Racism and inequality in public schools, as well as curricula that present a narrow version of black history and achievements, are factors that have been driving a growing movement of African-American home-schooling families.
The vast majority of home-schooling students are white, there is a robust community of African-American home-schooling famlies. About 8 percent of home-schooling families are black, according to federal survey data.
Among them is Monica Utsey and her two sons, who live in Washington, D.C.
“Home schooling allows me to provide a more culturally relevant experience because of the freedom that I have,” said Utsey, “For a young person who is forming themselves and forming the foundation of who they are in this world, to go into school and to learn, ‘you used to be a slave, and this is how you got here, you couldn’t drink from this water fountain'—to me it is just all negative.”
Education Week spent a school day with the Utsey family as part of our special series, Home Schooling in America: Why Families Teach at Home.
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