Why America’s Fastest-Growing Homeschool Networks Are Built Around Collaborative Creative Projects, Not Textbooks

When you walk into a homeschool co-op on a weekday morning, the noise is the first thing you notice. Not the disorderly kind. Something more akin to a functional studio. Water samples from a nearby creek are being debated by a group of nine-year-olds in West Virginia. A chemistry experiment that went awry caused two teenagers in New Hampshire to argue. With coffee in hand, a parent in Birmingham leads a group of younger children through a writing exercise that she had meticulously prepared the previous evening. Almost no textbook is visible. And that appears to be the point more and more.

Since the pandemic, the percentage of K–12 students in America who are homeschooling has nearly doubled to 6%, placing it on par with charter schools and not far behind private schools. According to the Washington Post, it is the type of education that is expanding the fastest in the nation. What’s actually going on inside the houses, churches, rented studios, and converted garages where these families congregate, however, is the part of the story that is understated. For many of them, the textbook has discreetly moved to the side of the table.

The parents spearheading this change believe that the old model—the worksheet-and-lecture routine that most of them were raised with—does not adequately address the needs of their children. They have thus begun constructing something different. Mostly cooperatives. Small, voluntary networks in which one parent manages the science lab, another provides writing instruction, and a third plans a field trip to a state legislature in session or a working farm. It’s disorganized. It’s not level. And it appears to be effective.

Nor is the data subtle. Homeschool participation increased in 80% of reporting states during the 2024–2025 school year, according to research using the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Hub. South Carolina saw a 21.5% increase. Vermont, 17%. 15% in Ohio. 14.5% in New Hampshire. These figures do not reflect a declining post-pandemic trend. They resemble the initial phases of a structural shift, the kind that occurs when families identify a basic flaw and begin fixing it on their own.

The question of who is patching is intriguing. The stereotype of the homeschool family as primarily wealthy, white, and devout hasn’t changed. According to EdChoice research, 15% of Hispanic households homeschool, 10% of Black families, and 5% of Asian families. In terms of politics, 29% of homeschool parents identify as Democrats and 44% as Republicans. Thirty-one percent never attend religious services, and about forty-four percent attend them once a week. It’s a coalition that doesn’t really fit any one talking point, which is probably why the discourse surrounding it still seems to lag behind reality.

The cooperative project has evolved into the learning unit within the co-ops. A six-week robotics project. The children wrote and staged a theater production. A nine-year-old organized a river cleanup without realizing that they shouldn’t be doing it yet. Parents discuss these projects in an iterative manner, with a tolerance for failure that the conventional system tends to penalize, much like startup founders discuss products. It’s difficult to ignore how much faith is put in the children.

Programs for Education Savings Accounts are subtly speeding up the process. The five states that EdChoice identifies as having true universal education freedom—Florida, Arizona, West Virginia, Arkansas, and New Hampshire—are also the ones where non-traditional enrollment is increasing at the quickest rate. Students now receive public funding for online courses, co-ops, tutoring sessions, and welding camps. It’s still unclear if that change in policy will lead to better long-term results. Longer-term data on this younger, co-op-heavy generation is still being gathered, but the Cardus Education Survey indicates that adults homeschooled for eight years or more report lower anxiety, higher life satisfaction, and stronger civic engagement than the previous criticisms predicted.

Something more subdued than a revolution and more difficult to categorize than a trend is emerging. Families are assembling an education in the same manner that previous generations assembled a means of subsistence. Not exactly rejecting school. Finding the most helpful information about a child’s learning style that is closest to them and expanding from there is all that is required. For the time being, the textbook can wait its turn.