Between May and October 2020, homeschooling more than doubled among U.S. households with school-age children, from 5.4 percent that spring to 11.1 percent that fall, according to new Census Bureau data.
Black and Hispanic Americans were the most likely to switch to homeschooling, while white and Asian Americans were the least likely. This could be due to the fact that African-American children are the most likely to be financially locked into poor-quality school districts, or that black Americans have been the most likely to exhibit COVID caution, or some combination.
All demographics reported large increases in homeschooling between spring and fall 2020, but black Americans increased homeschooling the most, quintupling from 3.3. percent to 16.1 percent…
Since lockdowns and the great school unsettling began, however, Congress has been showering deficit-funded billions on public schools that were largely closed to in-person instruction and hemorrhaging students. “Congress has included more than $192 billion for K-12 schools- roughly six times the amount of the fiscal year 2021 base federal funding- in the three big Covid relief bills passed since last March,” notes a recent CNN story. “Each piece of legislation sent more money to K-12 schools than the last.”
While Congress sends more money to support institutions that have horribly mismanaged their response to the COVID outbreak, public support has grown for instead giving parents more control and flexibility over education spending instead of relegating families to one-size-fits-nobody institutions. One April poll found among its highest support ever for school choice via parental control of education tax dollars, at 71 percent of respondents. A different poll that has measured public opinion on schooling monthly since the beginning of the lockdowns shows similarly high support for parent-directed education in its latest results. Read more…
