Thousands of Arizona children are being homeschooled

We homeschool our kids and I am glad we do.  I have seen tremendous growth and a strong desire from my kids to pursue extra curricular activities including: dancing, youth groups, worship ministries, social parties which they plan and schedule.  We are affiliated on a personal level with several other homeschooling families and our kids have plenty of friends with which to develop social skills.  

Here is some more information about the popularity of homeschooling in Arizona.

The Strong Watchman

Original Article at: TucsonCitizen.com by Eugene Scott

For Stephanie Lovett, a Maricopa mother of four, there will be no back-to-school nights or parent-teacher conferences. She doesn’t need to purchase extra tissue boxes for the class or navigate through student drop-off traffic.

Lovett’s kids are quietly back in homeschooling.

In Arizona, an estimated 22,500 students are being homeschooled, including more than 9,300 in Maricopa County.

The growth has been dramatic.

In 1989, there were 750 homeschooled children in metro Phoenix, according to the Maricopa County Education Service Agency. That number peaked at 10,775 in 2005.

“A lot of families are second-generation homeschoolers,” said Carol Shippy, board member of Arizona Families for Home Education, one of the state’s largest homeschooling organizations. “We’re starting to see a lot of people that are grandparents that homeschooled with their kids who are now homeschooling.”

A major growth area in homeschooling is among high-school students – a group that typically leaves homeschooling for public and private schools.

“I think that it mostly hinges on the fact that the high-school-level curriculum is more challenging,” Shippy said.

Families that were once anxious about homeschooling during the high-school years are discovering new resources.

“There is no issue any longer with access to high-quality materials or information,” she said. “A financially challenged family can provide so much through the Internet and public libraries. Some excellent institutions are putting up lectures on YouTube.”

About 1.2 million youths are homeschooled nationally, said Luis Huerta, an education-policy professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“The latest numbers from the feds report that homeschooling has grown about 30 percent in the last 10 years,” he said. “That’s pretty significant.”

In Maricopa County, families interested in homeschooling must file affidavits with the county Education Service Agency.

Tracking homeschoolers in other counties is not as easy, Huerta said.

“Homeschoolers have been elusive for many years and often been unwilling to participate in these surveys,” he said. “But now we have better data-tracking systems.”

Parents seeking autonomy in their child’s education are fueling the homeschooling growth, Shippy said, as evidenced by the 5,000-plus families that attended a homeschooling convention in Phoenix....

...Read the entire article at: TucsonCitizen.com