That might be some of it, but I don't think it explains why the numbers are staying so high. A number of parents got a view into the quality of education and decided they could do better themselves.

Masking was not driving the homeschooling surge during COVID, it was driven by the sense parents had that during lockdowns they were effectively forced into homeschooling their kids with none of the agency that comes with full homeschooling. If they were going to be doing most of the teaching anyway while schools were closed, a lot of parents figured they'd ditch the poorly executed virtual lessons and just homeschool on their own terms.