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learning pods

American K-12 has been permanently changed by the pandemic

Matthew Ladner June 7, 2021

Matthew Ladner

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

David Bowie, Changes

A district school superintendent recently told me: “COVID has kicked the education reform can down the road 15 years. I’m not sure we are all aware of the implications yet, but the belief that we are returning to 2019 ‘normal’ is folly.”

Wired reported this month on the increase in homeschooling during 2020:

In 2019, homeschooled students represented just 3.2 percent of U.S. students in grades K through 12, or around 1.7 million students. By comparison, 90% of U.S. students attend public school. But a March 2021 report from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates an uptick in homeschooling during the pandemic: In spring 2020, 5.4% of surveyed households reported homeschooling their children (homeschooling being distinct from remote learning at home through a public or private school).

By fall 2020, the figure had doubled to 11.1% … The U.S. Census Bureau’s survey indicates that homeschooling rates increased across all ethnic groups in the past year, and the greatest shift was among Black families, who reported a 3.3 percent rate of homeschooling in spring 2020 and 16.1% later in the fall.

Tyton Partners made another set of estimates based upon a survey of parents. Nothing looks revolutionary at first glance in these estimates, but look closer and you can feel the earth shift under your feet.

The Tyton estimates show a less profound (but still sizeable) move to homeschooling. You probably shouldn’t get overly attached to either estimate because the situation is very fluid, and we’ll know better in the fall. Even if the Tyton numbers are closer to reality, as the Wired article notes, the ease with which people can homeschool has increased, as have the incentives to do so.

There will be no putting this toothpaste back in the tube.

If the Tyton estimates are accurate, district and private schools will have suffered their largest single-year declines in history while charter schools, micro-schools and homeschools enjoyed large increases in enrollment, and supplemental pods emerged spontaneously to educate 7 million students. We see, for instance, a rate of charter school enrollment almost four times that of the average between 2000 and 2018. The shakeup likely isn’t finished.

The largest decrease in enrollment nationwide came from kindergarten students, with parents choosing to “redshirt” rather than enroll them in fall 2020. A National Public Radio survey of 100 school districts found an average kindergarten enrollment drop of 16%.

Assuming most of those families choose to enroll for fall 2022, schools likely will have to shift teachers out of first-grade assignments (where there will be fewer students) into kindergarten assignments (where there will be more). Which school sector they sort themselves into and at what rate also will be of interest. A back-of-the napkin estimate of the number of redshirted kindergarteners based upon the typical size of recent cohorts and the 16% figure would fall between 500,000 and 600,000 students.

The Wired article contains a point-counterpoint between a representative of the American Association of Superintendents and the Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars. The Superintendent’s representative makes the usual worried statements about money for the system. The Black homeschool advocate seems much more focused on the interests of students:

… Ali-Coleman, of Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, warns against over-emphasizing the limitations of low-income families. She says that not all homeschooling families are necessarily financially privileged, either, pointing to Fields-Smith’s research on single Black mothers who homeschool their kids in spite of low-income status.

Moreover, adequately funded public school systems can still harm children of color: More money won’t shield a child from unequal discipline, a biased curriculum, or a pervasive school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately pushes Black youth out of schools and into criminal justice systems.

Sure enough, when you plot academic growth for Black students in the top five spending states – in order, New York (1); Connecticut (2); New Jersey (3); Vermont (4); and Alaska (5) – in the Opportunity Project at Stanford University explorer, only Alaska has a rate at or above the national average.

Of greater interest still will be Tyton Partners’ estimated 7 million students who engaged in supplemental pods. These students remained enrolled in another school online but joined small education communities to do so.

The Tyton Partners survey found 15% of parents made shifts in their child’s schooling situation this past fall. More change is likely on the way for this fall. In the medium to long term, the most significant change likely will be the availability of entirely new sectors and methods of education.

June 7, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Customization Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Parental Choice School Choice

Teachers want some PODS!

