Microschools

Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation PollingFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and InnovationUnionism

The empire strikes out

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

What is thy bidding my master?

I have felt it.

It will be very difficult to conceal, but if we would agree to reopen the large schools …

Yes, my master…

What about the organizations that are providing devices and public funding for instructors? The ones addressing the equity issues rather than merely talking about them?

A recent EdChoice poll found that about one-third of parents who responded to its survey are participating in pandemic pods, and that a majority – 53% – either are participating or looking to form a pod. The following graphic accompanied poll results, providing parents’ explanations for why they are participating, why they’re wanting to begin participating, or why they are not planning to participate in the practice.

Last week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey hosted Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in Phoenix. Districts, charter and mico-school leaders and parents spoke about innovative school models, one of which was a school formed by members of the Black Mother’s Forum in cooperation with Prenda, an Arizona-based micro-school organization.

The Wall Street Journal noted an opposition report to micro-schools delivered to the National Education Association concerning these types of schools in general and Prenda in particular.

“The Opposition Report has documented widespread support for micro-schools,” it read. The NEA opposition report cites an expert who thinks micro-schools can “address some of the structural limitations of homeschooling,” such as parents’ work obligations, and — this is Prenda’s innovation — take advantage of school choice programs to “alleviate some equity issues” posed by the cost of hiring your own teachers. The combination could make home education feasible for millions more families.

The NEA opposition report goes on, predictably, to raise concerns about pods increasing achievement gaps. The Wall Street Journal sagely notes this view goes beyond the nonsensical.

It’s a strange pitch from the teachers union: micro-schools are dangerous — they help their students learn more! This seems like a reason to broaden access, not restrict it. And that’s what Prenda has done by eliminating tuition: make micro-schools accessible to low-income families.

So, if you are scoring at home, the NEA opposes public schools reopening. It also opposes parents innovating to provide their children with in-person instruction and socialization due to equity concerns. If someone actually addresses equity concerns by paying the in-person instructor, providing computer and internet access, they are really against it.

If parents are watching all of this, including the harm it is doing to the education of their children, I can imagine their reaction might look something like this:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.rapgenius.com%2F3b7d0ab92ca749210ddc1fa2099d9336.320x137x88.gif&f=1&nofb=1

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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
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.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceUnionism

The only good option is a dead option!

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

At the conclusion of one of the most criminally underappreciated very bad movies of all time, the 90210 kids-turned-space-marines of “Starship Troopers” capture a “brain bug.”

Neil Patrick Harris as Col. Carl Jenkins uses his mind-reading powers to intuit the thoughts of the hulking killer space roach monster. As luck would have it, this alien from the other side of the galaxy thinks in English.

“It’s afraid…” Jenkins says softly at first. “IT’S AFRAID!!!!” he then exclaims triumphantly to the cheers of the gathered troopers.

(You can watch this masterpiece of cinema here.)

Evidence of pandemic pod fear among the K-12 traditionalist left is everywhere. Listen to this Soho forum debate for instance. Or read this Arizona Republic article that interviews a single parent as representative of a micro-school organization with thousands of parents. This single parent admits being dissatisfied with public and private schools and is a known associate of an anti-choice activist group, a small detail that went unmentioned.

“While pandemic pods may seem relatively harmless, they are part of a growing trend towards education privatization that undermines public education and democracy” another critic asserts.

So, what to take away from this?

If there is a nefarious plot out there to damage public education, one need look no further than the decisions of NEA affiliates like the Florida Education Association to find the most effective practitioners. The FEA has been in court trying to prevent the reopening of schools that a large percentage of Florida families clearly desire.

Any ability of villains such as myself to promote micro-schools simply are dwarfed by the far grander efforts of the Florida Education Association to encourage their adoption. Those of my tribe should simply pull up a couch, eat some popcorn and wonder at the bizarre choices being made by the opponents of educational freedom.

