Fifty-sixty years ago, no one had ever heard of home schooling here in the States. It wasn’t necessarily nonexistent, but incredibly rare. You might find the occasional rancher or forest ranger or other remote family teaching their own children, but truancy (mandatory attendance) laws, tradition, and above all, public perception looked upon such things as horrible and totally unacceptable. Even parochial (Catholic) and other private (religious or not) schools were seen by the mainstream and general public as tolerated but weird. And rare. Many State constitutions enshrined the idea of “free tuition” – that is, public schools.
Then came a combination of measures and events which started gradually to change that. Indeed, to create the modern-day homeschooling movement. There was what was viewed as the “prohibition of prayer” in public (government-run, tax-funded) schools by the Supreme Court decision (Engel v Vitale, June 1962).
But that was just the start. A whole bunch of things happened in the next 20 years. Without worrying about exactly when, we can see the impact. The push for “special education” and integration of those students with other students in classrooms. The growing power of the teacher’s unions, together with the “new math” and new styles (fads) of teaching reading and writing, the mandated “must have a 4-year degree” program for teachers, and many other actions rapidly deteriorated the “public schools” (and seeped into the private schools as well). The consolidation of school districts and the rising power of administrators (and exploding staff) all reduced the power of elected school district boards of education. New State laws and especially the creation of the US Department of [UN]Education sped up the collapse. Many teachers were fired, others driven out of the schools by a combination of unionism, failure in discipline (and danger to teachers and staff from the students!), and growing bureaucracy and regulations.
The so-called “reforms” (supposedly driven by the competition with the Soviet Union and the need to educate American children in science and technology and “good citizenship”) were anything but. The decay of quality and standards has continued to this day.
Some States did better than others, but even the relatively good States are a travesty. Homeschooling was sought by parents (many of them actually teachers!) as an alternative to the decayed public and private schools. Other alternatives were also presented, such as the Montessori schools and unschooling. But it took time and often major pushes to change laws, regulations, and public understanding.
In the last quarter century, the development and deployment of online schooling (not just virtual academies but independent teachers and “tutors” together with ready availability of good resources) has made a significant impact. Parents (and grandparents) began organizing locally, in their States, and nationally to promote and provide for homeschooling. But the real impetus was the Beer Flu Panic and the mass closing of schools – brick-and-mortar schools – in every State in 2020. Even while legislatures and Congress and local boards threw ever more money at the public schools. And invented ideas like charter schools to try and coopt private and home-schoolers.
Instead, more and more people opted out, angry over the growing tax burden of public education and the continued deterioration of standards and the results on people.
Thus we come to 2025. And in particular, to TPOL’s home state (the Black Hills is mostly in South Dakota, although Wyoming holds part of the Hills, the Paha Sapa).
Recently, it has been reported that South Dakota’s rate of home-schooled students increased 143% (see note below) from 2015-16 to 2023-24. according to a database compiled by John Hopkins University. The number of home-schooled students in the state grew from 4,333 to 10,536 during that time. More than double, in just 9 years! Keep in mind that South Dakota only had 152,498 students, public (including tribal) and private in the Fall of 2024 (last data we could find). Yes, that means that homeschooling is provided for only about 8% of total K-12 students. But that is significant.
(Note, the 143% is what the mainsteam media reports from the JHU report and database. TPOL’s (non-political) calculator tells us that 10,536 and 4,333 is a 243% increase!)
(Of the states that reported data for every year during the range, Tennessee (135%) and North Dakota (114%) had the next highest gains of homeschooled students. According to the media and JHU.)
Here in South Dakota, the “rapid increase” has forced belt-tightening at government-run, tax-funded (“public”) schools. The statewide average for these schools’ spending is a staggering $13,636 per student per year. Districts receive $7,000 per student from the state. (They also receive an average of an additional $4,000 per student in State funding not tied to student numbers.) It is reported by the State that even though the population of South Dakota is growing, the total public school enrollment between 2023 and 2024 dropped by 446 students.
But loss of students results in a collective drop of more than $60 million in funding to this local school districts. Some of that is offset by the districts raising tax rates on real property (the other major source of that, for that mere $2,600 that is not paid out of State coffers).
