A:

Yes and no. The Educational Freedom Act makes no special provision for home-schooling families. Parents can only use scholarship funds to educate their K-12 children at public schools, charter schools or accredited private or parochial schools. Many home-schooling families have already adapted to this reality by taking courses from accredited institutions such as community colleges or charter schools.

However, this does not mean that students being home-schooled will not receive the scholarship credit. The Act would permit home-schooled students to accumulate the entire annual scholarship credit and save it for college or other qualified educational expenses. Thus, a home-schooled student would theoretically be able to accumulate his annual scholarship from kindergarten through 12th grade. Even if the scholarship credit remains fixed at $12,000 per year, a home-schooled student would accumulate $195,000 in principal over 13 years all of which could be used for in-state college or vocational training of his or her choice.