Nary a year seems to pass when someone doesn’t come after homeschooling with a standard basket of charges and rants. Roughly 6 percent of students in the United States, or somewhere between 3 and 4 million, choose homeschooling—and that number seems to be growing. As another academic year begins, we again find ourselves beset by a familiar set of actors wielding the well-worn tropes about who homeschools and why it is wrong.

Returning characters include The New York Times, which seems only interested in repeating the fallacy that homeschooling is the exclusive domain of conservative Christians. In January, the Times ran an article on why homeschooling conservative Christian moms were “flocking” to RFK Jr. More recently, the Times published an account in July of how homeschooling parents were concerned about the way in which public schools teach about human sexuality and evolution.

Another familiar face is Harvard Law School’s Elizabeth Bartholet. Her February article, published in the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, criticizes homeschooling as a way for backwards parents to teach their children “racism and fascism,” deprive their children “of any understanding of the views and values of the larger society,” and subject their children “to abuse and neglect.” We’ve heard—and rebutted—this tune before.

Yep, homeschooling’s foes continue to rely on myths and scaremongering tactics to deride a movement that is dynamic, diverse, and deserved.

Homeschooling is Dynamic

One element of the dynamism of modern homeschooling is the extent to which these families engage in “sector switching.” New research from Johns Hopkins University reveals that 80–90 percent of adults who were ever homeschooled used another sector, including traditional public schools, at some point in their education. Over half of these adults were homeschooled for only one to three years. This means most homeschooled adults were predominantly educated in more conventional environments.

Similarly, the report presents evidence of “sector mixing” within homeschooling households—that is, parents choosing different types of schooling for different siblings. Twenty-six percent of households homeschooling at least one child have another child enrolled in a different sector. This statistic puts homeschooling families more in line with public charter school families and conventional private school families, who also mix education sectors for their kids. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of traditional public school families—92 percent—exclusively choose traditional public schools for their kids.

Sector switching and mixing are not the behaviors one would expect of ideologues trying to deprive their children “of any understanding of the views and values of the larger society,” as Bartholet alleges. In fact, it suggests these families are exposed to a wide range of views and practices. Despite false stereotypes, homeschoolers are not a separate category of people; they are public schoolers, charter schoolers, and private schoolers, just like the larger society.

Even among those exclusively homeschooling, families are availing themselves of an array of practices and opportunities, adapting to the learning needs of each child as new resources become available. For example, The Washington Post recently highlighted the prevalence of supports such as microschools, co-ops, and online courses used by homeschooling families.

Taken together, the switching, mixing, and adapting provide evidence of a side of homeschooling that its foes rarely mention: families making practical choices to meet the needs of a particular child in a particular moment.

Homeschooling is Diverse

Families that homeschool reflect the broader population in demographic characteristics as well as religious and political points of view.

For example, our recent nationally representative study demonstrated how substantial proportions of Black and Hispanic families are increasingly choosing homeschooling, often to follow a curriculum they find to be more culturally relevant or to teach in their native language.  Similarly, more LGBTQ families are opting to homeschool. In fact, according to U.S. Census data, homeschooling parents are more likely to identify as sexual minorities than their peers using public or private schools.

These Census data provide many more insights into how diverse homeschooling families are. They represent a wide range of household incomes and, in this regard, most resemble public school families. For example, more than a quarter reported an annual household income of less than $50,000. Similarly, homeschooling is geographically diverse, with recent growth observed from coast to coast, in red states and blue states.

You’d never know from tired cliches about homeschooling, but the political and religious views of homeschooling families are also diverse. Politically, about a quarter of homeschooling parents identify as liberal Democrats. As for religious observance, 30 percent of homeschooling parents report never attending religious services at all.

Simply put, families who homeschool are not a monolith; they are diverse with equally diverse motivations.

Homeschooling is Deserved

Justice James Clark McReynolds, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), wrote that constitutionally guaranteed liberty must include the freedom “to acquire useful knowledge,” and that the work of educating the young “always has been regarded as useful and honorable, essential, indeed, to the public welfare.” Two years later, he delivered the opinion of the Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), famously penning the words that the “child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

Importantly for homeschooling, Meyer and Pierce laid the legal foundation for Wisconsin v. Yoder in 1972, in which the Court acknowledged the right of parents to homeschool their children. Since Yoder, states have created legal frameworks to affirm the right of parents to oversee and direct their children’s education, including at home. Thus, for the past half-century, homeschooling has been legally defensible and lawfully deserved in the United States.

Beyond the law, homeschooling has proven itself to be an effective way of training young minds. A 2022 survey of homeschooling families found that ideology (political or religious) as a reason for choosing homeschooling was in decline, and that more parents were choosing homeschooling out of concern for academic quality.

Students deserve options. They deserve not to be trapped in schools that fail to meet their individual needs. Many homeschoolers are students with special needs, gifted learners, or twice exceptional students, evidence that the flexibility homeschooling affords is better suited to their particular needs.

Students deserve to be safe. According to Bartholet, “Many [children] are being subjected to abuse and neglect, since homeschooling parents are free to raise them in the kind of isolation that enables and indeed breeds maltreatment.” Her logic implies that parents are naturally disposed towards maltreatment and that mandated reporters are more inclined toward the care and nurture of children.

According to the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey 2023, 83 percent of parents cited concern about the environment of other schools as an important reason for choosing homeschooling, and 28 percent of that group said it was the most important reason. Parents choose homeschooling not to isolate and neglect their children but because they are concerned that the available schools are unsafe.

We all want children to be safe. But those who believe that schools are the safest places for children likely don’t have school-age children. The vast majority of parents—and especially Black and Brown parents—have realistic concerns about safety in brick-and-mortar schools.

Concluding Thoughts

Homeschooling’s foes cannot have it both ways, where it is both a threat for being “fast ballooning and politically forceful,” and yet so fringe that we can demand it conform to “the views and values of larger society.”

Ironically, many of the regulations critics propose to constrain homeschooling would create the conditions that concern them. For example, on the assumption that parents are unfit to teach their children, opponents demand they possess several qualifications, such as a minimum education level, to become a home educator. Yet such regulations would create a self-fulfilling prophecy, raising barriers to entry, narrowing the homeschooling population, and making it difficult for a more diverse range of families to participate.

Fortunately, there are many low-cost, light-lift policy options. Concerned about parental fitness to educate? Make school curricula freely available for homeschooling parents to use. Many districts already do this, and a handful of states have passed policies that require this form of access. Concerned about whether homeschooled children are learning? Immediately make all state tests freely available to homeschooling families with no strings (like reporting results to the state) attached. Concerned that homeschooled students are less likely to attend college? Provide access to college entrance exams or to college counseling at the local public school or public library. Concerned about isolation? Make public schools’ core courses, electives, and extracurriculars available to homeschooling families on an a la carte basis.

May this be the year we resolve the exaggerated and fallacious claims leveled against homeschooling and instead focus on facts and productive policy solutions.

Angela R. Watson is assistant research professor and director of the Homeschool Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Matthew H. Lee is clinical assistant professor and director of the Education Choice Research Lab at Kennesaw State University.