Nearly 2 million children are homeschooled in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And their numbers are increasing at a much faster rate than the population of public schools. Parents offer many reasons for educating young people at home, from concerns about safety or instructional quality to the desire to offer religious instruction.
Still, homeschoolers account for only about 4% of students. It would be easy to forget that compulsory education, the requirement that all children attend school for some minimum number of years, is less than a century old in some states….