Houston Republic

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in Texas' industries, small businesses, media and social fields, and – perhaps most notably – the public school system.

Schools across the state report in-person enrollment numbers have slipped as parents continue to worry about their children's health and grow frustrated about certain aspects of the public school environment. Jeremy Newman, director of Public Policy at the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), told Houston Republic that enrollment in the state's traditional pubic school districts was down 4.74% in 2020.

"That's an increase of nearly a quarter-million students in Texas who chose alternative forms of education for this school year," Newman said. He feels that the two things families are longing for in their children's education are stability and flexibility, elements that were quickly lost when the COVID-19 pandemic set in. "The education system is currently in crisis and that is revealing some very deep inadequacies in the system."

The director explained this crisis is a large-scale version of those that individual families go through when circumstances or environments are suddenly altered. 

"That is why a significant portion of the families who have moved to alternative forms of education have indicated their intent to stay," Newman said. "They are realizing that homeschooling and other alternative forms of education offer solutions to problems they've been living with for a long time."

With homeschooling the fastest-growing method of education for several years, removing children from traditional public school has become a mainstream decision after families who went that route in 2020 have realized that, according to Newman, homeschooling offers solutions to problems originally thought unsolvable. Newman hopes that Texas public schools take the challenge of dropping enrollment and turn it into an opportunity by diversifying the ways that students can get an education. 

"Families want options," he said. "This moment can make or break public education for many families depending on whether the system can declutter and refocus on delivering a variety of options to families so that families can pick what actually works best for them."

According to a national poll by Federation for Children, the homeschooling trend isn't going away any time soon; 40% of registered voters said they were more likely to homeschool or virtually school their children after the pandemic than they were had the pandemic never occurred at all. 

"I think that we are about to see a complete reimagining of how education works because, having tasted new opportunities, families are demanding it," Newman said.