Even as a strong advocate of homeschooling, I’m a little surprised to see how rapidly it is growing:
As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so has the appeal of homeschooling. Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a surge in the number of students educated at home by their parents over the next ten years, as more parents reject public schools.
A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%. Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times faster than the number of children enrolling in grades K-12 every year.
It can be almost amusing how easy it is to derail an outspoken critic homeschooling. Asking them how old they were when they took calculus usually does the trick… it’s a rhetorical tactic that is particularly effective on adults who never made it that far in mathematics.