While two-thirds of home schooling families are Christian evangelicals, the number of secular home-schoolers is significant —25 percent, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.
What’s more, the number home-schooled children is rising — from 850,000 in 1999 to 1.5 million in 2007, according to The National Center for Education Statistics. Some national home-school organizations put the number higher, at more than 2 million.
And while no one tracks how many identify as atheists or humanists, this latter group may be reaching a kind of critical mass where they are able to organize in communities, both virtual and physical....