Love this post. Would love to view the racial breakdown. My wife and I are African American, Christian, and chose to homeschool our four kids (all adults now) for non-religious reasons. If I had to place them, from a political standpoint, I would say 1 is conservative, 2 are progressive, and the youngest “couldn’t care less” lol. From a social standpoint, they are all, for the most part, fairly well adjusted. One suffers from anxiety, so they have a small circle of friends. They all have their quirks, which I believe is a byproduct of homeschooling, but otherwise they are all pretty “normal”.
Bobby I'm curious if you found a significant community of African American homeschoolers when you were doing it? If so, how would you describe that community?
I only know one family who fit this criteria, and would consider them socially conservative democrats.
So it would be interesting to see the views of kids who WERE homeschooled and then grew up. Many of us who were sheltered homeschoolers in the 90s would have told you we were conservative and religious in our 20s but now in our 40s many of our views have changed and become our own.
I had exactly the same question about the religious affiliation. Now in my 30s I know as many former homeschoolers who have rejected their faith as have kept it.
I'd love to see the racial demographics data of this sample. My wife works with homeschoolers, most of whom are minorities, who's parents pulled them from public schools because they don't trust GOP meddling in our education system. We live in blood-red Tennessee.
I’m kind of shocked by these numbers and it makes me wonder what the definitions are.
“Public magnet” to me means schools specializing in the top 1% of IQ, usually with a stem focus. Overwhelmingly Asian with Jews and other model minorities making up the rest. The one I attended one of these and it was only 5% or so non-Jewish white. The same pattern holds for similar schools I know in other parts of the country.
Sure. It's a cooperative group of about 20 families. As I said, the majority of the group (I'd say about 95%) of the students are either African-American or mixed race. Basically, they coordinate with each other to share resources and create opportunities for the students. The group contracted my wife's educational services company to provide a hybrid homeschool class (which she had done with some other homeschoolers).
The discomfort with the current public school environment for many came from the way history was being taught in public schools. They feel like the treatment of black people throughout American history is being de-emphasized. It's become much harder to teach about slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights era in public schools because of GOP policy regarding history lessons.
The state has also been attempting to shift funding to charter schools run by Hillsdale College, which teach a decidedly Christian nationalist curriculum. All of the families in the homeschool group are Christian families, but not in the way that they support any sort of nationalist narrative.
To put it simply, they've seen a decidedly white Christian nationalist narrative enter into the public schools, and they're very uncomfortable being minorities in that environment and having the experiences of their communities minimized. Some are also uncomfortable with the push to allow public school faculty to carry guns, a policy that the GOP cooked up in response to the Covenant School shooting.
That's fascinating. My area is opposite politically, and more and more people are homeschooling to escape the leftward indoctrination.
Here, most of the African American Christian parents wanting to avoid that are sending their kids to to private charter schools. I could see why that wouldn't be an option your area.
My two oldest grandsons were homeschooled K-12 grades. The oldest did take calculus his senior year at a local two-year college. Both of them went to Hillsdale College, with the oldest graduating with a BS in physics last May. He is now in a P.D program in physics at the University of Hawaii. The younger of the two is a junior at Hillsdale. He is a religion major and will likely go to seminary when he graduates. Both are quite conservative and are members of the PCA, although while at Hillsdale they went to an OPC church. The younger one still goes to it. I did not realize that Hillsdale had the highest percentage of homeschooled students, but it doesn’t surprise me. It is an excellent college.
One of the trickiest parts of all these data are that a sizable proportion of homeschooled children don't homeschool all the way through high school, so the surveys that look only at high school attendance are dramatically underrepresenting the homeschooled sample. If they asked students whether they'd been homeschooled at any point, the numbers would go up a good bit, and I'm betting that would impact the overall numbers across the board—for instance, some of the most conservative students from public high schools were probably homeschooled through at least a portion of primary school.
The part that I find interesting is that students from public, charter, and (non-parochial) private schools aren't really all that different -- public school kids being more likely to be "none" seems more like a reflection of public school kids likely to be comparatively poorer on average. Magnet-school students are likely as self-selected (by parents, anyway) as both parochial and homeschooled students, though in the other direction.
