The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released a new report, the first one in 12 years.

The results are discouraging to some and encouraging to others.

In 1999, 74% of American children were enrolled in traditional assigned public schools. In 2016, this number dropped to 69%.

To all who think America’s public schools are indoctrinating children into atheism, socialism, and sexual anarchy, this is good news.

However, it must be clarified that most of this 5% is made up of students moving from assigned public schools to charter schools, which are publicly funded but less regulated schools.

Charter schools still have problems, and they are still public schools to some extent. But many of them are certainly better than traditional public schools.

It is clear parents are looking for a way out of America’s public school system.

While it is only a 5% change, the result is important. Instead of 3/4 of American children being “educated” in traditional public schools, it is almost down to only 2/3 of American children.

This means almost one out of every three American children is being educated outside the traditional public school system.

Not all other forms of education are equal. However, pretty much anything is better than the smut being propagated by the leftist government schools today.

Most encouraging is that homeschooling increased from about 850,000 in 1999 to 1.7 million in 2016. That is almost a doubling of the number of home-based education.

This is great news. More children are growing up at home and spending more time with family.

Many Americans are starting to see the light. Maybe this will only be a remnant. Or maybe it is the start of something bigger.

Let’s pray for the latter.

Contra Public School