POPULATION

 DIVISION 

Home Schooling in the United States: 

Trends and Characteristics 

by 

Kurt J. Bauman 

Working Paper Series No. 53 

August 2001 
WORKING PAPER NO. 53
 

Home Schooling in the United States: Trends 

and Characteristics 

by 

Kurt J. Bauman 

Population Division 

U.S. Census Bureau 

Washington, DC 20233-8800 

kurt.j.bauman@census.gov 

The author would like to thank Wendy Bruno for her helpful advice and 

Karen Kosanovich for providing tables on family employment trends. An 

earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the 

Population Association of America, Washington, D.C., March 2001. 

This paper reports the results of research and analysis undertaken by 

Census Bureau Staff. It has undergone a more limited review than 

official Census Bureau publications. This report is released to inform 

interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. 
 

Home-Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics 

August, 2001 

ABSTRACT 

According to widely-repeated estimates, as many as two million American children are 

schooled at home, with the number growing as much as 15 to 20 percent per year. At the same 

time, however, home schooling has received little attention compared with other recent changes 

in the educational system, such as the growth of charter schools. It could be argued that home 

schooling may have a much larger impact on educational system, both in the short and long run. 

This report uses the 1994 October CPS, and the National Household Education Survey of 

1996 and 1999 to determine the extent of home schooling. It presents social, demographic and 

geographic characteristics of households that engage in home schooling and examines the 

potential for future growth. It is found that home schooling is less prevalent than shown in 

earlier estimates, but that the potential for growth is large. 

iii 
HOME-SCHOOLING IN THE UNITED STATES:
 

TRENDS AND CHARACTERISTICS
 

The Impact of Home Schooling
 

According to widely-repeated estimates, as many as two million American children are 

schooled at home, with the number growing at 15 to 20 percent per year (McDowell & Ray 2000, 

Lines 2000). Compared with other recent changes in the educational system, such as the growth 

of charter schools, home schooling has received relatively little attention.1

 It could be argued, 

however, that home schooling may have a much larger impact on educational system, both in the 

short and long run. This is because home schooling seems to be taking place on a larger scale 

than other educational innovations, because home schooling may have a greater immediate 

impact on educational practices in existing schools, and because home schooling has brought 

new institutional forms into being that have the potential to grow over the longer term. 

Scale 

Although other institutional innovations in the educational system have grown in recent 

years, home schooling is probably the largest change in the sheer number of students involved. 

Home schooling directly comprises a larger student population than voucher school 

programs -- at least those that include private schools, that enroll only a few thousand students in 

a few cities (see Gardner 2000). Home schooling also involves a larger population than charter 

schools. According to estimates from organizations involved with charter schools, the student 

population in the fall of 2000 was just over 500,000 (Center for Education Reform, 2001). Even 

conservative estimates of the number of home schoolers put their numbers at that level or above. 
Home Schooling - Page 2 

Organizational changes 

Charter schools and voucher systems provide competitive challenges to traditional public 

schools, and as such, provide a direct incentive to adopt innovations and match the performance 

of other schools. However, the main outlines of current schooling practice have thus far 

remained intact. The challenge of home schooling, by contrast, is more profound. Home 

schooling is a more radical departure from traditional education, it affects more schools, and it 

forces numerous adjustments to current curricular practices. 

Public schools in many jurisdictions have already begun to provide services of various 

types to home schoolers. Laws in at least seven states permit home schooled students to 

participate in sports, music and other extracurricular activities in regular schools (Farris 1997). 

In Florida and Iowa, schools also allow home schoolers to take individual courses. 

New Institutions 

Perhaps the largest impact of home schoolers has been the concomitant entry of new 

educational organizations into the field. Many private organizations and enterprises have entered 

the K-12 distance education field with their sights set on home schoolers as a primary audience 

(Hill 2000). The State of Florida has developed an extensive set of courses that can be taken 

over the Internet for high school credit by home schoolers and others who choose to use this 

resource, and Illinois is developing a similar program (Carothers 2000, Trotter 2001). 

Meanwhile several for-profit ventures have entered the field, offering courses and, in one case, 

accredited diplomas over the Internet (Trotter 1999, Walsh 2001). 

If home schooling continues to grow, demand will grow for the types of services that are 
Home Schooling - Page 3 

starting to be offered by public schools and distance education providers. A result will be 

pressure on schools to design school curricula that allow students and parents to pick and choose 

what they like. According to some observers, another result will be the creation of new schools 

and school-like institutions built around the common needs and concerns of home-schooling 

families (Hill 2000). 

Despite these broad impacts there have been few attempts to examine the characteristics 

of home schoolers and their households in the U.S. The few studies that have been conducted 

have relied on highly selective samples (Rudner 1999, Welner & Welner 1999) or have examined 

selective issues without giving a thorough overview of the home-schooled population (Smith & 

Sikkink 1999). The main exception is an especially careful attempt by researchers associated 

with the U.S. Department of Education to reconcile results from two major national surveys 

measuring the home school population (Henke et al. 2000). Unfortunately, the authors of this 

publication did not have available to them additional survey data that shed light on the 

prevalence of home schooling. 

In sum, despite the importance of the topic, we are left without basic information on the 

nature of home schooling in the United States. How many children are home-schooled? Is that 

number increasing? What are the social, demographic and geographic characteristics of 

households that engage in home schooling? Is home schooling concentrated among rural 

families? In what regions of the country is it most prevalent? What motivations do parents cite 

for choosing home schooling — religion, concerns about school quality, or other motivations? 

