The numbers indicate that although many in academia continue to oppose and even ridicule homeschoolers, the movement is increasingly gaining acceptance among many segments of society. USA Today reported last year that in 1999, out of the entire population of school age children, a paltry 850,000 were being homeschooled. However, by the 2011-2012 school year that number had ballooned to 1.77 million, more than double the 1999 numbers.
Whereas federal numbers only cover up homeschooling numbers through 2012, the Florida Department of Education issued a more recent report showing that the state experienced its largest increase in homeschooling in the past five years. “The number of homeschooled children in Florida saw its biggest increase in five years during 2014-15. Last year, the state counted 84,096 children in home schooling, up 9.6 percent from a year earlier,” the report said.
Homeschooling has often been portrayed as something done by “fanatical Christians” or backwoods families who are white separatists, yet those who homeschool represent a broad cross-section of society as not just Christians, but even atheists, secularists and others increasingly embracing homeschooling. FULL REPORT
