The Third Wave
The First Wave: unschoolers pioneer the homeschooling movement.
The Second Wave: evangelical Christians enter homeschooling.
An ABC News.com article explains that more and more Muslim families are deciding to homeschool. "The increase in the size of the American-born Muslim population in this country, the rigorous demands of the faith and the difficulty for public schools to accommodate the needs of the religion, all help to explain the rise in home schooling among Muslims, proponents say."
While many previous homeschoolers (in the 70s and 80s) chose homeschooling for political or religious reasons, many of those deciding to homeschool in the 90s and now are choosing homeschooling due to a concern with poor academics and the unfavorable social atmosphere in the public schools. Continued violence in the schools has also been a motivation for some to homeschool. CNN reported an increased interest in homeschooling after the Columbine shootings: http://europe.cnn.com/US/9905/28/homeschool.convention.
It is no longer considered strange or unusual to homeschool, as it often was in previous decades. Now almost everyone knows someone--a neighbor, a friend, a relative--who has homeschooled
In a 1998 New York Times article Patricia Lines, a researcher at the Federal Department of Education said that, "Although it is difficult to categorize those participating in home schooling, ... that in Florida, considered a bellwether state, a survey of home schoolers revealed a shift in recent years in the reasons for choosing home schooling: dissatisfaction with public and private schools was listed most often as the No. 1 motivation, moving ahead of religious reasons. 'It doesn't mean they're secular home schoolers, but their primary motivation has shifted,' Dr. Lines said."
This material draws from:
Luebke, Robert V. "Homeschooling in Wisconsin: A Review of Current Issues and Trends." Policy Research Institute Report 12.4 (1999). 20 March 2001 < www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume12/Vol12no4.pdf >
Yarnall, Louise. "When the Kitchen is Also the Classroom." New York
Times on the Web 29 Oct 1998.10 May 2001
< http://www.iacademy.org/ia99/iapages/NYTarticle.html
>
Homeschool Area Council > Resources > Articles on Homeschooling > The History of Homeschooling in Wisconsin