Teachers, after all, have a great deal to gain from this trend. A small but growing number of teachers who didn’t find operating in huge impersonal bureaucracies their personal cup of tea have found joy in running their own small schools. There is a large pool of potential teachers out there unwilling to teach in big-box schools but who might return to the profession if they get to be in charge of their own school.

This trend seems popular among both families and teachers, which I find thrilling, and alas, the education tradionalists find fearful.

“The only good bug is a dead bug!” is a catchphrase from the dystopian, quasi-fascist world of “Starship Troopers.” It is a shame these folks apparently view it as inspiration for what seems to be their guiding philosophy:

“The only good school is a zoned, unionized school!”

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Commentary and OpinionCourse ChoiceCustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

The 1960s leftist rationale for education choice is rising from the dead

Doug Tuthill
Doug Tuthill

As I talk with parents and educators who are struggling to create safe and effective learning options for their students, I’m taken with how many are revisiting the left-wing education reformers of the 1960s. Names like John Holt, Ivan Illich, A.S. Neill, and Paulo Freire are coming up so often that it feels like I’m back in graduate school.

It appears the 1960s leftist rationale for education choice is making a comeback.

A student columnist at my high school newspaper in 1971 introduced me to the radical ideas of educator John Holt.  Holt inspired me to make improving public education my life’s work.

After working as an elementary and middle school teacher in the 1950s, Holt concluded that schools undermined children’s natural desires to learn, so he began promoting a form of homeschooling he called unschooling. Holt described the relationship between unschooling and student learning in his two most famous books, “How Children Fail” (1964), and “How Children Learn” (1967).

Unschooling aims to tap into children’s natural curiosity and desire to learn through authentic life experiences. Holt saw schools as artificial environments that undermine children’s natural desires to learn through exploration and play. Some of the current surge in homeschooling and micro-schools reflects Holt’s idea that learning should occur in more natural environments.

A recent New York Times column on educating children during this pandemic referred to the recent growing popularity of Ivan Illich’s concept of deschooling. Like Holt, Illich also felt that schools were artificial environments that stifled children’s innate desires to explore and learn. As the Times columnist observed:

“Deschooling’s core principles — that education should be self-directed rather than compulsory, that human growth and curiosity cannot be quantified and that children learn best in natural environments and mixed-age groups — have gained some recognition in recent years. But the idea of truly communitarian, noncompulsory, family-centered approaches to education were largely limited to the radical fringe of pedagogy. A lot has changed in six months.”

A.S. Neill’s 1960 book, “Summerhill,” is enjoying renewed popularity with families creating learning pods, micro-schools, and homeschool cooperatives. Consistent with Holt and Illich, Neill believed education should be centered on each child’s innate internal motivation to explore and learn. He created the Summerhill School in England to implement his beliefs that schooling should be less coercive and more democratic and child centered. Neill believe that schooling should be customized to fit the child instead of molding the child to fit the school.

Many education reformers today were directly or indirectly influenced by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. His 1968 book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” was, and continues to be, must reading for anyone wanting to understand the politics of government-mandated education. While Holt, Illich, and Neill wrote about how the coercive and stressful nature of schooling negatively impacts students, Freire built on this analysis to explain how governments often use schools as instruments of social control and political oppression.

Freire promoted a liberation or critical pedagogy that empowers students and families to take control of their education and use it to attain greater political and economic freedom. While most parents exercising education choice today have not read Freire’s work, their motivations for asserting greater control over their child’s education increasingly reflect Freire’s ideas on the dangers of centralized, command and control public education systems.

Like many education choice advocates, I support the more democratic, child-centered approach to education that Holt, Illich, Neill, Freire, and others were promoting in the 1960s. But scaling up an education system capable of meeting the unique needs of each child is a daunting task, which is why most schools today still employ a one-size-fits-all, assembly line approach to teaching and learning.

