Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide

Copyright © 2013 Karl M. Bunday, all rights reserved.

Homeschooling Is Growing Rapidly in Many States of the United States

Patricia Lines, a former Education Commission of the States staff member and now a federal Department of Education official, has estimated the homeschooled population from time to time. Her article "Estimating the Home Schooled Population," a working paper of the Department of Education published in October 1991, is the most thorough available on this subject. Her abstract said, "Curriculum suppliers, state departments of education, and home school leaders, are the sources used to estimate that between 248,500 and 353,500 school-aged children (K-12) were educated at home in the 1990-91 school year." Ms. Lines's working paper (OR 91-537) should be easily found in any library that subscribes to the ERIC microfiche series. The paper notes that many states have no official reporting requirement, leaving sales of homeschooling curricula or membership in homeschooling organizations as the main data for deriving estimates in those states.

Ms. Lines has now returned to the issue of the size of the homeschooling population in the United States. She has put together a new working paper, "Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth" [link to a different Web site] on the number of homeschoolers in the United States, estimating, based on official state counts of homeschoolers, that "around 700,000 to 750,000" children were homeschooled in the 1995-1996 school year.

Those states that do have official reporting of the number of homeschoolers show steady increases year by year. Increase in the overall number of homeschoolers year by year is certain, but some families give up homeschooling for a time or even permanently, while more and more start. (Reasons for giving up homeschooling range from economic pressures causing both parents to work outside the home, in part to pay taxes for the government-operated schools, and barriers to homeschooler participation in school programs such as sports teams or musical groups unless the children enroll in the government-operated school.) This phenomenon of "churn" in the homeschooled population means that the issue of homeschoolers reentering the government-operated school system is an one of growing importance for policy makers, who must decide grade placement for homeschoolers entering age-graded schools, allocate "credits" toward graduation, or otherwise apply the bureaucratic regulations of the classroom school system to children who formerly learned outside it.

Arkansas

Steve Deckard, Ed. D.'s book Home Schooling Laws: And Resource Guide for All Fifty States: 8th Edition (1996) reports official figures for the number of homeschooled children reported as of January for several years in Arkansas. Strangely, my own 1998 telephone call to the Arkansas Department of Education found an official who said that the 1997-1998 school year was the first year for which Arkansas was doing a statewide count, by taking reports from local school districts on a rolling basis throughout the school year. (Has the count resumed after a few years of not making the count?) I was told a minimum figure for the 1997-1998 school year over the telephone.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1985-1986                572                N/A
1986-1987                818                43%
1987-1988              1,138                39%
1988-1989              1,400                23%
1989-1990              2,064                47%
1990-1991              2,736                33%
1991-1992              3,140                15%
1992-1993              4,025                28%
1993-1994              4,742                18%
1994-1995              5,193                10%
1995-1996        (no statistics gathered?)
1996-1997        (no statistics gathered?)
1997-1998              8,200                16% (annualized)
These official figures (if the figures Deckard reports are indeed official figures, as seems likely) from the state of Arkansas suggest Arkansas's annual growth in homeschooling over the six years reported is 25 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years. The Arkansas official figures also show that the homeschooling population of Arkansas is now approaching 2 percent of the enrollment in public K-12 schools.

Colorado

Colorado's Department of Education maintains a Web page showing "State Trends in Home Schooling 1991-1997," on which the following figures may be found in a rather confusingly laid out preformatted text table. Deckard's Home Schooling Laws 8th edition confirms the figure for the 1994-1995 school year but refers to it as a figure "as of [February] 1994," implying that the figure applies to the earlier 1993-1994 school year (which in the United States is the only school year one would expect to include the month of February 1994). Deckard also describes the figure as coming from an unofficial count, and the Web page shows figures for each county, suggesting that local units of government rather than the state government gather the figures.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1991-1992              3,339                N/A
1992-1993              4,390                31%
1993-1994              5,746                31%
1994-1995              6,656                16%
1995-1996              7,581                14%
1996-1997              8,503                12%
1997-1998              8,587                01%
1998-1999              8,827                03%
1999-2000              9,719                10%

These official figures from the state of Colorado suggest Colorado's annual growth in homeschooling over the eight years reported is 14 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years. The Colorado official figures also show that the homeschooling population of Colorado is now well over 1 percent of the enrollment in public K-12 schools.

