Microschools

Parents consider private schools as district reopening plans continue to churn

Lisa Buie July 30, 2020

Lisa Buie

Among Florida private schools with open seats for families looking for brick-and-mortar education is Compass Outreach and Education Center in Fort Lauderdale, which will offer a full-time, in-person micro-school.

The text on the website banner of Children’s Educational Services, a North Florida non-profit company that operates private schools, broadcasts this message to families:

“You should have peace about where your child goes to school. Your child’s future is too important to remain uncertain about their education.”

As school districts continue to push back reopening dates amid uncertainty about when and how they will reopen (here, here and here) and a state order to reopen brick-and-mortar schools is facing a court challenge, some parents are feeling anything but peaceful as they search for options.

Many families want – or in the case of working families need – in-person instruction, with the expectation that schools will ensure their children’s safety. In Palm Beach County, where the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb, 54 percent of parents expressed support for in-person instruction in a district survey. About two-thirds of Marion County parents recently said they planned for their children to return to the classroom.

While some families are joining together to form pandemic pods, pooling their resources to hire a teacher for in-person instruction at home, this can be a costly option that’s out of reach for families with more modest incomes. Many of those families, though, are turning their attention to a new idea: transferring their children to a private school, in some cases with assistance from a state scholarship.

It’s the proverbial “win-win.” Private school numbers have dipped since COVID-19, creating more space. Families want their children in a “real” classroom with adequate social distancing.

San Jose Catholic School in Jacksonville, which serves students from 3-year-old pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, is eager to let families know space is available for their children – and that they accept scholarship students.

“We want to make sure that finances do not stop anyone from attending,” said principal Jenny Studer.

In addition to accepting students who are eligible for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Gardiner Scholarship, two programs administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, San Jose offers its own financial aid programs. The school accepts students regardless of their religious beliefs. About 20 percent of those currently enrolled aren’t Catholic, Studer said, adding, “Our doors are open to all.”

San Jose’s student-teacher ratio of 17 to 1 makes it attractive to parents seeking a safe environment, Studer said. Classrooms are large enough that children can be seated with more-than-adequate social distancing. Other safety measures include temperature checks for staff and students, water bottle refill stations, limits on restroom occupancy and an isolation room for those who show virus symptoms until their parents can pick them up.

The school employs its own cleaning staff, and plans are in place to sanitize high-touch areas frequently throughout the day. The entire campus will be cleaned at the end of each school day.

Seats also are open at six K-12 schools operated by Children’s Educational Services. Campuses are in Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Zephyrhills and Bradenton.

“We have a fantastic program at all CES schools and want as many children to experience it as possible,” vice president Andy Uprichard said, adding that the school accepts all state scholarships. Like San Jose, the organization has its own financial aid programs for families who need assistance above what their scholarships will cover.

Uprichard said about 30 students from public schools have enrolled over the summer across the six campuses, and more parents are calling every day.

“They’ve heard how organized we are, how prepared we are and how we’re being direct about the situation at hand, and they feel like they can trust us,” he said.

Last spring, the schools averaged 12 to 15 students per class. This fall, with some families choosing the school’s optional online program, there will be more opportunities for social distancing, Uprichard said.

Other safety features he cited include staggered drop-off and dismissal times, extra handwashing and sanitizing stations, extra cleaning, temperature checks, face masks and air purifiers.

In South Florida, where most of the state’s coronavirus cases have been concentrated, parents are checking out Compass Outreach and Education Center in Fort Lauderdale. Founded in 2017, it offers a host of options for learning, including full-time in-person micro-school instruction, a homeschool hybrid and virtual education.

Everything takes place in a large one-room schoolhouse and across a half-acre of lush, green land that serves as an outdoor classroom. That area will be used for math and language arts classes as well as for outdoor activities. Indoors, children will be seated two to a table at opposite ends. Students will wear masks indoors as per the latest orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Staff will be required to wear masks all the time.

“We’ve been giving tours non-stop,” said Laurel Suarez, president and CEO of the micro-school, which emphasizes entrepreneurship, nature education and a student-centered approach to learning for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. “A lot of those coming from the public school are looking for viable alternatives, even if its three days a week so they can work.”

Like San Jose and the schools managed by Children’s Educational Services, Compass accepts students on state scholarships, as well as other forms of financial aid.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Suarez said, 15 spots were still available.

