State Homeschool Enrollment Data Trends, 2014

Every so often my undergraduate workstudy helps me compile all of the available data maintained by the states that keep records on homeschool enrollment.  This is not an easy task.  Some states make this information available and accessible on state department of education websites, but many do not.  After several weeks of internet searches and phone calls I think we have collected all the data extant.  If anyone reading this knows of a state we have missed and where its data can be found, please contact me and I will add it.

Before commenting on trends let me make the usual caveats regarding this data.  As I have noted many times before when presenting this information, the numbers here are unreliable for at least three reasons:  1. data collection is haphazard, varying widely by state, by district within a state, and from year-to-year based upon state budgets, which do not prioritize homeschooling data collection, 2. the figures provided by some states don’t account for homeschoolers who may choose to do so by, say, registering as private schools, and 3. some homeschoolers simply refuse to register with the state and hence are not included in these tallies.

These shortcomings mean that the enrollment figures cited here are in no way an accurate count of homeschoolers in a given state.  But they can at least tell us something about trend lines if we look at how the figures are changing year by year.  Last time I compiled this data there was no clear trend–by mid-2013 six states were up, six were down, and the rest were flat.  This time around, however the trend is clear and dramatic.  Of the seventeen states for which my workstudy and I could find data, fifteen are up (many way up) and only two are down, and those not by much.  The clear message here is that in the last couple of years, across the country but especially in the South, homeschooling has been growing at quite a clip.  Why?  One popular theory frequently noted in the press is the antipathy, especially among conservatives, toward the Common Core curriculum and testing regimen currently being rolled out in many state public school systems.  There’s really no way to test that hypothesis, but the trend lines here are impossible to ignore whatever their cause.  The full data with citations can be found on the ICHER main page under our “Research” tab, or you can get to it by clicking here.  Here are the two most recent data points available for each state to give a sense of the growth:

Arkansas

2012: 16,405

2014: 17,299

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

Colorado

2011: 6,067

2013: 7,489

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Delaware

2011: 2,700

2013: 3,145

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

Florida

2011: 72,408

2013: 77,054

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Maine

2011: 4,730

2013: 5,025

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

Georgia

2010: 42,474

2014: 52, 709

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Montana

2011: 4,260

2013: 4,694

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

Nebraska

2012: 7,200

2013: 7,674

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

New Hampshire

2011: 5,285

2013: 5,914

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

North Carolina

2011: 79,693

2013: 98, 172

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Oregon

2011: 19,900

2012: 20,188

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

South Dakota

2012: 4,023

2013: 3,443

Trend: Down, Modestly

 

Utah

2012: 8,260

2013: 8,988

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Vermont

2013: 2,424

2014: 2,384

Trend: Down, Modestly

 

Virginia

2011: 25,255

2013: 29,477

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Washington

2012: 16,582

2013: 18,218

Trend: Up, Significantly

 

Wisconsin

2012: 18,464

2013: 19,104

Trend: Up, Modestly

 

Wyoming

2012: 2,309

2013: 2,452

Trend: Up, Modestly

Milton Gaither, Messiah College, author of Homeschool: An American History.

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.  For more information about ICHER’s Reviews, please see the « About these Reviews » Section.