Should the Catholic Church Embrace Homeschooling?

Unfortunately, many "Catholic" schools, especially Parochial schools, have simply become copies of the atheistic public school system.

From Crisis

By J.C. Miller, JD

Homeschooling has continued to see growth among Catholic parents. Is it time for the Church to officially support it?   

There is a lot to celebrate about Catholic schools, with parishes and parochial schools around the country annually celebrating Catholic Schools Week, graduations, and other rites of passage. Less attention is paid to Catholic homeschooling, even though more and more Catholic parents are choosing this option. The data indicates that homeschoolers are much more likely to embrace a religious vocation and more likely to retain their religious faith and practice in college. It’s time for Catholics to seriously examine the impact of homeschooling on the Church and what we should do in response.

Writing earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal, Fr. Robert Sirico wrote about how homeschooling saved a dying church (and school), with a hybrid program (two days a week in a classroom) that brought more people into the school and the parish. I’ve had a child enrolled in that specific program, and it works well. My diocese has noticed and even included in its five-year plan that the diocese would: “Consider part-time Catholic school options to include more homeschooled students and families during portions of the school day.”

Of course, other dioceses do not necessarily think this way. San Diego’s prior controversial bishop banned Catholic homeschool groups from using church facilities because “such usage can undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools.” Conversely, non-Catholic schools can use parish spaces on a case-by-case basis. The diocese explained that: “Parish-run schools and religious education programs are the primary means by which the Church accomplishes its teaching mission for children and young people.” Assuming that is true, are these the most effective means? The available data actually suggests that homeschooling by members of the Church is an effective way of accomplishing that teaching mission.

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Professor Ryan Burge of Graphs About Religion recently obtained a trove of interesting homeschooler data. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is known for advocating for free speech on college campuses, conducted a large survey and made that data available. FIRE polled 59,000 college students across 257 universities, resulting in a sample of 1,350 students (2.3 percent) who reported having been homeschooled. While FIRE is obviously most interested in free speech issues, the survey also gathered information on their religious practices, which Professor Burge expertly analyzed.

Some of the conclusions are entirely unsurprising: “Among college students who went to a parochial school, religious attendance is higher.” But among “homeschoolers, attendance was even higher than that.” A third of college students who had been homeschooled went to church weekly, with 12 percent attending monthly. This is compared to college students from public high schools, which reported only 16 percent weekly religious attendance. 

In short, homeschoolers were 25 percent more likely to go to religious services weekly over parochial school graduates and more than twice as likely to go to church compared to public school graduates. Burge noted that “homeschooled kids were the most religiously active.” While this analysis covers all homeschoolers (and Protestants are almost four times as likely to homeschool), there is at least some Catholic-focused analysis.  

Last year, The Pillar’s data guru Brendon Hodge turned his attention to the connection between homeschoolers and vocations. When looking at the education background of newly ordained priests, it’s obvious that homeschooling is overrepresented. Hodge notes that homeschooling seems to generate vocations at three to four times the background rate: 

Similarly, in order for the 3.5% of Catholic children who were homeschooled 15-25 years ago to produce 11% of the vocations to the priesthood and 14% of the vocations to the religious life—homeschool students would seem to have pursued those vocations at three or four times the rate of the general Catholic population.

The percentage of Catholic families who are homeschooling is now likely twice as high as it was in 2000, which means that if trends continue, by 2050, 20% to 30% of vocations will be coming from people who were homeschooled.

The trend showed up again this year, with the USCCB reporting that 15 percent of the newly ordained had been homeschooled and that the trend was growing. An astute observer suggested that this could be adjusted higher due to homeschooling being much more prevalent in America: “If one assumes that all of the homeschooled seminarians came from the United States, then 20% of US-born ordinands were home schooled.” Either way, this is a significant and disproportionate impact. And it comes without the kind of heavy investment from the Church that Catholic schools receive.