July 30, 2020 0 comment

Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured Homeschooling Microschools News School Choice Technology and Innovation Virtual Education

The rise of altschool and other micro-schools

Special to redefinED July 28, 2020

Special to redefinED

Acton Academy opened in 2009 with 12 students, teaching content through online game-based tools, Socratic discussion and face-to-face projects the school calls “quests.” Today, Acton offers kits to entrepreneurs and parents interested in opening their own schools following its model.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Michael B. Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, is included in the Summer 2020 edition of Education Next.

From San Francisco to Austin, Texas, to New York, new forms of schooling termed micro-schools are popping up.

As of yet, there is no common definition that covers all these schools, which vary not only by size and cost but also in their education philosophies and operating models. Think one-room schoolhouse meets blended learning and home schooling meets private schooling.

As Matt Candler, founder of 4.0 Schools, writes:

“What makes a modern micro-school different from a 19th century, one-room schoolhouse is that old-school schools only had a few ways to teach — certainly no software, no tutors, and probably less structure around student to student learning. In a modern micro-school, there are ways to get good data from each of these venues. And the great micro-school of the future will lean on well-designed software to help adults evaluate where each kid is learning.”

Several factors are driving their emergence. Micro-schools are gaining traction among families who are dissatisfied with the quality of public schooling options and cannot afford or do not want to pay for a traditional private-school education. These families want an option other than home schooling that will personalize instruction for their child’s needs. A school in which students attend a couple days a week or a small school with like-minded parents can fit the bill.

Some trace the micro-school’s origins to the United Kingdom, where over the past decade people began applying the term micro-schools to small independent and privately funded schools that met at most two days a week. As in the United States, the impetus for their formation was dissatisfaction with local schooling options. Although home-schooling families have for some time created cooperatives to gain some flexibility for the adults and socialization for the children, the micro-schooling phenomenon is more formal.

One of the early U.S. micro-schools, QuantumCamp, was founded in the winter of 2009 in Berkeley, California, out of a dare that one couldn’t teach quantum physics in a simple way. The result was the development of a course that would be accessible to children as young as 12.

The school now offers a complete hands-on math and science curriculum for students in first through eighth grades and serves about 150 home schoolers during the school year; double that number attend the summer program. Tuition ranges from $600 to $2,400 depending on the program and enrollment period.

In 2013, QuantumCamp introduced language arts courses. Each academic class meets once a week for an activity-based exploration of big ideas and then offers out-of-class content that includes videos, readings, problem sets, podcasts, and other activities to enable students to continue exploring concepts at their own pace.

At roughly the same time as QuantumCamp’s founding, in Austin, Texas, Jeff Sandefer, founder of the nationally acclaimed Acton School of Business and his wife, Laura, who has a master’s degree in education, launched Acton Academy. In creating the five-day-a-week, all-day school, the couple sought to ensure that their own children wouldn’t be “talked at all day long” in a traditional classroom. The Acton Academy’s mission is “to inspire each child and parent who enters [its] doors to find a calling that will change the world.” The school promises that students will embark on a “hero’s journey” to discover the unique contributions that they can make toward living a life of meaning and purpose.

With tuition of $9,515 per year, Acton Academy initially enrolled 12 students and has since 2009 grown to serve 75 students in grades 1 to 9. The school has learning guides—they aren’t called teachers—whose role is to push students to own their learning. The model enables the academy to have far fewer on-site adults per student than a traditional independent school and to operate at a cost of roughly $4,000 per student per year.

Acton compresses students’ core learning into a two-and-a-half-hour personalized-learning period each day during which students learn mostly online. This affords time for three two-hour project-based learning blocks each week, a Socratic seminar each day, game play on Fridays, ample art and physical education offerings, and many social experiences.

The Socratic discussions teach students to talk, listen, and challenge ideas in a face-to-face circle of peers and guides. The projects require the students to work in teams to apply the knowledge they have learned. They also foster a ‘‘need to know’’ mind-set to motivate the online learning and provide a public, portfolio-based means for students to demonstrate achievement.

Early results appear impressive, as the first group of students gained 2.5 grade levels of learning in their first 10 months. Now the school is spreading. There are currently eight Acton Academies operating—seven of them in the United States. Twenty-five are slated to be open by 2015. The Sandefers are not operating them, however; they provide communities that want to open an Acton clone a do-it-yourself kit plus limited consulting and access to wiki discussion groups. They are developing a game-based learning tool to help prepare Acton Academy owners and the learning guides in the schools. Tuition at the academies ranges from $4,000 per year to $9,900.

