Homeschooling in the United States : 1999 / Stacey Bielick, Kathryn Chandler and Stephen P. Broughman.

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES), 1999, is a telephone survey data collection program conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Based on NCES data, this report provides an estimate of the number of home-schooled students in the United States, characteristics of home-schooled children and their families, parents' reasons for home-schooling, and public school support for home-schoolers. The findings are based on surveys conducted with parents/guardians of children ages 5 to 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten to grade 12. For the analyses reported in this document, data were obtained from 275 home-schooled students and 16,833 nonhome-schooled students. Among the major findings of this Parent-NHES are that an estimated 850,000 students nationwide were being schooled at home, 1.7 percent of U.S. students. A greater percentage of home-schoolers compared to nonhome-schoolers were white, non-Hispanic (75 percent compared to 65 percent). The household income of home-schoolers in 1999 was no different from that of nonhome-schoolers. Parents of home-schoolers had higher levels of educational attainment than parents of nonhome-schoolers. Parents gave a wide variety of reasons for home-schooling their children, including being able to give their child a better education at home, religious reasons, and a poor learning environment in school. Twenty-eight percent of home-schoolers' parents reported that public schools/districts offered them extracurricular activities, 21 percent reported receiving curriculum support, and 23 percent reported receiving books and materials. The report concludes with future research plans and information on the study's methodology and technical notes. (Contains 19 references.) (KB)

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