Growing Ranks of Military Homeschoolers Get Defense Department Support
Military families have long chosen homeschooling at twice the rate of the general population.
Last week, the Department of Defense ordered a review of the support it offers to military families that homeschool their children. DIY education is very popular among military personnel, who have long chosen homeschooling at roughly double the rate of the general population: 12 percent by the latest figures. They favor it for all the reasons parents have increasingly turned to directing their children's education, including academic quality, philosophy, flexibility, and safety concerns. For families subject to frequent relocation, homeschooling also provides kids with continuity. They may also see it as an effective way to escape fruitless battles over school policy and curricula.
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A Popular Option Gets Wider Support
"The Department is currently reviewing options to support expanding educational choice for military-connected families, as directed by [Executive Order] 14191," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a May memorandum. "Homeschooling offers an individualized approach for students and highlights the significant role parents play in the educational process. I hereby direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to conduct a Department-wide review of its current support for homeschooling military-connected families, as well as best practices, including the feasibility of providing facilities or access to other resources for those students."
The January 29 executive order from President Trump that Hegseth referenced directed him to "review any available mechanisms under which military-connected families may use funds from the Department of Defense to attend schools of their choice, including private, faith-based, or public charter schools."
In that order and elsewhere, the Trump administration signaled its commitment to school choice across the country. But choice is especially important to military families which, on average, relocate every two to three years. With traditional public schools and even private schools, that can entail a lot of social disruption as well as switching among classrooms teaching at different paces, with varying styles, and drawing from mismatched materials.
Double the Rate of the General Population
"To provide their children with more stability, military families are choosing to homeschool their children more frequently," Sarah Sicard of Task & Purpose, which serves the military community, reported of the results of the Blue Star Families annual lifestyle survey in 2015. "Of those polled with school-aged children, 7% indicate their children are homeschooled—more than double the number of children homeschooled among the general U.S. population."
By 2021, those figures had risen, with the Blue Star Families survey noting, "only 8% of active-duty family respondents with children eligible for K-12 education reported they homeschooled their oldest child during the 2019-2020 school year, but this number jumped to 13% who homeschooled their oldest child in the 2020-2021 school year."
Of course, 2020–2021 was the year of COVID-19, and homeschooling rose across the country—to as high as 11 percent among the general population, according to the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. Homeschooling levels declined as pandemic worries faded, but stabilized at 6 percent, or roughly double the pre–COVID rate. Military families remain even more devoted to DIY education.
"In 2023-2024, around 6% of U.S. families homeschooled a child compared to 12% of active-duty military families," Angela Watson wrote in March of this year for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Homeschooling Hub, of which she is director. "Frequent moves or family separation are driving factors in choosing homeschooling to stabilize and prioritize their family life."
Watson noted that on-base Department of Defense schools are generally considered to offer better education quality than most public schools—"however, the threat of frequent moves may offset the potential benefit of schools on military bases for some families."
National Guard and Reserve Families Share the Taste for DIY Education
But it can't all be about fears of the disruptions that come with relocation. Members of the National Guard and the reserves aren't subject to the same frequent transfers as active-duty military personnel, but they are also big fans of school choice.
"Homeschool participation rates among reserve and National Guard members rival their active-duty military peers," Watson added. "For example, while around 12% of active-duty military families reported homeschooling in 2023, so did 11% of their reserve and National Guard peers."
Watson didn't speculate about why National Guard and reserve families share active-duty families' taste for homeschooling despite having fewer worries about relocation and family separation. But it's likely that military personnel of all sorts share some common values and concerns that might drive them to make similar choices.
An Offramp From Classroom Battles?
Around the country in recent years, public schools have been consumed by battles between parents, teachers, and bureaucrats over politicized curriculum, public health policies, gender identity, and culture-war concerns.
"It feels as if every stakeholder—from school leaders to teachers, to parents, to students, to policymakers—is at odds," Lauraine Langreo commented last August for Education Week.
I've written before that school choice in general, and homeschooling in particular, provides an offramp for parents tired of fighting over what and how their kids should be taught. Why fight when you can pick what works for you and go your own way?
"When parents can choose where and how their children will be educated, they're no longer at the mercy of politicians and bureaucrats," the Cato Institute's Colleen Hroncich wrote in 2022. "That means they don't have to rely on political battles when it comes to education."
Military families are probably more likely than the general population to be at odds with ideological classroom trends and in shared ways. So, it's not surprising to see different segments of the military population taking an offramp from curriculum and cultural battles in favor of deciding their own children's educational paths.
Which is to say that military families probably exercise school choice options, especially homeschooling, for the same reasons as everybody else—just more so. They want good quality education in a stable environment, and they don't want to have to argue about it with people who have different views.