The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

This is an appendix table to the report Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth, Spring 1999. It provides an estimate of homeschooled children in 12 states and extrapolates that data out to a national percentage.

Homeschooling Grows Up is the largest research survey to date of adults who were home educated. Over the last decade, researchers, professionals, parents, the media, and many others have asked repeatedly: How do homeschooled students turn out? Can a homeschool graduate get into college or get a job? How do they fit into society? Are they good citizens? Are they happy? In 2003, HSLDA commissioned Dr. Brian D. Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, to conduct a study to answer these questions. The results of his research demonstrate that homeschoolers are succeeding.

This brief uses data from the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) to estimate the number of homeschooled students in the United States in 2003 and to discuss the reasons parents decide to homeschool their children. The brief also shows that the number of homeschoolers, and the proportion of the student population they represent, has increased since 1999.

A 2003 survey details and categorizes the reasons give for homeschooling their children. The reason most often cited was concern about the environment of other schools, followed by a desire to provide religious or moral instruction and dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools.

A summary look at research facts on homeschooling including: general facts and trends, reasons for home educating, academic performance, social, emotional, and psychological development, success in adulthood, and overall success.

This article features a summary of the NHERI study about home-school academic achievement.

African-Americans are joining the national home schooling community at larger and larger numbers every year. Following a nationwide trend, educating children at home is becoming a popular option for Black Americans as private school costs rise and the reputation of public schools grows worse. Read about the current movement of African-American homeschoolers.

Use this interactive model to examine how changes in the number of children currently being homeschooled, the percentage change of children being homeschooled, and the number of school-aged children effect the growth of homeschooling.

This report presents the results of the largest survey and testing program for students in home schools in 1998.

Many studies over the last few years have established the academic excellence of homeschooled children. Includes summaries of studies and state Department of Education statistics on homeschoolers.

Homeschooling was growing rapidly in the 1980s in the United States, after starting from a very small base.

This technical paper provides an estimate of the number of children in homeschooling. Of particular note is their estimate of the numbers of children with any type of homeschooling experience. Based on an estimate of an average turnover rate of 2 years, this study estimates that the number of children with some homeschooling experience, by age 18, would be around 6 to 12 percent of the population. The study also looks at the filing status of homeschoolers in various states and the possible under-estimation of non-filers.

Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contract, relies on indirect or proxy 'items'--efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we think valid inferences can be made about the student's performance at those valued challenges.

Home School Legal Defense Association has compiled research and statistics on homeschooling and other education topics. You'll find information about the number of homeschooled children in the country, the benefits and advantages of homeschooling, and more.

When it comes to homeschooling, two points are clear: The ranks of homeschoolers are steadily increasing, and there is a growing trend in forming partnerships between homeschooling families and public educators. This publication, by Patricia Lines, reports on the practices of states and school districts experimenting with such partnerships. Many homeschooling parents remain wary of public educators and institutions. Lines discusses these issues directly and offers information and suggestions about such programs. This link takes you to the Clearinghow on Educational Policy and Management, where you can purchase the entire study or simply read the foreword and introduction.

This is a survey sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, with a stated goal of being used by educators and by federal and state policy makers to address important issues facing the nation's schools: educational standards, high school course-taking patterns, dropping out of school, the education of the disadvantaged, the needs of language minority students, and the features of effective schools. We are including this link as an item of interest, to demonstrate what directions institutional survey writers are taking in their approach to homeschooling. In our opinion, it is a completely inadequate attempt to measure homeschooling demographics or success, focusing heavily on cultural notions of "socialization" and structured educational models. It is also invasive in terms of the amount of personal information required.

Explore some of the history of the homeschooling movement, why some parents choose to homeschool, the basics of homeschooling, and more. The article includes some homeschooling statistics and demographic information. Also included is a discussion of the influences of Dr. Raymond Moore and John Holt on the emerging homeschool movement.

Richard G. Medlin, a psychology professor at Stetson University, continues a line of inquiry he began in one of the landmark articles of the original 2000 Peabody Journal homeschooling special issue. Since that article he has published several pieces in the journal Home School Researcher, all of which find very positive results for homeschoolers’ social and academic development. In this piece his goal is to review research on homeschooler socialization that has appeared since his 2000 article.