Inspired in part by micro-schools like Acton Academy that use his software, the prince of online and personalized learning himself, Sal Khan, launched his own micro-school in the fall of 2014 in Mountain View, California. The Khan Lab School, which charges $22,000, opened with roughly 35 students and intends “to research blended learning and education innovation by creating a working model of Khan Academy’s philosophy of learning in a physical school environment and sharing the learnings garnered with schools and networks around the world.”

As Isabella, an 11-year-old student who previously attended a nearby public school, said, “Here it’s different from my old school because you’re doing your own playlist and you have more projects.”

Mandeep Dhillon, a parent with two children enrolled at Khan Lab School, amplified the differences.

“After a while, we realized public, private school didn’t matter. Kids were being programmed in chunks,” he said. “I hate the term home schooling because it’s based on location. It’s not really about having them at home. What we’re trying to do is build an independent path. It’s not about the schooling, it’s about experiences.”

As these small schools proliferate, their impact on the wider world of schooling—public and private—is potentially large, but still anything but certain.

July 28, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured Homeschooling Microschools School Choice

Pandemic pods and Amara’s law

Matthew Ladner July 27, 2020

Matthew Ladner

Pandemic pods were all the rage in last week’s news stories as parents around the country began organizing into micro-schools. It is indeed a fascinating thing to watch, but Amara’s law should be kept in mind.

Stanford computer scientist Roy Amara is credited with the theory that “we tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but we underestimate it in the long run.” So, too, will it likely be with pandemic pods. Matters have been trending in this direction for decades with well- to-do America. The question at hand is what sort of opportunities do children whose parents are not well-to-do deserve?

“Marriage of convenience” is a term one might use to describe the relationship between upper-crust America and public education. That class of Americans get the best of everything that public education has to offer, and generally pay more than anyone else for it in the form of higher state and local taxes. Even upper-income families who enroll their children in public schools, however, do not put all their eggs in that basket.

So, the pandemic strikes, impromptu distance learning goes somewhere on the poor to catastrophically poor spectrum. Ineffective COVID-19 tests get released and recalled and good tests are hamstrung by red tape. Americans are told not to wear masks and then to wear masks. A certain expression about a decapitated chicken comes readily to mind.

Uruguay safely reopened their schools in June, but it may be beyond the ken of Americans.

Meanwhile, education unions have produced lists of policy demands, many unrelated to schooling, and are filing lawsuits to counteract state and district mandates. Is it any wonder a growing number of parents have decided to take matters into their own hands?

Upper-income Americans use public schools, but they stopped relying upon them solely long ago. This chart shows the trend in private spending on student enrichment activities by family income quartile (top and bottom quartiles, respectively).

“Do it yourself” education is old hat for upper-income Americans. Multiple service-provider education has been the norm for upper quintile Americans for decades. Kumon, Mathnasium, club sports, tutors, college entrance exam coaches – you name, it, they have been shelling out money for it. Podding up with others and hiring a teacher during a period when the country seems determined to slip into pandemic dysfunction is an entirely reasonable next step given the circumstances.

Amara’s law seems to apply. Pandemic pods are not going to “destroy public education,” as constitutional funding guarantees are safely enshrined in state constitutions. Upper-income families have been hybrid homeschooling on their own time for decades. The danger to traditional schooling, if any, lies in that some growing percentage of them may notice the opportunity time cost of traditional schooling.

The longer-term significance of this episode, however, seems likely to be an increased culture of self-reliance and do-it-yourself education. The chart shows this phenomenon is not new; pandemic pods are simply the latest incarnation of a long-established trend.

We cannot (nor should not) prevent families from enrolling their children in Kumon, club sports, or indeed, pandemic pods. We can and should, however, allow disadvantaged families the option of using state-provided funds to enable their children to participate.

In other words, the worrying trend in the chart is not the steepness of the top line but rather the flatness of the bottom line.

July 27, 2020 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Featured Grassroots Microschools News Parent Empowerment School Choice

Parents looking for safer education solutions turn to ‘pandemic pods’

Lisa Buie July 23, 2020

Lisa Buie

Lian Chikako Chang, right, pictured with her husband, Drew Harry, and their 3-year-old son, Jay, created the private Facebook page Pandemic Pods and Microschools to help like-minded families connect.

Christy Kian’s phone rang in early March when the number of COVID-19 cases had just started climbing.

