According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), approximately 1.5 million children in the United States were home schooled in 2007, an increase of 74 percent since 1999. More and more people are choosing to home school their children, for a number of different reasons. Almost 3 percent of school-age children in the United States are home schooled.
More Focused Learning
According to the New York Times, the average class size in the United States is 23.1 for primary schools and 24.3 for secondary schools. Many parents feel their children don't receive the proper attention from teachers because of the large number of students in the traditional classroom setting, and instead they choose home schooling to give their children more focused teaching opportunities.
Customized Curriculum
In the traditional classroom environment, customizing the curriculum for each individual student is not feasible. Parents who home school are able to tailor lesson plans and overall instruction to their children, allowing them to get what they feel is a more focused and targeted education.
Religion and Values
According to a 2003 study by NCES, approximately 72 percent of home school parents decided to teach their children in the home in part in order to provide religious and/or moral instruction in their children's education. Some home school parents feel the public school setting does not allow for proper values-based teaching opportunities, and a home school education is an opportunity to teach their children about religious and moral principles.
Environment
According to the same NCES study, an overwhelming 86 percent of parents cited the environment in traditional school settings as a reason they chose to home school their child. Parents concerned about drugs, violence and sex in schools see home schooling as an opportunity to shelter their children from the peer pressure associated with these types of dangers.
Special Needs
A small, but significant, percentage of home schooling parents do so because their child has a learning or other type of disability. According to the NCES survey, 14 percent of home schooling parents chose to teach their children at home because of physical or mental health or other special needs, giving them the ability to provide one-on-one instruction that could be tailored to their individual child's needs and struggles. Even with many school districts providing resources for special-needs children, many parents feel their children benefit more from an at-home environment rather than the traditional public school setting.
