WICHITA — Worried about safety, resistant to mask orders and troubled by a lack of confidence in public schools, thousands more Kansas parents are opting to teach their kids at home.
The shift comes in the wake of the pandemic that convinced those families they could handle the job.
“We just had call after call after call,” said Bert Moore, who oversees home-school registrations for the Kansas Department of Education. “And they continue to call us. This isn’t something that occurs in just August. … It will be May before we have the final number.”
During a normal school year, about 1,400 Kansas families newly register to home school. Last year that number more than tripled — to 5,527 — and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing. So far this year, more than 2,250 new families have registered.
Remote learning led many to stick with home-schooling
Experts say the switch to remote learning during the pandemic persuaded record numbers of families to consider home-schooling long-term. Some want more flexible schedules or greater control over their children’s lessons. Others are disillusioned with the traditional model of education or worried about plummeting test scores.
“This increase in homeschooling is something that was ratcheting up for many years prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has certainly jump-started it and caused it to spike,” said Lance Izumi, author of “The Homeschool Boom.”
During the early stages of lockdowns, parents got front-row seats to their children’s schooling. That, Izumi said, “demystified the learning process for them.”
“You’re seeing people discovering home-schooling as something that is doable, which they thought was not prior to the pandemic,” he said.
Moore, the state education official, said it’s hard to know whether COVID-19 is causing a temporary increase in home-schooling or a larger shift that will continue after the virus is controlled.
The number of students enrolled in Kansas public and private schools in dropped by more than 15,000 in 2021 compared to 2019, according to state data. Some of those students may have moved out of the state, but many likely enrolled in virtual or homeschooling.
“It’s not going to be a momentary blip,” said Izumi, the author. “That’s the incentive for regular public schools to address those gaps in order to entice these parents to come back.”
Enrollment in Wichita, the state’s largest district, fell by 5.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} during the 2020-21 school year — much of that in pre-school and kindergarten. Officials hired two full-time staff members to visit preschools and daycare centers in an attempt to recruit them back.
Record number of U.S. students being home-schooled
Across the country this fall, a record 8 million students are being home-schooled, including a growing number of Black children. A survey by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that more than 16{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of Black families were homeschooling in the fall of 2020 – up from about 3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} the previous spring.
Some education advocates raise concerns about the quality of home schools, since there is little state oversight.
“There are good quality programs out there for home-schooling,” Moore said. “But I am concerned about students’ exposure to collaboration, to cooperative learning, to working in teams and having that experience of participating in the things that students in our schools get to experience.”
Suzanne Perez reports on education for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service.
Moms for Liberty should focus on being role models for their children
Based upon several articles, the genesis of Moms for Liberty is a response from disgruntled former school board members. Moms should be role models for their children and not disgruntled parents.
As Moms for Liberty fights to remove “pornographic” books from schools’ libraries throughout the nation, including Indian River County, I wonder if they will take their children’s cell phones away. That is the more significant threat. Children learn more garbage from the internet (via smartphones) than from approved books that allow children the freedom to learn about life through the teacher’s discussion on the book or having the student write their pros or cons about the book.
Remember, according to authorities, the 15-year-old Michigan school shooter was seen by a teacher searching ammunition on the internet via his phone. Remember his mom’s response by text, “LOL, I’m not mad; next time, try not to get caught.” Then he went on to kill four students and wound six students and a teacher.
My advice to Moms for Liberty is to start at home, teaching your child about the effects of good versus evil, love versus hatred, compassion versus selfishness. And, if your child loses a race, whether it is class president, valedictorian of the class, becoming a cheerleader or making the first team in the sport they are playing, don’t get even by getting others to join your cause because they did not win. But tell them to evaluate their strength and weaknesses and try again.
Valerie Brant-Wilson, Vero Beach
Florida teachers shouldn’t be paid so much less than those in other states
If any of Florida’s teachers saw the news item about teacher salaries in Louisiana and other states, they should all be writing about where they are.
