Johns Hopkins researcher urges data-driven debate as homeschooling continues to grow
The researcher challenged common portrayals of homeschooling in public debates as a fringe, ideologically uniform practice, citing evidence of its continued growth and diverse participants.
Recent public debates about homeschooling have relied too heavily on stereotypes and should be grounded in data that reflect the range of families who homeschool and the varied outcomes their children experience, Johns Hopkins researcher Angela Watson argued in an Aug. 5 The Hill opinion piece.
Watson, an associate research professor and director of the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab, said commentators often overlook available evidence while portraying homeschooling as a “fringe practice” embraced by “one kind of family, one kind of politics, one kind of faith.”
She pointed specifically to a recent viral podcast episode in which podcaster Jennifer Welch and her co-host Angie Sullivan described homeschooling as a “huge problem” and “trickle-down stupidity” tied to Christian extremism and “MAGA.”
Disputing the claim that it is a “fringe practice,” Watson noted that about three million K-12 students in the U.S. are now homeschooled — making up roughly 6% of the total — and homeschool enrollment continues to grow at more than twice the annual rate recorded before COVID-19. She cited U.S. Census Bureau data showing that the share of homeschooled students had nearly doubled from its pre-pandemic level by the 2023-2024 school year. She argued that the trend “is not a pandemic hangover that is fading.”
Her lab’s review of state records found that homeschool enrollment grew by an average of 4.9% among reporting states during the 2024-2025 school year, compared with an average annual growth rate of about 2% before the pandemic. Eighty percent of reporting states recorded increases that year, while 36% reached their highest homeschool enrollment totals on record.
Watson also argued that homeschooling families are more racially, geographically, politically, and religiously diverse than common online portrayals suggest. Existing research has documented participation among black, Hispanic, rural, military, secular, and religious families whose reasons for homeschooling range from academic needs and greater scheduling flexibility to school safety and religious instruction.
Homeschooling parents, Watson said, largely resemble other parents in their values and demographics.
Homeschooling also does not necessarily mean children receive instruction solely from their parents at home. A nationally representative survey cited by Watson found that 88% of homeschooling parents used supplemental resources such as co-ops, online classes, or tutors. The survey — conducted through RAND’s American Life Panel — included more than 2,400 parents of K-12 students, 239 of whom said they were homeschooling at least one child.
Addressing the long-term outcomes of homeschooled children, Watson cited a 2025 study she co-authored using a nationally representative sample of adults ages 24 to 39. The research examined economic, civic, mental health, religious, and family outcomes among adults who had been homeschooled for different lengths of time as children.
The results varied considerably, which Watson said reflected the range of outcomes found in other educational settings. Short-term homeschoolers had educational attainment rates similar to adults who had never been homeschooled, while medium- and long-term homeschoolers were more likely to have ended their education with a high school diploma or an associate’s degree.
Long-term homeschoolers, however, reported the highest levels of optimism and life satisfaction and were least likely to report symptoms associated with anxiety and depression. They were also the most likely to believe in God and be married, had the lowest divorce rate, and had more children on average.
“The one-dimensional homeschooler simply does not exist in the data,” Watson wrote.
She said the research was not intended to endorse or condemn homeschooling but to describe the population more accurately.
“Some homeschooled students thrive; some struggle; most land somewhere in between — which is also true of students in every other educational setting,” Watson wrote. “Reasonable people can and should debate how homeschooling ought to be supported and regulated. But that debate is only useful if it starts from an accurate picture of who is actually doing it.”
She concluded by encouraging people to “resist the urge” to apply stereotypes about homeschoolers to debates prompted by viral controversies and instead consider available evidence.
Watson wrote, “The honest answer to who homeschools in America is a lot of different people, for a lot of different reasons, with a lot of different results.”
