Homeschooling, 2011-12

Nearly 2 million children in the United States are homeschooled, according to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics. In the 2011-12 school year, 1,770,000 children aged 5 to 17 were taught at home, or 3.4 percent of the nation's school-aged children.

The rate of homeschooling is significantly above average among children in rural areas (4.5 percent) and non-Hispanic whites (4.5 percent).

The reasons for homeschooling, cited by more than half of parents who homeschool, are concern about the school environment (91 percent), the desire to provide moral instruction (77 percent), dissatisfaction with academic instruction at school (74 percent), and the desire to provide religious instruction (64 percent).

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education, from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012