Matthew Ladner May 24, 2021

Matthew Ladner

BB International School in Pompano Beach, Florida, is an example of how education choice opens the door to more fun and less bureaucracy. Here, first- and second-graders in Alexa Altamura’s class mix academics with enrichment.

What teachers need are PODS (All together now!)

Teachers want those PODS! (Everybody)

Teachers love those PODS, PODS,

PODS are what they need (PODS are what they need)

Okay, so now that I’ve got a song stuck in your head for the rest of the day (week?) let’s discuss an EdChoice survey that shows teachers love learning pods. And that includes teachers from every K-12 sector:

The research shows some 87% of charter school teachers are either “very interested” or “somewhat interested” in teaching in a learning pod; 59% of all teachers are interested. Schools just might want to find a way to give teachers what they want, especially given the fact that the same survey shows families also want multiple options for their children this fall:

Oh, and then there is the new Tyton Partners survey showing that families dropped more of their own money on learning pods last fall than on private school tuition:

It would be interesting to survey former teachers on what they think of pods. Every state has a large pool of experienced teachers, many of whom tapped out of the profession in frustration of various sorts. Could they be tempted back into the teaching profession by new school models with more fun and less bureaucracy?

I’d love to find out, because we need all the effective teachers we can get.

May 24, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Parental Choice School Choice Unionism Virtual Education

Teachers unions are keeping kids out of the classroom; school choice can ensure they learn anyway

Special to redefinED January 27, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Jude Schwallbach, research associate and project coordinator at The Heritage Foundation, originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

National School Choice Week has taken on renewed importance this year, as too many families are approaching the one-year mark of crisis online learning provided by their public school district.

Last March, the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools nationwide, forcing teachers, parents, and students to transition to virtual classrooms and grapple with the various effects of lockdowns. Ten months later, parents report that 53% of K-12 students are still learning in their virtual classrooms.

Public schools have remained largely closed to in-person instruction.

Recent research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that in-person learning is rarely a source of large outbreak. Even though in-person learning is one of the safest activities for children, proposals to reopen district schools for face-to-face learning have met with staunch opposition from teachers’ unions.

Inexplicably, teachers unions have also rejected measures which would require teachers to be more available to students throughout the day via live video.

The Center on Reinventing Public Education’s director, Robin Lake, told the New York Times that the teachers unions’ vacillating responses feel “like we are treating kids as pawns in this game.”

Adding to parents’ frustrations, teachers unions have also taken the opportunity to push for a whole host of concessions that have nothing to do with health safety.

For instance, the American Federation of Teachers has a long list of demands, including: additional food programs, guidance counselors, smaller classes, tutors to assist teachers, and “culturally responsive practices.”

Similarly, The United Teachers of Los Angeles has demanded a moratorium on charter schools, higher taxes for the wealthy, and “Medicare for All.”

The blatant, non-pandemic-related demands of many teachers unions have illustrated what Stanford University professor Terry Moe noted a decade ago: “This is a school system organized for the benefit of the people who work in it, not for the kids they are expected to teach.”

The inflexibility of teachers unions has increasingly become a source of escalating tension with local officials. For example, Chicago Public Schools, the third largest school district in the nation, locked teachers out of their virtual classrooms after they refused to return to in-person instruction with classrooms at less than 20% capacity.

Such unbending posture has provoked the ire of parents and left many children frustrated, both academically and socially. As Tim Carne wrote in the Washington Examiner, “The very people who have most loudly declared the importance of public schools now are deliberately destroying public schools.”

Many parents are tired of being strong-armed by teachers unions and have pursued alternative education options for their children.

For instance, the learning pod phenomenon, wherein parents work together to pool resources and hire their own tutors and materials is popular. This allows students to return to in-person lessons, even if school districts refuse to reopen.

Last September, a national poll by the pro-school choice nonprofit EdChoice indicated that 18% of surveyed parents were looking to join one. At the same time, 70% of surveyed teachers reported interest in teaching in a pod.

