In response to COVID-19 requirements, controversial curricula, and other unpopular policies, many parents are exiting public schools and opting for school-choice options such as homeschooling.
As public schools opened for the fall, some states imposed mask mandates for those receiving in-person instruction, while others banned student masking. Scientific data are mixed on whether student masking prevents the spread of COVID-19.
In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study examining COVID-19 practices in Georgia public schools. Comparing schools that required students to wear masks and those that left it optional, the CDC found no statistically significant difference in COVID-19 levels.
In contrast, an October CDC study that looked at 520 counties around the United States found that counties with mask mandates for students had a lower rate of pediatric COVID than counties without mask mandates. However, the authors admitted their data had weaknesses.
Given the conflicting research, it is unsurprising some parents are rebelling.
In Iowa, a Des Moines-area school district recently imposed a mask mandate on students, setting off a parent revolt. One parent testified to the local school board that many parents would unenroll their children, saying, “We unenrolled our kids last year due to the hybrid part-time instruction decision and plan to do this again if you mandate masks without reasonable exemptions.”
For various reasons, parents across the U.S. are taking their children out of public schools. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools recently issued an analysis that examined data during the pandemic and found the “public schools, including district-run schools, lost more than 1.4 million students (a 3.3% loss from 2019-20 to 2020-21).”
The report noted the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics found that enrollment in public schools fell by the largest margin in at least two decades. Based on survey data, the report said, “A majority of parents want more options for their students following the pandemic and they have no plans to return to the way things were.”
For many of these parents, avoiding “the way things were” means homeschooling.
Kerry McDonald, senior education fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, has noted parents for and against masking are homeschooling their children depending on the policies of their states and school districts.
“School masking policies, whatever they are, will likely anger and upset some parents,” said McDonald, so the solution should be “parental choice and freedom.”
The U.S. Census Bureau found that from spring 2020 to fall 2020, the proportion of U.S. households homeschooling their children more than doubled from 5% to 11%, with the proportion of African American families homeschooling their children skyrocketing from 3% to 16% — a five-fold increase.
It is not just pandemic-related policies that are motivating parents to consider leaving public schools. Parents in school districts from Virginia to Missouri to California have opposed curricula informed by critical race theory, which Cornell University law professor William Jacobson defines as “a radical ideology that focuses on race as the key to understanding society, and objectifies people based on race.”
Warning against critical race theory, former Vanderbilt University law professor Carol Swain said schoolchildren “are being abused by their curriculum.”
Given the resistance of parents to schools’ controversial curricula, it comes as no surprise that a recent RealClear Opinion Research poll found 55% of those surveyed supported “vouchers for private or home schooling for families who disagree with the curriculum taught in their child’s school district.”
These trends show parents do not want top-down, one-size-fits-all policies pushed on them and their children. The rising support for school-choice options demonstrates that parents have had enough and are willing to take control of their children’s learning.
Lance Izumi is senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the 2021 book The Homeschool Boom: Pandemic, Policies, and Possibilities.
