The Homeschool Generation Is Growing Up - And A New Battle Is Just Beginning: Recognizing Their Educational Credentials

PNW ^ | 09/25/2026

[SeekAndFind]

For 22-year-old Andrew Coates, becoming a professional firefighter seemed like a natural next step.

He already volunteers with the Cedar Bluffs Fire Department in Nebraska. He holds a state EMT license. He has experience responding to emergencies and wants to make a career out of doing what he already loves.

But when Coates applied to become a paid firefighter in Fremont, Nebraska, he ran into an obstacle that had nothing to do with fighting fires.

He had been homeschooled.

The city's original job posting required "graduation from high school." But Fremont rejected Coates because his homeschool diploma did not come from an accredited high school. The city subsequently changed its wording to specifically require graduation from an accredited school.

Coates challenged the decision, arguing that the issue was now bigger than his application. "We want to make sure that every homeschooler has an equal opportunity," he told WOWT.

His case should get America's attention because Coates isn't an educational anomaly anymore.

He's part of a generation that is rapidly getting bigger.

The Homeschool Boom Didn't End With COVID

When schools shut down during the pandemic, homeschooling exploded. Many assumed families would eventually return to the old system and homeschooling numbers would settle back to their previous levels.

That hasn't happened.

New data from the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab show that of the 22 states reporting 2025-26 numbers so far, 17 — 77 percent — experienced another increase in homeschooling.

Montana jumped 27.7 percent. North Dakota increased 18.8 percent. Arkansas rose 14 percent. Nebraska increased 9.8 percent, California 8.5 percent and Vermont 8.4 percent.

Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin have now reached their highest recorded homeschool enrollment.

Homeschooling hasn't disappeared with the pandemic. It has become an established part of the American educational landscape.

And what people call "homeschooling" increasingly doesn't resemble the stereotype.

A nationally representative Johns Hopkins/RAND survey found 88 percent of homeschooling parents use additional educational resources. Forty-four percent use online resources, 29 percent participate in co-ops, 27 percent use online classes and 24 percent use online schools.

Today's homeschool can be part kitchen table, part online academy, part co-op, part tutor and part community classroom.

Something bigger than homeschooling is happening.

Parents are discovering that education doesn't necessarily have to come from one building, one curriculum or one institution.

Why This Matters Even If Your Kids Attend Public School

It would be easy for parents with children in public or private schools to look at these battles and conclude they don't concern them.

They do.

Behind the homeschooling debate is a much larger question: Who bears primary responsibility for a child's education?

Government unquestionably has legitimate interests in protecting children and ensuring they receive an education. The disagreement begins when "ensuring an education" becomes defining exactly what that education must look like.

Consider how differently states already answer that question.

Rhode Island requires homeschool instruction to cover subjects including reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, U.S. and Rhode Island history and American government. Attendance must be substantially equivalent to public schools, and local school committees approve home instruction.

New Hampshire just moved dramatically in the opposite direction. A law taking effect this year makes homeschool declarations largely optional, eliminates annual evaluations and makes certain record keeping optional. Its law explicitly recognizes a parent's right to direct a child's education as a "natural right."

Those are two very different philosophies of the relationship between family and state.

And that question reaches far beyond homeschoolers.

It touches Christian schools, private education, charter schools, curriculum disputes, religious instruction and ultimately the ability of parents to make educational choices that differ from whatever government considers normal.

Success Brings A New Battle

For years, the major homeschool fight was whether parents should be allowed to educate their own children.

That battle has largely moved on.

The emerging fight is over how much control government should exercise over families once they make that choice.

As homeschooling grows, expect debates over testing, notification, curriculum requirements, attendance records, educational assessments and state oversight to intensify.

Some regulation advocates argue that minimum standards protect children from educational neglect. Homeschool advocates respond that reasonable child-protection laws are very different from forcing parents to recreate government school at home.

That distinction becomes especially important because homeschooling's growth itself could invite additional scrutiny.

When something involves a tiny minority, government can largely ignore it. When millions of families begin choosing another path, lawmakers, regulators, universities and employers eventually have to decide how that alternative fits into existing systems.

Which brings us back to Andrew Coates.

What Happens When The Homeschool Generation Grows Up?

This could become the next major homeschool battle.

