According to National Home Education Research Institute, there are over 2.3 million homeschool students in the United State. It appears, according to statistics, to be growing between 2 – 8% each year. It’s also been growing around the world – an indication that parents are looking for better ways to be sure their children are well-educated.
Homeschooling parents sacrifice to be sure their children get a proper education. They do not receive any public funding, saving American taxpayers more than $27 billion, since these students are not in public schools.
While public education spends on average $11,732 per pupil, homeschooling families only spend an average of $600 per student annually. About 15% of homeschooled kids are minorities.
Homeschoolers in general are apt to become more involved in their communities than the general population, including participation in local community services; voting and attending public meetings; attending and succeeding in college; and by the time they reach adulthood, a high rate of having the values and beliefs that were taught by their parents.
Homeschooling is getting to be more mainstream, as the public school system continues to implement less in the way of basic reading, writing and mathematics, and is moving toward subjects like environmentalism and so-called sex education. In some cases, for these reasons, parents have had enough, and are pulling their kids out of public, taxpayer-funded government schools in favor of homeschooling or private education.
Among the benefits of homeschooling are the ability to customize and individualize curriculum and the environment in which the child learns, enhancing family relationships, and learning societal skills with other children as well as with adults. The child is in a safer environment (public schools are growing in the number of drugs, physical violence and improper and unhealthy sexuality). The ability to learn a set of Judeo-Christian values, beliefs and worldview is also very important to many of those who choose this form of education.
There are many resources for homeschooling, including print and online curricula. We are continually adding more to our Resources section of this website.