Home School Statistics

Update: New home school statistics are available now! Click here.

For some reason, homeschool statistics are not available on an annual basis. The latest numbers -December 2007- from the National Household Education Surveys Program says approximately 1.5 million students, or 2.9% of the school aged population, were being homeschooled in the United States.

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that:

88% of families who homeschool choose to do so because of concern about the school environment

83% homeschool for religious or moral reasons

73% homeschool because of dissatisfaction with academic instruction.

65% homeschool because they want a non-traditional approach to their child's education.

Obviously, many families have mulitple reasons for homeschooling.

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that:

78% Public Library

77% Homeschool catalog, publisher or individual specialist

69% Retail Bookstore

60% Other non homeschooling educational publisher

41% Distance learning program

Many homeschool families use several sources for their curriculum.

Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institutehas done several studies on homeschool achievement. His report contains many interesting homeschooling statistics. Visit their website for full details of the studies summarized below.

Homeschool national average K-12 scores are 30-37 percentage points higher than Public school national average K-12 scores in math, language, science, social studies, and basic and complete battery tests.

Homeschool students with college educated parents tend to score about 8 percentage points higher than homeschool students with parents who have less than a high school education. Not a significant difference when you consider that public school students with college educated parents score 27 (writing) to 35 (math) percentage points higher than those public school students whose parents have less than a high school education.

Homeschool composite percentile scores for 8th graders shows that the amount of money spent on education per child doesn't make a significant different in test scores. Those who spent between $0-$199 scored in the 80th percentile. Those who spent over $600 scored in the 83rd percentile.

Dr. Ray's study showed that 98% of homeschoolers participate in 2 or more activities in the community.

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