Today's homeschool students eventually become tomorrow's firefighters, police officers, nurses, tradespeople, business owners, soldiers and professionals.

Coates already possesses a Nebraska EMT license and serves as a volunteer firefighter. Yet Fremont determined that his homeschool education did not satisfy its requirement for a career position because his high school wasn't accredited.

Think about the contradiction.

A state can legally permit parents to educate their child outside an accredited school system, only for that child to reach adulthood and discover that an employer requires credentials from the very system his parents legally chose not to use.

If that becomes widespread, homeschool freedom could exist on paper while carrying a penalty in practice.

This isn't an argument that every homeschool diploma must automatically qualify someone for every job. Employers obviously have the right to establish legitimate qualifications.

But demonstrated ability ought to matter.

If an applicant can pass examinations, meet physical standards, obtain professional certifications and demonstrate the knowledge required for a position, should the location where he learned algebra at age 15 determine whether he gets an interview at 22?

That question won't disappear with Andrew Coates.

It's going to become more common.

The Next Education Revolution

Homeschooling's continued growth tells us something important about America.

Parents are increasingly willing to question institutions that previous generations simply accepted. Some leave because of academics. Others because of safety, special needs, flexibility, religious convictions or disagreements over what schools are teaching.

Technology has made acting on those concerns easier than ever.

You no longer need to reproduce an entire school inside your home. Parents can access teachers, curricula, lectures, tutoring, advanced courses and educational communities from almost anywhere.

The old educational monopoly is being broken into pieces.

And that means the argument is changing.

The question is no longer simply whether Americans should have the freedom to homeschool.

The coming question is whether government institutions, universities and employers will genuinely respect that freedom when those children become adults — and how much control government will demand over families still raising them.

Andrew Coates may be one young man trying to become a firefighter in Nebraska.

Behind him is an entire generation.

And that generation is growing up.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: education; homeschooling

[SeekAndFind]

A lot of the Spelling Bee Contestants were actually HOMESCHOOLED.

And yes, there are many colleges that DO recognize homeschooled kids.

[Carry_Okie]

The way we “fixed” that was the Junior College system here in California. The two girls entered at 14 & 15. One transferred to Stanford, the other got a full ride at Utah State where she graduated as valedictorian. Both got STEM PhDs.

[IYAS9YAS]

There should be basic comprehension tests for these types of things. My son is an electrician’s apprentice. They accepted the homeschool diploma and he had to pass a math test. He’s been working for four+ years and out-scoring his fellow apprentices in all the written tests and can practically teach some of the classes on certain subjects.

[Tell It Right]

IMHO it's time to bring back job-site aptitude testing.

An employer shouldn't put the burden onto itself to try to figure out which "accredited schools" are failing schools, and which parents did a good job with homeschooling. If a job applicant scores well on the aptitude test, he's smart enough.

[alloysteel]

Is the GED standard of equivalent learning accomplishment supposed to address the lack of a formal document attesting to the graduation from an accredited high school, or not?

It is only necessary to “test out” of relying only of the document that proclaims the applicant has indeed been given recognition of formal education through the high school level, And even many of these are fraudulent, if examined closely, because of the propensity of grade inflation and emptying out the content of courses taught at every level of the public schooling industry.

Some of the smartest individuals around have finally reached the level where they are largely self-taught, WAY beyond the capability of any institution to guide or direct the full unfolding potential.

[chajin]

Hey Boss...

You’re not hiring a credential. You’re hiring a person.

Bureaucracies love regulations because then no one has to take responsibility for a decision. MAGA changes that.

[qwerty1234]

Homeschooled all my kids...all are successful in the sense that they all have 6 figure jobs and are able to live indecently just a few years out of college, including one child who was accepted into medical school, graduated with honors and is now a surgeon at a top 10 teaching hospital.

[qwerty1234]

independently, not indecently....lol.

[Responsibility2nd]

More here....

City Rejects Volunteer Firefighter Over Homeschool Diploma, Then Changes Job Requirement

9/21/2026, 9:49:46 AM · by DFG · 33 replies

Guessing Headlights via Yahoo ^ | 09/20/2026 | Olivia Richman

[TTFlyer]

Credentialism is the brother of DEI.

