Stay-at-home orders throughout the COVID-19 pandemic impacted children in all grade levels as they were forced to leave the classroom and continue their lessons from home. As Townhall previously reported, lockdowns made a devastating impact on learning and resulted in immense learning loss.
According to a new poll, homeschooling has become more “racially and ideologically diverse” since COVID-19 pandemic onset. This, it claims, is due to many issues, including how children were forced to do remote learning during the pandemic and have found that homeschooling better fits their needs.
The Washington Post/Schar School poll found that “home-schoolers today are likely to be motivated by fear of school shootings, anxiety over bullying and anger with the perceived encroachment of politics into public schools.” In addition, “the new crop is more likely to mix and match home schooling with public school, depending on their children’s needs.”
In the findings, 74 percent of respondents said that “concern about school environment” is a reason why their family chose to home-school. Thirty-one percent of respondents said that COVID-19 policies were “too strict at local public schools.” Forty-six percent said that “local public schools” are “too influenced by liberal viewpoints.”
The Post noted that homeschooling used to be “dominated” by parents who wanted to provide religious instruction for children. This has changed over time (via WaPo):
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In a 2012 federal survey, nearly 2 in 3 home-school parents listed a desire to provide religious instruction as a reason for home schooling. That dropped to about half of parents in 2016 and a small majority in 2019 federal surveys.
Now the share has fallen much further, The Post-Schar School poll finds, to 34 percent. Those who home-schooled before the pandemic are twice as likely to name providing religious instruction as those who began after.
And, the poll found that families who began homeschooling after the pandemic are more racially diverse, more ideologically diverse, and more open to public schooling (via WaPo):
Nearly 7 in 10 parents say a desire to provide “moral instruction" is among their reasons for home-schooling. In a follow-up question, about half of those parents say this instruction is based on religious values, a number equivalent to those who list religion as a motivator.
Home-schoolers conform less and less to the stereotype of mom working one-on-one with her children at the kitchen table. In the poll, conducted Aug. 1-10, about half of home-school parents said their children would receive at least some instruction from a teacher or tutor this year, much higher than the 22 percent who said the same in 2019. Nearly 6 in 10 said their kids would take live online classes, and about 1 in 5 plan to participate in a home-school co-op.
In some cases, home-schooled children spend much of their time supervised by adults who are not their parents. The Post-Schar School poll finds about 1 in 10 home-school families using microschools or pods, where children are sometimes dropped off for the entire day — a contrast to more traditional co-ops, where parents are the primary educators.
The poll found that home-school parents “expressed dissatisfaction” with how local schools serve children who have special needs. The poll was conducted from Aug. 1-10, among a national sample of 1,027 U.S. parents with children ages 5-20.
Parents who spoke to the Post shared that there are schools controlled by liberal teachers unions that push students to “change genders.” In addition, COVID-19 policies, like forced masking and vaccine mandates, swayed many parents to begin homeschooling.
