According to St. Louis University's PRiME Center (Policy Research in Missouri Education), at least 61,000 students are now being homeschooled – that is 6% of Missouri's students and roughly equal to the public-school enrollments of the state's two largest public school districts combined.
Steven Duvall, research director at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the figures mirror what is going on in a number of other states, and the reason for this post-pandemic rise in homeschooling is officially "unknown."
"It's not caused by COVID this time; there's other things going on," he notes. "We don't know what it is that's going on precisely that is driving those numbers up again."
Still, he recognizes that the main reason why parents choose homeschooling has not changed for a quarter of a century.
"For probably … 25 years now, the answer has most commonly been they're most concerned for safety – the bullying, the crime, and drugs being bought and sold in schools, and that type of thing," Duvall relays.
He adds that more families are comfortable with homeschooling, which in part accounts for the increase in numbers.
