Home schooling, not a present threat to public education, is nonetheless one of the forces that will change it. If the high estimates of the number of children in home schools (1.2 million) is correct, then the home-schooling universe is larger than the New York City public school system and roughly the size of the Los Angeles and Chicago public school systems combined. Even if the real number of home schoolers is more like 500,000, less than the lowest current estimate, there are more children home schooling than in charter schools and public voucher programs combined.
Home schooling is not a new phenomenon. In colonial days families, including wealthy ones, educated their children at home, combining the efforts of parents, tutors, and older children. The rural one-room schoolhouse was created by families that banded together to hire a teacher who could substitute for parents but who would use the same mixture of direct instruction, tutoring, and mentoring by older students.
There is nothing un-American about home schooling. Home-schooling families are, however, breaking a pattern established since colonial times—education has been becoming increasingly institutionalized, formal, and removed from the family. How important is the contemporary home-schooling movement and what does it portend for American public education? No one can say for sure. It is difficult even to estimate the numbers of children being schooled at home, and evidence about student learning and other outcomes is mostly anecdotal.