Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the Department of Defense's support of military families who choose to homeschool their children in the U.S. and overseas.
In a memo released Tuesday, Hegseth said the assessment is part of an overall departmental review of educational choices for military families, done in accordance with a Jan. 29 presidential executive order that directed the DoD to consider the use of Pentagon funds to pay for private, religious or public charter schools for military dependents.
Hegseth said homeschooling should be included in any review of educational opportunities for military children.
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"Through these efforts, the department will uphold the directive to improve the education, well-being and future success of military-connected students, supporting parents in choosing the best educational options for their children," Hegseth wrote in the memo, signed May 15. "This is vital to the department and the quality of life of our service members, who deserve no less."
According to a report published earlier this year by Johns Hopkins' Institute for Education Policy, active-duty military families homeschool their children at twice the rate of civilian Americans, with 12% of military families participating, compared with 6% of civilians in the 2023-2024 school year.
Angela Watson, a senior research fellow at Johns Hopkins, said the reasons why military families homeschool vary, but they largely choose the nontraditional setting based on the unique needs of their children.
"There are a variety of reasons that maybe the traditional school system isn't working super great for those families, because somebody is deployed and, when the parent is home, they value their family time together, or they want to homeschool because it's more flexible. Or they don't want to move their kids in and out of schools ... and it's just more stabilizing for them to homeschool," Watson said during an interview Tuesday.
A survey of nearly 750 military families who homeschool, conducted by the Military Homeschoolers Association, found the reasons they decided to educate their children themselves were: religion, with 58% citing their faith as a factor in their decision; bullying, with nearly 48% saying they had concerns with traditional school settings, especially for children with special needs; and school violence, something 58% of families factored into their decision.
Nearly 30% were concerned with the educational offerings of their local schools, citing a need for their children to learn critical thinking, or a desire to reduce their child's exposure to age-inappropriate content, topics that didn't align with their world views or incorrect information.
"Traditionally, military families are moving right every two or three years, so you can understand continuity, consistency, flexibility," said Natalie Mack, the association's founder, during an interview. "But there's these new reasons ... rising school violence ... bullying rates. You have people who are homeschooling for traditionally Christian conservative values, and then you have ones who are not -- they're secular and they're just saying, 'My kids have special needs, and we're not feeling confident they're getting what they need."
Hegseth himself is a vocal proponent for Christian-based education. A graduate of a public high school in Minnesota, Princeton University and Harvard, Hegseth wrote the book "Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation," arguing that American K-12 public schools are failing to educate students and losing sight of "virtue and excellence."
"[American culture] is really fragile and not heading in the right direction, and a lot of it does come back to our education system," Hegseth said during a 2023 interview on The Kevin Roberts Show. "If you've removed God, and you're teaching people the country they've inherited is evil and racist, then what optimism can they have? What are they defending?"
The Jan. 29 executive order from President Donald Trump directed the Defense Department to "review any available mechanisms under which military-connected families may use funds from the Department of Defense to attend schools of their choice."
Trump said the provisions in the order seek to "support parents in choosing and directing the upbringing and education of their children."
An exact number of students who are homeschooled in military families was unavailable by publication. Active-duty troops had nearly 500,000 school-aged children as of 2023, roughly 67,000 of whom attend schools run by the Department of Defense Education Activity.
DoDEA students have recently made headlines for protesting changes instituted by the Trump administration at their schools, including banning certain books from libraries, dropping portions of curriculum that conflict with the administration's stand on gender identity and race, and restricting extracurricular activities tied to diversity initiatives.
Regarding Hegseth's memo, Mack said homeschooled military children could benefit from more support from the Defense Department, particularly in access to facilities and services.
At Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where Mack has served as a homeschooling consultant, she helped partner with the base to use an unoccupied meeting space for classes and academic fairs, and teamed up with the chaplain's office to use buildings on a space-available basis.
The group of families also was given access to a swimming pool during school hours, and they have had opportunities to host clubs and work with school liaisons.
"Have we looked at all of our resources on installation, and can we allocate a building that's not, maybe, being used as often or a gym? Can we allocate a PE teacher? What can the library do to reach out? What can the chaplains do?" Mack said.
She added that military families who homeschool are concerned about the laws that govern homeschooling because they vary from state to state. While the federal government can do little to change those laws, the Defense Department can do more to recognize its homeschooling community and the challenges it faces, she said.
"We want to be respected as a vital part, you know, of the military educational landscape, and so it's really important to make sure that, you know, they receive the resources and support that they are potentially seeking," Mack said.
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