Patrick Basham, Fraser Institute 2001
Home schooling, the leading form of education in North America during parts of the 19th century, is making a comeback in the 21st century. Home-schoolers today may make up as much as 3.4 percent of the school-aged population in the U.S. and 1.0 percent in Canada. This report, written by Cato Institute scholar Patrick Basham and published by the Fraser Institute, explores the recent surge of home schooling in the U.S. and Canada. (It should be noted, though, that Basham's estimates for U.S. home schooling are a lot higher than those recently published by the National Center for Education Statistics.) He describes the ideological and pedagogical factors that motivate American and Canadian parents to teach their children at home and he identifies interesting features of home schooling families. (In the U.S., for example, the fastest growing group of home-schoolers is Muslim Americans.) Basham finds that home schooled students - especially in the U.S. - are just as likely to be involved in social activities outside the home and more apt to succeed academically then their public school peers - all for a fraction of the cost of public education. To order a hard copy of this concise report, contact the Fraser Institute at 1770 Burrard Street, 4th Floor, Vancouver, B.C., V6J 3G7; phone 800-665-3558; or download one from http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/publications/pps/51/homeschool.pdf.