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    • Dan Lips
    • Chris Stewart
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Microschools

Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedJonathan ButcherLindsey BurkeMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Education in a time of pandemic: Not making the grade

Special to redefinED January 5, 2021
Special to redefinED

This commentary from redefinED guest blogger Jonathan Butcher, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, and center director Lindsey Burke, first appeared on Tribune News Service.

When it comes to her daughter Emerson’s education, Sarrin Warfield says, she’s “in it to win it.”

When Emerson’s assigned school in South Carolina announced plans for virtual learning this fall, Sarrin says she asked herself, “What if we just made this in my backyard and made a school?” After talking with friends who have children the same age as Emerson, Sarrin said, “Let’s do it. Instead of it being a crazy idea, let’s own this process and be really intentional about doing this and make it happen.”

Sarrin is one of the thousands of parents around the country who formed learning pods when assigned schools closed. By meeting in small groups with friends’ and neighbors’ children, these pod families could try to keep at least one of part of their child’s life from being upended because of COVID-19.

The time-honored practice of school assignment did little to help the Warfields — or thousands of other students around the U.S. during the COVID spring … and then COVID summer and fall. In the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, officials in some of the largest districts in the country reported significant enrollment changes from the previous school year, especially among younger students.

Officials in Mesa, Arizona, reported a 17% decrease in kindergarten enrollment after the first two weeks. In Los Angeles, Superintendent Austin Beutner reported a 3.4% decrease in enrollment, but said another 4% of students couldn’t be found, making the change closer to 7%. Figures are similar in Broward County, Florida, and Houston. In large school districts, these percentages amount to over 10,000 children per district.

Some of these changes can be attributed to learning pods. But officials in large cities and even those representing entire states simply reported having no contact with many students.

Under normal circumstances, if thousands of children who were once in school suddenly were nowhere to be found, this would be an issue of national concern. Hearings would be held, and officials would demand to know what is happening with schools around the country. Loud calls for change would be heard.

But life during the pandemic is anything but normal.

Likewise, if more students around the country were failing — say, twice the figure from last year — this would also be worrisome, right? From Los Angeles to Houston to Chicago to Fairfax, Virginia, school officials and researchers are now reporting that the proportion of students earning D’s and F’s in the first semester has increased, doubling in some cases, in comparison to the last school year.

Yet across the U.S., many school districts, especially those in large metro areas, remain closed to in-person learning for some if not all grades and may not reopen at the start of 2021.

According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of parents in lower-income brackets report being “very” or “somewhat” concerned this fall that their children are “falling behind in school as a result of the disruptions caused by the pandemic.” With thousands of students not in class, even virtually, and falling grades among those who are attending, who can blame them?

For taxpayers and policymakers looking for lessons in the pandemic, the utter failure of school assignment systems to provide quality-learning options to all students, especially the most vulnerable, is clear.

The quality and consistency of the education a child received during the pandemic has been dependent on the attendance boundary in which that child’s family lives. At the same time, so many of the issues plaguing education during the pandemic — and for that matter, the entire century leading up to the pandemic — are rooted in policies that fund school systems, rather than individual students.

Allowing dollars to follow children directly to any public or private school of choice is a critical emergency policy reform that states should pursue. Such a policy change is overdue.

Since it’s anyone’s guess how soon life will get back to normal, we can’t wait any longer for the system to fix itself.

January 5, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedMicroschoolsPodcastSchool Choice

revisitED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill follows up with Prenda CEO Kelly Smith

redefinED staff December 30, 2020
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill catches up with the founder and CEO of Arizona-based Prenda, an organization on the front lines of the micro-school tsunami that has soared during the global pandemic.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Kelly-SmithUPDATE_EDIT.mp3

Smith describes how these home-learning environments, catering to fewer than a dozen similarly aged students, are gaining traction among families looking for creative education options. Amidst rampant uncertainty and accelerated changes to public education, micro-schools and other smaller “pod” education formations are sweeping the country – and blending mastery-based education with peer collaboration.

Smith discusses Prenda’s expansion into Colorado and his team’s experiences in working with partners to bring micro-schools to as many communities as possible, noting he’s inspired by those in district schools who see the importance of adding micro-schools to their portfolio of options. He believes there are passionate visionaries and leaders working inside traditional systems, stepping up and taking risks against the wishes of institutional pushback.

“The genie is out of the bottle (on micro-schools) … Families are reporting their child is engaged, and the format really works … A safe comfortable environment right in the neighborhood can be empowering and kids can come out of their shell.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       Prenda’s most recent year and lessons learned during the pandemic

·       Assuaging parents’ fears about shifting from factory-model education and toward intrinsic, organic learning

·       The regulatory environment in particular states and Prenda’s plan for expansion

·       How school districts have stepped up to encourage micro-schools

·       The challenges that lie ahead

To listen to Tuthill’s earlier podcast with Smith, click HERE.

 

December 30, 2020 0 comment
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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 OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19FeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Viva North Vegas!