A recent report by education scholars Michael B. Henderson, Paul Peterson, and Martin West found that approximately 3 million students—nearly 6% of K-12 students—currently participate in a learning pod.

Notably, pod participants are more likely to be “from families in the bottom quartile of the income distribution.” The authors wrote, “Parent reports suggest that 9% of all students from low-income families and 5% of all students from high-income families are participating in pods.”

Families have embraced private school options, too. A survey last November of 160 schools in 15 states and Washington, D.C., showed that half of the surveyed private schools experienced higher enrollment this academic year than they had the previous year pre-pandemic.

Moreover, more than 75% of surveyed private schools were open for in-person instruction. The remaining schools offered hybrid education, which is a combination of in-person and virtual learning.

Children could have greater access to private education if more states made education dollars student-centered. For instance, parent controlled education savings accounts allow parents to spend their funds on approved education costs, like private tutoring, books, or tuition. These accounts already exist in five states.

National School Choice Week is an important reminder that “public education” means education available to the public, regardless of the type of school it takes place in. It is the perfect time to remember that parents, not teachers unions, are best positioned to determine the education needs of children.

School choice options like education savings accounts can bring education consistency to families across the country during a most uncertain time. National School Choice Week is an important reminder of that.

January 27, 2021 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured Jonathan Butcher Lindsey Burke Microschools Parental Choice School 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

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured Parental Choice School Choice

The pandemic has changed education; now let’s change how we fund education

Special to redefinED January 4, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Adam Peshek, a senior fellow for education at the Charles Koch Institute, first appeared on Real Clear Education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an unprecedented opportunity to rethink education in America. Instead of hoping for a return to “normal,” let’s learn from what has worked – and what has not – to make lasting improvements and create a more resilient system, one that can adapt to any challenge families may face in the future.

The first step toward realizing a more resilient and family-centered system is to reimagine how we fund education. In short, it’s time to start funding families, not the buildings that are meant to serve them.

Americans spend at least $720 billion on education each year. At around $13,000 per child, that puts the U.S. among the highest-spending countries in the world.

Instead of providing this benefit directly to families – as we do for higher education, childcare, and health care – in K-12, we send this money directly to school buildings. Taxpayer dollars are collected and sent to a central office, and zones are drawn around individual schools where students are required to attend or forfeit the funds raised for their education.

The pandemic has exposed the flaws in this system. School closures, loss of childcare, and difficulties transitioning to online and hybrid-learning models are having devastating effects on children. According to one report, an estimated 3 million students have received no formal education since schools closed in March. That’s the equivalent of every school-aged child in Florida failing to show up for school.

The economic impact on students is estimated at $110 billion in lost future earnings each year. Unsurprisingly, this decline in learning has been felt more deeply by children in low-income families.

These challenges might seem insurmountable, and many of us look forward to the day when we can return to “normal.” But why would we want to return to a status quo that has proven a failure during a time of crisis? While we may not encounter an international crisis of the scope and scale of COVID-19, families face immeasurable local and personal crises each year.

This is a time to learn from innovations that have proven successful and integrate them into the system moving forward.

One of the biggest innovations during the pandemic has been the proliferation of individualized education. Families with resources – financial and otherwise – are taking matters into their own hands. They are hiring tutors, forming learning pods, enrolling in microschools, sharing childcare, reimagining after-school programs, and rearranging their lives to provide the continued learning opportunities that many children have lacked for months.

These unconventional models may yield academic benefits. Researchers from Opportunity Insights analyzed data from 800,000 students enrolled in an online math curriculum used by schools before and during the pandemic. The researchers found that students in low-income neighborhoods saw a 9% decline in math progression between January and April. Meanwhile, students from wealthy ZIP codes saw a 40% improvement over the same period.

In other words: in the spring, with schools closed during the pandemic, students in some wealthy families may have progressed academically at higher rates than if the schools had remained open.