The schools are in a panic. For example, the Rapid City School District (2nd largest in the State) sent mailers out to households where students had dropped attendance with the goal of getting them back to public school. The districts and their lobbying organizations have already, and will continue, to ramp up efforts to get the legislature to increase that $7K to provide even more than the “lost” $60 million. After all, when you are a welfare parasite, this is something you are “entitled to” because…
Gov. Larry Rhoden has announced South Dakota will opt into a federal tax program that is designed to help students attending alternative schooling. (Even while continuing to lobby in Congress to not allow The Donald to eliminate the US Department of Education.) This will likely mean that the number of home-schooled students will continue to increase in both numbers and as a percentage of total students.
At the same time, in South Dakota and other States, the educrats are seeking desperately for ways to keep some control over students and families, both through purse-strings and through “benefits.” Sports, other extracurricular activities, special presentations and seminars, and even free textbooks and supplies are some of the offerings. Bribes, in our opinion. And keep in mind that South Dakota and other States massively subsidize their education systems in many other ways. Two examples: fines for traffic tickets issued by the South Dakota Highway Patrol go to the local school district in which the ticket was issued by the State trooper. Yep, even (and especially) during Sturgis Rally. And South Dakota has three state-run, tax-funded higher-education institutions originally established to (and still mostly) producing public school teachers. (They used to be called Normal Schools or Teachers Colleges; today, they are called universities.) Even the State’s land-grant enormous universities (USD and SDSU) produce hundreds of teachers each year. For the most part as brainwashed as anything in any other State.
These bribes are obnoxious. Especially since, in our opinion, interscholastic sports programs are not a legitimate function of public schools when paid for by money stolen from taxpayers. (And here in SD, which has not State income tax, that means it is coming from the already-ridiculously high sales and services tax.) But then, promoting their services by mass mailings should not be paid with tax money, either. And most of the special activities and seminars and presentations are pushing government-loving and -serving memes, including so-called “civic religion” and humanism. Therefore it is not just a matter of money, but of trying to continue to brainwash even the children who are not under teacher and staff control for 6-8 hours a day, for 180 or so days per year.
So we here at TPOL hope that number of homeschooled children continues to explode, not just in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Tennessee, but in every State. Fifteen to twenty thousand as soon as possible: 10%, 15%, and more. And urge the folks around the States to rag on their legisgators to hold the line and “starve” the public schools.
The Price of Liberty 
Home schooling – enemy of government?
Fifty-sixty years ago, no one had ever heard of home schooling here in the States. It wasn’t necessarily nonexistent, but incredibly rare. You might find the occasional rancher or forest ranger or other remote family teaching their own children, but truancy (mandatory attendance) laws, tradition, and above all, public perception looked upon such things as horrible and totally unacceptable. Even parochial (Catholic) and other private (religious or not) schools were seen by the mainstream and general public as tolerated but weird. And rare. Many State constitutions enshrined the idea of “free tuition” – that is, public schools.
Then came a combination of measures and events which started gradually to change that. Indeed, to create the modern-day homeschooling movement. There was what was viewed as the “prohibition of prayer” in public (government-run, tax-funded) schools by the Supreme Court decision (Engel v Vitale, June 1962).
But that was just the start. A whole bunch of things happened in the next 20 years. Without worrying about exactly when, we can see the impact. The push for “special education” and integration of those students with other students in classrooms. The growing power of the teacher’s unions, together with the “new math” and new styles (fads) of teaching reading and writing, the mandated “must have a 4-year degree” program for teachers, and many other actions rapidly deteriorated the “public schools” (and seeped into the private schools as well). The consolidation of school districts and the rising power of administrators (and exploding staff) all reduced the power of elected school district boards of education. New State laws and especially the creation of the US Department of [UN]Education sped up the collapse. Many teachers were fired, others driven out of the schools by a combination of unionism, failure in discipline (and danger to teachers and staff from the students!), and growing bureaucracy and regulations.
The so-called “reforms” (supposedly driven by the competition with the Soviet Union and the need to educate American children in science and technology and “good citizenship”) were anything but. The decay of quality and standards has continued to this day.
Some States did better than others, but even the relatively good States are a travesty. Homeschooling was sought by parents (many of them actually teachers!) as an alternative to the decayed public and private schools. Other alternatives were also presented, such as the Montessori schools and unschooling. But it took time and often major pushes to change laws, regulations, and public understanding.
