Home schooling is often forgotten about in the political debate over school choice. There are good reasons for that here in New Mexico as (despite our State’s myriad educational problems, it is reasonable when it comes to home schooling regulations), ranked “B” in one recent report.
The home school community generally prefers to stay out of the limelight in Santa Fe unless politicians start regulating them heavily (even MLG has not attacked them so far).
But, as you can see below thanks to a recent story from the Washington Post in terms of growth home schooling is growing quickly thanks in part to the Pandemic. And, while numbers have fallen off a bit from the peak, numbers remain quite high.
Surprisingly, given New Mexico’s relatively light regulatory touch, New Mexico didn’t see a particularly large increase in the wake of COVID (see below). Nor is New Mexico a particular hotbed of home schooling (so far as the available data indicate).
I’m sure it’s also related to the constant political bickering about what should be taught in school and how students should be treated. Not to mention the fear parents have their schools can’t guarantee their safety anymore. Finally I don’t agree with the Rio
Grande Foundation completely but it’s hard to argue because we all can see in our with our own eyes that some of our public schools are badly underperforming. I wonder though how competent many of these parents are going to be teaching their students at home and how well their monitored to make sure they’re doing a great job. I don’t think generally homeschooling should be preferred if there’s an excellent Public School nearby.
You don’t have to wonder, just look at the test scores. Look back a few years to see consistency. The Christian Association of Parent Educators can point you in the right direction to get the data. They may even have the graphs. It may even be broken out by state.
By the way, how is New Mexico overall doing compared to the rest of the nation? In that context it doesn’t matter what the RGF says. Its a good thing there is a bottom to the graph.