What are the barriers that keep them from using other forms of education that meet some or all of 

these concerns — cost of private schools, disaffection from schools in general or other barriers? 
Home Schooling - Page 4 

This paper provides the first comprehensive picture of the home school population, its 

growth and its characteristics. The paper proceeds as follows. It starts with a discussion of the 

data sources used in the analysis. Next the number of home schoolers and the rate of growth is 

estimated from various data sets. The subsequent section examines characteristics of home 

schooled children and their families, with a focus on those characteristics most relevant for 

gauging trends in home schooling. Finally, there is a discussion of some of the implications of 

home schooling for regular schools and a brief conclusion. 

Data on Home Schooling 

The data for this project include the 1994 October Current Population Survey (CPS) (U.S. 

Census Bureau 2000) and the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) of 1996 and 1999 

(Nolin et al. 2000). All three are national household surveys of high quality. The CPS relies on 

a combination of in-person and telephone interviewing of a large sample (approximately 60,000 

households) of the U.S. population. This paper uses 24,829 CPS cases where subjects were age 6 

to 17. In October of each year, a supplement on school enrollment of children and adults is 

administered in all CPS households. The content of this supplement varies slightly from year to 

year, and in 1994 questions on home schooling were added to the main enrollment questions in 

the supplement for children. The questions differed according to the response to the initial 

question on school enrollment. If it was reported that a child was not currently enrolled in 

school, the child or proxy was asked: 

“Were you/Was ... being schooled primarily at home?” 

If the child was currently in school the question was: 

“Are you/Is ... attending (1) a regular day school, (2) boarding school, (3) schooled 
Home Schooling - Page 5 

primarily at home by someone paid by the school, (4) schooled primarily at home by a 

parent or other person paid or chosen by a parent, (5) someplace else.” 

The number choosing answer (3) was relatively small, and for the purposes of this research, 

responses (3) and (4) were both counted as “home schooling.” 

The NHES surveys are nationally-representative telephone surveys administered by the 

National Center for Education Statistics. The two most recent surveys, in 1996 and 1999 have 

included questions on home schooling. The number of children 6 to 17 was 16,257 in 1996 and 

10,718 in 1999. In both years, the same question was asked of all children: 

“Some parents decide to educate their children at home rather than sending them to 

school. Is ... being schooled at home?” 

The datasets also provide several types of information on characteristics of home 

schoolers and their families. All provide race, Hispanic ethnicity, age, and sex of children. They 

also provide information on the household: number of adults in the household, their education, 

labor force participation and household income. In both the CPS and NHES, income was given 

in ranges. For regression analyses, these were recoded to the midpoints and differenced from the 

mean. CPS provided state of residence, metropolitan status and urban/rural location. Although 

it is traditional to use Census-defined regions for analyses, it was felt that home schooling may 

not be following traditional patterns. Frey (2000) developed a regional taxonomy that reflects the 

major migration patterns of recent years, and these are probably more closely related to the types 

of social trends that would affect home-schooling decisions. The states were recoded to regions 

following this migration taxonomy. An urban-rural division was developed from metropolitan 

and urban/rural variables in CPS.2

 In both 1996 and 1999, the NHES asked parents of home 
Home Schooling - Page 6 

schoolers about their motivations for teaching their children at home. Respondents were asked to 

select reasons from a list of 16. 

All analyses in this paper use weighted data, adjusted to reflect an assumed design effect 

of 2.0, except that the standard errors associated with the total number of home schoolers were 

estimated using the Taylor-series linearization method available in the SAS statistical package. 

Specific types of analysis are described as they appear in the paper. 

Extent and Growth of Home Schooling 

Table 1 shows the number of home schooled children age 6 to 17 estimated from these 

data sources. Taken at face value, they show a growth from 360,000 in 1994 to 790,000 in 1999. 

Unfortunately, the point estimates from these data cannot be used directly to make such 

inferences. The 1994 CPS estimate of 360,000 is not much more than half the size of the 1996 

NHES estimate of 640,000. This difference is statistically significant, but is too large to be 

explained by growth in the home-school population. Hemke et al. (2000), noted that the gap is 

implausibly large, but were unable to pinpoint an explanation. A likely reason for the 

discrepancy is the difference in question wording between CPS and NHES. In the CPS, the form 

of the home schooling question depended on the previous answer to the question on school 

enrollment. If a household reported children were attending school, they were not asked directly 

about home schooling, but had to choose it from a list. That this results in a lower response is 

evident from the extremely low rate of home schooling observed in the subset of CPS 

respondents who responded affirmatively to the enrollment question. In the CPS, only 190,000 

children were reported as in school, but also home schooled. In the 1996 NHES, 450,000 
Home Schooling - Page 7 

children were reported this way. By contrast, people who initially indicated non-enrollment 

faced similar yes/no questions on home schooling in both surveys. They were much closer in 

number — 170,000 home schoolers in CPS and 190,000 in the 1996 NHES. 

The 1999 NHES data seem also to show growth in home schooling. However, the 

growth is not quite statistically significant from 1996, given the sample size (the p-value is 

between .05 and .10). Since the two NHES surveys are nearly identical in content and 

methodology, the trend based on these two data points provide the best estimate of growth, but 

the range is wide. A 95 percent confidence interval provides a range from 3 percent annual 

decline to 15 percent annual growth. 

At the first level of analysis, therefore, we can’t say a lot about the growth of the home 

schooling population. We can, however, refute some of the grander claims that have been made 

by advocates. The number of home schooled children was well under 1 million in 1999, and the 

growth rate from 1996 to 1999 was unlikely to have exceeded 15 percent per year. 

