THSC recently commissioned a poll of Texas homeschoolers that shows strong support for increased parental choice in education, as well as other policies being considered by the Texas Legislature, including Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

Because THSC greatly values the opinions of homeschoolers across the state, we commissioned a scientific poll by Ragnar Research Partners, under the direction of Chris Perkins, a nationally acclaimed pollster to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former partner at WPA Research. Perkins along with former WPA executives Matt Gammon, Ryan Steusloff and Daniel Narvaiz are now partners at Ragnar Research.

Polling Methodology Explained

The results include phone survey responses from 500 Texas homeschool parents randomly selected from a list of more than 50,000. This was a significant survey size considering that the average nationwide survey scientifically extrapolates opinions of 200 million American adults from approximately 1,000 poll respondents.

Population size for various geographic regions was also taken into account when measuring the opinions of homeschoolers across Texas. The resulting confidence level is 96 percent, with a margin of error of ±4 percent.

Polling Results—Homeschool Education

The poll results were especially noteworthy related to education issues.

When asked: What would you say is the single most important issue you would like to see the Texas State Legislature address this year?

Respondents indicated strong support for general education reform—23 percent choose it as their number one option.

No other option garnered more than 9 percent support, including health care, social issues, government spending, transportation and other high profile issues.

As would be expected among homeschool parents, respondents strongly favored increased parental control in education.

When asked: How important would you say it is to give parents more options to help improve their children’s education?

• 95 percent indicated that more options for parents are important
• 88 percent chose “very important”
• 7 percent chose “somewhat important”
• Only 3 percent indicated they felt increased options for parents were not important.

Polling Results—Education Savings Accounts

Recent topics of discussion before the Texas Legislature were also considered, including ESAs.

When asked: Would you say that you support or oppose establishing Education Savings Accounts, where homeschool and private school parents can use the tax dollars designated to the local school for their children’s education expenses?

• 71 percent of homeschoolers polled indicated they would support such a policy
• 20 percent of respondents indicated they would oppose
• 9 percent were undecided

In a memo released by Ragnar Research, the firm made the following conclusions from the results of the polling related to ESAs.

• More than 7 in 10 (71 percent) of Texas homeschool parents support establishing Education Savings Accounts.
• Education Savings Accounts received strong support across the state. Strong majorities of homeschool parents supported the use of tax dollars designated to the local school for their children’s education expenses.
• Support for Education Savings Accounts was highest in the San Antonio Region (78 percent) and support did not fall below 68 percent in any region.

What to Take Away from Homeschool Response

Overall, the consistent theme from each issue polled was overwhelming support from homeschool parents of increased parental control in education. In a day when standardization and uniformity in education seems to be the expectation, policymakers would do well to take a lesson from homeschoolers.

Homeschooling academic proficiency and success has been established beyond dispute, largely as a result of the individualized, personally tailored style of education made available to each student by their parent. CBSNews.com sums up how well homeschooled students fare.

THSC President at Recent Senate Hearing on Education Savings Accounts

During a Texas Senate hearing on the topic of Education Savings Accounts, THSC President Tim Lambert testified before the committee in favor of related bill SB 3.

President Lambert encouraged the Senators to support the legislation, which provides more options for Texas parents to educate their children, in line with THSC’s mission to promote homeschooling and parental choice.

We were pleased that the bill was passed by a committee vote of 7-3 on Thursday, March 23.

For more than 30 years, THSC has defended the rights of homeschoolers and parents in Texas.

THSC is Keeping Texas Families Free by lobbying full-time on behalf of homeschoolers and parents during the 2017 Texas Legislature. Sign up for updates from THSC on developments during the Texas Legislative Session.