Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey

Some misunderstanding seems to have arisen because in our explanation of the methodology behind “Best Places to Live For Homeschoolers” we mentioned that we wouldn’t completely ignore the HSLDA.  A few people are objecting that their states aren’t in the top ten at this point, and they are complaining that it’s because we use the HSLDA’s info. But at this point, we haven’t used the HSLDA’s info at all.

Repeat — just to clarify — so far we haven’t drawn anything from the HSLDA.  The factors in the rankings so far are economic, cultural, civic, etc.   They’re clearly enumerated on the graph and detailed in the spreadsheets.  These factors affect everyone, but some of them affect homeschoolers more than most.  For example, because so many homeschoolers are entrepreneurial, we weigh a state’s entrepreneurship climate somewhat more heavily than other “Best Places to Live” rankings in the popular press.  See the spreadsheets for info on all of the factors used and how the states rank on each factor.

We are calculating the homeschool-specific rankings and will begin to post them with the methodology shortly.  It would be wrong to ignore the HSLDA completely, so we’ll certainly include it somehow, but it isn’t there yet, and we aren’t yet sure how to factor it in. So your suggestions are welcome.

What do you consider the most important criteria and how does your state stack up against those?  Statistics can only do so much, and we’re counting on folks on the ground to help us complete the picture.  Thanks!

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