Florida

Florida has state-mandated reporting of the number of homeschooled children. Families report to local school districts (which are coextensive with counties in Florida, and sometimes have populations larger than United States congressional districts), which then report to the state. The Florida Department of Education issues a "Statistical Brief" reporting both the number of families and the number of children involved in homeschooling. Florida sometimes sends surveys to various samples of the homeschoolers identified by this process to find out additional information about reasons for homeschooling and the like.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1988-1989              6,035                N/A
1989-1990              7,703                28%
1990-1991              9,992                30%
1991-1992             11,048                11%
1992-1993             14,208                29%
1993-1994             16,623                17%
1994-1995             19,392                17%
1995-1996             22,285                15%
1996-1997             25,930                16%
1997-1998             
1998-1999             33,219                13% (annualized)

These official figures from the state of Florida suggest Florida's annual growth in homeschooling is 19 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years. The Florida official figures also show that the homeschooling population of Florida is now more than 1 percent of the enrollment in public K-12 schools. Interestingly, a publication by Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the February-March 1996 issue of the Home School Court Report, reported an estimate of the number of homeschoolers in Florida much higher than the official state figure. I think this is because some Florida homeschoolers choose to be regulated by the state's statute regulating private (classroom) schools, as many homeschoolers once had no choice but to do, and thus are not counted by the official process of counting homeschoolers in Florida. A newspaper article from the Daytona Beach, Florida News-Journal, "Home Schooling a Growing Trend," reports that about 40 percent of Florida homeschoolers register as private schools under different Florida statutes, meaning the figures above are a substantial undercount.

Georgia

The Georgia Department of Education receives reports on nonpublic school enrollment from local school systems. The data include both children in "home study programs" and homeschooled children enrolled in private schools (which are often referred to as "umbrella schools" among homeschoolers). The figures below reflect the total enrollment in all varieties of home study programs.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1988-1989              3,755                N/A
1989-1990              4,826                29%
1990-1991              5,581                16%
1991-1992              6,581                18%
1992-1993              8,299                26%
1993-1994             10,521                27%
1994-1995             12,600                20%
1995-1996             15,353                22%
1996-1997             17,481                14%
These official figures from the state of Georgia suggest Georgia's annual growth in homeschooling is 21 percent. The Georgia official figures also show that the homeschooling population of Georgia is more than 1 percent of the enrollment in public K-12 schools.

Indiana

The Indiana Department of Education receives reports from homeschoolers under Indiana's homeschooling law. The department says these reports are "'ballpark' figures at best" and that the figures do not purport to be an accurate count of all homeschooled children in the years noted below. Deckard's Home School Laws 8th edition reports a lower figure for November 1995 than would be expected by interpolation of the official figures below, which I received directly from the department.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1989-1990              1,148                N/A
1990-1991              1,462                27%
1991-1992              1,965                34%
1992-1993              2,533                29%
1993-1994              3,326                31%
1994-1995              4,880                47%
1995-1996              4,430               -09%
1996-1997              5,428                23%
These official figures from the state of Indiana suggest Indiana's annual growth in homeschooling is 30 percent. The Indiana official figures also suggest that the homeschooling population of Indiana is less than 1 percent of the enrollment in public K-12 schools, but this is very likely an undercount, as the Indiana official documents show is possible.

Kentucky

Statewide figures from Kentucky, passed on to me by an E-mail correspondent, show steady growth in homeschooling in that state. Deckard reports that official figures are kept only at the local level.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1992-1993              3,072                N/A
1993-1994              3,993                30%
1994-1995              5,225                31%
1995-1996              6,206                19%
1996-1997              7,313                18%

The homeschooling population of Kentucky is now above 1 percent of the state's public school enrollment. These official figures suggest Kentucky's annual growth in homeschooling is 24 percent.

Maine[remote link]

An official from Maine, Buzz Kastuck, instantly answered what must be a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) in his office during an early-morning phone call. The official count of homeschoolers in Maine over the past fifteen years has been:
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1981-1982                  3                N/A
1982-1983                 10               233%
1983-1984                 23               130%
1984-1985                133               478%
1985-1986                217                63%
1986-1987                241                11%
1987-1988                415                72%
1988-1989                703                69%
1989-1990              1,162                65%
1990-1991              1,566                35%
1991-1992              1,965                25%
1992-1993              2,465                25%
1993-1994              2,904                19%
1994-1995              3,280                13%
1995-1996              3,340 (preliminary)  02%

The fourteen-year trend in Maine (based on the preliminary figures for the most recent year) is an annual rate of homeschooling growth of 65 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years. The number of homeschooled children in Maine is more than 1 percent of the school-aged population of the state.

