California Independent Study Charter Schools: Summary of Home-Based Pedagogies, Enrollment Trends, and Student Demographics

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish historical enrollment trends, student demographics, and home-based pedagogies of nonclassroom-based schools in California in an effort to gain insights into lesser-known homeschooling practices. According to the United States Department of Education, in 2016, homeschooling had progressively increased to 3.3%. To determine whether California has a similar trend in students’ learning outside of a traditional classroom-based learning environment, we evaluated eight years of student enrollment data from the California Department of Education. Potential implications for this student population in relation to California’s vaccination legislation, as well as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, are explored. The demographic information of nonclassroom-based public school students in California was summarized and compared to that of classroom-based students in California and homeschooled students in the United States, finding less ethnic diversity in nonclassroom-based schools. Our findings of home-based pedagogies suggest families of California nonclassroom-based charter schools lean more toward a standards-based, traditional (57.8%) pedagogy, followed by Classical (10.8%) and Project/Unit-based (9%).