The Education Department’s 2012 “National Household Education Survey” shows the reasons behind parents’ decision to homeschool their children has shifted in recent years from mostly religious reasons to concerns about the public school environment and lacking academics.
“Ninety-one percent of parents cited concerns about the environment of public schools, 77 percent cited moral instruction, and 74 percent expressed concerns about the academic instruction,” the Register reports. “A lower number, of 64 percent, listed wanting to give their children religious instruction as a reason, followed by 44 percent saying they wanted their child to have a nontraditional form of education.”
As for the most important reason: “the survey showed 25% of parents said they were concerned about the environment of other schools; 22% said “other reasons” (including family time, finances, travel and distance), and 19% said they were dissatisfied with the academic instruction at other schools,” according to the news site.
Donnelly highlighted the fact that in 2007, 36 percent of parents cited religious or moral instruction as their primary driver, and the combined percentage dropped to a mere 21 percent in the 2012 survey.
There’s been other changes in the homeschool movement, as well.
“The National Home Education Research Institute reports that this educational choice is becoming increasingly popular with minorities as 15 percent of home-schooling families are now non-white/non-Hispanic,” Watchdog.org reports.
http://eagnews.org/more-parents-turn-to-homeschooling-62-increase-in-the-last-decade/
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