For years they’ve been told, repeatedly, raises are coming. For years they’ve been forgotten. Getting a bonus is not a raise, even if they were to get it yearly. My niece, a first-grade teacher, for 10 years, doesn’t make $45,000, while last year Louisiana. teachers made $51,566 on average. Seeing the national average salaries, not to mention the southern averages of $55,205 is another slap in our teachers’ faces.
It’s a good thing benefits weren’t mentioned. Most Floridians don’t know our teachers, who are government employees, must pay for their health insurance and their pensions. People should know that many government employees will not collect a full Social Security benefit, because they were government employees.
People should talk with teachers. Please reach out to them. During COVID-19 home schooling everyone got a glimpse of teachers’ days but you couldn’t see everything. Meeting the children at buses, getting them to breakfast & lunch, then back on the buses. How many hours a day do teachers put in? Know your teachers, back your teachers or face the fact that one day you may not have your teachers.
Carol Cardinale, Port St. Lucie
Remembering a December day 80 years ago
On that day 80 years ago, I was 5 years old and at my grandfather’s for Sunday lunch. The attack occurred at 7:55 a.m. Hawaiian local time and it was 12:55 p.m. Eastern Time. We were listening to the radio and the news was broadcast at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
According to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing Congress the next day to ask for a declaration of war, December 7, 1941, was “A date that will live in infamy.”
As have so many other dates since then.
Nicholas Gravino, Palm City
Angry people are not persuasive advocates for their cause
As I participate in Indian River County events (parades and festivals) representing the Democratic Party of Indian River, I am confronted by some very angry people. They will often approach our booth with messages on their apparel that they think we should know about.
They often do not think we can read, so they shout out the message. In many cases these messages include verbal profanity or profane hand gestures.
I will not say what political party they might be with, but they are obviously not Democrats. This display of anger is very upsetting. They have no interest in anything other than disrupting our freedom and creating a scene just to make total fools of themselves.
Our fear is, of course, that they may be armed and may resort to more aggressive behavior other than just hollering obscenities. Why they feel that their cause or political view is better expressed by approaching us and aggressively threatening us by their actions is something that must be addressed by their fellow believers.
We cannot continue to bully everyone who does not agree with us. The promotion of autocracy by a showing of autocratic behavior is not the answer to a vibrant and growing democracy that should include everyone.
Larry G. Zick, Vero Beach
President Biden has our country’s best interests at heart
I am tired of the constant complaining about the Biden administration within these pages. As a country, we endured four chaotic years under Donald Trump. Now you can endure four years under a responsible adult president who has our country’s best interests at heart. Man-up and stop the bellyaching.
Some parents want more flexible schedules or greater control over their children’s lessons. Others are disillusioned with the traditional model of education or worried about plummeting test scores.
WICHITA – Worried about safety, resistant to mask orders and troubled by a lack of confidence in public schools, thousands more Kansas parents are opting to teach their kids at home.
The shift comes in the wake of the pandemic that convinced those families they could handle the job.
“We just had call after call after call,” said Bert Moore, who oversees home-school registrations for the Kansas Department of Education. “And they continue to call us. This isn’t something that occurs in just August. . . . It will be May before we have the final number.”
During a normal school year, about 1,400 Kansas families newly register to home school. Last year that number more than tripled — to 5,527 — and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing. So far this year, more than 2,250 new families have registered.
Experts say the switch to remote learning during the pandemic persuaded record numbers of families to consider home-schooling long-term. Some want more flexible schedules or greater control over their children’s lessons. Others are disillusioned with the traditional model of education or worried about plummeting test scores.
“This increase in homeschooling is something that was ratcheting up for many years prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has certainly jump-started it and caused it to spike,” said Lance Izumi, author of “The Homeschool Boom.”
During the early stages of lockdowns, parents got front-row seats to their children’s schooling. That, Izumi said, “demystified the learning process for them.”
“You’re seeing people discovering home-schooling as something that is doable, which they thought was not prior to the pandemic,” he said.
