What's Driving The Surge In Homeschooling?

Forbes

In 2019, before the pandemic, 3.7% of children aged 5 to 17 were schooled primarily at home either by parents or through virtual classes, up from 2% in 1999, according to a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, which attributes that increase in part to information technology making home instruction more feasible. The NCES doesn’t have more recent data yet, but an analysis by the Washington Post found the number of homeschooled children has surged 51% since the 2017-18 school year. Meanwhile, private school enrollment rose just 7% while public school enrollment declined 4%. The big spurt in homeschooling came during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years, when virtual classes and mask mandates were widespread. Since then, as public schools have returned to (more or less) normal, homeschooling numbers have dropped some, but held on to much of their pandemic era gains. Notably, some of the students who fled public school for home during the pandemic are now enrolling in microschools.  Emma Whitford, an education reporter for Forbes, joins ‘Forbes Talks’ to discuss the factors contributing to the surge in homeschooling.  0:00 Introduction 0:16 Emma Breaks Down How Much Homeschooling Has Grown In Recent Years 2:31 What Are Education Savings Accounts? 4:06 How Does Having An ESA Contribute To Curriculum At Home/Resources? 5:02 Micro Schools- Here's What You Need To Know 6:47 EdTech Industry, Where Are We Today? 7:37 How Online Learning Platforms Cater To Homeschooling  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2024/01/11/will-homeschooling-parents-save-edtech/?sh=3e60832c1d54  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hi everyone, I'm Rosemary Miller here with Emma Whitford,

00:06 an education reporter here at Forbes,

00:08 here to tell us about the surge in homeschooling.

00:12 Thank you so much for joining me today, Emma.

00:14 - Thanks so much for having me.

00:16 - Absolutely.

00:17 So Emma, could you tell us what are some of the factors

00:20 that have contributed to the surge in homeschooling?

00:22 - There was a lot of parents that were upset

00:27 with how schooling was going during the pandemic.

00:30 A lot of kids were sent home,

00:32 they had to do online schooling,

00:34 and that was very dissatisfying

00:35 and for a lot of students,

00:36 ineffective for their learning during that time.

00:39 So we did see a big surge in the number of families

00:42 that decided to homeschool children during the pandemic.

00:46 But even before that happened,

00:48 there was a growing trend towards homeschooling.

00:51 Parents either wanted to take greater control

00:54 of their child's cultural or religious education.

00:58 They may have wanted to create

01:00 a more individualized curriculum for their child.

01:03 Maybe they weren't being challenged at school,

01:05 or they were having too many difficulties at school.

01:09 And then we also saw parents turn to homeschooling

01:11 because of social factors,

01:14 like maybe their student was being bullied at school.

01:16 So there are a lot of reasons

01:18 why parents are deciding to teach their kids at home.

01:22 - I think about the social factor a lot

01:25 of kids are being bullied at school,

01:27 but doesn't school in a way

01:29 help you acclimate to the real world?

01:32 Just like engaging with people,

01:34 knowing how to deal with different personalities.

01:37 What are your thoughts on that?

01:39 - Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question

01:41 and something that a lot of parents grapple with

01:44 when making this decision.

01:46 There's obviously huge benefits to be had

01:49 when students are able to interact with each other

01:52 with their peers, with their teachers,

01:55 but there's also detriments for students

01:58 that are facing bullying every day.

02:00 So it's definitely a balance

02:02 and something that parents have to consider

02:04 on a case-by-case basis.

02:06 I do know that there are families

02:07 that will try and supplement that sort of social education

02:11 through other ways,

02:12 getting them involved in extracurriculars

02:15 where they can interact with kids their age,

02:17 and just getting them out into their communities,

02:19 even if they're not finding that

02:21 through going to school every day.

02:23 - That makes sense.

02:25 And at least they don't have to be a part

02:26 of the popularity contest at school.

02:29 - Definitely.

02:31 - Well, Emma, let's switch gears a little bit.

02:32 I wanna talk about ESAs.

02:34 Before we get too deep in that,

02:36 could you tell us just quickly, what is that?

02:38 - Yeah, so an ESA is an education savings account

02:42 or sometimes called an education scholarship account.

02:46 It's something that a growing number of states

02:48 are implementing, and it's essentially a chunk of money

02:52 paid for by taxpayers that is given to parents.

02:57 And those parents can spend it on a variety of things

03:01 that are deemed acceptable by the state.

03:03 It could be homeschooling expenses,

03:05 it could be private school tuition,

03:07 it could be additional tutoring services

03:10 for students that attend public school.

03:12 And it's essentially helping parents

03:15 take more control of their child's education.

03:18 - And how have ESAs evolved since 2020,

03:22 before the pandemic?

03:23 - They've gotten a lot more popular.

03:27 In 2020, there were four different ESA programs

03:30 that had been passed and only three were operating.