More evidence on growth in home schooling 

One way to get additional evidence on trends in home schooling is to examine trends in 

reports of school non-enrollment. For children in the prime school-enrollment ages 7-9 and 10-

13, published estimates show non-enrollment remained consistently at or below 1 percent from 

the mid 1950s to the early 1990s. From 1995 to 1999, however, non-enrollment exceeded 1 

percent 4 out of 5 years (Jamieson et al. 2001). An increase in the non-enrolled population is not 

the same as an increase in home schooling, but there is overlap. In the 7 to 14 age range, just 

under one-half of non-enrolled students were home schooled, according to tabulations from the 
Home Schooling - Page 8 

1994 CPS, and there is a correlation of around 0.5 between home-schooling and non-enrollment 

across states. A regression analysis of non-enrollment across years, using CPS data for 1989 to 

1999 shows a significant upward trend (data not shown — available from author on request). 

This confirms that the observed increase in recent years is not attributable to sampling error. 

A group that is especially likely to be home schooled consists of two-adult families with 

one not working (as will be shown below). In this group, 60 percent of non-enrolled children are 

home schooled. The regression of non-enrollment on years shows an equally large and 

significant coefficient for this group as it does for all school-aged children. 

In sum, evidence on non-enrollment reinforces the direct evidence available from the two 

NHES surveys: there seems to be an upward trend in home schooling. Other evidence might also 

be interpreted as supporting this conclusion, including demographic characteristics and 

geographic location. These are explored next. 

Characteristics of Home-Schooled Children 

To better understand trends in home schooling it is helpful to know what similarities and 

differences exist between home-schooled children and those in regular school. If home schoolers 

are currently limited to a portion of the population with distinct characteristics it is possible that 

the phenomenon will be self-contained. On the other hand, if those characteristics are becoming 

more prevalent in the population, then home schooling might grow along with the group in which 

it’s found. 

Home schoolers are like their peers in many respects. Table 2 shows how they compare, 

using data from all three surveys under consideration. Home schoolers are not especially likely 
Home Schooling - Page 9 

to be young or old. They are about as likely to be of one sex or the other, with perhaps a slightly 

greater percentage female. In some ways, however, home-schoolers do stand out. Home 

schooled children are more likely to be non-Hispanic White, they are likely to live in households 

headed by a married couple with moderate to high levels of education and income, and are likely 

to live in a household with an adult not in the labor force. 

Table 3 shows these relationships in a multiple regression framework. This regression 

can’t be interpreted as causal, as they include several factors that are probably endogenous to the 

home-schooling decision (e.g., parental work status and household income). What can be seen, 

however, is the relative magnitude of different influences when taken together. Automatic model 

selection routines were used to develop a pared down regression equation because some 

coefficients were sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of other variables in the model. The 

initial set of variables included all those in Table 2, along with interactions of all variables with 

survey year. Two of the effects (the main effect of being Black, and the effect of father’s 

education) were retained even though they didn’t meet the cutoff criterion in the selection 

routine, because of their possible substantive importance. 

Most of the same variables that showed differences across home-school status in cross 

tabulations were also significant in the regression analysis. Sex was retained as marginally 

significant, age was not. It seems that girls are slightly more likely to be home schooled than 

boys. Household variables had stronger effects — family structure, mother’s education, father’s 

education, region of residence. The main effect of income was not significant. However, the 

square of income had a relatively strong effect. This indicates that the families most likely to 

home-school their children are of middle income — neither rich nor poor. Race and ethnicity 
Home Schooling - Page 10 

clearly had strong effects. Hispanics were less likely to be home schooled and Blacks were much 

less likely to be home schooled — especially in the two earlier years under study, 1994 and 1996. 

It seems that convergence between Blacks and Whites has taken place from 1994 to 1999, but the 

effect is marginally significant. We will have to await new rounds of surveys in order to see if 

this is a sustained trend. 

One of the strongest influences on home schooling from Table 3 is that of having a nonworking adult in the household. The coefficient of there being a non-working adult is large and 

highly significant. The cross-tabular results of Table 2 gave a hint that this relationship was 

diminishing across years, but the interaction with year was not significant in the multiple 

regression framework. However, the main effect of non-working remains. Sixty percent of 

home schooled children have a non-working adult in the home, compared with thirty percent of 

other children. If home schooling is limited to a particular subgroup, it is probably this one. 

A major issue arising from the association of home schooling with the presence of a nonworking adult is the possible limitations this presents to future growth. Although 40 percent of 

home-schoolers lived with working adults, at least one adult was in the labor force only part time 

in most cases (figures not shown). Fewer than 10 percent lived with two full-time working 

adults. If home schooling is primarily an activity undertaken by two-parent families with a nonworking parent, it could be a self-limiting phenomenon. However, even if home schooling does 

remain mainly within this group, it has not come close to exhausting its constituency. Seven and 

one-half million two-adult households have a non-working adult at home, and the number has 

remained stable in recent years, despite declines in previous decades. More broadly, of 36 

million women with children under 18, ten million do not work, and another 6.5 million work 
 

Home Schooling - Page 11 

part time (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2000). The number of home schooled children could 

grow from 790,000 to over 30 million without exhausting this core constituency. 

Is it possible that home schooling may spread beyond this core group of two-parent 

families with a parent at home? Must it also be limited to households where parents have 

moderate to high education? While it would seem that having a (well educated) parent at home 

would be a prerequisite for engaging in home schooling, this is not an absolute requirement. 

Many home school households have working adults and adults with low education. In all three 

surveys a small number of home-schooled children lived with a single parent or with two adults 

in the labor force full time. In addition, a small number had no adult in the home with a high 

school diploma. A follow-up question in the 1999 NHES on participation in regular school by 

home schoolers showed that many of the home-schooled children who lived with working adults 

were also attending school at least part of the time. Still, a portion of parents remained who 

seemed to be defying logic by schooling their children at home without being home themselves. 

