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  • Home
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  • Content
    • Analysis
    • Commentary and Opinion
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    • Spotlights
    • Voices for Education Choice
    • factcheckED
  • Topics
    • Achievement Gap
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    • Customization
    • Education Equity
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    • Education Research
    • Education Savings Accounts
    • Education Spending
    • Faith-based Education
    • Florida Schools Roundup
    • Homeschooling
    • Microschools
    • Parent Empowerment
    • Private Schools
    • Special Education
    • Testing and Accountability
    • Virtual Education
    • Vouchers
  • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
  • Guest Bloggers
    • Ashley Berner
    • Jonathan Butcher
    • Jack Coons
    • Dan Lips
    • Chris Stewart
    • Patrick J. Wolf
  • Education Facts
    • Research and Reports
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    • Hope Scholarship Program Facts
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    • FES Basic Facts
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Homeschooling

Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Course ChoiceCustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

redefinED’s best of 2020: You better start swimmin’ for the times they are a-changin’

Matthew Ladner December 24, 2020
Matthew Ladner

Editor’s note: During the holiday season, redefinED is reprising the “best of the best” from our 2020 archives. This post originally published July 20.

Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you

Is worth savin’

Then you better start swimmin’

Or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin’

 — Bob Dylan

We at redefinED and others have been writing for years about the rise of the micro-school movement. Five years ago, an article in Wired magazine, titled The Techies Who Are Hacking Education by Homeschooling Their Kids, discussed the rise of homeschooling in Silicon Valley, quoting Jens Peter de Pedro, an app designer from Brooklyn:

“There is a way of thinking within the tech and startup community where you look at the world and go, ‘Is the way we do things now really the best way to do it?’ If you look at schools with this mentality, really the only possible conclusion is ‘Heck, I could do this better myself out of my garage!’”

Matt Kramer, CEO of the Wildflower Foundation, which supports a network of micro-schools, told Education Next in 2017:

“We’ve seen a 30-year decline in teacher satisfaction to an epically low level. Micro-schools offer a creative new way of thinking about teachers acting like social entrepreneurs.”

You didn’t need to be a soothsayer to see this was going to get much bigger.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if, 5 to 10 years from now, everyone looks at this and thinks, ‘That grew a whole lot faster than I thought it could,’” observed Andy Calkins, deputy director of the Next Generation Learning Challenges, in the same article. “There is a slice of the market that is not being served by public education. They’re saying, ‘The public schools don’t work, [and] I can’t get into the charter schools.’”

Simply visiting a few of these schools is enough to convince you that they would grow. They’re fun, but their approach to the education equity issue is just as obvious.

Step Up For Students’ director for policy and public affairs Ron Matus gave us multiple examples of how Florida micro-schools are leveraging scholarship programs to allow disadvantaged students to access teacher-led micro-schools (see here and here). These education innovators have created a path for the micro-school movement to proceed in an inclusive and diverse fashion.

And then the pandemic struck, slamming the pedal to the metal.

The Washington Post reported last week in an article titled, For parents who can afford it, a solution for fall: Bring the teachers to them:

Fed up with remote education, parents who can pay have a new plan for fall: import teachers to their homes. This goes beyond tutoring. In some cases, families are teaming up to form “pandemic pods,” where clusters of students receive professional instruction for several hours each day. It’s a 2020 version of the one-room schoolhouse, privately funded. Weeks before the new school year will start, the trend is a stark sign of how the pandemic will continue to drive inequity in the nation’s education system. But the parents planning or considering this say it’s an extreme answer to an extreme situation.

And this weekend, education writer JoAnne Jacobs shared a post from a Berkeley, California, mom that read in part:

If you are not a parent/in a mom’s group, you may not be aware that a kind of historic thing is going on right now. This week, there has been a tipping point in Bay Area families looking to form homeschooling pods. Or maybe ‘boiling point’ might be a better term.

Sound niche? It’s actually insanely involved and completely transformational on a lot of levels. Essentially, within the span of the last 48 hrs. or so, thousands of parents (far and away mostly moms because that’s how these things work) are scrambling through an absolute explosion of Facebook groups, matchups, spreadsheets, etc. to scramble to form homeschooling pods.

These are clusters of 3-6 families with similar aged (and sometimes same-school) children co-quarantined with each other, who hire one tutor for in-person support for their kids. Sometimes the tutor in question is full time and sometimes part time/outdoor classes, depending on the age of kids and individual circumstances … Suddenly teachers who are able to co-quarantine with a pod are in incredible demand.

