Whether called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed learning has been growing in popularity for years in the U.S. alongside disappointment in the rigidity, politicization, and flat-out poor results of traditional public schools. That growth was supercharged during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and bumbled remote learning drove many families to experiment with teaching their own kids. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also curtail interest in homeschooling. We know now that it didn't. Americans' taste for DIY education is on the rise.
Homeschooling Grows at Triple the Pre-Pandemic Rate
"In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%," Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month. "This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%." She added that more than a third of the states from which data is available report their highest homeschooling numbers ever, even exceeding the peaks reached when many public and private schools were closed during the pandemic.
After COVID-19 public health measures were suspended, there was a brief drop in homeschooling as parents and families returned to old habits. That didn't last long. Homeschooling began surging again in the 2023-2024 school year, with that growth continuing last year. Based on numbers from 22 states (not all states have released data, and many don't track homeschoolers), four report declines in the ranks of homeschooled children—Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Tennessee—while the others report growth from around 1 percent (Florida and Louisiana) to as high as 21.5 percent (South Carolina).
The latest figures likely underestimate growth in homeschooling since not all DIY families abide by registration requirements where they exist, and because families who use the portable funding available through increasingly popular Education Savings Accounts to pay for homeschooling costs are not counted as homeschoolers in several states, Florida included. As a result, adds Watson, "we consider these counts as the minimum number of homeschooled students in each state."
Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population at about 6 percent of students across the United States, compared to about 3 percent pre-pandemic. Continued growth necessarily means the share of DIY-educated students is increasing. That's quite a change for an education approach that was decidedly not mainstream just a generation ago.
"This isn't a pandemic hangover; it's a fundamental shift in how American families are thinking about education," comments Watson.
Students Flee Traditional Public Schools for Alternatives
Homeschooling is a major beneficiary of changing education preferences among American families, but it's not the only one.
"Five years after the pandemic's onset, there has been a substantial shift away from public schools and toward non-public options," Boston University's Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis wrote last summer for Education Next. Looking at Massachusetts—not the friendliest regulatory environment for alternatives to traditional public schooling—they found that as the state's school-age population shrank by 2.6 percent since 2019, there has been a 4.2 percent decline in local public-school enrollment, a 0.7 decline in private-school enrollment, and a 56 percent increase in homeschooling. "Charter school enrollment is flat, due in part to regulatory limitations in Massachusetts," they added.
In research published in August, Dylan Council, Sofoklis Goulas, and Faidra Monachou of the Brookings Institution found similar results at the national level. "The COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of families to rethink where and how their children learn, and the effects continue to reshape American K-12 education," they observed. If "parents keep choosing alternatives at the pace observed since 2020, traditional public schools could lose as many as 8.5 million students, shrinking from 43.06 million in 2023-24 to as few as 34.57 million by mid-century."
It's not difficult to figure out what pushes parents to seek out alternatives and to flock to the various forms of DIY education grouped under the homeschooling heading.
Disappointment in Public Schools Drives the Shift
"The fraction of parents saying K-12 education is heading in the wrong direction was fairly stable from 2019 to 2022 but rose in 2023 and then again in 2024 to its highest level in a decade, suggesting continuing or even growing frustration with schools," commented Goodman and Francis.
Specifically, EdChoice's Schooling in America survey puts the percentage of school parents saying that K-12 education is headed in the right direction at 41 percent—down from 48 percent in 2022 (the highest score recorded). Fifty-nine percent say K-12 education is on the wrong track—up from 52 percent in 2021 (the lowest score recorded).
When asked if they are satisfied with their children's education, public school parents consistently rank last after parents who choose private schools, homeschooling, and charter schools. Importantly, among all parents of school-age children, homeschooling enjoys a 70 percent favorability rating.
The reasons for the move away from public schools certainly vary from family to family, but there have been notable developments in recent years. During the pandemic, many parents discovered that their preferences regarding school closures and health policies were anything but a priority for educators.
Closures also gave parents a chance to experience public schools' competence with remote learning, and many were unimpressed. They have also been unhappy with the poor quality and often politicized lessons taught to their children that infuriatingly blend declining learning outcomes with indoctrination. That doesn't mean parents all want the same things, but the one-size-fits-some nature of public schooling make curriculum battles inevitable—and push many towards the exits in favor of alternatives including, especially, homeschooling. The shift appears to be here to stay.
"What's particularly striking is the resilience of this trend," concludes Watson of Johns Hopkins University's Homeschool Hub. "States that saw declines have bounced back with double-digit growth, and we're seeing record enrollment numbers across the country."
Once an alternative way to educate children, homeschooling is now an increasingly popular and mainstream option.