03:34 Now there are 13 states that have implemented ESA programs

03:39 and some of them have multiple programs.

03:41 They might have a universal scholarship

03:43 for all resident students and maybe a larger scholarship

03:48 for students with disabilities.

03:50 That's one way that you see those divided pretty frequently.

03:53 So it's becoming pretty popular

03:56 even in the last couple of years.

03:57 And looking ahead, there's a lot of legislation

04:01 that's being watched, bills being proposed

04:03 in even more states to implement ESAs.

04:06 - So how have ESAs been utilized by parents

04:09 to customize their children's homeschooling education?

04:13 - Yeah, so the parents that we talked to

04:17 have used ESAs to pay for things

04:20 like online schooling curriculums.

04:22 So maybe their child attends school at home,

04:26 but they do it completely virtually.

04:28 So in this case, the parent isn't necessarily the teacher.

04:31 They don't need to come up with a curriculum on their own,

04:33 but the student can still be doing their schooling at home.

04:37 So tuition for something like that

04:39 would be paid for with an ESA.

04:41 There are other parents that are sending their kids

04:43 to what are called micro schools,

04:46 and that can be paid for using an ESA.

04:49 So they can also sort of make a hodgepodge curriculum,

04:53 maybe pay for tutoring on one site

04:55 and a math curriculum on another.

04:57 And all of those expenses, if the state approves it,

05:00 can be paid for with an ESA.

05:02 - Okay, there are too many schools for me.

05:04 I have never heard of a micro school.

05:06 What is that, Emma?

05:08 - Yeah, that was new to me as well.

05:10 It's essentially like a one-room schoolhouse

05:14 where a dozen to two dozen kids show up.

05:18 There's a couple of teachers there,

05:20 but oftentimes the kids are working

05:22 on their own individualized curriculum.

05:25 And it's sort of the best of both worlds.

05:27 You have that in-person social aspect.

05:29 You've got other students around you

05:31 and teachers to help you,

05:32 but then you're able to work at your own pace

05:35 on your own curriculum.

05:37 So they're like exactly what the name entails,

05:39 tiny little micro schools.

05:43 - When did these become popular?

05:45 Once again, never heard of it.

05:46 You said you've never heard of it and you do education.

05:49 So when did this become popular?

05:51 - Yeah, I remember first reading about pods

05:56 that were popping up during the pandemic.

05:58 They were pretty informal.

05:59 It would usually be a group of families,

06:02 maybe neighbors that wanted to share the burden

06:05 of being to educate their children at home

06:08 when schools were shut down.

06:09 So they'd gather all the neighborhood kids

06:11 and maybe the parents would either take turns teaching

06:15 or they would hire a tutor or a teacher to come in

06:18 and teach those kids.

06:20 They've become more formalized.

06:22 There's an ed tech company based in Boston called KiPod.

06:27 They offer micro schools.

06:30 I think there's 19 different programs across the country.

06:33 So you can pay tuition to KiPod

06:35 and then send your child there

06:37 for three, four or five days a week.

06:39 And then they're also helping teachers

06:42 create their own micro schools.

06:43 So there might be a local program

06:45 that's being set up in your state.

06:48 - So as we're seeing, there is a decline in startup funding

06:51 and I'm wondering how is that affecting the ed tech industry?

06:55 - Yeah, so there was a big boom in ed tech funding

06:58 during the pandemic, reaching into the 20, 21 billion

07:02 in funding for those companies.

07:06 And we've seen that since decline.

07:08 I think it was a little over 3 billion in 2023,

07:13 which is still higher than what ed tech funding was

07:16 before the pandemic.

07:17 So that's notable, but there were also just so many

07:20 new ed tech companies popping up during the pandemic

07:23 in 2020, 2021.

07:25 So there's a lot more people competing for that funding.

07:28 So while I still think the industry is pretty healthy

07:33 and doing pretty well,

07:36 companies are just going to need to find new revenue,

07:39 new customers and ways to compete with each other.

07:42 - Well, Emma, can you delve into how online learning

07:46 platforms are adopting to cater to the homeschooling market?

07:49 - Yeah, there are quite a few platforms

07:54 that will sell now directly to parents.

07:57 So instead of needing to go through a private

08:01 or public school system to access a platform,

08:03 you can just buy a subscription, maybe monthly, yearly,

08:07 or on a per class basis.

08:09 So that's obviously a lot easier for parents to access

08:12 for their children.

08:14 And I think that companies that are interested

08:16 in getting their hands on some of these ESA dollars

08:19 are going to want to make sure that their product

08:22 is available for parents to purchase.

08:24 - Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Emma.

08:28 - Thanks so much for having me.

08:30 - For sure.

08:31 (silence)

08:33 (silence)

08:35 (silence)

08:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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