Moore, the state education official, said it’s hard to know whether COVID-19 is causing a temporary increase in home-schooling or a larger shift that will continue after the virus is controlled.
The number of students enrolled in Kansas public and private schools in dropped by more than 15,000 in 2021 compared to 2019, according to state data. Some of those students may have moved out of the state, but many likely enrolled in virtual or homeschooling.
“It’s not going to be a momentary blip,” said Izumi, the author. “That’s the incentive for regular public schools to address those gaps in order to entice these parents to come back.”
Enrollment in Wichita, the state’s largest district, fell by 5.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} during the 2020-21 school year — much of that in pre-school and kindergarten. Officials hired two full-time staff members to visit preschools and daycare centers in an attempt to recruit them back.
Across the country this fall, a record 8 million students are being home-schooled, including a growing number of Black children. A survey by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that more than 16{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of Black families were homeschooling in the fall of 2020 – up from about 3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} the previous spring.
Some education advocates raise concerns about the quality of home schools, since there is little state oversight.
“There are good quality programs out there for home-schooling,” Moore said. “But I am concerned about students’ exposure to collaboration, to cooperative learning, to working in teams and having that experience of participating in the things that students in our schools get to experience.”
Suzanne Perez reports on education for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter @SuzPerezICT.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. For more on KNS, see ksnewsservice.org.
A tiny school district in California is setting up a separate in-person instructional program for its unvaccinated students, courting a showdown with the biggest state in the country and a tussle over the legal limits of how schools can respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
The Alpine Union school district’s plan, the first of its kind in the country, is designed to save its unvaccinated students from losing face-to-face instruction when the state’s K-12 vaccine mandate—also the only one of its kind in the nation—goes into effect, for some grades as early as July.
In this small K-8 district, in the foothills east of San Diego, where “choice” is a rallying cry that dominates the COVID vaccine debate, district leaders estimate that 40 percent or more of the 1,500 students aren’t inoculated against the virus.
“I’m not opposed to vaccines. I got the vaccine and the booster, too,” said Alpine’s superintendent, Rich Newman. “But I feel I should represent my community, and overwhelmingly, they’re believers in choice. I don’t want some students falling through the cracks because of the state’s vaccine mandate.”
Alpine’s dilemma reflects a question district leaders across the country are facing, said Dan Domenech, the executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents’ Association: What kind of education should they provide for children whose parents won’t get them vaccinated?
California is the only state so far to add COVID-19 inoculations to the longstanding list of other vaccinations required for in-person school attendance, such as measles, mumps and rubella. The mandate will take effect in phases, when federal officials grant full approval for the vaccine’s use in each age group. Currently, COVID vaccines are fully approved only for those 16 and older. Younger children can receive them under an emergency-use authorization.
Once California’s requirement kicks in, families of unvaccinated students—other than those with state-approved exemptions—will have three choices: private school, home schooling, or “independent study,” a learn-from-home option offered by the state.
The predicament Alpine faces is likely to arise nationwide. Louisiana announced this week that it will require the COVID vaccine for school attendance. Five districts in California already require it. And at least a dozen districts around the country require the vaccine for some students, typically student-athletes.
Some districts have conducted short-lived experiments aimed at serving both masked and unmasked students by teaching them in separate rooms, but they quickly abandoned those practices. No district has yet tried a separate program for unvaccinated students.
In-person program for unvaccinated students could violate law
The California governor’s office signaled that any district that sets up separate in-person instruction for unvaccinated students would run afoul of its orders.
“If you do in-person instruction, you need to abide by the vaccine mandate,” said Alex Stack, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom.
County health departments will be tasked with enforcing the vaccine mandate, Stack said. Legal experts said the state also has the authority to seek a court order to shut down school programs that violate state law.
“I don’t think California will allow a school district to create a separate program for unvaccinated students. If it violates state law, a judge is going to shut that down,” said James Hodge, a professor of law at Arizona State University and director of its Center for Public Health Law.
