As homeschooling numbers rose following the COVID-19 pandemic, nontraditional education such as hybrid homeschooling was reported as a desirable option by parents. This dissertation examines the academic outcomes of homeschool and hybrid homeschool students in Georgia following the rise of post-COVID nontraditional education. Hybrid homeschooling,…

Parent-led, home-based education, or homeschooling, has grown rapidly over recent decades with participation rates increasing more than 100-fold to now nearly one in 25 students nationwide in the United States. However, the research base has not grown correspondingly, and homeschoolers remain understudied. We systematically surveyed a population…

Total enrollment at Wisconsin's public and charter schools declined by 25,000 students from fall 2019 to fall 2020 and has continued to fall in the years since then. While declining birth rates and apparent movement of some students to private or home schools likely account for at least two thirds of the decline, somewhere between 0.5% and 1.2% of…

The Kansas Graduate and Dropout Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of how the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) calculates and reports the Adjusted Cohort Graduation and Annual Dropout Rates. Sections include: (1) Introduction; (2) Terminology; (3) Data Sources; (4) Graduation Calculations; (5) Dropout Calculation; and (6)…

Over the first two full school years under the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 enrollment in public schools fell dramatically (i.e., by more than 1.2 million students) with losses concentrated among the youngest students. Currently, little is known about where these students went and what learning environments they are experiencing. In this research note,…

This study uses three nationally representative data sets of U.S. school-aged children who are currently homeschooled and two nationally representative data sets of U.S. adults who have ever been homeschooled to empirically document the amount of time homeschooled individuals are homeschooled, how much time they spend in public- or private-school…

School choice is spreading across the U.S. at the same time that scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) are stagnant. We examine the association between education freedom and 8th grade student NAEP score levels and gains in states in 2019. We construct the 2019 Education Freedom Index as a composite measure of the…

This article theorizes how crises and markets shape the responses of consumers and producer organizations. We advance four propositions: 1) if a crisis requires major revisions in operational rules, less-exit sensitive (i.e., monopoly-like) organizations shall revise to aggregate preferences of organized producers; and more-exit sensitive…

Over the first two school years under the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 enrollment in public schools decreased dramatically--with losses concentrated among the youngest students--and the pandemic has had historically unprecedented effects on available learning opportunities. Little is known about where these students went and what learning environments…

We used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey to examine homeschool participation at the national and state levels and compare it to participation estimates from other surveys. The Household Pulse Survey also provides demographic information about the survey respondents. Specifically, we examined respondent characteristics of…

One schooling sector that had been growing before the pandemic, hybrid schools, in which students attend physical classes fewer than five days per week and are homeschooled on the other days, has seen recent continued growth. One factor that has not been explored is the commuting patterns families follow to use these schools. Whether families…

Every year, thousands of students leave traditional, Houston-area public schools for private schools, homeschools, or non-district charter schools. Some of these students eventually return to the public school setting. To investigate this phenomenon of "returners," the researchers followed two types of leavers in a cohort of Houston-area…

Private school choice programs are publicly-funded programs that provide families with funding to attend a private school of their choice. Since 2021, 15 states have enacted or expanded choice legislation, even making homeschoolers eligible to participate. However, homeschoolers are often reluctant to participate due to proposed regulations. We…

In 2020, humanity experienced one of the most complex situations in history: The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused significant social, economic, and educational consequences. Nevertheless, countries and people generally survived. Why? Resilience and the ability to cope are fundamental elements in human, community, and national survival. This study…

The Kansas Graduate and Dropout Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of how the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) calculates and reports the Adjusted Cohort Graduation and Annual Dropout Rates. Sections include: (1) Introduction; (2) Terminology; (3) Data Sources; (4) Graduation Calculations; (5) Dropout Calculation; and (6)…