According to a recent report from John’s Hopkins Institute of Education, Alaska has the highest share of homeschoolers in the nation.
Using U.S. Census data, the report found that the states with greatest percentage of homeschoolers were Alaska (16.15%), Tennessee (10.75%), and Montana (9.03%). The states with the lowest shares were Connecticut (3.01%), Washington, D.C. (3.04%), and Massachusetts (3.39%).
The data was taken from the 2023-24 school year, and it shows that Alaska also had the largest increase in reported homeschool enrollment over the previous year, jumping 3.6% in one year – from 12.56% to 16.15%.
Nationwide, 5.92% of students were homeschooled, according to the survey, with 9.92% enrolled in private schools and 84.16% attending traditional government schools.
According to a 2025 Pew Research Center study homeschooling parents cite multiple factors for choosing to home educate. The most common reason is concern about the school environment – such as safety, drugs or negative peer pressure (83% of parents of homeschooled children cite this as a reason).
About seven-in-ten (72%) say dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools is a reason, while large majorities of parents cite the preference to provide moral instruction (75%) and the desire to emphasize family life together (72%).
About half of homeschooling parents say they want to provide religious instruction (53%) or to provide a nontraditional approach to their child’s education (50%).
HOMESCHOOL OPTIONS IN ALASKA
Alaska offers 33 publicly-funded homeschool programs for students all across the state. These options provide parents with money to use for books, materials, tutors and other educational activities and instruction. Depending on the program, the allotment numbers vary from $2,600 per student to as much as $4,500. Amounts vary by district and program.
Parents who opt to use these homeschool programs have freedom to choose or design curriculum that suits their educational philosophy and goals. Most religious materials and instruction, however, cannot be purchased with state funds.
Parents in state-funded homeschool programs are typically assigned to a teacher aid who works with them to ensure children master basic skills in reading, writing and math, while also allowing the maximum degree of freedom regarding curriculum preferences.
In addition to state-funded programs, Alaska also permits parents to teach independently of any government oversight or funding. To find out more information about independent homeschooling, click here.
11 Comments
I am all for homeschooling if parents plan and work to do the education of their children.
Homeschooling helped me so much! I had a rough time in high school and going into FPCS really helped me own my own education and prepared me for working as an adult. The one size fits all public schooling neglects allot of children in ways currently not addressed and enables apathetic tendencies.
-This is coming from a 35yo born and raised in Los Anchorage.
This is inspiring!! Thank you for sharing 😉
Wow, that is so great to hear! Thanks for sharing your experience and very glad it worked out for you.
To clarify, based on my experience with IDEA, Raven and others: each homeschooling family is assisted by and reports quarterly to a certified teacher who aids the family — as opposed to a teacher aide.
Thanks for the interesting report!
Right, that’s an important difference.
I’ve said many times before, take your kids out of these sickening, disgusting public schools.
Where’s our governor standing tall-Not, for all these homeschoolers
CANT STAND TALL WHEN KICKED IN THE NUTS! HE BENT ALONG TIME AGO!
He’s actually been trying very hard to get laws passed to expand homeschooling even more, but the legislature won’t even give his bills a hearing.
As a retired public school teacher of 41 years, and now a home-school tutor for 10+ years myself, I recognize that much of this percentage results from Alaska’s off-road, remote educational necessity. But on the road system, it results from everything mentioned in the article. Even if a school district has not adopted DEI, BLM, LGBTQ, PP, NEA propaganda, it finds its way into the classroom through the subtle bias of the instructor. See Bethel, which really wasn’t very subtle, yet bespeaks an untold number of truly under-the-radar indoctrinations that go on daily. No administrator can sit in a classroom every day/all day. Reports that leak out from students to parents to principals can provide an accountability, but the process can easily be stalled or stonewalled. Thus, the disdain for institutional education continues. The solution, as home-school parents have learned, is for God to be invited into the lessons. Since our culture provides no consensus in this matter, home-schooling allows families to find their own solutions. Extracurricular activities indeed give those students a social outlet, but the risks exist there, too. Either they must become a leaven within the cesspool or they fall into it. It is our Cross to carry in a fallen world. The challenge is for the family to daily monitor their children constantly, discuss the activities, and either support or denounce with what they have come into contact. But only through a massive and concerted Christian evangelization can the overall problem be addressed. And that lies completely outside of a government’s domain. We have been conditioned to “worship” gov’t as the solution to every problem. Our shepherds have a lot of work to do, and the sheep must help them do it.
Perhaps because of various Alaska School Districts’ protection and tolerance of cross-dressing transvestite teachers, teaching the ways and agenda of the 10% or less minority are the reasons people are taking the kids out of public schools?