Maryland

The Washington Post newspaper recently reported a series of official figures counting registered homeschoolers in seven Maryland counties, namely Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, and St. Mary's counties.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1991-1992              1,798                N/A
1992-1993              2,041                14%
1993-1994              3,142                54%
1994-1995              3,577                14%
1995-1996              4,403                23%
1996-1997              6,219                41%

The homeschooling population of those Maryland counties is now above 1 percent of the public school enrollment for the same counties. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in those counties is 28 percent.

Minnesota

Minnesota now has more than 1 percent of its schoolchildren in homeschooling. Official state figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Minnesota is 19 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years. The number of home-schooled children in the 1998-1999 school year was 13,459.

Mississippi

The Sun Herald Newspaper reports that "The number of home-schooled students is growing in Mississippi, too. The state Department of Education shows there were 7,176 students in September 1998, compared to 7,745 in September 1999." That one-year series of figures implies a growth rate of 8 percent.

Montana

The Montana Office of Public Instruction compiles figures on the nonpublic school enrollment (both private classroom schools and home schools) for that state. The figures I have directly from the department are largely confirmed in Deckard's Home Schooling Laws 8th edition. The homeschooled student numbers are remarkably high for that sparsely populated state.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1990-1991              1,446                N/A
1991-1992              1,659                15%
1992-1993              1,957                18%
1993-1994              2,334                19%
1994-1995              2,910                25%
1995-1996              3,159                08%
1996-1997              3,323                05%
1997-1998              3,799                14%
The number of homeschooled children in Montana exceeds 2 percent of its public K-12 enrollment. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Montana is 15 percent.

Nebraska

Official figures from the Nebraska Department of Education report the number of "Rule 13" religious exemption filings received by January of each year. The figures for 1986-1990 reported in the Lines 1992 working paper disagree with the figures I have recently received directly from the department, for reasons I will have to explore with Ms. Lines when I next contact her. (Perhaps there are other categories of homeschoolers not reported in the data I received from the department?) The figures below are the figures I received directly from the Nebraska Department of Education.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1985-1986                939                N/A
1986-1987              1,376                47%
1987-1988              1,637                19%
1988-1989              1,638                00%
1989-1990              1,907                16%
1990-1991              2,147                13%
1991-1992              2,604                21%
1992-1993              2,931                13%
1993-1994              3,323                13%
1994-1995              3,823                15%
1995-1996              4,137                08%
1996-1997              4,407                07%
Nebraska has more than 1 percent of its schoolchildren in homeschooling. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Nebraska is 15 percent, with perhaps a slower growth rate in recent years.

Nevada

Nevada's figures come to me from an on-line newspaper article, "Home-schoolers say 'the public education system has failed us'," partly confirmed by another Web page, and partly from Deckard's Home Schooling Laws 8th edition. Official figures are apparently gathered by counties.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1985-1986                262                N/A
1986-1987                365                39%
1987-1988       (not reported)
1988-1989                670                35% (annualized)
1989-1990                682                02%
1990-1991                792                16%
1991-1992                861                08%
1992-1993              1,028                19%
1993-1994              1,988                93%
   (Clark County)           671                N/A
1994-1995              2,438                23%
1995-1996
   (Clark County)         1,466                48% (annualized)
1997-1998              4,000                18%
   (Clark County)         1,700                08% (annualized)
These figures show that about homeschooled children number about 1 percent of public school enrollment in Clark County, above 1 percent statewide. These figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Nevada is 26 percent, with uncertain growth trends in recent years both statewide and in Clark County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States.

New Hampshire

From friends on the Internet, I heard of the following official figures from New Hampshire, which one year didn't count homeschoolers as the state department of education was being reorganized. These official numbers don't include homeschoolers who don't register with the state.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1988-1989                556                N/A
1989-1990                771                39%
1990-1991                790                02%
1991-1992              1,338                69%
1992-1993              1,661                24%
1993-1994              2,039                23%
1994-1995              2,604                28%
1995-1996              3,025                16%
1996-1997          (no statistics gathered)
1997-1998              3,333                05% (annualized)

These figures show that more than 1 percent of New Hampshire's school-age children are homeschooling. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in New Hampshire is 22 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years, and an unknown effect of changes in the reporting requirements in the most recent year or two.