This horrific pandemic has given families and micro-communities a unique opportunity to assume more control over how their children are educated. We need to give these families and their communities the support they need to be successful. Perhaps the hopes of the 1960s idealists will be realized and a more natural, child-centered way of educating our children will soon become the new norm.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and Innovation

COVID-19 spurs education alternatives, creativity

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Bruno V. Manno, senior adviser for K-12 Education at the Walton Family Foundation, explores the myriad ways the global pandemic is birthing impressive innovations and alternatives so learning can continue.

The COVID-19 calamity is motivating families to seek alternatives to their child’s current school and inspiring entrepreneurs to start new enterprises that help families manage this unique situation.

As luck would have it, public and private school choice policies enacted in many states over the last 30 years advance this innovation and invention. Meanwhile, some governors are using their state’s new COVID-19 federal dollars to give parents financial support when needed as they move to these new education programs.

Three of the newer innovations parents are choosing are micro-schools, family PODS and virtual charter schools.

Micro-schools are one-room schoolhouses, typically mixed-age groupings of 15 students or less that meet in homes, churches, community centers or workspaces. They often use today’s technology to support instruction, with teachers — or other learning guides — using different instructional approaches, including place-based and experiential learning.

Some micro-schools are private and charge tuition, though 29 states (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) have school choice polices that allow families to use public dollars to pay for private school expenses. Other micro-schools are tuition-free public schools; they are created using some aspect of a state’s charter school law.

Arizona-based Prenda, a network of micro-schools, has grown from seven students in one neighborhood in 2018 to more than 200 schools. Its website traffic increased 737% in June compared to activity for June 2019. The organization works with public charter schools to provide tuition free micro-schools. It also accepts funds from Arizona’s Education Savings Accounts program, which allows families to use public dollars for private school costs, tutoring, online learning and other educational expenses.

Another innovation is the now much-discussed Parent Organized Discovery Sites, or PODS, typically engaging three to six families who employ one teacher for their kids. Alternatively, parents teach, hiring a college student or other adult to assist. Some PODs provide scholarships for low income families. And in some states, educational expenses associated with PODs can be paid for with public dollars.

Pandemic PODS combine tutoring and childcare so students socialize and learn with friends. A Facebook post documents how “within 48 hours … thousands of parents [created] Facebook groups to form … PODS.” The San Francisco school district will open 40 district PODS in libraries and community centers this school year.

In Columbus, Ohio, the YMCA is offering PODS for students ages 5 to 16 who are attending school virtually. Students can arrive as early as 6 a.m., with learning sessions starting at 8 a.m.

Public charter schools are another option, coming in many forms, including online learning. Families are choosing virtual charters as “brick and mortar” schools remain closed or because they’re wary of sending kids into school buildings.

Oklahoma’s Epic Charter Schools is a virtual school enrolling 38,026 students. It’s the largest school system in the state — surpassing Oklahoma City’s and Tulsa’s districts — adding up to 1,000 students a day. Students who enroll in Epic’s online program have access to a $1,000 “learning fund” to use for everything from karate lessons to art classes. The school manages the money and parents must choose from approved vendors.

Meanwhile, Florida Virtual School is a tuition-free school that works with public, private, charter and homeschool families and school districts nationwide. It has seen an increase of 64,107 course requests in its Flex program since July 1, representing an increase of 93 percent. Full-time applications have increased by 5,738, or 177%, over the prior year since registration opened in March.

New enterprises are also being founded.

SitterStream is a startup created at the beginning of the pandemic. It offers on-demand babysitting and tutoring to students, individually or in PODS. It has partnerships with small and large businesses who provide these services to employees, with Amazon one of their corporate clients.

Transportant, a high-tech school bus company, makes “school buses as smart as your phone.” With the onslaught of the pandemic, it began working with school districts to make buses rolling Wi-Fi hotspots. It now provides high speed internet services for an entire street or apartment building to students who lacked access.      

