What’s driving the upsurge in homeschooling in America, and where is the home education movement headed and why?
To answer these questions, we’ll look at the national homeschooling participation numbers pre- and post-COVID. Then we’ll dive into the stories behind those numbers.
Following that review, we’ll change gears and examine an inspirational homeschooling program known as The Good and The Beautiful (TGTB).
Is homeschooling a growing trend?
The education landscape in the United States has undergone significant transformation since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
Within months of schools shutting their doors and transitioning to remote learning, participation in homeschooling programs spiked. This shift was driven by long school closures, restrictive attendance policies, and mandatory mask mandates, which led many parents to reconsider how to educate their children.
Homeschooling rates saw a dramatic increase during the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, approximately 5.4% of U.S. households with school-aged children reported homeschooling. By the fall of 2020, this figure had more than doubled to 11.1%. This trend shattered pre-pandemic homeschooling rates, which had remained steady at around 3.3%. (See Homeschooling Facts.)
How many homeschooled students are there?
According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), 3.7 million students in the US were homeschooled during the 2020/2021 school year. By early 2021, one year after the onset of the COVID pandemic, at least 5 million American parents were educating their children entirely at home, up from about 3.2 million parents identified in February 2020.
The institute’s data also shows that from late March to early May of 2022, 5.22% of all school-age children were homeschooled.
It is true that homeschooling participation rates came down as schools reopened, but not to their pre-pandemic levels. And as of 2024, homeschooling continues to be a growing trend.
Academic results: traditional schooling vs. homeschooling
In addition, studies continue to indicate that homeschooled students often achieve higher academic outcomes compared to their peers in traditional schools. Specifically, a significant majority of peer-reviewed studies have found that homeschooled students perform better academically and succeed at an equal or higher rate in college than the general population (NHERI).
On average, homeschooled students score 15 to 30 percentile points above public school students on standardized academic achievement tests. They also have higher graduation rates from college.
These positive academic outcomes, along with the flexibility and individualized education that homeschooling offers, contribute to its growing appeal.
The diversity of homeschooling
Contrary to stereotypes, homeschooling households are diverse. Among homeschooling families, the demographics show a wide range of religious beliefs, political views, and financial backgrounds. Interestingly, more than a third of homeschooling households have an annual income of over $100,000. The socioeconomic breadth within the homeschooling community is real.
Homeschooling has its challenges, to be sure. Concerns about socialization and the potential for increased workload on parents are legitimate. However, the flexibility, safety, and tailored educational opportunities it offers continue to make homeschooling an attractive option for many families.
Why is homeschooling on the rise in America?
A whole host of factors, some negative and others positive, contribute to the continued growth of homeschooling. Here’s an overview:
Negative factors
- Before the pandemic, issues such as bullying and violence in schools already were prompting some parents to choose to homeschool. The pandemic intensified these concerns, with families seeking safer and more controllable learning environments for their children.
- Discontent with the handling of the pandemic, especially the abrupt shift of most schools to remote learning, spurred some parents toward homeschooling.
- Beyond schools’ responses to the pandemic, growing discontent with school curricula contributed to the upsurge in homeschooling. This dissatisfaction encompasses both the quality of education and increasingly left-leaning ideologies and values advocated by teachers’ unions and allowed by school boards.
Positive factors
- As noted, research indicates that homeschooled students often achieve higher academic outcomes compared to their traditionally schooled peers.
- Interestingly, homeschooled students are by and large more politically tolerant, participate more in community service, and succeed at higher rates in adulthood.
- Homeschooling offers the flexibility to tailor educational content to a child’s specific needs, interests, and pace of learning. Accommodating such flexibility can be challenging for traditional schools.
- The availability of online resources and virtual learning tools has made homeschooling more accessible and appealing to a broader range of families.
- According to studies, more than 90 percent of homeschooled students participate in an average of five extracurriculars per week.
- Homeschooling is now legal in all 50 states. Many states provide homeschoolers the opportunity to participate in public school activities, such as interscholastic sports, under so-called “Tim Tebow laws” that mandate the availability of these activities to homeschoolers.
- As a side note, NHERI estimates that homeschooling saves American taxpayers more than $50 billion annually.
What is the best homeschooling option?
There is no one best homeschooling option. The short answer is that it depends on what you are looking for, since there are literally dozens of quality homeschooling programs out there.
Instead of evaluating the pros and cons of each, which is far beyond the scope of this story, we’ll zoom in on a single, remarkable program as a case study.
This is The Good and the Beautiful, a homeschooling program that emphasizes family, God, high character, nature, and wholesome literature.