Matthew Ladner December 22, 2020
Matthew Ladner

Recently, we reported on the city of North Las Vegas’ pandemic pod effort, namely, the Southern Nevada Urban Mico Academy, or SNUMA. Included was what must be the edu-quote of the year from North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee:

Children who otherwise likely would be given a jar of peanut butter and told not to answer the door while their parents work and CCSD remains virtual instead are attending in-person homeschool co-op learning sessions, receiving live tutoring and participating in enriching, fun activities in a safe, socially distant environment at a cost of just $2 per day.

Now comes word not only that the city is renewing the effort until the end of spring semester 2021, but of preliminary data on academic outcomes.

Says councilwoman Pamela Goynes-Brown, who has led the city’s efforts at SNUMA: “Our kids are learning and thriving in a safe environment. I could not be more proud of their progress.”

Among the academy’s academic results:

·       While 78% of children arrived at SNUMA below grade level in reading, 62% are now at or above grade level

·       While 93% of children arrived at SNUMA below grade level in math, 100% currently are working on material that is at least on grade level

·       While nearly three-quarters of third graders (71%) arrived reading below grade level, 42% are now at grade level, and 28% are above grade level; additionally, 85% have completed at least a year’s worth of growth since their initial assessment

·       While 71% of third graders were testing below grade level in math, 57% are now working at grade level, and 43% are working above grade level

The news story lacks detail regarding testing, but these data presumably have been derived from formative assessments. The data appear very promising, but obviously a great deal more study is warranted before drawing any conclusions. Nevertheless, beating the living daylights out of being left alone with a jar of peanut butter may just be a warmup for this innovative form of education, so stay tuned to this channel for more developments in 2021.

December 22, 2020 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

“Pod Up the Guest House!” sings music producer DJ Khaled

Matthew Ladner December 7, 2020
Matthew Ladner

Music producer DJ Khaled with his children, Asahd, 4, and Aalam, 10 months

DJ Khaled, who has produced 18 Top 40 hits and eight Top 10 albums, earned a feature in the Dec. 2 issue of People magazine for starting a pandemic pod for his 4-year-old son and his son’s classmates.

“In March, when Asahd’s preschool sent everybody home, I was doing the Zoom classes with him every single day,” the article quotes Khaled’s wife, Nicole Tuck. “I thought to myself, ‘This cannot be the best we can do!’ So, I organized a learning pod at our house with other quarantined families. We have seven kids and two teachers, and it’s absolutely amazing.”

Having a seven-child school with two teachers in a guest house may strike some as being a bit out of reach of the average American family. Phillip II of Macedon created a one-to-one pod for his son with Aristotle, and that worked out great for Alexander, but alas, it isn’t easily replicated. Public policy, however, can make education like Khaled and Tuck are providing broadly available.

Many families would struggle to hire one, much less two teachers, using their own funds. But in Arizona, micro-school genius Prenda partners with districts, charters and families who use education savings accounts to form micro-school communities. When the pandemic hit, 700 students were learning through Prenda, but in the ensuing months, that number has greatly increased.

District, charter and ESA enrollment allows students to access their K-12 funds to pay an in-person guide and provide both in-person and distance learning. A growing number of school districts, cities and philanthropies have been helping to create small learning communities around the country as well. The Center for the Reinvention of Public Education has started keeping a tally of these efforts, which you can view here.

Khaled is hardly alone in his enthusiasm for micro-schools. A recent survey of parents conducted by Ed Choice found that 35% were participating in a pod; another 18% reported interest in either joining or forming a pod. Meanwhile, a recent parent poll conducted by the National Parents Union found almost two-thirds of those surveyed said they want schools to focus on new ways to teach children as a result of COVID-19 as opposed 32% who said they want schools to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Fifty-eight percent said they want schools to continue to provide online options for students post-pandemic.

December 7, 2020 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

It takes a system of millions to hold teachers back

Matthew Ladner November 30, 2020
Matthew Ladner

Hayley Lewis, a former public school teacher, wrote an important piece called, “Why I quit teaching in the public school system (it wasn’t just COVID).”

Here is an excerpt:

The American public-school system is beyond repair. I honestly don’t know where you even begin attempting to fix a system that’s so systematically flawed. Policies are made by those who haven’t been in a classroom in years, if at all, and show the extreme disconnect between the theoretical and the everyday reality that is the life of a teacher and their students.

The chances of having a high-quality curriculum are next to nothing, and if you’re lucky enough to have something that’s worthwhile, there are so many other hoops to jump through and issues that arise, it makes it virtually impossible to teach effectively and to truly prioritize the learning of children.

The quality of public education, like anything, varies widely. Many of the most dedicated and successful, and yes, even the most innovative educators I have had the pleasure of meeting, work in the district system. Like anything with widely varying quality the well-to-do tend to get the better part of it, and the poor the worst. That’s why it is vital to address equity concerns in the design of choice programs.

The “better part of” something, however, doesn’t ensure that it is actually high quality. You should read Lewis’ entire piece, but in essence, she describes a work environment in which high-quality instruction happens in only limited spurts and even then, despite the system rather than because of it.