New York

My figures for New York state are official figures that come from a Web page maintained by the New York State Union of Teachers, except for figures for the 1996-1997 school year, which came by mail from the New York State Education Department but which exclude New York City figures.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1990-1991                 4,989 (w/o N.Y.C.)   N/A
1991-1992                 6,299 (w/o N.Y.C.)   26%
1992-1993              8,248                30%
1993-1994             10,069                22%
1994-1995             11,473                14%
1995-1996             12,577                09%
1996-1997                12,996 (w/o N.Y.C.)
These figures show that less than 1 percent of New York's school-age children are homeschooling, a proportion the union Web page described as insignificant. This may be because the homeschooling regulations in New York state are some of the most restrictive in the United States, prompting even well-known homeschooling advocates to avoid the regulations by declining to register with the state at all. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in New York (in regions outside New York City) is 17 percent.

North Carolina

North Carolina has a Web page maintained by the North Carolina Division of Non-Public Education, the official reporting authority, reporting the number of homeschooling families in the state. These figures show that more than 1 percent of North Carolina's school-age children are homeschooling. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in North Carolina is 30 percent. The number of home-schooled children in the 1997-1998 school year was 18,415.

Oregon


school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1988-1989              3,716                N/A
1989-1990              4,578                23%
1990-1991              5,543                21%
1991-1992              6,370                15%
1992-1993              7,495                18%
1993-1994              8,857                18%
1994-1995             10,493                18%
1995-1996             10,764                03%
1996-1997             11,264                05%
1997-1998             11,682                04%
These figures show that about 2 percent of Oregon's school-age children are homeschooled. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Oregon is 14 percent.

Pennsylvania


school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1988-1989              2,152                N/A
1989-1990              3,541                65%
1990-1991              4,844                37%
1991-1992              6,450                33%
1992-1993              8,468                31%
1993-1994             11,027                30%
1994-1995             13,385                21%
1995-1996             15,457                15%
1996-1997             17,861                16%
1997-1998   (no #) c. 19,700                10%
1998-1999             21,459                09% (annualized)
These figures show that more than 1 percent of Pennsylvania's school-age children are homeschooling. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Pennsylvania is 23 percent, with perhaps a slower growth rate in recent years.

South Carolina

The South Carolina State Department of Education sent me figures for the most recent school year after my telephone inquiry in 1998.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1997-1998              7,052                N/A
These official 1997-1998 figures show that about 1 percent of South Carolina's school-aged children are homeschooled. Depending on what school year Deckard's figure of 2,192 for "1995" applies to, the growth rate in recent years has been either 48 percent or 79 percent.

Texas

I obtained some more figures about homeschooling growth from a friend on the Microsoft Network. He lives in Texas, a very populous state, and one without an official count of homeschooled children. He writes, "As one of the founding board members of the Southeast Texas Home School Association (SETHSA) in Houston, Texas in 1986, I have been intimately familiar with the growth of home schooling and the challenge of estimating the home school population. For background, SETHSA started with 12 support groups in 1986 with an average membership of about 25-30 families. We have now grown to more than 100 support groups with an average membership of 60-75 families. We estimate that we serve in excess of 7,000 families. This probably makes us one of the 10 largest home schooling organizations in the United States (now only the 2nd largest in Texas behind the North Texas Home Educators which has over 120 support groups - after only 5 years).
"I also serve on the boards of the state organizations in Texas and we have the 'fun' task of estimating how many home schoolers there are in Texas. (Texas is one of the states where home schoolers do not have to officially register). The extrapolations we've done might be of interest. From discussions among the leaders of the regional associations in Texas we have determined that we serve a combined audience of about 30,000--40,000 families in Texas." He then makes some assumptions about the number of homeschooling families who are not in support groups, and the number of homeschooling children per family. I'll make some more conservative assumptions, estimating that there are 40,000 Texas homeschooling families with two children each that are of school age (not the same as compulsory schooling age, but of such age that they would be enrolled in public school if not homeschooled). That's at least 80,000 homeschooled children in Texas alone, more than 2 percent of the school-age population in Texas. The February-March 1996 issue of Home School Court Report reports an estimate of more than 90,000 homeschooled children in Texas. There have since been much higher estimates of the homeschooling population in Texas, which I do not find credible.