The parent of two students whom Kian had taught at a Broward County private school wasn’t satisfied with distance learning. Anticipating that brick-and-mortar schools might not be able to reopen safely in the fall, the parent was curious: Would Kian consider teaching the family’s two elementary-age children at their home?

“I was sort of shocked,” said Kian. “I happened to love the family and happened to love the children. I said okay, let’s think about this and how we should move forward.”

A month later, another family whose children Kian had taught called with the same request. And so, in August, Kian will begin spending three hours a day teaching four children from the two families – for pay.

A phenomenon the veteran educator had never heard of when she got those calls – pandemic pods – suddenly has blossomed into a trend that is reshaping public education on a national scale. As uncertainty about reopening school campuses continues to rise, these pods are arrangements where families or groups of families band together to provide education and socialization for their children.

The trend started in California in response to that state’s reopening guidelines that restrict schools in about 80% of counties to online education only this fall. Some are looking to form microschools, which typically serve fewer than 10 students.

The Washington Post called pandemic pods “the 2020 version of the one-room schoolhouse, privately funded.” Experts say they’re a fascinating example of a grassroots response to a crisis.

“Parents are saying no matter what the options are that are offered, that they are going to be the final decisionmakers in all of this,” said Annette Anderson, deputy director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education. “Parents are not being swayed by mandates about who and how students should go back. Parents have put themselves in the driver’s seat.”

Lian Chikako Chang, who runs a data-focused parenting blog, Littldata, created the private Facebook page Pandemic Pods and Microschools after noticing behavioral changes in her 3-year-old during the pandemic and began seeking ways to form a bond with other families.

The group now has 13,600 members and helps connect families from nearby areas who want to form a pod. It also helps match families with teachers who are seeking to work with pods. Details such as pay rates, schedules and rules for those in the pods are left to the individual groups to work out.

Some families want teachers to handle the job like they would in a traditional class. (Kian will be taking attendance, choosing curriculum and providing all instruction and assessments.) Others just want an in-person teacher to supplement their school’s virtual instruction.

Chapters are forming across the United States, though no Florida Facebook pages exist on the national page. Still, a few Floridians have expressed interest in forming a pod or teaching for one.

One woman from Pensacola said she was looking for a teacher to homeschool one third-grader and up to three sixth-graders. A Florida teacher said she was exploring the option and planned to charge at least $20 per hour for tutoring. Others were charging $50 per hour per child or higher, with some looking to equal the salaries they made at their schools.

Kian, the Broward County teacher, said she will earn more to teach four children than she did at her former teaching job.

“Ideally, I’d like to see children back in school,” Kian said. “I don’t think of this as my long-term career; this is something that fell in my lap, where I can help a couple of families get by until it’s abated.”

Critics point out that pandemic pods exacerbate inequities already exposed by distance learning necessitated by the pandemic. Meanwhile, public policy experts have observed that “podding” is reinforcing the adage that the market always finds a way.

In the words of Lindsey Burke, director for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation: “It’s time for policy to catch up with families.”

July 23, 2020 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured Microschools Parent Empowerment School Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews education innovator Kelly Smith

redefinED staff July 22, 2020

redefinED staff

In this episode, Tuthill speaks with the founder and CEO of Arizona-based Prenda, an organization on the frontlines of the micro-school tsunami that has ensued during the global pandemic. These home learning environments, catering to fewer than a dozen similarly aged students, are gaining traction as concerns about health and safety in brick-and-mortar schools continue to rise.

Smith discusses how he was inspired to create Prenda after realizing he didn’t “know how to learn” while studying at MIT and how that inspiration led him to envision countless opportunities to change the way America thinks about learning. Rejecting the notion that education is a passive activity, Smith launched Prenda as an organization “starting with the heart, honoring each child’s “divinity and infinite value.”

“We’re focused on the question, ‘What does it mean for children to engage in the world and learn things?’ … to go out and build the life you want?”

EPISODE DETAILS:

Prenda’s learning model of “conquer, collaborate, create”

How micro-schoolteachers act as guides to activate student learning

Equity issues and ensuring that the most vulnerable have access to Prenda programs

Criticisms surrounding ignoring pedagogical best practices in favor of Prenda’s holistic approach

Prenda’s expansion plans into additional states including Florida

LINKS MENTIONED:

Conquer, Collaborate, Create – Prenda Learning Model

Washington Post: For parents who can afford it, a solution for the fall: Bring teachers to them

July 22, 2020 1 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Course Choice Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured Homeschooling Microschools Parental Choice School Choice

You better start swimmin’ for the times they are a-changin’

Matthew Ladner July 20, 2020

Matthew Ladner

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.

