The most recent data from the US Department of Education revealed that the number of children between the ages of 5 and 17 being homeschooled rose 61.8% between 2003 and 2012.  In addition, the percentage of children homeschooled in that age range has risen from 2.2% to 3.4%.

The data, published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), found that 1,096,000 school-aged children were homeschooled in 2003.  That number was 2.2% of the total number of children in that age range for that year.  By 2012, that number had increased to 1,773,000, or 3.4% of all school-aged children, writes Susan Berry for Breitbart.

As CNS News.com observes, “The 677,000 increase in homeschooled students from 2003 to 2012 is more than the populations of Memphis (653,450), Seattle (652,405), Boston (645,966) and Washington, D.C. (646,449).”

According to the DOE, homeschooling is most popular among families with two parents, where one is working ....  Homeschooling accounts for 5.3% of all children in this particular family situation, and as of 2012, 11,581,000 students between the ages of 5 and 17 lived in this type of household.  Of those, 618,000 children are homeschooled.

Meanwhile, of the 22,884,000 students who lived in a two-parent household where both parents worked, only 295,000, or 1.3%, were homeschooled.

An additional 13,083,000 students that year lived in a single-parent household with that parent working.  Of those, 96,000, or 0.7%, were homeschooled.

The study also determined that parents who hold a higher level of education are more likely to hom..., as are middle-income parents, when compared to lower and higher income families, writes Terence P. Jeffrey for CNS News.

While only 1.6% of students with parents who held a high school diploma or less were found to be homeschooled, that number increased to 2.2% for parents who held some college education.  Of parents who held a bachelor’s degree, 2.4% of students were homeschooled, and 2.5% were homeschooled whose parents held a graduate or professional degree.

In addition, children from middle-income families were more likely to be homeschooled than those from poor or wealthy families.  While only 0.8% of children from households whose income was no higher than $20,000 were homeschooled, and only 1.6% of children from households whose incomes were higher than $100,000 were homeschooled, 2.3% of children from households whose income ranged from $20,001 to $50,000 were homeschooled. 3.0% of children from households with incomes between $50,001 and $100,000 were found to be homeschooled.