Further exploration of these cases might turn up special circumstances (home businesses, odd 

working hours, cooperative instructional arrangements) that could provide an explanation. 

Alternatively, these families could be making use of Internet courseware or other technologies to 

avoid the need for direct instruction. Many advice books and curricula promise home education 

can be successful even when parents have little time or training for the job.3 

Geographic distribution 

One final way in which home school children differ from their peers is geographic 

location, as shown in Table 4. Home schoolers are more likely to be located geographically in 
Home Schooling - Page 12 

places that have been destinations for internal migration. Using a division of the country 

according to migration patterns developed by Frey (2000), home schoolers are seen to be located 

in rural and suburban areas of the West which have been the recipient of migration streams from 

California and other immigration gateway states. Many of these areas have experienced 

explosive population growth. Growth, however, is not the main feature of areas where homeschoolers are found. The correlation of growth rate and home schooling rate of geographic areas 

is positive but small (around 0.2). Looking at a scatterplot of the two (not shown) makes it 

evident that home schooling is not found in booming growth areas nor in areas of decline but in 

places with moderate to high rates of growth. Nonetheless, if a person wanted to make a case 

that home schooling is on a path towards further growth, it would not hurt to point out that it is 

prevalent in growing areas that are at the leading edge of one of the major changes in migration 

patterns of the last few decades. Home schooling is tied to a broad social trend that have not yet 

played itself out. 

Attitudes towards home schooling 

The 1996 and 1999 NHES asked parents their reasons for undertaking home schooling, 

with 16 possible responses. Several themes emerge from these responses. First is the issue of 

educational quality. The parents of one-half the home schoolers in these surveys were motivated 

by the idea that home education is better education. A large share also viewed the issue in terms 

of shortcomings of regular schools: the parents of 30 percent of home-schoolers felt the regular 

school had a poor learning environment, 14 percent objected to what the school teaches, and 

another 11 percent felt their children weren’t being challenged at school. Another theme had to 
Home Schooling - Page 13 

do with religion and morality. Religion was cited by 33 percent of parents and morality by 9 

percent. Practical considerations (transportation to school, the cost of private school) seemed of 

relatively minor importance. If attitudinal responses are to be believed, home schooling is not 

primarily a religious phenomenon, although religion is important. Families participating in home 

schooling do not cite cost as a barrier, even though one might presume that private schools could 

respond to their academic and moral concerns. 

Many discussions of home school as a phenomenon refers to two classes of home 

schoolers — those from families with religious motivations and those with primarily academic 

concerns (Dobson 2000, Lines 2000). To test this proposition, a latent class analysis was 

performed on the set of attitudinal questions listed above. The two class model, however, 

provided only marginally better fit to the data than the null model. The BIC criterion, 

traditionally used to evaluate the fit of such models (see Raftery 1997), favors the null (one class) 

model over the two class model. On the other hand, if weight is given to prior observations of 

two groups with two different sets of motivations, the two class model might be preferred. Table 

6 shows some of the characteristics of the two classes that emerge (using modal category 

extraction) from such a model. The first class of home schoolers contains 90 percent of the total, 

and resembles the smaller second class in all but a few attitudinal areas. Areas where there was a 

substantial difference between classes are shown in the bottom four rows of Table 6 (ranked from 

the largest to the smallest difference in odds of holding the attitude). The second, smaller class 

was more likely to name academic and other shortcomings of available schools, especially 

objections to what the school teaches, lack of challenge for the home-schooled child and poor 

learning environment. Religion was also likely to be named by the second, smaller class, 
Home Schooling - Page 14 

although the effect was smaller than with the academic attitudes. 

In summary, if there are two classes of home-schoolers, they differ mostly in terms of the 

degree to which they express negative attitudes towards the schools available to them now. No 

simple division exists between religiously-motivated and academically-motivated parents. Due 

to the small sample of home-schoolers available in the two NHES surveys, however, the 

evidence is still fragmentary on this point. 

Discussion and Conclusion 

Discussion 

Although the evidence on characteristics of home schoolers is still incomplete, it is 

important that we take account of these characteristics now, rather than waiting for further data 

collections to provide additional detail. Home schooling, despite being smaller and slowergrowing than claimed by advocates, is still an important emerging phenomenon. What it 

portends for our current system of schools is still unknown. 

Home schooling has emerged with, and indeed is linked to, other emerging educational 

trends — on-line education and other systems that allow families and individuals to choose their 

own educational paths (school vouchers, charter schools). At the same time, it flies in the face of 

trends towards educational standardization, such as national curricula and systems of assessment. 

Another type of standardization is resulting from establishment of increasingly detailed systems 

of occupational credentialing and licensure (Adelman 2000). These trends might not be easily 

reconciled. High stakes testing, especially, has come under strong attack from home-schooling 
Home Schooling - Page 15 

groups (see, for example, Home School Legal Defense Association 2000). 

The period of institutional flux now reigning in education may be derived from a 

breakdown in the traditional model of education designed with regimentation of instruction for 

students entering an industrializing world. Schools seem to have lost some of their legitimacy as 

they have lost a clear functional role in preparing youth for their role in the larger economic 

system (cf. Bowles and Gintis 1976, Dreeben 1968). Rather than representing a definite trend 

towards “individualizing” instruction, however, home schooling may represent an attempt by 

parents to reclaim a schooling process — to make schooling valuable in ways that are 

understandable to them through the cultural means at their disposal (Swidler 1986). This is not 

incompatible with Apple’s (2000) description of home schooling as part of “conservative 

modernization.” Yet home schooling may not be linked to a unified conservative agenda in quite 

the way he describes. There is a true tension between home educators and the school standards 

movement, just as there is between home schooling and the increasing demand by employers for 

occupationally-specific training and credentials. What these movements have in common is not a 

conservative agenda but an attempt by each sector with an interest in schooling to gain greater 

control over the system. 

