'No more skewed history': why Black families homeschooling grew fivefold

Since she began homeschooling her children in Louisiana in the early 90s, Joyce Burges has watched the practice explode in popularity among families like hers.

“Parents nowadays – this woke generation of 25- to 40-year-old parents – their eyes are open. They’re just not having that whitewashed, skewed history any more,” she says.

Back when she started homeschooling, it was against the advice of friends and family who questioned how she could teach effectively without a college degree – only a handful of states require homeschool teachers have a GED or high school diploma.

She’d decided to teach her son at home after his principal said he was struggling academically and would need to find a new school. “Here I am, Black woman, and our children are not welcomed into the system. So homeschooling was the only option at that time that we had.”

Though her son wasn’t expelled for behavioral issues, Black students in general have long been overrepresented in exclusionary practices. It’s especially true for boys. Data from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights show that Black boys in 2017-2018 were expelled and suspended at proportions that were three times their proportion of enrollment.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/09/homeschooling-black-families-parents-us