Courts have upheld challenges to vaccine mandates in higher education, and last weekend marked a key ruling for such requirements in K-12. On Dec. 5, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld San Diego Unified school district’s vaccine requirement. Hodge said that would buttress other California districts that enact such rules.
Parents drove creation of new program
Alpine’s planned “choice academy” is drawing both applause and condemnation locally. The district’s Facebook page became a hotbed of disagreement when Newman, the superintendent, posted a letter announcing the academy on Nov. 22. He returned to work after Thanksgiving to find voicemails accusing him of being a Nazi and a segregationist.
But many parents and district staff members are cheering the academy. They commend the district for respecting all viewpoints in this predominantly conservative community and trying to ensure unvaccinated students get a quality education.
“I’m grateful we have a superintendent who wants to work alongside us parents instead of against us,” said Jalissa Hukee, whose two children have all their required vaccines except COVID. “Without the academy, I’d pull my kids out and home-school.”
Hukee is one of a group of parents helping Newman design the program. This fall, after Newsom announced the coming vaccine mandate, Newman invited their ideas. The parents gathered around a friend’s kitchen table and brainstormed an early outline.
There is still a lot to figure out. The district is working with its teachers’ and classified employees’ unions on how to staff the programs, and what safety protocols will be required. They don’t yet know whether they’ll mix the age groups, one-room-schoolhouse style, or divvy children up into grade bands. They have to find ways to preserve the district’s vaunted engineering and dual-language programs, and how to meet the needs of special education students in the new, separate setting.
Home schooling isn’t an option for some working parents
And they’re still looking for a good location: parents have eagerly offered living rooms and garages, but Newman is leaning toward keeping students together in a larger space, such as a community center or office building. But even an unfinished plan is finding a hero’s welcome among some parents.
“Thank God for the academy, because we can’t home-school,” said Jessica Dombroski, whose four children attend Alpine schools while she runs a dog-grooming business and her husband works as a paramedic. She and her children are unvaccinated, and she’s been scrambling to create a home-school pod with other families. Instead, she’ll opt for the choice academy.
Beacon Grayson has vaccinated her two daughters against COVID, and is eager for the state vaccine mandate to go into effect. But she’s happy the district is working to provide an alternative for parents who have not vaccinated their children.
“The district is doing what it can to straddle the divide between parents like me and parents who are ‘no vaccine,’” she said. “It’s caught in a really tough situation.”
Nearly 90 percent of Alpine’s staff is vaccinated for COVID; the rest undergo weekly testing. Yvette Maier, the district’s director of human resources, said many teachers have expressed an interest in teaching in the new academy, especially those who are unvaccinated. The district aims to iron out all details of the program by June, when families begin registering for fall 2021, she said.
New program is ‘asking for a COVID outbreak’
Lauren Weinberg, a 5th grade teacher who’s in her second year in Alpine, thinks the new program is an “incredibly unsafe” option, both for students and staff members.
“Putting a bunch of unvaccinated people in one area, it’s asking for a COVID outbreak,” she said. “You won’t catch me stepping foot on that campus.”
Weinberg worries that the choice academy will enable more families to forgo vaccination. But for others, that’s precisely the point.
“Without this academy, a lot of families will be forced to get the vaccine when they don’t want to,” said Erica Lyle, the dean of students at Alpine’s Shadow Hills Elementary. “We want to let families make their own choices.”
Districts risk legal challenges if they set up such programs, however, legal experts said.
In addition to possible shutdown by the state or by county health departments, they could face lawsuits for breaching a key legal standard: their duties to protect students from foreseeable danger, and to provide a safe and healthy workplace for staff, said Meredith Karasch, senior counsel at Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, a Los Angeles-based law firm that advises school districts.
“I’d tell districts to think very carefully about the issues before putting something like this into place,” she said.
Corpus Christi ISD saw an increase in enrollment compared to last year by 1,902 students.
But the school district has about 1,500 fewer students than in the 2018-19 school year, and staff is working to continue the trend of growing enrollment, said Delma Bernal, director of admissions, attendance and student support service.