In the last quarter century, the development and deployment of online schooling (not just virtual academies but independent teachers and “tutors” together with ready availability of good resources) has made a significant impact. Parents (and grandparents) began organizing locally, in their States, and nationally to promote and provide for homeschooling. But the real impetus was the Beer Flu Panic and the mass closing of schools – brick-and-mortar schools – in every State in 2020. Even while legislatures and Congress and local boards threw ever more money at the public schools. And invented ideas like charter schools to try and coopt private and home-schoolers.
Instead, more and more people opted out, angry over the growing tax burden of public education and the continued deterioration of standards and the results on people.
Thus we come to 2025. And in particular, to TPOL’s home state (the Black Hills is mostly in South Dakota, although Wyoming holds part of the Hills, the Paha Sapa).
Recently, it has been reported that South Dakota’s rate of home-schooled students increased 143% (see note below) from 2015-16 to 2023-24. according to a database compiled by John Hopkins University. The number of home-schooled students in the state grew from 4,333 to 10,536 during that time. More than double, in just 9 years! Keep in mind that South Dakota only had 152,498 students, public (including tribal) and private in the Fall of 2024 (last data we could find). Yes, that means that homeschooling is provided for only about 8% of total K-12 students. But that is significant.
(Note, the 143% is what the mainsteam media reports from the JHU report and database. TPOL’s (non-political) calculator tells us that 10,536 and 4,333 is a 243% increase!)
(Of the states that reported data for every year during the range, Tennessee (135%) and North Dakota (114%) had the next highest gains of homeschooled students. According to the media and JHU.)
Here in South Dakota, the “rapid increase” has forced belt-tightening at government-run, tax-funded (“public”) schools. The statewide average for these schools’ spending is a staggering $13,636 per student per year. Districts receive $7,000 per student from the state. (They also receive an average of an additional $4,000 per student in State funding not tied to student numbers.) It is reported by the State that even though the population of South Dakota is growing, the total public school enrollment between 2023 and 2024 dropped by 446 students.
But loss of students results in a collective drop of more than $60 million in funding to this local school districts. Some of that is offset by the districts raising tax rates on real property (the other major source of that, for that mere $2,600 that is not paid out of State coffers).
The schools are in a panic. For example, the Rapid City School District (2nd largest in the State) sent mailers out to households where students had dropped attendance with the goal of getting them back to public school. The districts and their lobbying organizations have already, and will continue, to ramp up efforts to get the legislature to increase that $7K to provide even more than the “lost” $60 million. After all, when you are a welfare parasite, this is something you are “entitled to” because…
Gov. Larry Rhoden has announced South Dakota will opt into a federal tax program that is designed to help students attending alternative schooling. (Even while continuing to lobby in Congress to not allow The Donald to eliminate the US Department of Education.) This will likely mean that the number of home-schooled students will continue to increase in both numbers and as a percentage of total students.
At the same time, in South Dakota and other States, the educrats are seeking desperately for ways to keep some control over students and families, both through purse-strings and through “benefits.” Sports, other extracurricular activities, special presentations and seminars, and even free textbooks and supplies are some of the offerings. Bribes, in our opinion. And keep in mind that South Dakota and other States massively subsidize their education systems in many other ways. Two examples: fines for traffic tickets issued by the South Dakota Highway Patrol go to the local school district in which the ticket was issued by the State trooper. Yep, even (and especially) during Sturgis Rally. And South Dakota has three state-run, tax-funded higher-education institutions originally established to (and still mostly) producing public school teachers. (They used to be called Normal Schools or Teachers Colleges; today, they are called universities.) Even the State’s land-grant enormous universities (USD and SDSU) produce hundreds of teachers each year. For the most part as brainwashed as anything in any other State.
These bribes are obnoxious. Especially since, in our opinion, interscholastic sports programs are not a legitimate function of public schools when paid for by money stolen from taxpayers. (And here in SD, which has not State income tax, that means it is coming from the already-ridiculously high sales and services tax.) But then, promoting their services by mass mailings should not be paid with tax money, either. And most of the special activities and seminars and presentations are pushing government-loving and -serving memes, including so-called “civic religion” and humanism. Therefore it is not just a matter of money, but of trying to continue to brainwash even the children who are not under teacher and staff control for 6-8 hours a day, for 180 or so days per year.
So we here at TPOL hope that number of homeschooled children continues to explode, not just in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Tennessee, but in every State. Fifteen to twenty thousand as soon as possible: 10%, 15%, and more. And urge the folks around the States to rag on their legisgators to hold the line and “starve” the public schools.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.