Parents may homeschool their children for a number of reasons. Previous studies suggest that the most common reasons that parents give for homeschooling their children are moral or religious reasons, a desire for high educational achievement, dissatisfaction with public schools' instructional program, and concerns about school environment, including safety, drugs, and peer pressure (Lines 2000a, Grubb 1998, Mayberry 1991).

Parents gave a wide range of reasons for homeschooling in the Parent-NHES:1999 ³. Parents were asked to list their reasons for homeschooling and could provide as many reasons as applied. The reasons parents gave were coded into 16 categories and included better education, religious reasons, and poor school environment. Figure 2 shows 10 reasons cited by at least 5 percent of students' parents. Additional reasons are listed in table 4.

3.The unit of analysis in the Parent-NHES:1999 is the student, not the parent. In each household, up to two children may have been sampled for the survey. In the Parent-NHES:1999, there were 30 households in which parents completed interviews about two homeschooled children. In 16 of those cases, the parents gave the exact same reasons for homeschooling for both children.

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