According to the USAToday headine, there is a “Profound shift in the kind of families who are homeschooling their children.”
Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.What else has nearly doubled? The percentage of girls who are home-schooled. They now outnumber home-schooled boys by a wide margin.
As of spring 2007, an estimated 1.5 million, or 2.9% of all school-age children in the USA, were home-schooled, up from 1.7% in 1999.
(Just looked for the original report on the Department of Education website. I think this is it…but it’s weird that if it was released in December 2008 and put on the web in late January it’s only being written about now.)
Anyway, Laura Vanderkam over at the Gifted Exchange blog offers her take. I actually responded to her earlier call for families who work and homeschool, but then got cold feet and didn’t follow up. She writes:
I suspect that the rise of “free agency” (self-employment, contract work, small business ownership, etc.) is enabling at least some 2-income households to homeschool. After all, if dad does freelance graphic design, for instance, he can work at his home office while a child is taking an online geometry course in the next room. ….. In other words, free agent parents are deciding to educate free agent children!
Personally, I think the Washington area is ripe for this. The income is there. The community infrastucture is there both physical (museums! museums! museums!) and virtual (Hello Internet!). You’ve got a lot of smart people, knowledge workers, with stable (if not “wealthy”) incomes. Heck, even Jay Mathews endorses it! Add some growing dissatisfaction, the realization that I’m not buying what they’re selling anymore, and well, something’s gotta give, right?
Not so so weird that it took awhile — education reporters are few and far between these days and Jan. was rather busy around our nation’s capitol. My bet is they’ve been waiting for a news hole or someone just missed it.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see increasing numbers of the 4th Estate switching to homeschooling themselves, given the paradigm shift taking place in their industry…
To add to your discussion: I wonder how many teachers with experience teaching the gifted are also ‘crossing over’. See my comment on Laura’s article which I found before coming across yours.
Angie
Hi Angie,
Just read your post on Laura’s blog and I agree. If I were a teacher I would totally see the shifting education landscape as a huge opportunity. Think out of the box, people!
You write: I actually responded to her earlier call for families who work and homeschool, but then got cold feet and didn’t follow up.
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I’m in there. My daughter’s in high school but we homeschooled 8th grade and am quoted in the article.
[...] been my hunch for some time that people who are choosing to homeschool their gifted kids are the leading edge of [...]