Here at ICHER, we try to annually compile all of the available data maintained by the states that keep records on homeschool enrollment. Some states make this information easily-accessible on state department of education websites, but many do not. If anyone reading this knows of a state we have missed and where its data can be found, please contact us, and we will add it. To access the complete enrollment data, please visit the ICHER site.
Before commenting on trends, let me make some caveats regarding this data. As noted many times before when presenting this information, the numbers here are unreliable for at least three reasons:
- 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.
- The figures provided by some states don’t account for homeschoolers who may choose to do so by, say, registering as private schools.
- 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. Of the 9 states that we have found updated enrollments for, 6 are up and 3 are down. Based on the data available, it appears that homeschooling is continuing to grow at a moderate rate, even though it has slowed-down and declined in some states. Here are the two most recent data points available for each state so that you can get a sense of the growth trends:
Arkansas
2015: 18,650
2016: 19,229
Trend: Up, Modestly
Florida
2014: 84,096
2015: 83,359
Trend: Down, Modestly
Georgia
2015: 35,127
2016: 31,527
Trend: Down, Significantly
Montana
2014: 4,954
2015: 5,003
Trend: Up, Modestly
North Carolina
2014: 106,853
2015: 118,268
Trend: Up, Significantly
South Dakota
2014: 3,467
2015: 3,858
Trend: Up, Modestly
Utah
2014: 10,438
2015: 13,033
Trend: Up, Significantly
Virginia
2014: 32,314
2015: 33,415
Trend: Up, Modestly
Wyoming
2014: 2,316
2015: 2,296
Trend: Down, Modestly
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.