Oh, that definitely plays a role. But even within a metro area, the kind of parents who would rather stay in the city and get their kids into a magnet are a different breed in a lot of ways than the ones who move out to the suburbs, even when you control for Christianity.
Then again, the "Christian inner-city magnet school parents" tend to be the stereotypical upper-income mainline Protestants.
"31% of Christian homeschoolers said they were liberal. I don’t know if I’ve met a whole lot of this group, though. They don’t seem to be very loud about these positions."
I fit this description, being a left-of-center Christian homeschooling family. We know a handful of other liberal Christian homeschool families, though I would say that our reasons for homeschooling are all over the map.
I wrote something on homeschooling two years ago at which time I interviewed the promoters of the two largest homeschool convention organizations in the country, Great Homeschool Conventions and Teach Them Diligently. The GHC guy said that he had the number of homeschoolers, based on convention attendance, at about 10 million nationally or THREE TIMES higher than these estimates. But the fellow who ran TTD said it was much higher, as he looked at public school records that showed LOTS of homeschool kids on their "rolls," but who only came for one art, music or special class and/or sports, which the homeschools didn't have. Public schools counted them on the rolls for more $ but they were def homeschooled. He put the number at 20 million, or SIX times what you have here.
Yeah, and I suspect there's been more of a movement in areas where schools stayed closed for longer -- if the kids were going to Zoom school anyway, a lot of parents probably figured they'd do just as well if not better in homeschool.
At least when I was a kid, intermittent homeschoolers were more of a thing than people realize, too -- for instance, kids whose parents otherwise would have put them in a Christian school but couldn't find one nearby (or couldn't get in/couldn't afford it), or parents who considered a specific public school their kids were zoned for to be not good enough but dropped their opposition after moving to a neighborhood with better public schools. Or people who just lived too damn far from the nearest public school. Or people who homeschooled in younger years but wanted their kids to play high school sports. Et cetera, et cetera. Not every homeschooler is committed to it is the point.
I wrote textbooks for BJU Press back in the mid 1980's and interacted a lot with the homeschool movement. It would be interesting to see how their senior high level students rank on national test scores. I have encountered many who went through A Beka books who are math illiterate except for basic math skills. Reasoning is low. Homeschoolers who did the ACE self-paced curriculum are even worse off. I have met high-end homeschool families who devote time and resources to a good education (One family had the kids build a footbridge over a stream, including calculations for load bearing stresses and all the rest.)
I suspect that run-of-the-mill homeschool units do OK. But I also suspect that homeschooling, at least the religious side of it, produces young adults who are seriously, inadequately educated.
And I have perceived that a lot of homeschooled kids from religious families leave the faith as adults. In a lot of cases this comes from having suffered unreported abuse, or because their parents are just nuts. Sorry. I am a devout Christian. But yes, there are nuts out there!
I'd be willing to bet that the data here is skewed measurably left by the fact that all the respondents are in college, which tends to be a more liberal environment.
The public magnet profile matches my own experience working at such a school. In urban areas, such magnet schools often appeal to parents who want an out from the regular classroom (but don't want to go to a charter). This community skews a bit more liberal.
I’d be interested in controlling for religiosity, not just using attendance as a proxy for it. They could be going to church every week because it wasn’t an option in their house (meanwhile they were smoking weed with the pastor’s kid during the sermon).
I was surprised by the relative homogeneity of the political positions. It seems to reflect the actual national climate, that we’re all clustered in the middle but think we’ve migrated to poles.
Much more ideological diversity among home schooled Christian College students than I would have predicted. Would love to see how this plays out by institution, although the numbers would get small and variances would go way up.
Love this post. Would love to view the racial breakdown. My wife and I are African American, Christian, and chose to homeschool our four kids (all adults now) for non-religious reasons. If I had to place them, from a political standpoint, I would say 1 is conservative, 2 are progressive, and the youngest “couldn’t care less” lol. From a social standpoint, they are all, for the most part, fairly well adjusted. One suffers from anxiety, so they have a small circle of friends. They all have their quirks, which I believe is a byproduct of homeschooling, but otherwise they are all pretty “normal”.
https://i.imgur.com/GONaRTf.png <- Racial Breakdown.