July 20, 2020 1 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Microschools School Choice Technology and Innovation Virtual Education

How Covid-19 could fuel school choice

Scott Kent March 20, 2020

Scott Kent

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

Well, not literally. (We hope.) But when American society comes out the other end of the Covid-19 crisis, it almost certainly will operate differently in many ways. The scale of change will depend on the length of the lockdown the nation is enduring. We’re roughly two weeks into it – a mere speed bump, relatively speaking – and already we’re seeing a reshuffling whose effects likely will be felt for years afterward.

For example, with movie theaters closing and no idea of when they might reopen, studios are exploring different ways to distribute first-run films. Streaming services already deliver content to homes and mobile devices, but the longer the quarantine lasts, the more consumers become comfortable without theaters. Eventually, when the “remain in place” orders are lifted, there may be little incentive for studios to release as many movies as they have in the past to whatever theaters remain. A new business model will have emerged.

We could see a similar displacement on education. As “social distancing” has entered the mainstream lexicon, so too have people been introduced to distance learning.

Public schools have been closed from coast to coast, with at least two states already announcing that their students will not return this academic year. Districts are scrambling to transition within days from traditional in-person instruction to daily video classes and online lessons. It’s a massive undertaking in an incredibly compressed timeframe that involves getting teachers quickly up to speed on the process, while ensuring students have the technology to access the content.

As with streaming movies, virtual schooling is not new. Some 375,000 students already attend online school in more than half the states. K12 Inc. and other online education providers are offering resources to districts and parents during the Covid-19 pandemic. For many, this will be their introduction to education outside its traditional forms. Some may have been completely unaware of its existence.

What happens if they like it?

After being forced to see education through a different lens, and being required to innovate, how many won’t return to the old ways, and instead be inspired to use these tools to create new ways of delivering education? Suddenly, brick-and-mortar walls vanish, and attendance zones don’t matter. If home is the classroom, teachers can reach students from anywhere.

How many families and educators might embrace the flexibility such methods offer?

Approximately 2 million U.S. students are homeschooled. Mike McShane, writing at EdChoice, points to the 2019 Schooling in America survey that shows that around 13 percent of American parents would like to homeschool their children if they could – and that only about 3 percent actually do. The Covid-19 crisis has given many the opportunity to conduct a trial run to see if it suits them.

How many teachers will be inspired to create new models, much the way former public school educators have established microschools?

Education choice itself could go viral.

Of course, the opposite could happen. If first impressions matter, distance learning done poorly – and many districts are rushing into place a new instruction they are ill-prepared and equipped to provide — could sour educators and families on the concept, making them long to return to the familiarity of brick-and-mortar schools.

Clearly, these alternatives won’t fit everyone’s needs or desires. Beyond those who are satisfied with their zoned school (or magnet school), the traditional public school has become central to American society. It is part of its daily, and yearly, rhythms (although those tempos just changed faster than a Neil Peart drum solo).

In addition, many families, particularly lower-income households, rely on their public schools to provide food, child care and health care (and the disruptions caused by Covid-19 raises concerns about more effective ways to deliver those services).

Not all children will learn effectively through virtual schooling, and not all homes make for appropriate classrooms. Many students — and teachers — thrive on the in-person interaction a traditional school provides.

For those reasons, the Covid-19 era isn’t likely to lead to the elimination of traditional public schooling. Nor should it. Education choice is about expanding options, not contracting them, so students can find the one that fits them best.

However, the longer this break from the status quo lasts, the more Americans will become accustomed to the “new normal” in education — and perhaps become more receptive to its evolving forms.

March 20, 2020 0 comment

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The little school where it’s okay to fail

Ron Matus October 1, 2019

Ron Matus

Arts Thereafter Head of School Phil Henderson, a former district science teacher, reviews a student portfolio with one of 60 students at the K-12 “learner-driven” private micro-school he founded with his wife, Jennifer.

ST. CLOUD, Fla. – In the ever-expanding universe of public education, Phil and Jennifer Henderson are, by their own design, little fish in a big pond. A few years ago, the couple left teaching in public schools here on the edge of metro Orlando to start their own little micro-school.