It may be that home schoolers come to create their own, new schools, as predicted by Hill 

(2000). It may be that home schoolers remain independent. In either case, however, as home 

schooling grows, calls will continue for existing public schools to provide services that cannot be 

provided easily by home-school families themselves — such as advanced courses and 

extracurricular activities. A class of families will be allowed to pick and choose among school 

offerings. The pressures on schools that might result, in an environment with increasing 
 

Home Schooling - Page 16 

competition from other instructional providers, are easily envisioned. 

The alternative to accommodating home schoolers would involve political difficulties. 

First, home schoolers making no use of regular school facilities could not be counted on to 

provide political support for school funding. Second, the schools would lose an ally in fighting 

battles against standardization, test requirements and credentialing that make it increasingly 

difficult to provide a broad, general education to children. Dealing with home schoolers will 

require a difficult balance of competing claims. The success of traditional schools in dealing 

with the home-school phenomenon will depend on school leadership. 

Conclusion 

Although some of stronger claims about the extent of home schooling are probably 

overstated, the data examined in this paper show that it has established itself as an alternative to 

regular school for a small set of families, and is poised to continue its growth. In 1999 around 

790,000 children between the ages of 6 and 17 were being schooled at home, and in the late 

1990s the number was apparently growing. 

Home schoolers and their families were different from regular school attenders and their 

families, but the differences weren’t that large. Some of the distinctive characteristics of home 

schoolers seemed to be decreasing. Home schoolers were likely to be non-Hispanic White, but 

there was some evidence of fading racial differences over time. Some distinctive characteristics 

of home schoolers seemed not to be changing very rapidly, but the characteristics needn’t be 

thought of as limitations to future growth. Households with home-schooled children had 

moderate to high education and income and were located in the rural or suburban West. Home-
------------------------------------------------

Home Schooling - Page 17 

schoolers were likely to live with two adults, with one not in the labor force or working part time. 

We have just begun to see the emergence of home schooling as an important national 

phenomenon. Unless the needs of parents are met in different ways, it is likely that home 

schooling will have a large impact on the school as an institution in coming decades. 

Endnotes 

1. A search of the ERIC database for 1999 revealed 106 citations under “charter schools,” 

but only 47 under “home schooling.” 

2. Due to rules of disclosure limitation, there was no complete taxonomy of 

metropolitan/non-metropolitan status or urban/rural status in the CPS files. In this research a 

composite measure was created, using the three way central city, balance of MSA and 

Metropolitan classification if it was available. Otherwise, MSA size was used, with over 5 

million classified as “city” and under 100,000 or non-metro classified as non-metro. 

3. An example of this is the recent publication of a book entitled The Complete Idiot’s 

Guide to Home Schooling (Education Week 2001). Many curriculum providers advertise their 

wares on the Internet and appear at home schoolers’ conferences. 
Home Schooling - Page 18 

References 

Adelman, Clifford. 2000. A Parallel Postsecondary Universe: The Certification System in 

Information Technology. Washington, D.C.: Office of Educational Research and 

Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. 

Apple, Michael W. 2000. “The Cultural Politics of Home Schooling.” Peabody Journal of 

Education. 75(1&2):256-271. 

Bowles, Samuel & Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist America. Basic Books.
 

Carothers, Mary Lou. 2000. "Florida Home Education Programs, 1999-2000." In Florida
 

Department of Education: Statistical Brief. <http://www.firn.edu/doe/>.
 

Center for Education Reform. 2001. “Charter School Highlights and Statistics.” Web address: 

www.edreform.com/pubs/chglance.htm. 

Dobson, Linda. 2000. “A Brief History of American Homeschooling.” Online article 

www.geocities.com/homeschoolers_success_stories/part1.html 

Dreeben, Robert. 1968. On What is Learned in School. Addison-Wesley. 

Education Week. 2001. “Private Schools: Help at Home.” Education Week. April 11. 

Farris, Michael. 1997. The Future of Home Schooling: A New Direction for Home Education. 

Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc. 

Frey, William H. 2000. "Regional Shifts in America's Voting Aged Population: What do they 

mean for National Politics?" Population Studies Center Research Report 00-459. Ann 

Arbor, Mich: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. 

Gardner, Howard. 2000. “Paroxysms of Choice.” New York Review of Books. October 19. 
Home Schooling - Page 19 

Henke, Robin R., Phillip Kaufman, Broughman, and Kathryn Chandler. 2000. Estimating the 

Home Schooled Population in the United States. Technical Report (Draft). Washington, 

DC: National Center for Education Statistics. 

Hill, Paul T. 2000. "Home Schooling and the Future of Public Education." Peabody Journal of 

Education 75(1&2):20-31. 

Home School Legal Defense Association. 2001. “HSLDA News: Is this the Calm Before the 

Storm?” http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200104201.asp 

Jamieson, Amie, Andrea Curry and Gladys Martinez. 2001. School Enrollment in the United 

States, Social and Economic Characteristics: October 1999. Series P20-533. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. 

Lines, Patricia. 2000. “Homeschooling Comes of Age.” The Public Interest. (Summer):74-85. 

McDowell, Susan A. and Brian D. Ray. 2000. "The Home Education Movement in Context, 

Practice, and Theory: Editors Introduction." Peabody Journal of Education 75(1&2):1-7. 