During the board of trustees meeting Monday, Bernal shared a report on the district’s current enrollment and attendance for the first and second six-week periods of the 2021-22 school year.
Texas schools receive state funding based in part on student attendance. Districts lose funding if students are absent or withdraw.
Enrollment trends and goals
The district is aiming to return to the 2018-19 enrollment of 34,674. The current enrollment is 33,171.
For the past three school years, CCISD has experienced a decrease in enrollment. Bernal said contributing factors include parents seeking other in-person or virtual school options at private or charter schools or through home schooling, children staying home due to COVID illness or contact, and refinery jobs that have left the area.
Bernal said 1,206 students have withdrawn from CCISD the current school year.
One hundred thirty-five students opted to be home-schooled, 351 enrolled in other Texas districts, 30 joined private schools in and outside of Texas, seven students withdrew to obtain a GED, and 683 students did not show up this school year or withdrew from the district and did not share where they were going.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, enrollment dropped by 1.5 million students, which is roughly 3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} nationwide, Bernal said.
“In addition, Texas saw a 2.22{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} enrollment decline,” Bernal said. “Our district is just below that state average at 1.04{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} enrollment decline from 2018-2019 school year.”
Bernal said although CCISD offered a “safe and clean learning environment,” some families were not comfortable sending their children to school. She said enrollment was not as high as the district would like because the option for 5- through 11-year old vaccinations were not available at the start of the school year.
Bernal said now that students ages 5 through 11 are eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations, the district expects an increase of 300 students in the weeks to come.
Bernal said to increase enrollment, the district must be competitive in its recruitment strategies.
She said CCISD has reached out to families of students who have withdrawn on a weekly basis, sent mailouts to invite families to join the district, conducted home visits to share resources the district has to offer, held a KEYS Walk with help from volunteers at the beginning of the school year and conducted exit interviews to document where each departing student will be going.
Attendance on the climb
The current school year also started with a low attendance average, 89.95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, compared to the last three years, Bernal said.
“The start of the year was concerning to many families as we had many students who were out of school due to the spread of COVID-19, either with the illness or students who were in close contact,” she said.
“Although we did implement the remote conferencing, many students opted to not attend and completed their work on Canvas. This was an issue across the state and across this great nation.”
At 90.95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, attendance is on an upward trend, Bernal said.
“Our district goal is to improve our attendance average to 95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf},” Bernal said.
To help keep attendance increasing, Bernal said the district ran a “September Awareness” campaign and “Dressing for Success” Wednesdays.
The former included a daily attendance target banner for each campus to bring focus and attention to the campuses for the district’s goal. The dress-up days give students an opportunity showcase their interests by wearing college- or career-related T-shirts to reflect their future goals.
“Wednesdays were noted as a low attendance day, so it was a day that was targeted to increase attendance,” Bernal said. “We are optimistic that with the efforts set forth and presented today, the next administrative report will reflect gains in the areas of enrollment and attendance.”
‘They will have a harder life’
Trustee John Longoria asked Bernal if some virtual-learning students last school year did not log in at all and if that affected attendance rates.
Bernal said yes, and that with online learning, in order for the district to take attendance, students have to be interacting. If they did not log in, students were counted absent.
Longoria said he doesn’t understand why parents will not enroll their students into school. He said he sees parents with kids at grocery stores or shopping centers who tell him they don’t want their children to go back to school for fear of them getting sick.
“I don’t think parents realize that if their child misses a year of school, they will have a harder life than they are having by missing a year of school and the setbacks they will face,” Longoria said. “I don’t know how you get those parents to understand that not logging in or not showing up for a year of school is really detrimental to those students.”
Bernal agreed and said the district’s focus are the elementary schools because “that’s the foundation of their education.”
Reorganization of board
Board members also voted to select a new president, vice president, secretary and assistant secretary for the district. Janie Bell and S. Jamie Arredondo will continue to serve as president and vice president, respectively. Don Clark was named secretary and Alice Upshaw-Hawkins the assistant secretary.