During the pandemic, states also are providing financial support for families seeking new education options for their children. The federal CARES Act provides discretionary funds for governors to support innovative education programs and services, fostering creativity and enterprise.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is using $30 million from the CARES Act’s Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund to create a $12 million “Learn Anywhere Oklahoma” program so students can access online content with a teacher; an $8 million “Bridge the Gap” digital wallet program offering $1,500 to more than 5,000 low income families to purchase curriculum content, tutoring, and technology; and a $10 million “Stay in School” fund providing up to $6,500 to over 1,500 low income families with a pandemic-related job loss so their children remain in their current private schools.

Governors Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Ron DeSantis of Florida announced similar programs for low-income families wanting to enroll their child in a private school. 

COVID-19 has turned school re-openings into disarray. But creative and determined parents, entrepreneurs and policy leaders are responding with impressive innovations and alternatives so learning can continue.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and Innovation

Education transformation, micro-schools and the question of equity

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

Among the remote learning options offered by Wonderschool, a company that matches families to child-care and micro-schools near them, is Base One, a space where students can focus on schoolwork and stay up to speed during the pandemic while receiving access to premium coding education and state-of-the art video gaming equipment they can use after school.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Michael B. Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and executive director of its education program, first appeared on Substack.

As pandemic pods have spread around the country and reporters and families are trying to make sense of this moment in the sun for micro-schools, I’ve been talking to the different entrepreneurs supporting these experiences for students, families, and educators.

A central question on reporters’ and educators’ minds has been equity. With over 50% of school districts planning on remote learning in the fall, there’s concern that those with the most resources can find or create good solutions, whereas those with the least will be stuck without any suitable schooling and child-care options.

Given the existing opportunity gaps for students from low-income and minority backgrounds before the pandemic, and the assumption that many have suffered deep learning losses since March while those from relatively well-off families likely found learning opportunities through their home environment if not their school, there is heightened sensitivity around the question.

This feels right on the surface.

But a recent conversation I had with Chris Bennett, the founder and CEO of Wonderschool—a company that matches families to child-care and micro-schools near them, gave me pause (you can watch the interview here on YouTube).

Think of Wonderschool like an Airbnb for launching education programs. The company has been operating since 2016. Before the pandemic it was growing fast, as it helped people start infant and toddler programs and preschools out of their homes.

When I asked Chris about the equity question, he urged caution around making presumptions.

“It’s really hard to get visibility into what’s happening for families all over the country that are coming through this,” he said. “But my guess is [that low-income and middle-income families], they’re figuring this out, just along with, you know, very wealthy families that are out there doing this.”

The son of immigrants from Honduras who grew up in Miami in a large family of 31 first cousins where he was the first to graduate from college, it’s a question Chris takes seriously. He credits his own success with having been enrolled in a great preschool program.

As he said, “It’s something I think deeply about. You know, the mission of Wonderschool is to ensure every child gets access to the education they need to fulfill their potential. And so, we are very, very committed to every child getting access, especially when I share my story.”

That’s where the second point comes in. Low-income and minority parents are far more likely to prefer that their children do not return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed than their counterparts. For example, according to one survey, 64% of black parents want remote learning versus 32% of white parents. Most families making less than $50,000 want remote learning, whereas 27% of families making more than $150,000 feel the same way.

As Morgan Polikoff, co-director of the study, hypothesized, “These communities may have already been harder hit by the virus, and they have seen more of what the actual impact is on people’s health.”

The findings, which have appeared in survey after survey, also suggest that these families do have child-care options in place.

The final thought also goes back to something Chris shared with me.

“What’s really exciting about this movement is this could potentially lead to funding for micro-schools from our school districts, from our state governments, from our from the federal government,” he said. “And if there’s funding for micro-schools, just like there’s funding for public school or funding for charter schools. Then, suddenly, you know, everyone gets access to a micro-school.”

As Chris observed there’s already a vehicle in some states to do just this: Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), which are funded with public dollars that allow families to spend the money on micro-schools and other education services. In Arizona, for example, ESAs allow students to attend micro-schools from Prenda, a hot startup in the micro-school arena.

