The New York Times provides an overview of home schooling in the US.
at least 850,000 children nationwide are schooled at home, up from 360,000 a decade ago, according the Education Department. In New York City, which compiled citywide statistics for the first time this year, 1,800 children are being schooled at home.Newcomers to home schooling resist easy classification as part of the religious right or freewheeling left, who dominated the movement for decades, according to those who study the practice.
They come to home schooling fed up with the shortcomings of public education and the cost of private schools. Add to that the new nationwide standards — uniform curriculum and more testing — which some educators say penalize children with special needs, whether they are gifted, learning disabled or merely eccentric.
The top three motivations for home schooling in the survey were the prospect of a better education (49 percent), religious beliefs (38 percent) and a poor learning environment in the schools (26 percent).
The numbers quoted by the New York Times are from a report titled Homeschooling in the United States: 1999, based on a study by the National Centre for Education Statistics. The report estimated that as of Spring 1999, 850,000 students were being homeschooled amounting to 1.7% of U.S. students aged 5-17. I'm surprised that the New York Times didn't bother to point out that the 850,000 number wasn't a current number, but from four years ago.
