Will Virginia Lead the Way on School Choice, Homeschooling? – Opinion

A silver lining of the COVID-19 epidemic is that more parents are choosing to use their rights when it comes time to educate their children. More Americans are choosing to homeschool, much to the dismay and confusion of leftists. They seem to think that their children belong to the government, not the parents. The number of Virginia homeschoolers has risen dramatically in the last few years.

The Washington Examiner reported:

The number of homeschoolers in Virginia has increased by nearly 40% since 2019, making up about 5% of Virginia’s total public school enrollment.

The Virginia Department of Education reports that there are approximately 62,000 Virginian homeschoolers. The 2020-2021 school-year saw a slight decline in this number, which was higher than the 65,500 who were homeschooled.

Andrea Cubelo McKay, President of the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers told Virginia Mercury that many parents decided to homeschool their children after experiencing “Zoom fatigue” amid the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders.

“When public schools moved online, many students experienced Zoom fatigue, failing grades and other trouble learning in a virtual environment. They wanted an alternative,” she explained. “At the same time, more parents were working from home, had flexible schedules or were furloughed from their jobs. That made them more available for home schooling.”

But it wasn’t just the convenience of homeschooling that appealed to parents; They were also concerned about the material being taught in the classroom. After realizing that teachers had infused their lessons with Critical Race Theory concepts (CRT), there was a backlash. Parents attended school board meetings to protest the extreme-left ideologies being taught to their children.

Last month, parents held a protest in front of the Loudoun County Public Schools administrative office’s building in which they placed 650 shoes nearby. This was a sign of increasing families who are looking to remove their children from public school.

“The children don’t belong to the state,” Yvonne Bunn, director of government affairs for the Home Educators Association of Virginia, or HEAV, said during a conversation with Virginia Mercury. “I think parents really want to impart their own values to their children — their values and beliefs and their own worldview. And that is a major reason parents are home schooling.”

This trend is also evident in other states.

It Topeka Capital-Journal reported:

Kansas is seeing thousands of parents opt to home-teach their children, despite being concerned about safety and resisting mask orders.

This shift is in response to the pandemic, which convinced many families that they were capable of handling the job.

Bert Moore was the Kansas Department of Education’s homeschool registrations manager. Journal that they “just had call after call after call” from parents wishing to homeschool their children.

The average school year sees approximately 1,400 families sign up for homeschooling. However, this number jumped to 5,527 in 2020. It is the Journal reported:

Experts believe that the surge in remote learning has encouraged record numbers of families and individuals to opt for homeschooling. Some want more flexible schedules or greater control over their children’s lessons. Some are unhappy with traditional education models or concerned about falling test scores.

Illinois saw an increase of homeschooling options. National Public Radio reported that enrollment in public schools has been declining year after year. NPR heard from researchers that parents delay pre-K or kindergarten enrollments. However, many more people are now choosing charter and private schools in addition to homeschooling.

Census data starting in March 2021 show that the number of homeschooling families has doubled in two years.

The first week (April 23 – May 5) of Phase I of the Household Pulse Survey saw 5.4% reporting homeschooling.

In the fall, 11.1% households had school-age children and reported that they homeschooled (Sept. 30 – Oct. 12). To ensure that households are reporting homeschooling, a clarification was made to the question about school enrollment.

This is an increase in 5.6 percent and nearly doubling the number of U.S. homes that homeschool at the beginning of 2020-2021 school years compared with the previous year.

This trend won’t likely slow down anytime soon. Due to waning COVID-19 concern, this might slow down the rate of increase. However, homeschooling has become a viable option for parents who are no longer concerned about the inappropriate teaching of material in their classrooms. It would not surprise if more families decide to take the plunge.

Quisha King, founder of the Mass Exodus movement and host of the “Quisha King Show”She predicted that there will be more people looking for other education options in the future. RedState was informed by her in a message.

Everyone hates COVID. I believe I can say this for all of us. However, the silver lining lies in the fact that we have learned a lot about our children’s experiences and how government schools are affecting public education. I believe we’ll see more parents move to take their children out of government-run schools, and reform public education. That’s what the Mass Exodus Movement is all about.

Surprisingly, this paradigm shift hasn’t been met with opposition from far-leftists, who believe that parents shouldn’t have any say over what their kids learn at school. This could be because not enough families are making the decision at this time to make an informed decision.

However, the truth is that Americans are increasingly accepting the idea that it should be parents who determine what and how their children learn. This won’t go over well with progressives in the future and it is not out of the realm of possibility that the issue will become one that figures into the upcoming midterm elections. Either way, one thing is clear: the overall debate over education isn’t dying down anytime soon.