Study Estimates 850,000 U.S. Children Schooled at Home

By Catherine Gewertz

In the federal government's most comprehensive study to date of the nation's home-schooling population, a survey released last week shows that 850,000 children—1.7 percent of the school-age population—are being taught primarily at home.

Since the number of home schoolers has been growing, even more children could be studying at home now than were indicated in the survey, which was conducted in the late winter and spring of 1999 by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The study also found that home-schooled children are more likely than their traditionally schooled peers to be non-Hispanic whites, and that they have parents who have achieved...