Home Schooling
Read more about how some children are taught primarily at home rather than at a public or private school
Homeschooling: Requirements, Research, and Who Does It
Homeschooling is a small, but integral part of the education ecosystem in the United States and a pillar of the school choice movement.
School Choice & Charters
Video
Home Schooling in America: ‘Unschoolers’ Put Children in Charge of Their Learning
Daniel Matica, a father of five in rural Worthington, Mass., is from Romania and the first in his family to go to college. He says his traditional schooling experience in Romania made him skeptical when his wife Erin Matica suggested that their children not attend school. Erin Matica explains ‘unschooling’ as a “philosophy of home schooling where the kids are in charge of their own educations.” The children decide what, and how, they learn, while the Maticas find ways to support their learning pursuits and passions. “They have a lot of freedom,” she says, “but at the same time they have a lot of responsibility as well.” The Matica family was profiled as part of an Education Week video series on home schooling families.
School Choice & Charters
VIDEO: Why This Military Family Home Schools
Like many home schooling military parents, Lindsay Jobe says that teaching her children at home gives the family educational stability during frequent relocations and flexibility when her husband Clifford is home from deployment.
School Choice & Charters
VIDEO: One Day With a Muslim Home Schooling Family
Parents who choose to teach their children at home are often stereotyped as devout Christians, but families from many religious backgrounds are drawn to home schooling as a means of incorporating religious studies into students' education.
School Choice & Charters
Series
Home Schooling in America
Nearly 2 million students are home schooled in the United States, according to federal data. In this Education Week video series, meet four families who talk about how they home school and why.
School Choice & Charters
Video
Home Schooling in America: Military Family Finds Stability in Learning at Home
Lindsay and Clifford Jobe have served in the military for 14 years. Like many military families, the couple—who have five children—find themselves moving to a new base in a new state every few years. Adapting to a new home, new friends, and a new school is a lot to ask of children at a young age, which is what motivated the Jobes to begin home schooling. With home schooling, the Jobes set their own schedule and design their own breaks. That’s a big plus for military families, Lindsay Jobe says. The Jobe family was profiled as part of an Education Week video series on home schooling families.
School Choice & Charters
Video
Home Schooling in America: Muslim Family Weaves Religious Studies Into Learning
Sadia Shakir, an attorney in Northville, Mich., is currently home schooling two of her three daughters. When her youngest daughter wanted to memorize the Quran—instruction that her current religious school could not accommodate—she decided to start home schooling. Her middle daughter is learning at home for academic reasons and both girls may go back to a religious or public school in the future depending on what they want and need. Her eldest daughter attends a traditional public school now, but has also been home-schooled and attended a religious school. Shakir believes the needs of her children should determine how they are educated and that as their needs change, so too can their method of schooling. Shakir hopes her children will become critical thinkers and encourages them to follow their passions. Shakir’s family was profiled as part of an Education Week video series on home schooling families.
School Climate & Safety
Homeschooling: Can It Hide Abuse?
A severe case of child abuse and torture is bringing renewed attention to the mostly hands-off approach states take with home schooling.
School Choice & Charters
Video
Homeschooling in the United States
Even as recently as 1980, home schooling was illegal in a majority of states—and didn’t become lawful nationwide until 1993. But once seen as a fringe practice of families on the extreme right and left—religious conservatives and hippies—homeschooling today is viewed as a small, but integral part of the education ecosystem in the United States and a pillar of the school choice movement.
Home schooling has gained wider attention and more-mainstream acceptance as the numbers of students learning at home doubled in the past decade—a trend driven in some measure by the expansion of online schooling options.
Federal
GOP Lawmaker Revives Push to Create New Tax Break for Home Schooling
Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind., has introduced legislation to allow money in 529 savings plans to be used for home-schooling expenses, a proposal that was stripped out of a late version of the recent tax-code overhaul.
Federal
National School Choice Week: Annual Public Relations Campaign Kicks Off
The week-long campaign highlighting school choice will feature events in dozens of cities nationwide with organizers projecting that 6.7 million people will participate.
School Choice & Charters
Q&A
How Homeschooling Is Sometimes Used to Conceal Child Abuse
Most states take a very hands-off approach to regulating home schooling, and some advocates worry that makes it attractive to neglectful and abusive parents.
Federal
Late Drama Leads Home Schooling Provision to Be Stripped From Tax Bill
The Senate parliamentarian ruled that a provision in the GOP tax bill giving a tax advantage to money saved for home schooling costs violated Senate rules.
School Choice & Charters
Why Have Homeschooling Numbers Flattened Out After a Decade of Growth?
A number of factors could be at play, from the growth of charter schools and private school vouchers, to economic pressures that made it impossible for families to keep one parent at home educating their children.
School Choice & Charters
One Week In, Betsy DeVos Continues Outreach to School Choice Supporters
In her first public address as a confirmed member of President Donald Trump's administration, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos chose to speak to members of the Magnet School Association of America.