This is maybe the fastest and most intense PURELY GRASSROOTS economic hard pivot I’ve seen, including the rise of the masking industry a few months ago. Startups have nothing compared to thousands of moms on Facebook trying to arrange for their kids’ education in a crisis with zero school district support.

I swear that in a decade they are going to study this because I have never seen an industry crop up and adapt so fast. Trends that would typically take months or years to form are developing on the literal scale of hours.

The writer goes on to acknowledge the equity elephant in the room: Only families with means are going to participate in this trend, absent programs to assist disadvantaged students:

The race and class considerations are COMPLETELY BONKERS. In fact, yesterday everything was about people organizing groups and finding matches; today the social justice discussion is already tearing these groups apart. For one thing, we’re looking at a breathtakingly fast acceleration toward a circumstance where educational access and stratification is many times more polarized even than it already is.

Distance learning is hell on all children. Suddenly high-income families are going to all supplement it with quarantine pods and private tutoring, and low-income families will be stuck with no assistance for 8 yos who are supposed to be on zoom for 5 hrs. a day. This is on top of already not having a way to work with children stuck at home, and being more exposed with “essential” jobs.

For another, the most obvious solution to this, i.e. individual family clusters scholarshipping disadvantaged kids into their pods, doesn’t even work at scale because there is a high correlation between kids who can’t afford tutors and kids in families where strict distancing rules just aren’t an option. None of us have any idea where this is going to go. All possible actual solutions require government-level intervention beyond what school districts can do, and that’s clearly not going to happen. I don’t even have a kid the right age, but I’m volunteering in some places around this and the situation is just … a really major story.

A major story indeed.

What can be done? Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt included scholarships in the use of federal emergency aid. More governors should follow suit. Moreover, states need to allow K-12 funding to follow children now more than ever.

In the meantime, you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone. The age of K-12 self-reliance is here. Forced by harsh circumstances, it has arrived while our ability to include equity remains tragically limited.

December 24, 2020 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoicePodcastSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews teacher, writer, speaker Amy Daumit

redefinED staff November 18, 2020
redefinED staff

On this episode, Step Up For Students president Doug Tuthill talks to the director of a growing homeschooling group in South Florida. The 20 students Daumit’s group serves receive instruction from three traditionally credentialed teachers in a K-8 style, five-days-a-week learning environment. Daumit’s teachers have left the public and private systems in search of a different way they could express themselves as creative educators.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Amy-Daumit_EDIT.mp3

Tuthill and Daumit discuss how her group blurs the lines between homeschooling, micro-schools, learning pods and private schools, a phenomenon that likely will continue to redefine public education. 

“I am not a head of school; I am not connected to the (Department of Education). I am not looking to do business as usual. The point is to create an environment where kids can be who they are … Lots of kids can’t be who they are in a public or private school.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       Daumit’s background as an educator and her disillusionment with No Child Left Behind legislation

·       How her group’s curriculum gets to the “nuts and bolts” of how kids learn

·       How the group has moved away from technology to focus on interactive, face-to-face collaborative group work

·       Expansion opportunities and how to best serve the needs of different communities

November 18, 2020 0 comment
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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Education ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingJack CoonsMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

The pod: problem or opportunity?

John E. Coons November 6, 2020
John E. Coons

Were we still school-parenting, I’m confident that Marylyn and I would be “podding” our five kids – some here at home, the others in age-appropriate pods around the neighborhood.

Berkeley, at least in its overeducated neighborhoods, is fertile ground for the fashion. Of course, down the slope near the bay, there live parents who are not so ready to deliver the good of schooling at home; of that, more in a moment.

First: Podding has proved popular among us well-off parents, and Berkeley is no peculiar island of this phenomenon. Across the country, parents and kids alike enjoy this very social but controlled environment for the delivery of knowledge to their young. Whether the basic goods of the mind are effectively transmitted remains to be seen; I assume that we will soon and for years to come be buried in reports on the blogs from the statisticians.

There are plenty of homeschoolers whose work appears to have paid off for the child, but the present absence of trustworthy statistics with which to gauge the worth of these accounts has made most of the optimistic reports of today vulnerable. And, even going toward fears that the commonly valued information will never come easily.

In any case, given their apparent popularity, pods could occasion a substantial and permanent departure of middle-class families from the traditional modes of schooling. The obvious civic problem that this creates is that the skills necessary to the creation and operation of a pod are not universal. The unreadiness of many lower-income parents to assemble an efficient learning club is plain fact.