“The books a child reads during his or her childhood will have one of the most profound impacts in the child’s life, and thus, we place strong emphasis on being able to love and appreciate powerful, uplifting literature,” The Good and the Beautiful founder Jenny Phillips has said.
Phillips began her homeschooling journey in 2014. She created beautiful home education materials that she originally gave away for free. She hoped to make homeschooling more affordable, which is still one of the foundational principles of TGTB.
“We price all of our curriculum at incredibly low prices so that more families can afford top-quality homeschooling,” the TGTB website notes. “The value of our curriculum is not reflected in the price, rather the price is a reflection of our values and purpose.”
The five pillars of The Good and the Beautiful
According to Phillips, the five pillars of TGTB are:
- Appreciation for God, family, nature, and wholesome art and literature.
- Strong, structured academics: “We have found that children thrive on structure. And the intentional, planned curriculum that is thorough and academically robust, when done in the right way does not kill creativity or individuality, but strengthens it, leaving no homes in your child’s academic foundation.”
- Easy, reduced teaching time. Lessons are designed to be open-and-go: There are instructive scripts at the beginning of each lesson that parents read to their children.
- Free and extremely affordable curriculum materials.
- A balanced approach based on what works instead of rigid or extreme learning methods.
The curriculum combines multiple subjects in its lessons. This is a big deal, as any parents who have ever homeschooled their children will attest, because it eliminates the need for a half dozen or more different courses per child.
The Good and the Beautiful features a thorough phonics reading program and offers extensive free resources. Those free materials include full-year language arts course downloads for levels K-8 and math levels K-7. Its physical materials live up to its name. They are beautifully illustrated with engaging, easy-to-follow text.
The history of The Good and the Beautiful
As noted, the program was founded in 2014 by Jenny Phillips, a Christian singer-songwriter who sought to create a homeschool curriculum that used clean and powerful literature, as well as combined subjects for more meaningful learning. From the beginning, she worked to create a strong academic program that emphasized high character.
Unsatisfied with existing curricula and deeply concerned about the loss of good literature, she leveraged her background in English, writing, editing, and teaching, as well as the means from her music career, to develop The Good and the Beautiful.
Despite initially having no intention of starting a home education curriculum company, the overwhelmingly positive response and demand for printed materials led Phillips to establish the program.
The Good and the Beautiful now offers more than 90 products and is supported by a team with widely varied Christian backgrounds.
Though it has a general Christian worldview, it does not focus on the doctrine of any particular church. Instead, it emphasizes connecting children to the good and beautiful in life and learning.
Key features of The Good and the Beautiful
The program caters to children from pre-kindergarten through high school. Here’s a detailed profile of the program’s features and benefits:
Integrative learning
One of the hallmarks of TGTB is its integrated approach to learning. Language arts, for example, is not just about grammar and vocabulary. Rather, it weaves in literature, geography, and art, which makes learning more holistic and engaging.
Emphasis on literature
As mentioned, the curriculum emphasizes high-quality literature. It aims to instill a love for reading through carefully selected books that are both morally uplifting and academically challenging.
Character education
TGTB focuses on character development. Its lessons and stories reinforce positive values such as honesty, kindness, and perseverance.
Family-friendly
Many of the curriculum’s components are designed to be used simultaneously with children of different ages. This feature makes it an ideal choice for families with more than one homeschooled child.
Minimal prep time
The curriculum is crafted to be open-and-go, which means it requires minimal preparation from parents.
Beautiful design
As the name suggests, the materials are beautifully designed with appealing visuals and layouts to inspire children and enhance their learning experience.
Community support
TGTB has numerous online forums and social media groups where parents can share resources, advice, and support.
Free resources
TGTB offers a lot of its materials, especially in language arts, for free as PDF downloads from its website. The program is committed to supporting homeschooling families regardless of financial circumstances.
Physical books
TGTB sells beautifully printed versions of their books at reasonable prices. The cost-effectiveness of the program is a significant factor in its popularity.
Kits and bundles
Complete grade-level kits and subject bundles are available as well, offering welcome savings over purchasing materials individually.
A holistic approach to homeschooling
The Good and the Beautiful has been praised for integrating academic rigor with character development. By focusing on the beauty in learning and the goodness in literature, this program aims to provide a rich, engaging homeschool experience that prepares children not just academically, but also morally and spiritually for the challenges of life.
“Education is not just about academics,” Jenny Phillips notes. It’s about cultivating the heart, the mind and soul. We strive to create materials that nourish all three.”
