{"id":116922,"date":"2021-03-29T02:15:36","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T09:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=116922"},"modified":"2021-03-29T02:15:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T09:15:36","slug":"america-counts-stories-behind-the-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=116922","title":{"rendered":"America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC… Homeschooling is a legal instructional option in all 50 states and national homeschooling rates grew rapidly from 1999 to 2012<\/a> but had since remained steady at around 3.3%. However, the global COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in homeschooling and the appeal of alternative school arrangements has suddenly exploded<\/a>. So, how significantly have homeschooling rates increased during the pandemic?<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet their health and safety needs, their childcare needs and the learning and socio-emotional needs of their children.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s experimental\u00a0Household Pulse Survey<\/a>, the first data source to offer both a national and state-level look at the impact of COVID-19 on homeschooling rates, shows a substantial increase from last spring \u2014 when the pandemic took hold \u2014 to the start of the 2020-2021 school year.<\/p>\n

Using a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. households, the survey shows homeschooling is notably higher than the national benchmarks and offers a glimpse of changes in homeschooling patterns during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

We compare survey results from the spring of the 2019-20 school year to results in the fall of the 2020-21 school year to measure the pandemic’s impact on homeschooling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Meeting Education, Health Needs<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In the first week (April 23-May 5) of Phase 1 of the Household Pulse Survey, about 5.4% of U.S. households with school-aged children reported homeschooling .<\/p>\n

By fall, 11.1% of households with school-age children reported homeschooling (Sept. 30-Oct. 12). A clarification was added to the school enrollment question to make sure households were reporting true homeschooling rather than virtual learning through a public or private school.<\/p>\n

That change represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points and a doubling of U.S. households that were homeschooling at the start of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the prior year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet their health and safety needs, their childcare needs and the learning and socio-emotional needs of their children.<\/p>\n

From the much-discussed \u201cpandemic pods<\/a>,\u201d (small groups of students gathering outside a formal school setting for in-person instruction) to a reported influx of parent inquiries about stand-alone virtual schools, private schools and homeschooling organizations, American parents are increasingly open to options beyond the neighborhood school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Differences by Race and Hispanic Origin<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Homeschooling rates are increasing across race groups and ethnicities.<\/p>\n

In households where respondents identified as Black or African American (Table 1), the proportion homeschooling increased by five times, from 3.3% (April 23-May 5) to 16.1% in the fall (Sept. 30-Oct. 12). The size of the increases for the other Race\/Hispanic origin groups were not statistically different from one another.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Differences by State<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Some U.S. states had much larger increases in homeschooling rates for the 2020-2021 school year than others.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts, for example, jumped from 1.5% to 12.1% while many other states did not show a significant change.<\/p>\n

Possible contributing factors include local homeschooling variation that predated the pandemic, local rates of coronavirus infections, and local decisions about how school is being conducted during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

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Differences by Metro Area<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Homeschooling rates vary among metropolitan areas, as well (Table 3).<\/p>\n

Among the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), for example, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA, went from 0.9% in the spring of 2020 to 8.9% by the fall.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the rate in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA, MSA was not significantly different (4.2% and 5.2%) for the same period.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the rates are likely affected by local rates of coronavirus infections and local public school decisions about modes of instruction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Household Pulse Survey is designed to provide near-real-time information about the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on American households.<\/p>\n

Education is one of many topics covered by the survey and the data are not designed to provide a highly detailed look at the many different types of educational arrangements and innovations pursued by households in this unusual school year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Casey Eggleston is a research mathematical statistician in the Census Bureau\u2019s Center for Behavioral Science Measurement.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Jason Fields is the senior researcher for Demographic Programs and the Survey of Income and Program Participation in the Census Bureau\u2019s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC… Homeschooling is a legal instructional option in all 50 states and national homeschooling rates grew rapidly from 1999 to 2012 but had since remained steady at around 3.3%. However, the global COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in homeschooling and the appeal of alternative school arrangements has suddenly exploded. So, how significantly have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1599,"featured_media":107911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20,5,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-featured","category-government","category-life-style","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/census.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}