School Choice & Charters

VIDEO: One Day With a Muslim Home Schooling Family

By Arianna Prothero — January 14, 2019 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The stereotypical home schooling family is often cast as a devout Christian one. But while providing religious instruction remains a powerful motivation for many families who choose to educate their children at home, there are religious home schoolers of many stripes.

Take the Shakir family in Northville, Mich. The mother, Sadia Shakir, balances her work as an attorney with educating two of her daughters. And while religious instruction is an integral part of their schooling, Shakir said another key educational goal for her daughters is that they become critical thinkers.

Education Week profiled the Shakir family as part of a special video series on home schooling families.

Families who list religion as the most important reason they chose to home school their children make up about 16 percent of all home schooling families, according to a 2016 federal survey. The federal government estimates there are about 1.7 million home schooled students in the country, or about 3.3 percent of all K-12 students.

Related stories:


Related Tags:

A version of this news article first appeared in the Charters & Choice blog.