As my friend on MSN notes, "It is also interesting to look at the growth rate that we've seen over the last number of years. Obviously SETHSA has grown substantially since 1986 (360 families => 7,000 families)." That, according to my spreadsheet calculation, is an annual growth rate of 39 percent. In any event, it does appear that the Texas rate of growth in homeschooling is faster than Minnesota's annualized growth rate of 21 percent or Pennsylvania's of about 30 percent. My friend adds, "The growth has accelerated the last few years so the calculations are not exact. . . . Two years ago HSLDA estimated a 20% annual growth rate for the nation, others say they have easily seen a 40% growth rate in their area." As will be seen from the various state figures, a recent national growth rate estimate of about 15 percent (at a time when the number of school-age children in general is increasing) better fits the facts shown by official statistics.

Vermont

Vermont keeps a count of both the number of families homeschooling and the number of children in each family homeschooling. The Vermont number of homeschooled children per homeschooled family is about 1.5 to 1.8 most years, but has been as high as 1.9 on occasion. Figures below, as in all other tables, are the number of homeschooled children.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1981-1982                 92                N/A
1982-1983                121                32%
1983-1984                210                74%
1984-1985                176               -16%
1985-1986                185                05%
1986-1987                310                68%
1987-1988                372                20%
1988-1989                428                15%
1989-1990                540                26%
1990-1991                627                16%
1991-1992                818                30%
1992-1993              1,042                27%
1993-1994              1,199                15%
1994-1995              1,437                20%
1995-1996              1,527                06%
1996-1997              1,577                03%
1997-1998              1,638 (preliminary)  04%
These figures show more than 1 percent of Vermont's school-aged children are homeschooled. These official figures suggest the annual growth rate in homeschooling in Vermont is 20 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years.

Virginia

Official figures from the state government show about 1 percent of Virginia's school-aged children are homeschooled. These figures suggest the recent annual growth rate in homeschooling (under both Virginia statutes pertaining to homeschooling) is about 13 percent. The number of homeschoolers in the 1995-1996 school year was 10,862.

Washington state


school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1987-1988              4,045                N/A
1988-1989              4,696                16%
1989-1990              5,536                18%
1990-1991              7,046                27%
1991-1992              8,528                21%
1992-1993             10,727                26%
1993-1994             13,584                27%
1994-1995             15,918                17%
1995-1996             18,074                14%
1996-1997             19,923                10%
1997-1998             19,945                00%
These figures show that about 2 percent of school-age children in Washington state are homeschooled. These official figures suggest the growth rate in homeschooling in Washington state is 17 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin, the state I lived in as a school-age child the year I first heard of homeschooling, has an official state count of homeschoolers.
school year   official # HMSCed children   increase
1984-1985              1,126                N/A
1985-1986              1,941                72%
1986-1987              2,821                45%
1987-1988              3,624                28%
1988-1989              4,779                32%
1989-1990              5,869                23%
1990-1991              6,661                13%
1991-1992              7,805                17%
1992-1993              9,401                20%
1993-1994             11,483                22%
1994-1995             13,458                17%
1995-1996             15,632                16%
1996-1997             16,924                08%
1997-1998             18,712                11%
1998-1999             19,808                06%
These figures show that almost 2 percent of Wisconsin's school-age children are homeschooling. These official figures suggest the annual growth in homeschooling in Wisconsin is 23 percent, with a slower growth rate in recent years.

National Trends in Homeschooling in the United States

Homeschooling in the United States has been growing steadily since the 1980s, as I noted in research paper I wrote in 1990. The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)[remote link], which provided some information for the 1991 study by Patricia Lines, conducted a nationwide survey of homeschoolers from 1994 to 1996. According to that NHERI study, there were 1.23 million homeschooled students in the United States in the fall of 1996, with an estimated error of measurement of 10 percent. As the NHERI study notes, the number of homeschooled students in the United States exceeds the total number of schoolchildren in several of the smaller states combined. After consultation with each other and with many other scholars and observers of homeschooling, Patricia Lines and Brian Ray agree that Ray's figures were somewhat too high for the year of the NHERI study, while the latest Lines study is an underestimate of the number of homeschoolers in the year covered by that study. Further discussion of these and other issues can be found in the on-line version of the Lines "Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth" [link to a different Web site] working paper.

