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. This time around my very resourceful workstudy student Marissa Donlevie was able, by sleuthing and persistence, to obtain data for several states for which we previously had nothing. For some of these new additions we only have one year of data, but it’s a start, and we hope to continue building on these gains in the future. You can access the full data, presented both in chart and graph form, here at the ICHER main site.
Before commenting on trends, let me reiterate our usual 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 16 states that we have found updated enrollments for, 9 are up and 7 are down. As in the past, it is difficult from these data points to identify clear regional trends. Based on this admittedly very problematic data, it appears that homeschooling is continuing to grow at a moderate rate, even though it has slowed-down and declined in some states. This picture contrasts with what was found by the most recent NCES data, which for the first time since the National Household Education Survey began documenting homeschooling found no growth. Here are the two most recent data points available for each state so that you can get a sense of the trends:
Arkansas
2016: 19,229
2017: 19, 520
Trend: Up, modestly
Colorado
2016: 7,659
2017: 7,136
Trend: Down, modestly
Delaware
2016: 3,051
2017: 2,948
Trend: Down, modestly
Florida
2015: 83,359
2016: 87,462
Trend: Up, significantly
Georgia
2017: 64,799
2018: 66,149
Trend: Up, significantly
Louisiana
2016: 5,467
2017: 5,275
Trend: Down, modestly
Maine
2016: 5,467
2017: 5,275
Trend: Down, modestly
Minnesota
2015: 18,772
2016: 12,927
Trend: Down, significantly
Montana
2016: 5,262
2017: 5,390
Trend: Up, modestly
New Mexico
2016: 72
2017: 97
Trend: Up, significantly
North Carolina
2015: 118,268
2016; 127,847
Trend: Up, significantly
Oregon
2016: 22,353
2017: 22,956
Trend: Up, modestly
Utah
2015: 13,033
2016: 16,085
Trend: Up, significantly
Vermont
2016: 2,279
2017: 2,205
Trend: Down, modestly
Virginia
2015: 33,415
2016: 33,927
Trend: Up, modestly
Washington
2016: 21,213
2017: 21,022
Trend: Down, modestly