But so what?

These people will be no worse off than now. They are today systematically drafted for the local last-resort public school, and so shall they remain when the podding begins among the better-off.

Paradoxically, a principal effect of the odd exodus will be felt by those low-income families that are scattered within comfortable suburban districts but unable to move to a pod along with their neighbors. The whole of it betrays the essentially private character of the existing system for those who can pay. The teachers union will retain its essential monopoly of the poor.

It is, I hope, quite possible that this plain and simple confirmation of America’s essential serfdom of the poor family in order to maintain the comfort of their schoolhouse warders will stir some among us at last to cry foul. No doubt there will be a division among these critics. Some will arise from the never-silent stockpile of envy, to demand the subordination of all parents and children to the state in the name of “equality” – no pods allowed!

But there will be others who will invoke the flag of equality in quite a different way. Instead of forcing all of us back into the old system by eliminating pods for the rich, they will insist that the non-rich be empowered, with vouchers or other devices, to choose a non-public school that waits to prove its special teaching genius.

The wisdom of such liberation has been attested by a host of reports from neutral-minded social scientists, at least in regard to its effect upon test scores.

Are we ready to trust the poor with that constitutional liberty we so value for ourselves? The advent of a true system of choice for all will not come without a period of confusion.

The more adventurous states among the 50 will accept the challenge and discover for all of us the pitfalls that await – and how to avoid them. Others will learn and follow. No doubt the occasional self-appointed “spokesperson” for the poor will do his best to turn the project to his self-interest.

In the end, given the opportunity, the poor will have to liberate themselves; but this will first require their deliverance from the peculiar shackles so long reserved for them. And that awaits the collaboration of us comfortable folk.

Are we ready?

November 6, 2020 0 comment
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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingJulie YoungMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and InnovationVirtual Education

Five post-pandemic predictions for online and blended learning

Julie Young October 27, 2020
Julie Young

Editor’s note: With this commentary, redefinED welcomes Julie Young as our newest guest blogger. Founding CEO and former president of Florida Virtual School, Young serves as vice president of education outreach and student services at Arizona State University and is managing director of Arizona State University’s Prep Academy and ASU Prep Digital.

As the world continues to work through the pandemic, teachers and students are back in school wading through the new realities of whatever “school” means these days. Among other things, the pandemic has certainly challenged any notions of a “typical” school model. Indeed, if there is any commonality among schools right now, it is that “typical” may no longer exist.

Where will things go from here?

As we wondered aloud about this, we landed on a few predictions, based on our view of the industry in this moment, and our look back at how trends in tech adoption have played out over the years. Here are a few thoughts:

The switch to tech-supported learning is permanent.

While our natural tendency to look at the past with nostalgia is strong, especially during such turbulent times, educators seem to agree that after this mass exodus to remote learning, things will never go back to exactly what they were. This is both good and bad.

On the negative side, no digital learning professional would have wished 2020 on any teacher. Instantly rolling into remote learning was truly a worst-case scenario. What ensued was more about patching holes and saving the ship than proactively building the ship in the harbor and preparing for launch. Teachers have heroically moved forward, but few will disagree with the idea that today’s version of remote learning is not a permanent landing spot.

Because of the rough transition, it’s not surprising that we have lost teachers in the process, especially those on the cusp of retirement or early in their careers. After weighing the frustrations versus the option to leave, some are opting for the exit, especially in light of the reality that once school is “normalized,” digital learning is highly likely to play a bigger role.

On the upside, some teachers who are willing to take on the task of learning both the tools and the strategies for working effectively within online environments have found the online or blended environment to be invigorating. One seasoned teacher told us recently that teaching online for the first time opened up a whole new world of learning to him, helping him to address his own stagnancy.

At our site-based locations, where classes are still largely remote, students and teachers alike are becoming accustomed to some of the new Web 2.0 tools they have adopted. As teachers use various online tools, they often find new ways to incorporate them into their instructional planning. Since many of the tools teachers are using are free or low cost, we expect the uptick in use of digitally supported learning tools is here to stay, even in brick and mortar schools.

Many students will stay online.

Right now, full-time online learning programs are seeing huge enrollments spikes. In fact, as the 2020 school year approached, here in the network of ASU Preparatory Schools, where ASU Prep Digital lives, we saw many parents hedging their bets – enrolling students in both site-based and the fully online school.