[MayflowerMadam]

Three nephews were homeschooled. They had to take the standardized testing in their state with all the other kids. They kicked ass in their scores.

[Alberta's Child]

One short-term solution is to have the home-schooled kid enrolled in an accredited school just for his senior year of high school.

In fact, I see a tremendous business opportunity here for someone who wants to try a start-up “one-year prep school” where the students are subject to entrance exams to ensure that they’ve met the standards of a high school junior.

[FLT-bird]

Get a GED. I did. Then I got an AA, a BA and 2 grad degrees.

[rexthecat]

There’s a family in our neighborhood and the four kids were all homeschooled by their mom. All four are dumb as rocks.

[ProgressingAmerica]

I have mixed feelings about home schooled kids.

Yeah they can spell words better. So what. Yeah they’re better at racist math. So what. Yeah they’ll probably excel in STEM. Again so what.

Best I can tell, there is little to no home school (history) curricula which is teaching these kids that our rights are a gift from God, teaching the dangers of communist, monarchist, socialist, fascist, and other ideologies, the blessings of individual liberty, nor the whole truth about the transatlantic slavery situation.

The metrics that matter most isn’t being fixed by home schooling. Being better at spelling the word P-I-Z-Z-A isn’t helping us to put a stop to Progressivism.

My mixed feeling comes in that I know a small handful of home schoolers are actually teaching these things that matter, preparing them to make the country better.

A small handful.

It is not the norm for home schoolers. Not that I have seen - I have no evidence.

We don’t need more freaking employees. We need warriors. Home schooling isn’t producing large numbers of warriors. It’s producing better employees. Big whoop. Big whoopdy whoop.

We had 1 - 1 single Charlie Kirk.(And I don’t even think he was home schooled, but might have been) So home schooling is producing mass amounts of warriors you say?

That’s why we have half a million Charlie Kirks oh no wait.

We don’t.

[Antoninus]

My six are all homeschooled. None of them ever had any problem getting jobs, having their credentials accepted, etc.

The four oldest tested into college-level courses at ages 15-16. Of the two oldest, one is in dental school on a military scholarship. The other graduated university and is an ER nurse working nightshift in one of the most dangerous cities in the US.

My kids are far from unique among our homeschooling peers. Homeschooled kids are generally a huge benefit to society and will be leaders of the next and future generations. Bank on it. They also highly value family and understand that having a lot of siblings is a tremendous blessing.

I suspect that what’s behind this questioning of credentials is a push by the public school teachers’ unions to make life more difficult for homeschoolers. After all, homeschoolers make the products of public schools look pretty poor in comparision.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Dum dum dummy homeschooled kids are rare though.

Most of the time homeschooled kids are really smart. Home schooling does produce better spellers. Little Johnny, how do you spell liberal journalism? Answer: C-A-C-O-P-H-O-N-Y

But they’re not prepared in depth for the fight though.

In many regards home schooling misses the boat.

[Antoninus]

All four are dumb as rocks.

Homeschooling guarantees nothing. Good thing public schools never produce kids that are dumb as rocks.

[Antoninus]

Best I can tell, there is little to no home school (history) curricula which is teaching these kids that our rights are a gift from God, teaching the dangers of communist, monarchist, socialist, fascist, and other ideologies, the blessings of individual liberty, nor the whole truth about the transatlantic slavery situation.

You're clearly not at all familiar with the history and theology curricula that are out there. I run a book website that caters to Catholic homeschoolers. The books they read (and man, do homeschoolers read!) are all about engaging them with authentic history in an enjoyable way. None of the Howard Zinn nonsense is anywhere to be found.

I'm teaching my younger boys about the run-up to WWII right now, and it has been tremendous fun watching their eyes open wide when I explain how both Nazism and Communism are materialist ideologies of the devil that entranced nations, but ended up enslaving men and causing the deaths of millions. They then take those lessons, on their own, and apply them to our current political situation.

[Antoninus]

In many regards home schooling misses the boat.

Homeschoolers don't have a unified ideology. There are many, many homeschoolers of a more leftist bent. Also, there are many Orthodox Jewish homeschoolers that teach specifically from that perspective.

Do yourself a favor and attend a homeschool conference local to you. It's an eye-opening experience of what America's youth could be, as opposed to what it is.