Houston Republic

The Houston area has become a major hub for home schooling as the number of families choosing to take a direct role in their children’s education saw a significant surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The U.S. Census Bureau reports the percentage of Texas students being home-schooled full time more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the share of households home-schooling students in the state jumping from 4.5% to 12.3%. The report noted that the Houston metro area saw an increase of 6.8 percentage points, from 4% to 10.8%.

In the 131st House District, represented by state Rep. Alma Allen (D-Houston), there was already a 275% increase in the number of students in grades 7 through 12 leaving the school system between 1997 and 2019, according to data from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). That translates into a year-over-year rate of 6.5%.

“There are a lot of home-schooling families there,” Stephen Howsley, a Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) spokesman, told Education Daily Wire. “We have one of our largest conventions each year in the Houston area. It draws a large crowd of home school families looking for curriculum and workshops.”

Allen, who is also a member of the Texas House of Representatives Education Committee, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the data.

The trend mirrors what has been happening in other districts around the state. Education Daily Wire reported recently that over a roughly 20-year period, withdrawals from public schools to home schooling in Texas rose 228%, while at the same time public school enrollment went up only 41%.

In the 2018-2019 school year alone, the number of students leaving Texas public schools to be home-schooled stood at nearly 23,000, according to the TEA. And the THSC expects the 2020 numbers to show that withdrawals from the public system to home schooling are continuing at a record-breaking pace, reports The Texan.

From 1999 to 2012, the home school rate in the U.S. doubled from 1.7% to 3.4%, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, and the majority of school withdrawals during the pandemic appear to be a result of increased home schooling.

“Every one of my counterparts [in neighboring districts] indicated they have seen a decline in enrollment, and the majority of it is home school,” Eric Runez, who leads the Madison, Wisconsin, DeForest Area School District, said in an Ed Week article about the move toward full-time home schooling during the pandemic.

Runez said that his school has seen some enrollment decline due to students moving to private schools, but that the majority of enrollment loss seems to be to home schooling. 

In Texas a strong home school preference has surfaced among parents during the pandemic, according to Education Daily Wire. 

“COVID-19 has contributed a lot, probably not just in Texas but nationwide, to home school numbers in general,” Howsley told Education Daily Wire. “We did see a lot of parents who just decided it would be better, whether that be for their child's safety or health or for the flexibility, to instead move to home school.”

Howsley said that the level of freedom afforded home schoolers in Texas in comparison to other states likely contributed to this development. The lack of strict home-schooling regulation appears to be an acknowledgement that no single method or approach works for everyone.

“A lot of people have realized over the years that a one-size-fits-all solution is not great when it comes to education,” Howsley said. “It really does vary based on each child and parents are looking for any possible way to make education more flexible, especially having multiple children.”