Although most states refuse to accept groups of home schoolers as legitimate applicants for charter schools, the school board in Anchorage, Alaska, in February approved a charter for a school to serve about 120 home-schooled students.
Final approval is up to the state board of education.
California is currently the only state that permits charter schools to serve home-schooled students. In Michigan, state lawmakers in 1995 specifically barred home-school academies with similar computer networks from gaining charters. Officials in Arizona and Minnesota also recently ruled that groups of home-schooling families could not receive charters. The Alaska charter school, the Family Partnership Charter School, is scheduled to open next fall in Anchorage. Parents will be reimbursed by the state for home-school education materials, so long as those materials are not religious.