askPauline's Homeschool InfoPA Home Education Statistics
"Appropriate education" shall mean a program consisting of instruction in the required subjects for the time required in this act and in which the student demonstrates sustained progress in the overall program.
--PA Home Ed Laww
Homeschoolers have a lot of choices available. Please take the information you find useful from these pages and ignore the rest.
Many people, including me, will give opinions on the PA homeschooling law. I believe that everyone should read the law for themselves, read a few opinions about it, and decide for themselves what approach makes sense for their family.
I might be wrong! I am not a lawyer! Your circumstances may be different! This page, and others on this site, are not intended as legal advice. School districts vary considerably in their interpretation of the home education law. Please double-check legal information with appropriate sources. In particular, the PA Dept. of Ed. may be helpful.
This web page by Pauline Harding for Art Nurk.
Contents may be copied if credit is given.
Every year the PA Department of Education collects statistics on Home Education programs. Below are some highlights of their statistics. More statistics are available at PDE Home Ed Statistics. The districts report the information to the PDE using the Home Education and Private Tutoring Report form. You can also call the PDE for more information.
These statistics do not include students registered under the private tutor law, students in public cyber charter schools, or students who are too young to be registered with their school district.
I do not know the stories behind these numbers. I do not know how accurate these numbers are.
| PA Home Education Statistics, Year by Year | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year |
Number of home educated students | Number of affidavits returned |
Programs deemed inappropriate by evaluator | Programs deemed inappropriate by superintendent | Due process hearings held |
| 2006-2007 | 22,136 |
14 |
108 |
228 |
12 |
| 2005-2006 | 22,412 |
31 |
97 |
240 |
14 |
2004-2005 |
23,287 |
26 |
62 |
203 |
15 |
2003-2004 |
24,076 |
22 |
88 |
247 |
17 |
| 2002-2003 |
24,415 |
37 |
107 |
294 |
16 |
| 2001-2002 |
23,903 |
77 (of which 57 were in Philadelphia!) |
95 |
292 |
19 |
| 2000-2001 |
24,019 |
67 |
108 |
364 |
24 |