 “All I keep thinking is why isn’t that available nationwide? If that’s available nationwide, then the equity component is solved for,” Chris said. “Now the quality component is the next level, that’s something that we’re going to have to solve for, but that’s an issue about every type of micro-school, no matter how wealthy the parent is.”

Most public schools haven’t eagerly jumped in to support this trend Chris acknowledged, but given the funding exists, he’s bullish about the greater opportunity. And to be fair, there are some districts that have seized the moment to create learning pods themselves and ensure all their students have adequate options, such as the Adams 12 district north of Denver and others featured in this Chalkbeat article.

That resonates because although I’ve argued that disruptive innovation of schooling is unlikely in the United States, I’ve also long hypothesized that if it were to occur, it would come about in the form of an Airbnb platform making home-schooling and micro-schooling far more accessible to many more families who were over-served by the existing schools and just wanted a customized schooling option that fit their needs.

Stay tuned to what happens to Wonderschool. It was one of the hot startups before the pandemic hit, but in supporting micro-schools, it appears they are remaining relevant and will continue to grow. And in so doing, another part of the Wonderschool story is that they are enabling educators to earn significantly more money by pricing their services in the market. As Chris shared, one preschool teacher on their platform was able to earn the same salary that she earned in a year in just a month and a half by starting her own school.

To attract the talent in the teaching profession that children need to develop, that could also be a game-changer.

To continue reading this article and to learn why Horn believes community colleges shouldn’t be the answer to upskilling in America, click here.

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Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFaith-based EducationFeaturedMicroschoolsNewsPrivate SchoolsSchool ChoiceTechnology and Innovation

National micro-school model hoping to make inroads in Florida

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Piney Grove Academy in Fort Lauderdale, a college-preparatory school for boys from kindergarten through high school, is one of two Florida private schools that had an exploratory conversation with innovative education leader Prenda.

A network of non-traditional schools that has attracted nationwide attention from families seeking safe learning options during the pandemic could be part of Florida’s future.

Arizona-based Prenda, which launched in 2018 and now boasts more than 200 partnerships with private schools, public school districts and individual public charter schools, features online learning programs adaptable to individual students that are aligned with state learning standards. The Prenda learning model has been described as a cross between a school and a scout meeting, with students gathering in homes, community centers, libraries and other public spaces to work on individual lessons and group projects.

Prenda leaders recently held a call with a couple of Florida private school principals to gauge interest in starting partnerships here. No decisions were made, but school director Frances Bolden from Piney Grove Academy in Fort Lauderdale said she was impressed with Prenda’s model.

“When I hear about something new or innovative, I want to learn more about it,” Bolden said.

Faith-based Piney Grove serves boys in kindergarten through high school. Bolden, who started a one-room schoolhouse for a small group of U.S. military children in Bangkok while her husband served in the Air Force, acknowledged that finding a Prenda micro-school host location would be challenging in South Florida, one of the hardest hit places in the nation for COVID-19 cases, where most schools are re-opening online.

A bigger challenge is equity. In Arizona, education scholarship accounts give parents the flexibility to choose Prenda or other private options without having to pay tuition. Prenda founder Kelly Smith said the company is working on a low cost, private pay model for families in states that don’t provide school choice funding as more parents are seeking alternatives to district schools amid the pandemic.

Florida’s model for education choice has been to grant private school scholarships to lower-income families, with education scholarship accounts limited to students with certain special needs. Education choice advocates say that allowing all families to have flexible spending would allow innovation to not only flourish but also create more equity in education.

Jason Bedrick, director of policy at EdChoice, a national nonprofit that advocates for more private options in education, said the average per-pupil spending on education nationwide is $15,000. “If a portion of those funds … were to follow the child into the learning environment of their choice, that would allay a lot of equity concerns and provide more opportunities to lower income students,” Bedrick said. 