Newburger, Eric C. and Andrea Curry. 2000. Educational Attainment in the United States 

(Update): March 2000. Series P20-536. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. 

Nolin, Mary Jo, Jill Montaquila, Jean Lennon, Brian Kleiner, Kwang Kim, Christopher 

Chapman, Kathryn Chandler, Sean Creighton, and Stacey Bielick. 2000. National 

Household Education Survey of 1999: Data File User's Manual, Volume I. Washington, 

D.C.:National Center for Education Statistics. 

Raftery, Adrian. 1995. “Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research.” In Sociological 

Methodology 1995. Peter V. Marsden, ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 111-164. 
Home Schooling - Page 20 

Rudner, Lawrence M. 1999. "Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home 

School Students in 1998." Educational Policy Analysis Archives 7 (8). 

<http://epaa.asu.edu>. 

Smith, Christian and David Sikkink. 1999. “Is Private Schooling Privatizing?” 

Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological 

Review. 51(2, Apr.):273-286. 

Trotter, Andrew. 1999. “For Profit Company to Offer High School Diploma over Internet.” 

Education Week. April 21. 

Trotter, Andrew. 2001. “Cyber Learning at Online High.” Education Week. January 24. 

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2000. “Distribution of families by type and labor force status of 

family members, 1940-2000” and “Employment status of women by presence and age of 

youngest child, March 1975-2000.” Unpublished tables. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau 

of Labor Statistics. 

U.S. Census Bureau. 2000. Current Population Survey Design and Methodology. Technical 

Paper 63. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau and U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Walsh, Mark. 2001. “Former Education Secretary Starts Online-Learning Venture.” Education 

Week. January 10. 

Welner, Kariane Mari and Kevin G. Welner <knemer@ucla.edu>. 1999. "Contextualizing 

Homeschooling Data: A Response to Rudner." Educational Policy Analysis Archives 7 

(13). <http://epaa.asu.edu>. 
 

Home Schooling - Page 21 

Table 1 

Estimates of the Number of U.S. Children
 

Schooled at Home: Current Population Survey and
 

National Household Education Surveys
 

Estimate Standard err. 

CPS 1994 356,000 40,000 

NHES 1996 636,000 54,000 

NHES 1999 791,000 62,000 
 

 

Home Schooling - Page 22 

Table 2
 

Characteristics of Home-Schooled Children and their Families 

Current Population Survey and National Household Education Surveys
 

1994 1996 1999 

Home Regular Home Regular Home Regular 

School School School School School School 

Age 

6-7 24.0 17.2 11.7 17.4 13.8 17.8 

8-10 30.6 25.6 25.9 25.6 26.1 25.0 

11-14 27.8 33.8 34.0 33.1 31.7 32.4 

15-17 17.5 23.4 28.5 24.0 28.4 24.9 

Sex 

Male 46.8 51.1 42.2 51.5 46.2 50.9 

Female 53.2 48.9 57.8 48.5 53.8 49.1 

Race, ethnicity 

White 91.9 67.6 86.8 67.7 75.8 64.8 

Black 2.8 15.9 2.2 15.6 8.8 16.1 

Hispanic 4.4 12.8 8.0 12.5 9.1 13.9 

Other 0.8 3.7 3.1 4.2 6.2 5.2 

Family structure 

Single parent 11.3 29.9 20.8 30.8 20.6 34.5 

Two parent 88.7 70.1 79.2 69.2 79.4 65.6 

Non-working parent 

Parents work 34.0 68.1 41.3 72.0 38.8 74.0 

Non-working parent 66.0 31.9 58.7 28.0 61.2 26.0 

Family income 

Up to 14,999 18.8 23.2 21.1 21.1 12.3 18.6 

15,000 to 29,999 14.9 20.4 26.9 22.6 25.7 21.3 

30,000 to 49,999 40.4 26.5 29.1 25.5 24.8 23.7 

50,000 or more 25.9 29.9 22.9 30.7 37.1 36.4 

Mother's education 

Less than h.s. 8.8 17.7 14.2 16.4 5.3 16.4 

High school 31.2 35.4 23.6 33.7 28.9 29.2 

Some college 37.9 28.9 40.5 28.3 34.3 29.9 

Bachelor's 19.3 12.9 17.5 15.1 22.5 16.3 

Advanced 2.9 5.1 4.2 6.5 9.0 8.1 
Home Schooling - Page 23 

Table 3 

Logistic Regression of Home-school Status 

on Background and Family Characteristics: Pooled 

Data from CPS and NHES 

Two-parent family 

Non-working parent 

Regression 

 Coefficient 

0.36 * 

1.47 * 

Standard 

error 

(0.18) 

(0.13) 

‘t’ 

 statistic 

2.0 

11.5 

Income squared 

Mother postsecondary educ. 

Father postsecondary educ. 

-0.19 * 

0.57 * 

0.33 

(0.04) 

(0.14) 

(0.17) 

-4.4 

4.1 

1.9 

Male 

Hispanic 

Black 

Black * 1994 

Black * 1996 

-0.25 * 

-0.90 * 

-0.39 

-1.55 * 

-1.67 * 

(0.12) 

(0.24) 

(0.35) 

(0.77) 

(0.79) 

-2.0 

-3.7 

-1.1 

-2.0 

-2.1 

West 

South 

0.51 * 

0.42 * 

(0.16) 

(0.15) 

3.2 

2.9 

1994 

Intercept 

-0.46 * 

-5.34 * 

(0.17) 

(0.22) 

-2.7 

-24.7 

Observations 

Null likelihood 

Residual likelihood 

Difference 

Model degrees of freedom 

55,204 

2936.7 

2660.3 

276.5 

13 

* Significant at the .05 level. 
 