White: 51%
Black: 6%
Hispanic: 10%
Asian: 12%
Two or more races: 8%
Thank you for sharing that, Bobby!
Bobby I'm curious if you found a significant community of African American homeschoolers when you were doing it? If so, how would you describe that community?
I only know one family who fit this criteria, and would consider them socially conservative democrats.
So it would be interesting to see the views of kids who WERE homeschooled and then grew up. Many of us who were sheltered homeschoolers in the 90s would have told you we were conservative and religious in our 20s but now in our 40s many of our views have changed and become our own.
I had exactly the same question about the religious affiliation. Now in my 30s I know as many former homeschoolers who have rejected their faith as have kept it.
A 50% loss during the time of greatest falling away is actually significantly better than otherwise
I'd love to see the racial demographics data of this sample. My wife works with homeschoolers, most of whom are minorities, who's parents pulled them from public schools because they don't trust GOP meddling in our education system. We live in blood-red Tennessee.
https://i.imgur.com/GONaRTf.png <- Racial Breakdown.
White: 51%
Black: 6%
Hispanic: 10%
Asian: 12%
Two or more races: 8%
I’m kind of shocked by these numbers and it makes me wonder what the definitions are.
“Public magnet” to me means schools specializing in the top 1% of IQ, usually with a stem focus. Overwhelmingly Asian with Jews and other model minorities making up the rest. The one I attended one of these and it was only 5% or so non-Jewish white. The same pattern holds for similar schools I know in other parts of the country.
Wow, interesting! Thank you for sharing that, Ryan!
👍
I'd love to hear more about how that community functions and how it things about things if you're comfortable sharing.
Sure. It's a cooperative group of about 20 families. As I said, the majority of the group (I'd say about 95%) of the students are either African-American or mixed race. Basically, they coordinate with each other to share resources and create opportunities for the students. The group contracted my wife's educational services company to provide a hybrid homeschool class (which she had done with some other homeschoolers).
The discomfort with the current public school environment for many came from the way history was being taught in public schools. They feel like the treatment of black people throughout American history is being de-emphasized. It's become much harder to teach about slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights era in public schools because of GOP policy regarding history lessons.
The state has also been attempting to shift funding to charter schools run by Hillsdale College, which teach a decidedly Christian nationalist curriculum. All of the families in the homeschool group are Christian families, but not in the way that they support any sort of nationalist narrative.
To put it simply, they've seen a decidedly white Christian nationalist narrative enter into the public schools, and they're very uncomfortable being minorities in that environment and having the experiences of their communities minimized. Some are also uncomfortable with the push to allow public school faculty to carry guns, a policy that the GOP cooked up in response to the Covenant School shooting.
That's fascinating. My area is opposite politically, and more and more people are homeschooling to escape the leftward indoctrination.
Here, most of the African American Christian parents wanting to avoid that are sending their kids to to private charter schools. I could see why that wouldn't be an option your area.
Education becoming a political football really only hurt the kids.
My two oldest grandsons were homeschooled K-12 grades. The oldest did take calculus his senior year at a local two-year college. Both of them went to Hillsdale College, with the oldest graduating with a BS in physics last May. He is now in a P.D program in physics at the University of Hawaii. The younger of the two is a junior at Hillsdale. He is a religion major and will likely go to seminary when he graduates. Both are quite conservative and are members of the PCA, although while at Hillsdale they went to an OPC church. The younger one still goes to it. I did not realize that Hillsdale had the highest percentage of homeschooled students, but it doesn’t surprise me. It is an excellent college.
One of the trickiest parts of all these data are that a sizable proportion of homeschooled children don't homeschool all the way through high school, so the surveys that look only at high school attendance are dramatically underrepresenting the homeschooled sample. If they asked students whether they'd been homeschooled at any point, the numbers would go up a good bit, and I'm betting that would impact the overall numbers across the board—for instance, some of the most conservative students from public high schools were probably homeschooled through at least a portion of primary school.
