Homeschooling Demographics

A new federal government report says that more girls are being homeschooled than boys:

The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has shifted. In 1999, it was 49 percent boys, 51 percent girls. Now, boys account for 42 percent; 58 percent are girls.

Henry Cate at Why Homeschool has a poll up now, and he'd appreciate homeschooling parents heading over there and participating. The PalmFamily doesn't really shed any light on the subject as I homeschool 1 boy and 1 girl. The comments on the post are interesting as people speculate why more girls are homeschooled. I think it can be partially explained by the desire of many parents to have their sons participate in organized sports at school. And I also know there are some Christian families who keep their daughters at home to train them to be wives and mothers, but send their boys to schools so they can learn to be breadwinners.

Neither of those explanations apply to the PalmFamily, and I'd have homeschooled my children no matter their gender. Homeschooling fits our lifestyle and has allowed us to follow a Christian and classical pedagogy and curriculum when there have been no Christian classical schools available. I teach at one now, but my children are too old to attend it.

But I take reports like this one with a grain of salt. After all, they didn't ask for my input. :-)