Despite the challenges, it’s clear that school leaders nationwide are tempted by the model’s practice of pairing groups of eight or 10 students with an adult “guide,” a teacher, parent or another individual who has experience working with young people and has passed a background check. The guide leads students through projects such as building robots, staging theatrical productions, and hosting and judging their own debates. Students also create reports, artwork, videos, computer programs and dance routines. Lessons are self-paced, with students setting their own goals.

The Prenda micro-school model now spans 29 states, with a huge upsurge of interest since COVID-19 struck, as evidenced by website traffic: a whopping 737% increase in June compared to June 2019.

To listen to Step Up For Students’ president Doug Tuthill’s podcast with Prenda CEO Kelly Smith, click here.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and InnovationVirtual Education

Sal Khan as your school troop leader sounds joyfully disruptilicious

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

Hedge fund analyst Sal Khan began making math tutorials for his cousins in 2004. By 2016, Khan Academy had more than 42 million registered users from 190 countries with tutorials on math, economics, art history, health, computer science and more.

Last week, Lindsey Burke authored an interesting piece for redefinED titled, “Do pandemic pods represent disruptive technology?” A different question could be: Do pods represent the incremental improvement to digital learning that will bring that type of learning into disruptive territory?

Typically, a disruptive technology starts as what is perceived to be an inferior but more accessible product or service “competing against non-consumption.” A classic example from the early computer era featured mainframe computers as the dominant technology and personal computers as the disruptive technology. Early personal computers weren’t great, but access to mainframe computers was a very scarce commodity. Thus, personal computers were better than nothing.

The key comes with the flip: Personal computers got better over time, and at some point, people realized they were just as good or better than mainframe access. Personal computers displaced mainframe computers as the dominant technology.

Rather than thinking of pandemic pods as a disruptive technology, they may fit in the disruption model better as the incremental improvement to digital learning. Digital learning, in other words, may have been advancing in a “pre-flip” disruptive technology until innovators improved it sufficiently for many people to see it as a better form of learning.

Digital learning often competes against non-consumption by serving students who, for a variety of reasons, would otherwise drop out of school. It serves other student niches as well. Most people, however, view education as an inherently social activity – with classmates, group activities and in-person instruction. Pods can scratch all these itches in ways that purely digital learning will struggle to do.

It is too early to know much about the combination of digital learning and pods in terms of academic outcomes. It is obvious walking in the door of a school taking advantage of both that the teachers and students are having fun, a quality often lacking in large, impersonal schools. As I discussed in a recent column, I had the opportunity to observe at group of students engaged in 3-D printing at a Prenda micro-school on the Apache Nation in San Carlos, Arizona. The thought that would not leave my head was, “Scout troop meets Sal Khan = fun school model!”

The very impressive digital learning techniques developed by Success Academy, for instance, could have a significant staying power after the pandemic. We see hints of South Korean super-star instructors in dividing teachers into digital lecturers and small group leaders. Nothing screams “impersonal” louder than a district (NYC) which numbers rather than names its schools, and the digital version of Success Academy could be offered to waitlisted students.

If, however, Success Academy organized students into pods and enrolled them in its distance learning program, something truly disruptive could emerge. The pod leader would take on the role of the small group leader in this scenario, leading discussions and facilitating group projects in scout troop leader fashion. Digital learning would provide real-time instruction and access to Success Academy’s finest lecturers from its entire network of schools. It would not be necessary to battle Bill de Blasio to follow the laws of New York and provide space.

Pods are small enough to meet in informal spaces, and equity concerns, such as money to pay guides, provide devices and academic transparency, all could be addressed.

I suspect that combining the in-person element of pods to digital learning is something that a many families and educators will find appealing long after the pandemic has faded. Big-box schooling already was set to struggle to replace retiring Baby Boom teachers in Florida and around the country. Just guessing, but those eligible may be retiring at a faster rate given the pandemic.

A new school model that is fun and empowering to teachers just might be the solution we need, when we need it.

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