New Mexico

History

New Mexico is located in the western United States and legalized homeschooling in 1985.

Regulation

Parents seeking to homeschool in New Mexico for students ages 5 to 18 must notify the state within 30 days of withdrawal from public school and update annually. The State Department of Education has a site parents can use to report, which may simplify record-keeping for all parties in comparison to other states reporting methods.

State Data

While New Mexico requires parents to report homeschool participation annually, the state did not collect and report homeschool participation until 2018. Since then, homeschool participation in the state has grown and spiked during the pandemic.

U.S. Census estimates indicate that around 6.4% of New Mexico families homeschooled in the spring of 2020 and increased to 14.3% by the fall of 2020. Pre- and post-pandemic levels exceeded the national averages of 5.4% and 11.1% during the same time period. These survey estimates are for total families homeschooling, not the percentage of students homeschooling. The percentage of homeschooled students would be much higher, as families often have more than one child. During the 2022 and 2023 school years, the U.S. Census found that an average of 5% of all K-12 students in New Mexico were homeschooled.

Cross-Sector Comparison

During the 2019-20 academic year, 2.5% of New Mexico’s K-12 students were homeschooled. Homeschool participation in the state was about half the 5% of private school students. The percentage of New Mexico students attending charter schools was higher than homeschool and private school participation in the state, at nearly 7.5%. In 2021-22, 3.3% of New Mexico’s K-12 students were homeschooled. Homeschool participation in the state was about half the 6% of private school students. The percentage of New Mexico students attending charter schools also increased to 8.6%.

School Choice Context

New Mexico parents have multiple school choice options. These include enrollment in traditional public schools, where both inter- and intra-district choice is allowed, as well as private, magnet, charter, and virtual online schools. New Mexico does not provide public funding for any nonpublic schooling options, including homeschooling. Homeschooled students are eligible for the college lottery scholarship.

Commentary

New Mexico could improve transparency about homeschool participation in the state and in the nation by reporting information by district or county (items that they currently collect but do not report) and any other information that they collect about students, such as grade or age, gender, and race. It is also worth mentioning that the compulsory attendance ages in New Mexico are both the earliest (5 years old) and the oldest (18 years old) in the country. Few states have a 13-year requirement. New Mexico is also one of three states with the largest Native American population in the nation. Oklahoma and South Dakota also have large Native American populations and 13-year compulsory education requirements.