Home Schooling - Page 24 

Table 4 

Estimated Percentage of Children Home Schooled 

by Geographic Location: CPS 1994 

Geographic 

Region 

Metropolitan 

Status 

Lower 

bound 

Point 

estimate 

Upper 

bound 

White gainers Non-metro 1.69 2.34 3.00 

White gainers Suburb 1.27 1.81 2.34 

Melting pots Non-metro 1.14 1.60 2.06 

Black&White City 0.44 1.00 1.56 

Black&White Suburb 0.68 0.98 1.28 

Slow growth Non-metro 0.60 0.80 0.99 

Slow growth Suburb 0.52 0.66 0.81 

Melting pots Suburb 0.48 0.62 0.76 

White gainers City 0.13 0.58 1.02 

Slow growth City 0.32 0.50 0.68 

Black&White Nonmetro 0.19 0.38 0.57 

Melting pots City 0.22 0.35 0.49 

Geographic Definitions 

Immigrant melting pots: 

California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, New York 

Mostly White gainers: 

Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, 

Nevada, Utah, Wyoming 

White and Black gainers: 

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Delaware, N 

Carolina, S Carolina, Virginia 

Slow growth/decliners: 

Louisiana, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New 

Hampshire, Vermont, D.C., Kentucky, Maryland, W Virginia, 

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, 

Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, N Dakota, S Dakota 
Home Schooling - Page 25 

Table 5 

Reasons Given by Parents for Choosing Home Schooling: 

1996 and 1999 Home Schooled Children: NHES Surveys

 Reason Percent

 Can give child better education at home 50.8 

 Religious reasons 33.0 

 Poor learning environment at school 29.8 

Other reasons 23.0 

Object to what school teaches 14.4 

 School does not challenge child 11.5 

 Family reasons 11.0 

Child has special needs/disability 9.0 

To develop character/morality 8.5 

Other problem with available public/private schools 6.2 

Student behavioral problems 5.3 

 Want private school but cannot afford it 3.4 

 Child has temporary illness 2.9 

 Parent's career 2.2 

Transportation/distance/convenience 1.9 

 Could not get into a desired school 1.3 

Table 6
 

Latent Class Analysis Results:
 

Characteristics of Two Classes of Parents with Different Patterns 

of Reasons Given for Choosing Home Schooling: NHES Surveys

 Class 1 Class 2 

Total percentage in class 90.3 9.7 

Object to what school teaches 9.1 60.2 

School does not challenge child 8.9 36.3 

Poor learning environment at school 25.3 64.8 

Religious reasons 30.9 59.8 
 

Home Schooling - Page 26 

September 13, 2001
 

POPULATION DIVISION WORKING PAPER SERIES
 

For copies of these working papers, please contact the
 

Statistical Information Staff, Population Division, Bureau of the
 

Census, Washington, DC 20233-8800 (301)457-2422/pop@census.gov
 

NO. 1 ­ "The Census Bureau Approach for Allocating 

International Migration to States, Counties, and 

Places: 1981-1991." David L. Word. October 1992. 

NO. 2 ­ "Geographic Coding of Administrative Records-­

Past Experience and Current Research." 

Douglas K.Sater. April 1993. 

NO. 3 ­ "Postcensal Population Estimates: States, Counties, 

and Places." John F. Long. August 1993. 

NO. 4 - "Evaluating the Passel-Word Spanish Surname List: 

1990 Decennial Census Post Enumeration Survey Results."

 R. Colby Perkins. August 1993. 

NO. 5 - "Evaluation of Postcensal County Estimates for the

 1980s." Sam T. Davis. March 1994. 

NO. 6 - "Metropolitan Growth and Expansion in the 1980s."

 Richard L. Forstall and James D. Fitzsimmons.

 April 1993. 

NO. 7 - "Geographic Coding of Administrative Records -- Current

 Research in ZIP/Sector-to-County Coding Process."

 Douglas K. Sater. June 1994. 

NO. 8 - "Illustrative Ranges of the Distribution of 

Undocumented Immigrants by State." Edward W. Fernandez 

and J. Gregory Robinson. October 1994. 

NO. 9 - "Estimates of Emigration of the Foreign-Born 

Population: 1980-l990." Bashir Ahmed and

 J. Gregory Robinson. December 1994. 

NO. 10 - "Estimation of the Annual Emigration of U.S. Born 

Persons by Using Foreign Censuses and Selected

 Administrative Data: Circa 1980."

 Edward W. Fernandez. January 1995. 
 

Home Schooling - Page 27 

NO. ll -	 "Using Analytic Techniques to Evaluate the 1990 Census


 Coverage of Young Hispanics." Edward Fernandez. 


May 1995.
 

NO. 12 - "Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas:
 

New Approaches to Geographical Definition."
 

Donald C. Dahmann and James D. Fitzsimmons.
 

October 1995.
 

NO. 13 - "Building a Spanish Surname List for the 1990's-­

A New Approach to An Old Problem."
 

David L. Word and R. Colby Perkins, Jr.
 

February 1996.
 

NO. 14 -	 "Fertility of American Men."
 

Amara Bachu. March 1996.
 

NO. 15 -	 "Comparisons of Selected Social and Economic 


Characteristics Between Asians, Hawaiians, Pacific 


Islanders, and American Indians (Including Alaskan 


Natives)." Edward W. Fernandez. June 1996.
 

NO. 16 - "Findings on Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin 


Tested in the 1996 National Content Survey." 


Prepared in the Population Division by the Racial 


Statistics Branch and the Ethnic and Hispanic 


Statistics Branch. December 1996.
 

NO. 17 - "Race and Ethnicity Classification Consistency Between 


the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health 


Statistics." Larry Sink. February 1997. 


