Researchers predicted the number of homeschooling families would decrease after the school lockdowns ended, but Steven Duvall of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) asserts that has yet to happen.
"It has gone down but ever so slightly … so slightly that I'm not so sure that it's gone down any quite yet by the most current estimates," he tells American Family News.
While it is difficult to determine why the number has remained so stable, Duvall is certain that it is costing the education system an awful lot of money.
"If that's the case, that's going to create real problems and probably a backlash," he warns. "What sort of backlash there will be -- I think that remains to be seen."
Soon after the pandemic struck in 2020, the US Census Bureau initiated the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to gauge the pandemic's impact on employment, housing, food availability, and education. Since then, the HPS has continued to be administered on a regularly scheduled basis to the 50 states, DC, and the 15 largest metropolitan areas in the country using email and text messaging, and the survey will be continued until federal funding expires. Because one of the questions on the HPS asks whether any children in the household are being homeschooled, the survey provides a way to continuously monitor the growth of homeschooling.
Surveys so far this year show the number of households with at least one homeschool student is just above 10% -- a significant increase from before the pandemic.
