A woman named Serita Taylor moved a wardrobe to one side of her son’s bedroom in a purple house on a hilltop street in Oakland, California, and dubbed it a classroom. She was able to take an early morning nap, wake up, and begin teaching by eight because of her overnight editing job. Her one-student business was called “Field City Academy.” A handwritten timetable was affixed to a wall-mounted poster board. It sounds spontaneous, almost casual. However, what Taylor created in that space is actually a part of a much bigger movement that academics, educators, and policy observers are just now starting to take seriously.
Black families are among the fastest-growing groups of homeschoolers in America, and the statistics are hard to ignore. Approximately 3.3% of Black children were homeschooled in the spring of 2020. That percentage increased to 16.1 percent by the fall of that year. According to a recent national study, 41% of homeschoolers identify as Black. It is not a trend. That is a change in structure.
It’s difficult to ignore the motivation behind this. Curriculum flexibility and religious conviction—the factors most frequently linked to the homeschool movement historically—are not the main reasons why many Black parents choose to homeschool. It has to do with something more pressing. security. dignity. “Survival” in the most instructive sense. One afternoon in fifth grade, Taylor’s son Andre Johnson returned home trembling. He had been jumped close to the school. Although he wasn’t seriously injured, his mother was relieved by the encounter. “I’m so glad I never have to go back,” Andre subsequently remarked. He was eleven years old.
In a brightly painted row house in East Baltimore, April VaiVai sits opposite her thirteen-year-old daughter Cameren. This is close to a school system where, according to most accounts, eight out of ten students are Black and many still lack working heaters in the winter. Recently, Cameren gave a thorough oral presentation on Hepatitis C, including symptoms, risk factors, and treatment options, with a level of calm precision that most schools would find difficult to foster. VaiVai does not compare her daughter’s development to conventional standards. “Throw out all of those standards that white America will tell you your child should know,” she said. For families like hers, homeschooling seems to be more of an intentional act of reclamation than a lifestyle choice.
According to research made available by the Canopy Forum, homeschooling has considerably reduced—and in certain documented instances, completely eliminated—the achievement gap between Black and white students. Critics correctly point out concerns about socialization, oversight, and resource inequality, and it is still unclear whether that holds up at scale. Not every family has a parent who is confident enough to teach and has a flexible schedule. It is worthwhile to sit with that genuine tension.
Nevertheless, there is no denying the momentum. The number of Black children who were homeschooled increased from about 103,000 fifteen years ago to about 220,000 prior to the pandemic and significantly more following it. Families outside of traditional school structures now have greater access to funding and resources thanks to a new wave of education freedom policies, which could hasten the process.
The education system was unprepared for and is still unsure of how to react to what is taking place inside these homes, whether it be in repurposed bedrooms, around kitchen tables, or in row houses and apartments throughout American cities. It turns out that black families weren’t holding out for change. They chose to take care of it on their own.
