Military families homeschool their children at about twice the rate of the general population. About 12% of military kids are homeschooled, pointing to the many advantages of giving children continuity in a job given to frequent relocation.
Otherwise, the same issues that drive non-military parents to homeschool their kids apply, including academic quality, ideology, flexibility, and safety concerns.
Realizing this, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum in May directing subordinates to conduct a review of what their departments are doing to support homeschooling in the military.
"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."
Hegseth's memo was a follow-up to Donald Trump's Jan. 29 executive order, ordering the secretary 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 the COVID year of 2020-21, homeschooling nationwide shot up to 11%. That number fell back so that by 2023, it had settled at around 6%. But the number of military families who homeschooled their children continued to rise to its current 12% participation.
Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Homeschooling Hub wrote in March, "Frequent moves or family separation are driving factors in choosing homeschooling to stabilize and prioritize their family life."
It's not just those who relocate every few years when they deploy. The homeschooling trend is also apparent in National Guard and reserve families.
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.
Those "common values" oftentimes result in military parents butting heads with liberal school administrators over everything from curricula to gender studies. It's so much less stressful on a military parent already distressed over deployments and spouses serving in combat zones to chuck traditional schools and keep their children at home.
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"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."
That philosophy applies to both military and non-military families. The proof is in the cratering of enrollment in public schools. Public school enrollment has been falling nationwide. The data shows 87% of children were enrolled in public school in 2022, compared to almost 91% in 2012. Researchers predict that the number will drop by 2.7 million between 2022 and 2031, reaching 46.9 million.
People are voting with their feet. The support provided by the defense department to families with children, allowing them to educate their kids in whatever way they choose, should be emulated nationwide.
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