Taking the Patricia Lines high estimate of 353,500 and applying that as an initial figure for the 1990-1991 school year, and then taking the HHERI low estimate of 1,107,000 homeschooled students for the beginning of the 1996-1997 school year (choosing estimates in this way to show the lowest rate of growth in the national total of homeschoolers), the six-year rate of growth in the number of United States homeschoolers is 21 percent. That calculated aggregate national rate of growth based on estimates of the national population of homeschoolers is plausible, in view of the rates of growth observed in states with official counts of homeschoolers.

To put that in perspective, according to the United States federal government there were 43,476,000 children enrolled in public (i.e., government-operated) elementary and secondary schools in October 1993. That means Lines's lower 1990 estimate of 248,500 homeschooled children already was more than 0.5 percent of the total enrollment in government-operated K-12 schools. The relevant age group of school-age children is growing rapidly as children of Baby Boom parents reach school age, but the current number of homeschoolers in the United States appears to be almost 2 percent of the nationwide school-age population, with more growth credibly expected. State-by-state figures compiled in July 1995 show that eighteen states and the District of Columbia all had lower school-age populations during the 1993-1994 school year than the 1990 estimated number of homeschooled children nationwide.

Thus we may conclude without fear of contradiction that in the United States homeschooling is a phenomenon as big as the total schooling effort of many states, and that it's still growing steadily. The New York Times reported this phenomenon in a widely reprinted article. (I saw a "localized" version of the New York Times piece in the Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities of November 30, 1995. Official figures from Minnesota and Wisconsin were cited in that article.) Friends from other states, responding on various computer networks, report steady local growth in their areas.

Homeschooling Is Growing in The United Kingdom

Homeschooling Growth in Australia

Australia, according to Meighan's article, has 20,000 homeschooling families, including those using a two-way radio system for tutoring children in the remote Outback areas of the country. A member of CompuServe from Australia, in a public message, wrote in early 1996, "Thought some of you may be interested in stats I just received from the Home Schooling Unit of the New South Wales Board of Studies. According to them, as of 10 January 1996, there were 1566 homeschooling students from 975 families registered for homeschooling." The Statesman's Year-Book 1994-95, a superb collection of international statistics, reports that in 1991 there were 746,417 students in government-operated primary and secondary schools in the state of New South Wales, and also 284,330 students in primary and secondary "non-government schools," so as the homeschooling member of CompuServe who lives there commented, "there is still room for a little more growth [smile]." An E-mail to me in late June 1997 from a different Australian correspondent passed on the news that a homeschooling association in Western Australia estimates that there are 3,000 homeschooled children in that state of the Australian commonwealth. In 1993 in Western Australia there were 222,451 students in government schools and 74,288 students in nongovernment schools, suggesting that homeschooled children make up about 1 percent of the school-age population in that state.

Homeschooling Growth in Canada

Canada has a large and growing homeschooling movement, with about 1 percent of Canadian school-age children being homeschooled, according to journalistic reports. Canada enjoys an excellent World Wide Web site with pan-Canadian information about homeschooling[remote link], put together as a cooperative effort by homeschoolers from coast to coast in that vast country.

Homeschooling Growth in New Zealand

New Zealand's number of homeschooled children as of early 1996, according to the New Zealand television program Sixty Minutes (not the same program as the program in the United States with the same name), was about 7,000 school-age children. That figure is more than 1 percent of New Zealand's school-age population. I more recently heard a lower, perhaps official, figure for the number of homeschoolers in New Zealand.

Homeschooling in Japan

The legal and social environment surrounding homeschooling varies substantially from country to country, but interest in homeschooling appears to be growing all over the world. Ken Schoolland, in his book Shogun's Ghost, and Pat Montgomery, writing in The Learning Edge, the newsletter of the Clonlara Home Based Education Program, both report nascent, growing interest in homeschooling in Japan. Indeed, Japan, where school attendance has long been compulsory, on the Prussian model, for children from ages six to fifteen, now has books about homeschooling in the local language. I am now attempting to apply my reading knowledge of Japanese to homeschooling research by requesting those books through interlibrary loan.