NO. 18 -	 "Results of the 1996 Race and Ethnic Targeted Test." 


May 1997.
 

NO. 19 -	 "Who Responds/Who Doesn’t? Analyzing Variation in Mail
 

Response Rates During the 1990 Census." David L. Word. 


July 1997. 


No. 20 -	 "Trends in Marital Status of U.S. Women at First Birth:
 

1930 to 1994." Amara Bachu. March 1998.
 

No. 21 -	 "State Estimates of Organized Child Care Facilities."
 

Lynne Casper and Martin O’Connell. March 1998. 

 

Home Schooling - Page 28 

No. 22 -	 "How Well Does the Current Population Survey Measure 


the Foreign-Born Population in the United States"
 

Dianne Schmidley and J. Gregory Robinson. April 1998 


No. 23 -	 "Poverty, Family Structure, and Child Well-Being:


 Indicators from the SIPP." Jason Fields and 


Kristin Smith. April 1998
 

No. 24 -	 "Child Well-Being Indicators from the SIPP." 


Kristin Smith, Loretta Bass, and Jason Fields.


 April 1998
 

No. 25 -	 "Timing of First Births: 1930-34, 1990-94."


 Amara Bachu. May 1998
 

No. 26 -	 "Co-Resident Grandparents and Grandchildren: 


Grandparent Maintained Families." 


Lynne Casper and Ken Bryson


 May 1998
 

No. 27 -	 "Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban 


Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990." 


Campbell Gibson. June 1998
 

No. 28 -	 "Are There Differences in Voting Behavior Between 


Naturalized and Native-born Americans?"


 Loretta E. Bass and Lynne M. Casper. March 1999.
 

No. 29 -	 "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born 


Population of the United States: 1850-1990." 


Campbell J. Gibson. February 1999
 

No. 30 -	 "Direct Measures of Poverty as Indicators of Economic 


Need: Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program 


Participation." Kurt J. Bauman. November 1998
 

No. 31 -	 "American Community Survey and Intercensal Population 


Estimates: Where Are the Cross-roads?"


 Amy Symens. December 1998
 

No. 32 -	 "Women’s Labor Force Attachment Patterns and Maternity 


Leave: A Review of the Literature."


 Kristen Smith and Amara Bachu. January 1999 


No. 33 -	 "Evaluation of Relationship, Marital Status, and 


Grandparents Items on the Census 2000 Dress Rehearsal"


 Charles Clark and Jason Fields. April 1999.
 
 

 

Home Schooling - Page 29 

No. 34 -	 "Unbinding the Ties: Edit Effects of Marital Status on 


Same Gender Couples." Charles Clark and Jason Fields. 


April 1999.
 

No. 35 -	 "Racial-Ethnic and Gender Differences in Returns to 


Cohabitation and Marriage: Evidence from the Current 


Population Survey." Philip N. Cohen. May 1999.
 

No. 36 -	 "How Does POSSLQ Measure Up? Historical Estimates of 


Cohabitation." 


Lynne Casper, Philip N. Cohen, and Tavia Simmons. 


May 1999.
 

No. 37 -	 "Childlessness Among American Women On the Rise?".


 Amara Bachu. May 1999.
 

No. 38 -	 "Methodology and Assumptions for the Population 


Projections of the United States: 1999 to 2100" 


Frederick Hollman, Tammany Mulder, and


 Jeffrey Kallan. October 1999.
 

No. 39 -	 "What Do We Know About the Undercount of Children?"


 Kirsten K. West and J. Gregory Robinson. 


August 1999.
 

No. 40 -	 Canceled 


No. 41 -	 Canceled
 

No. 42 -	 "Measures of Help Available to Households in Need: 


Their Relationship to Well-Being, Welfare, and Work." 


Kurt Bauman and Barbara Downs. May 2000
 

No. 43 -	 "Have We Reached the Top? Educational Attainment 


Projections of the U.S. Population."


 Jennifer Cheeseman Day and Kurt Bauman


 May 2000
 

No. 44 -	 "The Emerging American Voter: An Examination of the 


Increase in the Black Vote in November 1998."


 Avalaura L. Gaither and Eric C. Newburger. June 2000
 

No. 45 -	 "An Analysis of State and County Population Changes by 


Characteristics: 1990-1999."


 Amy Symens Smith, Bashir Ahmed, and Larry Sink.


 November 2000.
 
Home Schooling - Page 30 

No. 46 - "The Effect of Work and Welfare on Living Conditions in
 

Single Parent Households." Kurt Bauman. August 2000.
 

No. 47 - "Projections of the Number of Households and Families in 


the United States: 1999 to 2025." 


Monique Oosse and Ching li Wang. Release Pending.
 

No. 48 - "Fertility in the United States: Is State-Level


 Fertility Converging to the National Level?" 


Laura Heaton. Release Pending. 


No. 49 – “Variation in State Morality over Time.”
 

Monica Oosse. Release Pending.
 

No. 50 - “Accuracy of the U.S. Census Bureau National Population


 Projection and Their Respective Components of Change.”


 Tammany Mulder. Release Pending.
 

No. 51 - “U.S. Census Bureau Measurement of Net International 


Migration to the United States: 1990 to 2000.”


 Tammany Mulder, Frederick Hollmann, Lisa Lollock, 


Rachel Cassidy, Joseph Costanzo, and Josephine Baker.


 Release Pending.
 

No. 52 - “At-Risk Conditions of U.S. School-Age Children.”


 Robert Kominski, Amie Jamieson, and Gladys Martinez. 


Release Pending.
 

No. 53 - “Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and 


Characteristics.” Kurt J. Bauman. August 2001.