Lots of different figures show varying levels of church support for Catholic schools. As I’ve noted before, in my diocese families only pay 47 percent of the cost for elementary students and 68 percent for high school students. In other places, you’ll see figures like parishes with schools contributing “35 percent of their offertory income to the schools” or subsidies covering 20-70 percent of a school’s income. The Church obviously invests a lot in Catholic schools. But even with this heavy subsidy from the Church, Catholic schools today are still expensive. Cost must certainly influence some Catholics’ decision to homeschool.

One thing that is certain, though, is that homeschooling is growing. More than twenty years ago, the Barna Research Group, an independent marketing research company, looked at the data and made the prescient observations that homeschooling was both going to grow and that it would not be limited to politically conservative evangelicals. Johns Hopkins data shows that 90 percent of states (at least the ones who shared data) were still reporting homeschool growth four years post pandemic. 

A household survey in 2023 pegged the percentage of homeschooled children at  5.4 percent. Hodge noted that “the U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are 3.4 million homeschooled children in the U.S., more than double the 1.7 million children in Catholic schools.” Hodge estimates “that more than 7% of US Catholics are now teaching their children at home.” 

Therefore, it is “likely at least one Catholic child [is] being homeschooled for every three in Catholic school—and they have an outside impact on priestly vocations, and thus the future of the Church.” With such a large future impact, maybe it is time for the Church to be more intentional and strategic about homeschooling.

Homeschooling has developed outside the Church without support or guidance—and sometimes in the face of overt hostility. But a detached observer could see that homeschooling provides a more cost-effective way, from a purely Church-resources perspective, of educating future faithful and future priests. Maybe priest shortages and budget struggles will push some Church leaders to be more favorable to homeschooling. Hodge points out the situation in San Diego: 

With an ordination rate of 1.6 new priests per year over the last five years, supporting the diocese of 97 parishes and 1.4 million Catholics, the diocese may itself also need to continue to consider its relationship with a group of Catholics which has become a growing source of vocations. 

If a diocese or parish wanted to affirmatively support and encourage homeschooling, what could it do? I have three modest suggestions.

First, Church leadership could see Catholic homeschools as another type of Catholic school. This means that homeschooling should not be seen as a rival or a threat, any more than another parish’s school down the road is, and that Catholics who homeschool are not taking away tuition dollars. Homeschoolers should not be just another potential source of students for the parish school. Many Catholic homeschoolers are enrolled in explicitly Catholic programs, like Seton Home Study School or Kolbe Academy. Treating this as a species of Catholic school could be a very significant mindset shift that alone could lead to other ways of support.

Second, Church leadership could actually support the homeschooling efforts. Rather than barring homeschoolers from using church spaces, churches could be welcoming. A regional, weekly homeschool Mass would certainly send a message and create opportunities to get together. Where possible under league rules, and certainly where Catholics get to set the league rules, sports teams can be open to homeschoolers. 

Schools can also offer hybrid programs, as Fr. Sirico did. Parishes could even fund or subsidize homeschooling. If a homeschooler and a parish schooler both throw cash in the collection plate, the church will use it to subsidize one’s Catholic education but not the other’s. If a church paid for the religion class materials for its homeschoolers, that would be a strong gesture.

Finally, churches could consider how to support the life structure necessary to support homeschooling. Most frequently, homeschooling involves a stay-at-home parent, often but not always the mother. Parents need the emotional support and economic life to make that possible. This is certainly a challenge in modern America, but we’ve got a lot of smart Catholics who can come up with ideas—like a local guild that helps Catholics to start or improve small businesses or finding ways to get people on church group health insurance plans.

As homeschooling continues to grow, and homeschoolers have higher rates of vocations and faith retention, dioceses and churches that embrace homeschoolers could find themselves growing—or at least surviving—while those who fight and banish homeschoolers find themselves dying. 

We could certainly benefit from more data. Groups like Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which has studied a number of aspects of Catholic life in America, would bless us by looking at homeschooling. Fr. Sirico’s new project, The St. John Henry Newman Institute, has a survey out looking at why Catholic parents homeschool and what they need. Figuring out how to support homeschoolers is important, but Church leaders first need to decide to embrace homeschoolers and homeschooling.