Homeschooling in Taiwan

Homeschooling is now legal, by parental option, in two cities in Taiwan, with expansion of this program expected in the next few years. Homeschool growth in Taiwan will likely initially be slow, because most families with children have both parents working full-time outside the home, but there is already a nascent national network of homeschoolers in Taiwan that held a first national meeting in early April 1999. The number of homeschoolers is growing rapidly in Taiwan and the national network already has a full-time executive secretary. I spoke in Mandarin Chinese to a Taipei area homeschooling support group on 22 July 2000, my topic being "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Homeschooling in Taiwan" compared to homeschooling in the United States.

Homeschooling in Other Places

A reader of this page tells me by E-mail that Norway had its first national conference on homeschooling from June 28 to June 30, 1996 in Ullvik, Hardanger. About 50 participants from all parts of the country, including a member of Norway's parliament, a lawyer, and others were expected to speak at the conference as of the time he wrote. In 1993 and 1994 two "entrepreneur" families had much trouble with local governments because they homeschooled. For the moment the legal right to homeschool is acknowledged by Norway's national department of education. According to the reader who wrote to me, only twenty families in Norway are homeschooling now. But the numbers are fast increasing, and are expected to increase more rapidly since Norway lowered its compulsory school attendance age from seven to six in 1997. That change is unpopular with the Norwegian public and thus prompts interest in homeschooling. The Social Democratic party spokeswoman for education in the parliament said on 17 June 1996 that she wants a change in the law so that the general right to homeschool will be eliminated, replaced by a narrow possibility to homeschool if the government finds it necessary! My thanks to the reader who reported this news from the homeland of many of my ancestors.

Homeschooling Can Be Expected to Continue to Grow

The issue of homeschooling is "hot" in Norway. I would appreciate hearing from people in other places what the local trends are where they live. I would especially like to see more year-by-year series of official counts of homeschoolers, from places where those are available. As Roland Meighan aptly wrote, "The basic question of 'will the families cope?' has given way to 'why do they usually cope so easily and so well?' Home-based education effectiveness research demonstrates that children are usually superior to their school-attending peers in social skills, social maturity, emotional stability, academic achievement, personal confidence, communication skills and other aspects. The lessons of this research, as to how the schooling system could be regenerated, are only just beginning to be appreciated. It questions all the fundamental assumptions underpinning schooling, as well as pointing to ways of regenerating and reconstructing education systems in general and schools in particular, in the direction of more flexibility, suitable for the post-modernist scene."

I would be delighted to hear from any reader, anywhere in the world, who has comments on how homeschooling fits into other cultures and other places. One sign of growing homeschool interest is the number of visits the Learn in Freedom™ Web site gets from from people around the world interested in education reform and learning in freedom. This site has been visited by people logging on to the Internet from countries all over the world, including the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bahrain, Bermuda, Brunei, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Egypt, Spain, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, India, Iceland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, St. Lucia, Latvia, Macau, Mexico, Malaysia, Nicaragua, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, and South Africa. Of course this site has also been visited by people from all over the United States of America, which is where I'm from and where the server for this site is located. Please let me know if you are visiting from another country or territory.

Other Pages of This FAQ

Feel free to browse the other pages of the Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide FAQ, besides this Homeschooling Growth in the 1980s page, for more detailed information. The overall structure of the FAQ is like the outline below:
Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide (main page of homeschool growth FAQ) [this page]
Overview of growth trends in the number of home-schooled children around the world.
Homeschooling in Minnesota
Official statistics on homeschooling in Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Homeschoolers, with links to state organizations.
Homeschooling in Missouri
Links to resources on homeschooling in Missouri.
Homeschooling in North Carolina
Official statistics on homeschooling in North Carolina.
Homeschooling in Virginia
Official statistics on homeschooling in Virginia, with links to state organizations.
Homeschooling Growth in the 1980s
Homeschooling growth trends in the United States in the 1980s, as recorded in a 1990 research paper.
Homeschooling in the United Kingdom
Basic information and links about homeschooling in The United Kingdom, a country with thousands of homeschoolers.
Homeschooling in Canada
Basic information and links about homeschooling in Canada, a country with thousands of homeschoolers.
More specific pages for states of the United States and for countries around the world will be added as my schedule permits. Please send me any information you have about the number of homeschoolers in any place you know about.

[Last revision 9 March 2013]

Feel free to come back to the Learn in Freedom™ page (http://learninfreedom.org) and to this Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide page (http://learninfreedom.org/homeschool_growth.html) again soon!

This School Is Dead: Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide page is copyright © 2013 Karl M. Bunday, all rights reserved.

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1859)
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