Includes statistics from around the country detailing the number of homeschooled students. Also discusses the growth of homeschooling around the world.

Homeschooling is the education of school-aged children under their parents' general monitoring, and it replaces full-time attendance at a school campus. Some homeschooling children enroll part time at a campus-based school, or share instruction with other families, but most of their educational program is under the direct oversight of parents. While many activities take place in the home, parents often draw on their community, neighboring institutions, and travel opportunities to complete the program.

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

This article by American Psychological Association Monitor staff writer Bridget Murray, details how psychologists look at families that have chosen to school their children at home. It is a good example of the negative stereotypes and biases towards homeschoolers that can be found in mainstream society. This is a negative critical look at homeschooling, with a bias on looking at what is considered by the educational and medical establishment as the sheltered nature of homeschooling, perceived lack of exposure to diversity, and lack of participation in greater society. This attitude clearly contradicts the experiences, research, and results that the homeschooling community has seen for decades.

This quarterly, refereed, scholarly journal presents basic research on home- and family-based education in areas such as socialization, academic achievement, history, and law. This unique periodical keeps home educators, researchers, and others abreast of the most current factual and theoretical research information available on home education.

The Home Education Foundation has several reports detailing statistics on home education in America.

A new study from Concordia University and Mount Allison University has found that homeschooling -- as long as it's structured or follows a curriculum -- can provide kids with an academic edge. "Structured homeschooling may offer opportunities for academic performance beyond those typically experienced in public schools," says first author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia Department of Education, noting this is among the first nonpartisan studies to investigate home education versus public schooling.

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.

One way to examine how student, family, and household characteristics are related to homeschooling is to compare the characteristics of homeschooled students to different populations of students. This study provides a comparison of homeschoolers to non-homeschoolers, both public schooled students and private schooled students, by student, family, and household characteristics.

Most people who have never met a homeschooling family imagine that the kids are socially isolated. But some new research by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute suggests otherwise. Indeed, Ray's research helps to explain why the number of homeschoolers in America continues to grow. Ray reports the typical homeschooled child is involved in 5.2 social activities outside the home each week. These activities include afternoon and weekend programs with conventionally schooled kids, such as ballet classes, Little League teams, Scout troops, church groups and neighborhood play. They include midday field trips and cooperative learning programs organized by groups of homeschooling families. For example, some Washington, D.C., families run a homeschool drama troupe that performs at a local dinner theater. So, what most distinguishes a homeschooler's social life from that of a conventionally schooled child? Ray says homeschooled children tend to interact more with people of different ages.

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 Reason online magazine article discusses the number of homeschoolers, most popular reasons for homeschooling, how the general public views homeschoolers, and what the law says about home-schooling.

The best research on homeschooling indicates the total number of children who are homeschooled is 1.5 to 2 million, and that number is growing by 10 to 15 percent per year. But not everyone recognizes the academic and social success of homeschoolers and some criticize the movement as being white and elitist. While it's true that the large majority of homeschool children are white, the number of black homeschoolers is growing rapidly. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 black children being homeschooled today. Others estimate that black homeschoolers make up 5 percent of the total homeschool population. Most importantly black homeschool movement is growing at a faster rate than the general homeschool population.

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.

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.

Reports dating back to 1998. Information includes total registered home-based students by grade and by school district.

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, produces the world’s premier database of journal and non-journal education literature. The ERIC online system provides the public with a centralized ERIC Web site for searching the ERIC bibliographic database of more than 1.1 million citations going back to 1966. More than 107,000 full-text non-journal documents (issued 1993-2004), previously available through fee-based services only, are now available for free.

Although a credit or deduction could be helpful for homeschoolers, HSLDA opposes any tax break legislation that could come with governmental regulations. Homeschoolers have fought far too long and much too hard to throw off the chains of government regulation that hinder effective education and interfere with liberty. It would be inconsistent and foolhardy to accept tax incentives in exchange for government regulation. However, HSLDA supports tax credits that promote educational choice without threatening any regulation of homeschoolers. - See more at: http://nche.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200504150.asp#sthash.tvLv2ItR.dpuf

Families opt for homeschooling for various reasons, including worries about the school environment, dissatisfaction with academic instruction, and a desire for religious and moral guidance absent in traditional schools. The decentralized homeschooling population makes it challenging for researchers to pinpoint the precise impact on outcomes like academic achievement. Nevertheless, assessments reveal that homeschooled students excel in this academic setting.

This report, Homeschooling in the United States: 1999, presents an estimate of the number of homeschooled students, characteristics of homeschooled children and their families, parents' reasons for homeschooling, and public school support for homeschoolers. Major findings from the Parent-NHES:1999 indicate that in the spring of 1999, an estimated 850,000 students nationwide were being homeschooled. This amounts to 1.7 percent of U.S. students, ages 5 to 17, with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through grade 12. Four out of five homeschoolers were homeschooled only (82 percent) and one out of five homeschoolers were enrolled in public or private schools part time (18 percent). It also found that a greater percentage of homeschoolers compared to nonhomeschoolers were white, non-Hispanic in 1999—75 percent compared to 65 percent. At the same time, a smaller percentage of homeschoolers were black, non-Hispanic students and a smaller percentage were Hispanic students. Further, it was found that the household income of homeschoolers in 1999 was no different than nonhomeschoolers. However, parents of homeschoolers had higher levels of educational attainment than did parents of nonhomeschoolers.

Reviews a carefully done study that uses a matched-pair design. This research shows that students in structured homeschooling academically outperform conventional-school students, and there is no evidence that the difference is simply due to the family’s income or the mother’s educational attainment.