Homeschooling will boom long after COVID-19

By: Lance Izumi

Student enrollment in public schools has nosedived as parent disgust with school COVID-19 policies, student learning losses, and controversial education policies has gone through the roof. In the wake of this enrollment implosion, homeschooling has boomed across the country. At the beginning of the current school year, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 1.5 million students had left the public schools since the COVID-19 pandemic began. If students are not enrolling in public schools, where are they going? The numbers show that many former public school students are now being homeschooled. The U.S. Census Bureau found that the percentage of homeschooling households more than doubled in 2020 from 5 percent in spring to 11 percent in the fall. According to a recent University of Michigan study, from 2020 to 2021, the enrollment at public schools in Michigan fell by nearly 46,000 students, which represented a more than a 3-percent drop. Among kindergartners, there was a decrease of more than 11 percent. The increase in homeschoolers does not come from just a narrow segment of the American population. A University of Washington Bothell analysis found, “The diversity of homeschoolers in the U.S. mirrors the diversity of all students nationally,” including all racial, religious, political, and income groups.

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