Homeschooling Rates by Student and Family Characteristics

One way to examine homeschooling in the United States is to look at homeschooling rates—percentages of student populations being homeschooled. As discussed above, the overall homeschooling rate in the United States in 2003 was 2.2 percent, which represents an increase from the 1.7 percent homeschooling rate in 1999. In 1999, the percentage of students who were homeschooled varied for different student subpopulations: White students were more likely to be homeschooled than were Black or Hispanic students; students in households with three or more children were more likely to be homeschooled than were students in households with fewer children; students in two-parent households were more likely to be homeschooled than were students in households with one parent or guardian, especially if only one parent in two-parent households was in the labor force; and students who had at least one parent with postsecondary education were more likely to be homeschooled compared to students whose parents’ highest educational attainment was a high school diploma or less (Bielick, Chandler, & Broughman 2001).

As shown in table 2, many findings regarding homeschooling rates in 2003 were similar to those found in 1999. In 2003, the homeschooling rate for White students (2.7 percent) was higher than for Black students (1.3 percent) or Hispanic students (0.7 percent). The homeschooling rate for students in households with three or more children in the household (3.1 percent) was higher than for students in households with two children (1.5 percent) or one child (1.4 percent). Students in two-parent households were more likely to be homeschooled than were students in one-parent households (2.5 percent compared to 1.5 percent). In 2003, the homeschooling rate was 5.6 percent for students in two-parent households where only one parent was participating in the labor force. In contrast, the homeschooling rate was 1.1 percent for students in two-parent households where both parents were in the labor force.

Only a handful of subpopulations demonstrated a change in homeschooling rate between 1999 and 2003 that were measurably different. The homeschooling rate for students with parents whose highest educational attainment was a high school diploma or less increased from 0.9 percent in 1999 to 1.7 percent in 2003. Other subpopulations that demonstrated an increase in homeschooling between 1999 and 2003 were White, non-Hispanic students (an increase from 2.0 percent to 2.7 percent), students in grades 6 through 8 (an increase from 1.6 percent to 2.4 percent), and students in single-parent households where the parent was in the labor force (an increase from 0.7 percent to 1.4 percent).