The part that I find interesting is that students from public, charter, and (non-parochial) private schools aren't really all that different -- public school kids being more likely to be "none" seems more like a reflection of public school kids likely to be comparatively poorer on average. Magnet-school students are likely as self-selected (by parents, anyway) as both parochial and homeschooled students, though in the other direction.
I'm only familiar with magnet schools as an urban phenomenon.
Oh, that definitely plays a role. But even within a metro area, the kind of parents who would rather stay in the city and get their kids into a magnet are a different breed in a lot of ways than the ones who move out to the suburbs, even when you control for Christianity.
Then again, the "Christian inner-city magnet school parents" tend to be the stereotypical upper-income mainline Protestants.
"31% of Christian homeschoolers said they were liberal. I don’t know if I’ve met a whole lot of this group, though. They don’t seem to be very loud about these positions."
I fit this description, being a left-of-center Christian homeschooling family. We know a handful of other liberal Christian homeschool families, though I would say that our reasons for homeschooling are all over the map.
I sort of assume the liberal Christian homeschoolers aren't nearly as loud about at least one of these facts about themselves.
I wrote something on homeschooling two years ago at which time I interviewed the promoters of the two largest homeschool convention organizations in the country, Great Homeschool Conventions and Teach Them Diligently. The GHC guy said that he had the number of homeschoolers, based on convention attendance, at about 10 million nationally or THREE TIMES higher than these estimates. But the fellow who ran TTD said it was much higher, as he looked at public school records that showed LOTS of homeschool kids on their "rolls," but who only came for one art, music or special class and/or sports, which the homeschools didn't have. Public schools counted them on the rolls for more $ but they were def homeschooled. He put the number at 20 million, or SIX times what you have here.
This could partly be a timing issue. In my area homeschooling exploded during Covid. Most of those kids have not yet reached college.
Yeah, and I suspect there's been more of a movement in areas where schools stayed closed for longer -- if the kids were going to Zoom school anyway, a lot of parents probably figured they'd do just as well if not better in homeschool.
At least when I was a kid, intermittent homeschoolers were more of a thing than people realize, too -- for instance, kids whose parents otherwise would have put them in a Christian school but couldn't find one nearby (or couldn't get in/couldn't afford it), or parents who considered a specific public school their kids were zoned for to be not good enough but dropped their opposition after moving to a neighborhood with better public schools. Or people who just lived too damn far from the nearest public school. Or people who homeschooled in younger years but wanted their kids to play high school sports. Et cetera, et cetera. Not every homeschooler is committed to it is the point.
I wrote textbooks for BJU Press back in the mid 1980's and interacted a lot with the homeschool movement. It would be interesting to see how their senior high level students rank on national test scores. I have encountered many who went through A Beka books who are math illiterate except for basic math skills. Reasoning is low. Homeschoolers who did the ACE self-paced curriculum are even worse off. I have met high-end homeschool families who devote time and resources to a good education (One family had the kids build a footbridge over a stream, including calculations for load bearing stresses and all the rest.)
I suspect that run-of-the-mill homeschool units do OK. But I also suspect that homeschooling, at least the religious side of it, produces young adults who are seriously, inadequately educated.
And I have perceived that a lot of homeschooled kids from religious families leave the faith as adults. In a lot of cases this comes from having suffered unreported abuse, or because their parents are just nuts. Sorry. I am a devout Christian. But yes, there are nuts out there!
I'd be willing to bet that the data here is skewed measurably left by the fact that all the respondents are in college, which tends to be a more liberal environment.
The public magnet profile matches my own experience working at such a school. In urban areas, such magnet schools often appeal to parents who want an out from the regular classroom (but don't want to go to a charter). This community skews a bit more liberal.
This is fascinating data.
I’d be interested in controlling for religiosity, not just using attendance as a proxy for it. They could be going to church every week because it wasn’t an option in their house (meanwhile they were smoking weed with the pastor’s kid during the sermon).
I was surprised by the relative homogeneity of the political positions. It seems to reflect the actual national climate, that we’re all clustered in the middle but think we’ve migrated to poles.
Excellent work here.
Much more ideological diversity among home schooled Christian College students than I would have predicted. Would love to see how this plays out by institution, although the numbers would get small and variances would go way up.