Additionally, Tony Diaz announced his resignation in October after serving on the board since 2008. Monday’s meeting included presenting Diaz with a plaque and a board resolution honoring his service.
Bell said the application for the vacant District 3 seat will be on the district’s website Monday, Dec. 13. The deadline to apply is 4:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.
The term will extend until November 2022, at which time a regularly scheduled board election will be held. The goal is to have the new trustee sworn in by the Jan. 24, 2022, board meeting, Bell said.
Student enrollment in public schools has nosedived as parent disgust with school COVID-19 policies, student learning losses, and controversial education policies have gone through the roof. In the wake of this enrollment implosion, homeschooling has boomed across the country.
At the beginning of the current school year, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 1.5 million students had left public schools since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
If students are not enrolling in public schools, where are they going? The numbers show that many former public school students are now being homeschooled.
The U.S. Census Bureau found that the percentage of homeschooling households more than doubled in 2020 from 5{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} in spring to 11{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} in the fall.
In Virginia in 2019-20, around 38,000 children were being homeschooled. A year later, in 2020-21, state data showed that the number had risen to nearly 60,000.
According to a recent University of Michigan study, from 2020 to 2021, the enrollment at public schools in Michigan fell by nearly 46,000 students, which represented a more than a 3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} drop. Among kindergartners, there was a decrease of more than 11{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}.
The study found that homeschooling rates jumped substantially in the fall of 2020, with homeschooling accounting “for a majority of Michigan’s students who did not return to the public system.” Importantly, the study noted, “national trends in homeschooling follow a similar pattern.”
The increase in homeschoolers does not come from just a narrow segment of the American population. A University of Washington Bothell analysis found, “The diversity of homeschoolers in the U.S. mirrors the diversity of all students nationally,” including all racial, religious, political, and income groups.
For instance, the Census Bureau found that among African-American households, the increase in homeschooling was much steeper than in the country as a whole, rising from 3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} to 16{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, a five-fold jump.
This increase in African-American homeschooling is not surprising given recent research by McKinsey & Company that found “Students in majority Black schools ended the [2020-21 school] year with six months of unfinished learning.”
Demetria Zinga, one of the country’s top African-American homeschool YouTubers, says, “I believe homeschooling is growing and exploding amongst African Americans, and there will be more and more homeschoolers.”
She believes that this growth will be facilitated by “more resources available, in general, but also with regard to the African-American community, in particular, especially online that make it easier for people to homeschool.”
Homeschool mom Magda Gomez, an immigrant from Mexico, has become an activist for homeschooling in the Hispanic community.
She observes: “We Hispanics as a culture are usually very protective and loving towards our children. However, I explain that love is not enough to raise our children. We have to educate ourselves in different areas [of education], especially since we are not in our [native] country but are immigrants.”
“It is my dream,” she says, “to see more Hispanic families doing homeschool.” Her dream is coming true with homeschooling doubling among Hispanic households, from 6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} to 12{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}.
In addition to the racial diversity of homeschoolers, in 2021, the school-choice organization EdChoice found: “Many parents of children with autism, ADHD, and other neuro-developmental disorders report that public schools cannot effectively address their child’s specialized learning needs.”
As opposed to the rigid structure that schools often impose on special-needs children, homeschooling allows parents to address their children’s particular needs.
Pediatric nurse and homeschool mom Jackie Nunes unenrolled her special-needs daughter from public school, saying, “There just wasn’t enough of the things that matter—time, attention, patience, persistence, passion, support.”
Viewing the growth of homeschooling, Virginia homeschool leader Yvonne Bunn says, “I think it will permanently change the landscape of education. I don’t think it will ever go back to the way it was before.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed all the flaws in the one-size-fits-all public schools, which is why the homeschooling boom is shaking up American education.
• Lance Izumi is senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the new book The Homeschool Boom: Pandemic, Policies, and Possibilities.
