The purpose of this website is to provide an overview of homeschooling as well as a comprehensive look at the growing body of research and scholarship in this area.

My name is Robert Kunzman, and I'm a professor at Indiana University (more about me here). I've been studying homeschooling intensively for the past seven years, and have discovered that while many homeschool organizations and advocacy groups provide information and analysis, there are few places to go for a less partisan perspective.

The most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics estimate that 1.5 million students were homeschooled in 2007.  This represents a 74% increase since 1999, more than 12 times the increase of public school enrollment over the same period.

The rate of homeschooling's growth appears to be accelerating as well, with a 29% increase between 1999 and 2003, and a 36% rise between 2003 and 2007.

The most common reasons that parents gave for homeschooling their children were concern about the school environment (88%) and to provide religious or moral instruction (83%). 

Given the reluctance of many homeschoolers to participate in government surveys (the 2007 NCES survey had a 53% refusal rate), I suspect the total enrollment figures are closer to 2 million.

The NCES Issue Brief is available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009030.pdf and additional data (part of a broader report published in spring 2009) can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_hsc.asp.

Unfamiliar with homeschooling? Planning to write a news story? Start here to avoid some common misconceptions.

Explore more than 1,600 homeschool research references--organized by topic, author, date, or format. (Updated 1 Aug 2011.)

How many homeschoolers are there in the United States? Why do people homeschool? This section provides brief answers to a range of common questions.