We expect that there will be some “leveling out” when parents have more options for a traditional face-to-face environment and want to go back to what is familiar. At the same time, we know there will be parents and students who may have formerly been averse to an online learning environment but are now seeing benefits that they don’t want to lose, particularly the greater sense of student agency.

Innovation and model experimentation will increase.

Now that teachers and administrators in traditional schools have had to build new models in the worst possible conditions, they will soon be able to take stock of their new knowledge and apply it in a much more proactive and strategic manner.

We expect to see more innovation arising from the pandemic once educators can catch their breath. Over the years, we have always found that when teachers have space to try something new, they become the best source of information on how to improve the innovation on behalf of students.  

Alternative school ideas – ‘unschool,’ micro-schools, learning pods, homeschooling, ‘outschool’ – will continue to increase.

Years ago, homeschooling was considered a radical notion, a fringe idea for hippies or religious groups. Today, homeschool is mainstream, and similar ideas are taking form.

“Micro-schools,” which harken back to the one-room schoolhouse notion, were already seeing growth before the pandemic. Micro-schools could be seen as an alternative for those who like the creativity homeschools affords, but they either don’t want to teach their own kids or don’t have the option to do so.

Homeschooling and even “unschooling” models, where curriculum is determined by the student’s interests versus a pre-set curriculum, now have access to online material to enhance and support student learning.

The flexibility inherent in alternative programs like these may be something parents increasingly want to see. While having the kids at home is an untenable situation for some families, others have found themselves surprised by the joy of simply being able to watch their kids in the moment of discovery.

Which leads us to the last point.

Notions about how and when students progress will continue to change.

For some time now, we’ve seen signs that old ideas about how a student progresses through material and grade levels are changing.

At the college level, the trend toward incremental learning with shorter-term certifications and stackable credentials has taken hold. This “incremental learning” trend has moved into the high school and even lower grade levels, with students now able to receive badges and other forms of recognition for learning mastery.

We have always known that students don’t all progress at the same rate, and progression across disciplines and skill areas also varies from one student to the next. For years, though, the idea of building a K-20 learning environment where competency and mastery determine advancement versus age or grade levels was hard to imagine.

Today, digital content and data tools are making it easier to envision a time when students will work toward achieving more and more mastery along a competency pathway, versus a course or grade level.  At ASU Prep Digital, we already offer glimpses of this model by pulling down college on/off pathways into the high school program.

Students can opt for in-course college paths to get college credit while still in high school. Our full-time students can potentially earn up to 48 college credits at no cost throughout their high school career at no cost to the families. ASU Prep Digital continually works with innovation centers throughout the university to identify university materials and assets that can be repurposed for learning and for college and career readiness for high school students.

The wholesale dive into remote learning was a worst-case scenario. With every crisis, though, innovations arise, and we expect the pandemic to yield a new cadre of newly equipped educators who are ready to implement new possibilities they wouldn’t have explored otherwise.

October 27, 2020 4 comments
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CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Teacher loved her classroom but has no regrets about new role as homeschool coach

Lisa Buie October 1, 2020
Lisa Buie

Many parents, including Lian Chikako Chang and her husband, Drew Harry, who live in San Francisco, have turned to education options such as micro-schools, homeschooling and learning pods during the coronavirus pandemic.

Emily Brigham is a homeschool success story. Her mother, a former teacher who left the classroom to educate her daughters herself, was such an inspiring role model that Brigham and her two sisters grew up to become teachers.

She was so gung-ho that she began tutoring and offering music lessons at age 14 and continued through high school and college. She interned in a classroom every semester of college.

Emily Brigham

“I just wanted to help kids however I could, seeing what a vulnerable place they’re in,” said the 23-year-old. “I want to be a friend to them; I want to help guide them. I want to help them learn to love learning and to love discovery.”

Last year, Brigham landed her first full-time teaching job on the San Jose campus of Seaside Charter School in Jacksonville. It was a dream come true for the University of North Florida graduate. But when schools prepared to reopen this year amid the continued threat of the coronavirus pandemic, Brigham made a tough decision. Like countless other teachers, she resigned her traditional teaching job to join the growing number of educators interested in assisting families who are exploring other educational choices such as homeschooling and learning pods.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll conducted in May showed that one in five teachers said they were unlikely to return to the classroom in the fall. Hillsborough County Public Schools, which typically sees about 150 requests for leave each year, scrambled to fill more than 500 teacher vacancies.

