More Parents Choose Home Schooling

Increasing numbers of American schoolchildren are cracking the books at home as parents seek to provide a quality education in a strong moral atmosphere — something that is fading fast in the nation’s public schools.

Between the failure of Common Core, the pervasiveness of a liberal agenda expressed in the rise of LGBT clubs and activities on school grounds, and the fight against prayer and even the Pledge of Allegiance in schools — some parents feel that public school is the wrong place for their kids to spend the bulk of their day.

“An elite few have overtaken many of the highest positions in the land that influence policy, law and curriculum.”

Faith in educational excellence in public schools seems to be waning, too.

In the 2015-16 school year, home schooling grew in Florida at its biggest rate in a decade. “We see all the emails from parents: ‘I just don’t want my kids exposed to Common Core,'” Karen Harmon, chairwoman of a Florida home school support group, told the Florida Times-Union. “Their thought process is that it’s dumbing down the school systems and making all students average, but a lot of parents want their child to excel.”

In 2007, a statistically significant 36 percent of parents responding to a home schooling survey from the National Center of Education Statistics said providing “religious or moral instruction” was the most important reason they chose home schooling.

In 2012, that number fell. Seventeen percent named religious instruction as most important, and 5 percent said moral instruction was most important. But an important caveat applies: The question was asked differently in 2012 — with religious and moral instruction as two separate reasons instead of one combined reason, noted The Washington Post. It was not clear whether the numbers represented a real change in what motivated parents to withdraw their kids from public school.

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The share of parents who said their most important reason was concern about the school atmosphere such as drugs, peer pressure, and safety rose from 21 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2012. But that change was not statistically significant, according to The Post.

The number of home-schooled kids rose as well — about 1.8 million American children were home-schooled in 2012. That’s more than double the number that were home-schooled in 1999, according To the Post. The new estimates represent 3.4 percent of the U.S. student population between the ages of 5 and 17.

The increase in home-schooling was fastest between 1999 and 2007, said The Post; it then slowed down between 2007 and 2012, according to the estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics. The figures revealed that in 2012, most home-schooled children were white and living above the poverty line. An estimated four in 10 home-schoolers had parents who graduated from college, while about one in 10 had parents who had not graduated high school.

Geographically, the parents who choose home schooling are spread out pretty evenly — about one-third live in rural areas, while slightly more than one-third live in the suburbs and slightly less than one-third live in cities, the survey data showed.

Related: The Real Benefits of Home Schooling

Researchers conducted the telephone home-schooling survey of a representative sample of students between 1999 and 2007. In 2012, they instead asked questions via mail, introducing some methodological changes that make it more challenging to compare results over time.

Commenters on The Washington Post’s website affirmed the efficacy of home schooling — and the rise of the leftist agenda in U.S. public schools.

Said one commenter, “Many, many home-schooled children get into first-rate colleges and universities. Students don’t do that without getting an excellent education and developing learning and communication skills ahead of time. BTW, we didn’t home-school except for one year, but we did throw out the TV about 15 years ago, and that has made the difference.”

Related: ‘My Child Wants to Be Home-Schooled’

Another commenter wrote, “An elite few have overtaken many of the highest positions in the land who influence policy, law and curriculum. The NEA has more money (power) than ever and what they say is the rule contrary to the majority … We also have news reporting services that share the same ambitions so they put a spin on news reporting … We must take our country back through what the next generation thinks — the Progressives know that … hence — public education.”