Large numbers of students in classrooms make it nearly impossible to provide differentiated instruction — the quantity of children is just too high to get to in a day. Teaching five subjects to 30 different children, all with varying levels and learning styles is nearly impossible in a perfect world scenario.

But throw in classroom management, heightened behavior issues, standardized assessments and other requirements that have no immediate impact on real learning, and the chance of truly meeting the unique needs of a diverse group of students is next to nothing.

What to do about this? How about starting over, as BBI International, a micro-school in Pompano Beach, Florida, did. You can read the details here.

The BBI International micro school is another example of what’s possible with the expansion of private school choice.

Teaching five subjects to 30 different children, all with varying levels and learning styles, as Lewis described it, may be a task enhanced by technology, while the application of knowledge occurs in small in-person learning communities. Large elements of a high-quality curriculum can be delivered live by a single digital faculty, while in-person instructors lead a related set of student projects – science experiments, theatrical productions, student debates and much more.

Rather than remaining an airy dream, innovative educators currently are educating students in this fashion, and the demand is growing.

If you want a spot in the legacy system Lewis describes, it will always be available to you. It takes a system of millions to hold teachers like Hayley Lewis back. The funding for that system is guaranteed in state constitutions. It’s a system well designed to maximize adult employment, including lots of people who make it next to impossible for dedicated people like Lewis to do their jobs.

The system is, alas, poorly designed to deliver education to children. Having experienced the inability to serve from within dysfunction, Lewis concludes:

I’m not sure where this new path will take me, but I know that I have a duty to make this world a better place, and that was not happening where I was before. It’s my deepest hope that I can pave a new way and be an example to future educators, showing them that it’s ultimately worth the sacrifice to give children the quality education and love they all deserve.

The kids still need you, Ms. Lewis, and a system worthier of your dedication is being constructed. I hope you’ll be among those to mold the future to decide the shape of things to come.

November 30, 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 and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationFeaturedJonathan ButcherMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Regulations found across U.S. may limit availability of learning pods, reduce parental choice

Jonathan Butcher November 10, 2020
Jonathan Butcher

Sarrin Warfield received a “flurry” of information from her local district school over the summer on whether her child’s classes would be in-person or online. She was concerned about her daughter, Emerson, “sitting in front of a computer from 7:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., which we’ve really been intentional to not have that be her life,” Warfield said.

Warfield chose to create a learning pod with a group of friends in South Carolina. Instead of seeing a learning pod as a “crazy idea,” Warfield said, she and her friends poured their nervous energy over school re-openings into being “really intentional about doing this and making it happen.”

“We’ve all committed,” Warfield said, and “we’re in it to win it.”

But just as parents like Warfield embarked on this new initiative to continue their children’s education as local schools closed to in-person learning, state regulators began to issue warnings that certain requirements could apply to learning pods. In a new report for the State Policy Network, I explain that some state and even local officials may require families participating in parent-led learning pods to obtain in-home child care licenses or be subject to other child care-related rules such as zoning laws or specific adult-child ratios.

Learning pods are like micro-schools, but micro-school students usually attend private schools (though some micro-schools partner with traditional and charter public schools). Microschool operators such as Acton Academy, based in Texas, establish these small schools in different locations as private schools and charge tuition. Still, Prenda microschool founder Kelly Smith says microschools are “variations on a theme” from each other.

In terms of new regulations, then, the differences between micro-schools and pods and between one micro-school organization and another matter less than the overlapping features, which means new rules should be a concern for families involved with either innovative solution.

The new rules for pods vary from state to state, but regulations or threats of future rule enforcement can be found across the country.

In Maine, the Office of Child and Family services said families that want to form a learning pod to participate in public school e-learning activities may have to acquire a childcare license. If, for example, “instruction and supervision are compensated,” this will require a license if the children are enrolled in a public school.

State officials are not the only policymakers issuing rules.

In Broward County, Florida, district administrators say pods may be operating illegally if they have not been licensed as either a daycare or a private school. In Austin, Texas, city officials say anyone “hosting a pod [must] have a detailed health and safety plan,” including rules for handling everything from “outdoor time” and transportation to meals and snacks. Families hosting pods in their home must get permission from state officials.

Many childcare regulations have little to do with child safety. These rules limit the supply of center-based care and the creation of in-home care arrangements because caretakers find it difficult to obtain the necessary approvals. If these same rules are applied to learning pods, families should expect the same stifling effects.

As I explained in a September post for this blog, most state lawmakers are not in session now, which means legislative answers to state agency overreach may not arrive until next year. Lawmakers should prepare to consider proposals that align learning pods with existing homeschool and private school laws so that pod families do not bear heavier regulatory burdens than families that have made other education choices for their children.

Such support will be crucial because as the Wall Street Journal reported in October, teacher unions are looking for ways to undermine microschools, creating yet another challenge for families and entrepreneurs trying to help students succeed when district e-learning platforms fall short. 

Warfield’s learning pod has been exactly what she and Emerson needed this fall. She reports: “Families giving themselves permission to do what is best for our families is the ultimate.”

As she and other pod and microschool families make education a priority, public officials should move regulations out of the way.

November 10, 2020 1 comment
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