A very comprehensive article published by the Hoover Institute at Stanford University cites recent studies that have looked at several aspects of the growing trend of homeschooling in the United States. Statistics such as the number of children being homeschooled, why parents are opting for homeschooling, household income levels of homeschooled children as well as a breakdown of homeschoolers by ethnicity are accompanied by details on what homeschooling looks like in practice today–

“Home-schooling families of the 1980s and 1990s fell somewhere along a continuum of pedagogical practice bounded on the left with “unschooling,” a word coined by educator John Holt to describe the liberation of children from adult-imposed constraints on their learning. Unschoolers had no formal curriculum, no tests, grades, schedules, or benchmarks. Instead, children were free to do as they please with the parent serving largely as a facilitator of the child’s individual growth and development. On the righthand side of the continuum was the formal “school in a box” approach whereby a parent purchased a full year’s worth of textbooks, worksheets, tests, and assignments and attempted to reproduce in the home the same basic pedagogical strategies practiced in most schools.”

The article also looks at the role that virtual schools and online programs are playing to fan the homeschooling trend. All in all, this article is a very good read for parents who may be considering homeschooling for their children, or anyone who is just plain curious about this mode of education for children.