Arts Thereafter is a faith-based, arts-rich, economically diverse, “learner-driven,” K-12 school with 60 students. (Try and label that! 😊) It reflects what the Hendersons think is the right way to do teaching and learning, spurred in part by a fear to fail that gripped one of their own children. (Click on the audio below to hear their account.)

Lawyers, ranchers and blueberry farmers like their approach. Nurses, mechanics and sheriff’s deputies do too. Many of them wouldn’t have been able to afford Arts Thereafter (as modestly priced as it is) without Florida’s menu of choice scholarships. The Hendersons wouldn’t have been able to sustain their school without them. But shared interest, and the freedom to try something new, is giving life to the couple’s vision. And who knows? It might even give educators, in Florida and beyond, another example of what’s possible under a new definition of public education.

“If you’re a fish that’s been in a fish tank for a long time, do you realize there’s a whole ocean out there?” said Henderson, 39, who taught science in district and charter middle schools. “I’m not saying our way is for everybody. But there’s a whole ocean out there of different ways of doing things.”

Jennifer Henderson, Middle School Head Guide and co-owner of Arts Thereafter, engages with students in the middle school studio. Henderson firmly believes education doesn’t have to be boring and true intelligence is not based on a test score.

Arts Thereafter is tucked into two modular buildings behind a modest church that pines hide from the highway. Its humble exterior belies that it’s part of the Acton Academy, an acclaimed micro-school network. From its start in Austin, Texas a decade ago, Acton has grown to 160 affiliates. Phil Henderson said when he stumbled on the network’s existence, “I was ready to give my life to it. I said if this is the future of education, count me in.”

There are no tests, no grades, no grade levels in the traditional sense. There are “guides” instead of teachers. Students are given wide latitude to become independent thinkers, to acquire useful, real-world knowledge by following their curiosity. They do projects and group work. Their peers hold them accountable.

Does it work? Let’s veer from fish to chicken.

Earlier this year, the kids in the middle school “studio” were challenged by their guide to build a structure. They initially proposed a playhouse (for the younger students) but … too expensive. Somebody suggested a chicken coop. They could raise chickens, sell the eggs, and learn tons of science along the way.

Arts Thereafter encourages students to learn through experience, working together on group projects that promote teamwork. Middle school students at the micro-school recently designed and built a chicken coop.

Working in teams, some of them acquired eggs from a local farmer and raised the chicks. Others contacted local builders to defray costs through donated materials. Others researched local ordinances to make sure it was legal to keep chickens. All of them worked together on the design, which had to be revised several times to meet financial realities. (The original called for a three-story “chicken mansion.”) All of them worked together to build it.

Last week, the students sold five roosters they raised for $10 each. The student designated to be the seller was sure he could get $20 each, but froze when it was time to haggle with the buyer. His peers razzed him a bit, but both he and they could laugh about it.

Failing was part of the process.

“This wasn’t take a test and regurgitate it back on paper,” Jennifer Henderson said. “This was planning, designing, re-designing, fixing, failing and trying again. We let them fail, early and often, so they know how to bounce back and do better next time.”

Half the students at Arts Thereafter use state choice scholarships, including 26 who use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students. (The scholarship is administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.)

Katherine Day’s son Christian is one of them. Day, a mother of five, is a paraprofessional at a district school. Her husband is a branch manager for a rental car company. Christian, 13, was a bit of an outcast in public school. His peers picked on him because he liked to talk physics and the military, and most of his teachers, Day said, didn’t have the time or inclination to help. Christian woke up every morning dreading school.

In the beginning, it was rough at Arts Thereafter too. But the Hendersons kept in constant contact with Day. In a micro-school with 60 kids, they could.

Two years in, Christian is happy again, and fully engaged in his school. He’s made friends. He knows everybody is on his side. “Every issue, they helped me through it,” Day said. “It was like family.”

It remains to be seen how much micro-schools can chip away at the big challenges facing public education. But in a choice-rich state like Florida, it’s not hard to find more of them (like this one and this one) emerging in the shadows of school districts. One by one, they’re giving parents and teachers a glimpse into the endless educational variety that, with more choice, can be.

“These micro-schools are all answers to different questions,” Jennifer Henderson said. “Everybody’s different. Everybody has their own thought about how education should be, how their children should learn. We’re only an answer for some. We’re not an answer for all.”

But with more choice giving more educators more power, more answers might add up. The little fish at the Arts Thereafter micro-school checked their fear to fail.

They found out the water’s just fine.

October 1, 2019 0 comment