Texas Sees Surge in Kids Being Homeschooled

Years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Texas is seeing a rise in homeschooling, new census data shows.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, homeschooling grew from 2023 to 2024. Nationally, 4.3 million children have been homeschooled this year compared to just 3.7 million in 2023.

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However, not all states saw equal rates of homeschooling growth. Texas accounted for 6 percent of the total homeschool enrollment in 2024, up from 3.7 percent in 2023. Based on those numbers, the state sustained a 69 percent increase in homeschooling year-over-year.

That's in comparison to Florida, which actually saw a drop in homeschooling enrollment. California, another large state, only saw an uptick from 2.3 percent in 2023 to 3 percent in 2024.

Homeschooling, meanwhile, has become a more popular parenting choice in recent history for multiple reasons.

Many parents have expressed frustration in the past with the formal education system and want more control over the learning experience their child has. Still, in other scenarios, parents pull their kids out of traditional schooling and choose to homeschool because of bullying or safety concerns.

Children with learning disabilities might also find the typical public school environment less conducive to fostering a supportive learning education, and learning at home could be the better option, some parents say.

Even before the pandemic, the tides were turning toward homeschooling. In 2020, the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) found withdrawals from public school to homeschool had surged by a whopping 228 percent from 1997 through 2019.

Mimosa Jones Tunney, founder and president of the School House and the American Emergent Curriculum, said Texas' rise in homeschooling can be attributed to its general increase in population. Many families moving from New York or California were hesitant to enroll their kids in Texas public schools.

"People were looking for more than the private parochial schools that are the most popular offering in Texas," Jones Tunney told Newsweek. "Many who come from New York or California are not going to enroll their children in Texas public schools, which may appear less academically advanced than those on the coasts."

Several highly publicized school shootings could also be linked to the uptick in homeschooling, especially as Texas remains one of the states with the most relaxed gun laws.

In May 2022, 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and shot and killed 19 students and two teachers. It was the deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook killings in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

What homeschool looks like at home is also changing, a recent survey indicates.

Last year, a Washington Post survey found the number of dads taking over the responsibility of homeschooling their kids significantly climbed from 2019, going up from 5 to 40 percent in just four years.

The uptick was attributed to many factors, but frustration with public and private schools' handling of the coronavirus pandemic was a major one. In the same survey, 31 percent of parents said policies at local public schools were too strict, while 27 percent said they weren't strict enough when it came to masking or test requirements.

Before the pandemic, only 3 percent of American households homeschooled their kids, but that number had more than doubled by the time the 2020-21 school year rolled around, fueled by concerns over Zoom classes and social distancing.

"Many parents feel that the infiltration of screens, phones, agendas and poor curriculum choices have soiled the public school system," Jones Tunney said, adding that "300,000 teachers have left since COVID."

"And in our research, not a single elementary school in the United States has a full curriculum program, one that is interconnected and up to date that also includes social and emotional learning and classroom management in the curriculum itself," she said.

Update 6/11/24, 8:24 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comments from Mimosa Jones Tunney, founder and president of the School House and the American Emergent Curriculum.