Teachers weren’t the only ones fleeing. Six in 10 parents with at least one child in grades K-12 who participated in the survey said they likely would pursue at-home learning options instead of sending their children back for in-person instruction. Nearly a third of parents, 30%, said they would be “very likely” to do that. 

Brigham disagreed with one finding of the USA Today poll that showed two-thirds of teacher respondents said the pandemic made them unable to properly do their jobs. On the contrary, she said, she felt confident and supported at Seaside Charter despite the challenges of a quick transition to virtual learning last spring.

“It was an amazing school for my first teaching experience,” she said. “I learned so much, not just about how to handle classroom discipline and how to grade papers but how to teach the whole child following the Waldorf tradition. I can’t imagine having a better first-year experience.”

That tradition, which brings a holistic approach to developing students’ intellectual, artistic and practical skills, allowed Brigham to be creative, she said. She was looking forward in May to “looping” with her 19 first graders by becoming a second-grade teacher. But as summer began, parents who were dissatisfied with distance learning or who feared sending their kids back to campus due to COVID-related safety concerns reached out to her for homeschooling guidance.

She turned them down at first. But then she realized the new venture would allow her to return to her “homeschool roots.” She explained her decision in a farewell letter to Seaside families, none of whom had asked her for homeschooling help, stating that it took a great deal of time to make up her mind.

Just six weeks into the new school year, Brigham’s new path already has begun to widen. In addition to assisting three homeschool families online and two in person, she also is teaching online classes for a Christian school in Pennsylvania.

While she enjoys the freedom and variety of what she’s doing, she acknowledges that not everyone has the luxury of taking a drastic pay cut to pursue a dream. She lives at home with her parents and can afford to work for less money, unlike some of her peers who have children and mortgages that necessitate a higher salary and benefits.

But for Brigham, a devout Christian who likes to bring her faith into her lessons, the trade-off is worth it.

“I’m able to live my faith and educate the whole child,” she said

October 1, 2020 0 comment
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AnalysisCharter SchoolsCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation SpendingFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoicePrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

‘Emergency mindset’ needed to address education inequities

redefinED staff September 24, 2020
redefinED staff

As the first full year of schooling during the coronavirus pandemic launches, a national education advocacy network is sounding the alarm in a research brief that America’s K-12 education system is in crisis.

To ensure a more flexible, equitable and student-centered system of education both now and post-pandemic, the independent non-profit organization 50CAN is calling for a national response to that crisis, starting with a greater level of federal support for new learning modes to extend greater choice for families, including distance learning, homeschooling, and micro-schools and learning pods.

While schooling traditionally has been funded through a mix of local property taxes and state revenue with the federal government paying only about 10% of total costs, 50CAN observes, a greater level of federal support across these three modes of learning is needed. 

Among 50CAN’s overall policy recommendations:

 ·       All district, charter and private schools should receive emergency funding to support safely running in-person schooling this school year if they are able to do so and to provide a flexible, high-quality online schooling option for all students.

 ·       Families should be able to easily move into or out of these in-person and online options as their health circumstances and risk factors change throughout the year.

 ·       Families should have the option to enroll their student in an online district school program outside of their neighborhood boundaries or in an online charter school or private school program anywhere in the country with no restrictions to these online transfers, such as state enrollment caps.

 ·       Families should receive funding to enroll their child in an in-person school in a neighboring district or in a charter school or private school if their district school does not offer an in-person option.

 ·       Families up to 200% of the poverty line should receive a direct payment of $2,000 per child to pay for supplemental educational materials, tutoring, technology and other learning expenses, building upon payments — $1,200 per adult and $500 per child – in the CARES Act.

 The independent non-profit organization, launched in 2011, has a presence in eight states with affiliates in additional cities including Miami.

September 24, 2020 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation ResearchFeaturedHomeschoolingParental ChoicePodcastSchool ChoiceTechnology and Innovation

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews educator, researcher and author Gina Riley

redefinED staff September 23, 2020
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill talks with Riley, clinical professor of adolescent special education at Hunter College, about “learning through living.” Author of “Unschooling: Exploring Learning Beyond the Classroom,” Riley has direct experience with the topic, having been a 20-year-old self-determined mother who raised her son using this discipline.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gina-Riley_EDIT.mp3

Since then, she has become internationally known for her work in the fields of homeschooling, unschooling and self-directed learning, conducting extensive research on these topics. (See here, here and here.)

