10% of parents are homeschooling: Can anyone do it?

The “Everyone Should Homeschool” crowd is living in a bubble, tweets researcher Anthony Bradley. “According to the National Literacy Institute, 21% of U.S. adults are illiterate, while 54% have a literacy comprehension below a sixth-grade level.”

Nearly all those sub-literate adults attended district-run public schools staffed by certified teachers, commenters noted. Maybe parents should be looking for alternatives.

Homeschooling isn't what it used to be, writes Sarah Wilder, a visiting fellow at Independent Women, on RealClearEducation. Homeschoolers have access to a wide range of online resources to "bridge the gap between their own teaching skills or education level and what their child would receive at even the best of public schools."

Homeschoolers can access free educational content and curricula online: Khan Academy has entire courses in science, math, computer programming, she writes."Curriculum in any subject and in any education style — from classical to Montessori to Common Core — is available for purchase from reputable groups." In addition, many homeschoolers network with other parents to form co-ops and microschools to share their talents.

Of course, the biggest advantage is that the parent knows her kids very well and doesn't have 24 of them to educate.

It's hard to research how homeschool children are doing academically, because some families are flying under the radar. However, Wilder quotes studies from the National Home Education Research Institute that find "homeschool students score 15 to 25 points higher on average than public school students on standardized tests" with black homeschool students scoring 23 to 42 points higher than black public-school students. Homeschoolers with a "certified teacher" for a parent did no better than students whose parent was not a teacher, according to another study, Wilder writes.

Ten percent of parents homeschool their children, nearly double the number reported in 2024, according to a Johns Hopkins/Rand survey.

Homeschoolers aren't going it alone, writes Linda Jacobson on The 74. "Combining homeschooling with something else — whether that’s a microschool, an online class or a co-op has become the norm —according to the nationally representative survey

Eighty-eight percent of homeschoolers use some additional support, she writes. More than 40 percent "use online resources, which could range from a YouTube video to an online curriculum," and "nearly a quarter enroll their child in an online school." Ten percent hire a tutor. Some buy "a la carte" classes from public schools, especially in Florida.

The lines between homeschooling and other models are blurring, say researchers. Some parents who use an online charter school or a microschool identify as homeschoolers, while others do not. Education savings accounts, which let parents use public funds for online classes, private schools or other models, are making it even blurrier. Jacobson talked to parents who do most of the teaching at home but send their children to a microschool for socialization.

It takes a certain amount of intelligence to curate an education for your children. Surely, not every homeschooling parent will do it well. But homeschooling effectively is much easier than it used to be. It will be interested to see how parents with ESAs and tax-credit scholarships