The National Center of Education Statistics reports that about 3 percent of the school-age population is home schooled. Parents mainly home-school their children because they are concerned about certain school environments, where there could be bullying or teachings that go against a parent's political and religious beliefs, the NCES reported.

But the percentage of home-schoolers has only increased in recent years, especially as secular parents have started to home-school their children, participating in a practice that has often been viewed by many as a way for religious parents to teach their children, which I wrote about two years ago.

Home schooling hasn't been hurt, though, by the rise of smartphones and technology. In fact, new tech has helped home-schooling parents, teachers and students find new tools to use during the day.

To help parents teach their children at home, Tech Times has released a list of the best apps for home-schooling parents. These apps arent all specific to home schooling, but they give parents the right tools to educate their children with ease.

Here are the 15 apps listed by Tech Times, with a little explanation on each:

Duolingo (free)

Duolingo is a fun app that teaches different foreign languages. It allows students to race against the clock in competitions to help them learn new vocabularies.

Scratch and Scratch Jr. (free)

These are interactive, game-based apps that teach children literacy skills.

Dragon Box ($4.99)

Dragon Box is perfect for students who want to learn algebra and higher levels of mathematics while at home.

Academy (free)

This app helps students learn about mathematics, science and engineering through educational videos.

Splash Math (free)

Splash Math offers a few different games that teach mathematics to children.

Quizlet (free)

Need a pop quiz during home school? Quizlet will help you do it.

Bitsboard (free)

Bitsboard, named the education app of the year by Apple, offers a few different ways to teach, including quizzes and flashcards. The app is mostly image-based, which makes it a good app for teaching memory.

Stack the States ($1.99)

Stack the States was named the best app for kids by Apple not too long ago, and teaches children about the geography of the United States.

Google Earth (free)

Google Earth is a free app that can help home-school teachers teach lessons about geography and show students specific places around the world with 3D images.

Chore Pad HD ($4.99)

Home school may require students to take care of the household chores, too. Chore Pad keeps a list of chores in an organized fashion, and it sends achievement notifications to children when they complete those chores.

K12 Timed Reading Practice ($2.99)

This app helps improve literacy among youngsters. The app has shorter, timed stories for children to read and answer questions about.

Evernote (free)

Evernote helps students and teachers alike keep notes that are easily sharable over the Internet.

Kindle, iBooks or Nook (free)

These apps make finding new books to study easy.

Screen Time ($2.99)

Screen Time is a parental control app that monitors which sites students are looking at throughout the day. Parents can also manage how long their children are using these sites, which would free students from distractions during lessons.

Typing Fingers (free)

Typing Fingers helps students who want to learn to type well. The app includes fun games and exercises for students to learn their way around a keyboard and become a master of the typed word.