 Tuthill and Riley discuss how interest in self-directed learning and intrinsic motivation is growing during the pandemic. Both believe the trend will continue as more families find value in a different approach to education, especially as technology continues to alter the way education works and looks.

 “Unschoolers are so good at learning how to learn. If they don’t know something or haven’t come across something … they know how to learn it, they learn how to do it.”

 EPISODE DETAILS:

·       The history of unschooling and how it differs from homeschooling

·       Research on unschooling outcomes and opinions on the model from parents and children who have participated

·       Criticism of children “not knowing” what they need to learn and the non-linear nature of learning

·       The possibility of making the benefits of unschooling available in a top-down model like a school district

 LINKS MENTIONED:

Unschooling: Exploring Learning Beyond the Classroom

Research – The challenges and benefits of unschooling

Research – Grown unschoolers’ evaluation of their unschooling experience

Research – Grown unschoolers’ experience with higher education and employment

Living by Learning Podcast

September 23, 2020 1 comment
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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingJonathan ButcherParental ChoiceSchool Choice

With lawmakers not in session, bureaucrats should not regulate pods

Jonathan Butcher September 22, 2020
Jonathan Butcher

Policymakers have a knack for finding private endeavors they presume still need fixing. The latest example? Learning pods.

With many schools closed to in-person instruction this fall, many parents have quickly adapted, developing the pods to continue their children’s education. Now policymakers are catching up with rules and regulations.

Learning pods are loosely defined as small groups of children who gather in a parent’s home for K-12 instruction. If this sounds like homeschooling, that’s because homeschool co-op arrangements like this have existed for decades, allowing parents to hire teachers or share their own subject matter expertise with groups of children who are not attending a public or private school full time.

In the pandemic, these pods are attracting families that had not considered educating their child at home before but are doing so now because of dissatisfaction with district online learning platforms. Parents have reason to be skeptical of district offerings this fall: District e-learning systems crashed or otherwise malfunctioned at the beginning of the new school year in Hartford, Houston, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, across North Carolina, and during a practice session for families in Seattle.

At a Detroit school, a teacher expecting 14 students to attend online only had one student login, and his headphones were not working.

Carrie Limpert-Bostrom, a Minnesota parent, said in an interview, “You are able to fit it [a pod] to your specific needs. In our case, we wanted somebody who could speak French and speak to our children.”

She says she does not blame her school district because information regarding the pandemic is changing all the time. But, she says, “I knew I wanted something as stable as possible for my child,” adding, “I’m taking control of my daughter’s education during this time.”

Yet in some states, the question of who, in reality, is in control is one for the bureaucrats.

In Pennsylvania, state officials issued regulations stating that families involved in pods with six or more children must “notify” a state agency. While the groups do not need to be licensed, pod families must have evacuation plans in case of an emergency, as first reported by Reason, as well as create their own “health and safety plans.”

South Carolina officials are requiring that pod families serving more than six children apply for a family childcare home license. According to Charleston media, “local zoning regulations could limit that number further.” These reports also say at-home visits will be required. By the end of August, Connecticut companies helping parents form pods area ware of the potential for regulations (with the state department of education having released guidance for at-home learning) and have already scheduled “inspections” for homes hosting pods in West Hartford and Ellington (located north of Hartford).

 In Oregon, where lawmakers blocked virtual charter school enrollment at the beginning of the pandemic, officials said they may regulate pod families in the same way as childcare providers. Such restrictions would include requiring background checks, CPR training and safe sleep training.

Governors in Colorado and Massachusetts have announced waivers for traditional childcare regulations to allow the formation of pods, but these executive orders still limit the size of each pod. The Massachusetts waiver will help organizations offering after-school programs, but parents are prohibited from paying each other for either their time or the use of a home.

Many state legislators will not return to session until the beginning of next year. This fall, state agencies should not be allowed to apply restrictions on learning pods — including in-home visits. Governors should look for ways to waive regulations and licensure requirements that would limit parent attempts to provide an education for their children. Public and private school educators can determine ways of measuring student progress if students choose to return to schools, but policymakers should not regulate pods like daycare centers in the meantime.

Next year, state lawmakers can align state policies on homeschooling, private schools, and other private learning options such as education savings accounts or K-12 private school scholarships with pods and micro-schools so that parents can make informed choices about the best learning option for their child.

Until then, parents should be encouraged to customize their child’s learning experience while district plans remain in flux.

September 22, 2020 0 comment
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