continues to excel above his or her peers so that by eighth grade the average homeschooled child performs four grade levels above the national level.

Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, released a fact sheet in 2008, which claimed, “the home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development.” According to the report, homeschooling “is now bordering on ‘mainstream’ in the United States.” It still only accounts for about 2.9% of the nation’s school-aged population, but more than 1.5 million students are already being homeschooled, and that number is continuing to grow.

Homeschooling is a challenge, but it can have outstanding rewards for yourself. At the same time, it can be reat for your child. Just be sure to take it very seriously and try to make an effort to separate your roll as an everyday parent with your roll as a home school teacher.


The famous daily shows you important history that happened on this day.