This is raising understandable equity concerns from advocates concerned about widening gaps between low- and high-income students. But in a situation where some students are progressing and others are falling behind, the solution isn’t to move everyone to the middle. It’s to give those falling behind access to the same type of learning that is allowing others to thrive.

The sort of family-directed, individualized education taking place during the pandemic is likely to expand its presence in American life. As an Atlantic article observed, “COVID-19 is a catalyst for families who were already skeptical of the traditional school system – and are now thinking about leaving it for good.”

The author of that piece, Emma Green, recently said in an interview that home-based, unconventional methods of education are getting “a flood of interest from parents of all kinds.” Early data seems to confirm this, with large upticks in families opting out of school systems to pursue homeschooling.

To create a more effective and more resilient education system, we must learn from what has proven effective during the pandemic – namely, the ability of those with resources to identify and pursue a variety of individualized learning opportunities to meet children’s needs. To provide these same opportunities for all families, governments should prioritize direct grants to families, education spending accounts, refundable tax credits, and myriad other ways to get money into the hands of families so they can build an education that fits their needs.

The way in which we currently fund education is blocking equal access to these learning opportunities. To expand that access, we need to fund families, not school buildings.

January 4, 2021 1 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured News Parental Choice School Choice

Orlando officials transform city rec centers into pandemic pods for low-income students

Lisa Buie November 17, 2020

Lisa Buie

The John H. Jackson Community Center is one of six Orlando recreation centers where city officials have created free or low-cost learning pods to serve lower-income families who need education options for their children during the pandemic.

Lower-income children living in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle are reaping the benefits of personalized learning along with their more well-off classmates, thanks to some fairy godparents at city hall.

During late summer, as the first day of a new school year drew near, city of Orlando employees waved their magic wands and created learning pods at six neighborhood recreation centers to serve those without access to traditional pandemic pods and the trappings that come with them, such as private tutors.

“The city of Orlando is very dedicated and committed to closing the gap in learning between families who are well off and families who are not,” said Lisa Early, director of the city’s families, parks and recreation department.

Learning pods, which have sprung up across the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allow small groups of students to study under adult supervision. Families typically rotate pod duty or pay teachers to provide in-person instruction in homes or in rented spaces. One criticism of pods is that they favor families of privilege and shut out those without the means to engage, an issue Orlando officials sought to dismantle.

Their search for education solutions began when families who had been using city recreation centers over the summer began pleading for help. They heard from parents who said they were worried their children would become infected with COVID-19 if they returned to brick-and-mortar settings and possibly carry the virus to family members.

And while the Orange County School District offered an online program that allowed children to learn from home, it wasn’t a good solution for working parents who were reluctant to leave their children home alone.

“We have a very strong relationship with the families in our community,” Early said, explaining that the decision to create learning pods was parent-driven.

Around that time, pandemic pods became a national topic as large school districts outside Florida refused to open their campuses to in-person instruction amid teacher union protests about employee safety. As battles raged in those states, many families took matters into their own hands by hiring teachers to deliver in-person instruction to small groups of students.

Teachers benefited as well as families. Some reported making more money teaching in a pod than at their schools. Others who took a year off or retired to avoid exposure to COVID-19 found a new source of income and greater academic freedom in pod arrangements.

But the workaround only added to the ongoing debate about educational equity for families of modest means.

Early and her staff watched the conversation closely and decided to seek an alternative that would allow Orlando’s lower-income families to reap the benefit of learning pods. She and her staff drew up a plan and brought it to Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who approved the $97,000 proposal. Orlando became one more city on the list of those coming to the rescue of economically disadvantaged, mostly minority families.

Unsure of what the demand would be, city staff publicized the program through the city’s summer camps, which Early said were among the few municipal programs around the state to be open during the pandemic. Staff decided to offer the pods at six recreation centers, with 18 students at each center. If sign-ups exceeded the number of available spaces, other centers could be added.

As it turned out, six locations were enough.

“We thought we would be overwhelmed with demand, and we weren’t,” Early said.

Three months later, the program is going strong. Students are dropped off and picked up outside the rec centers each weekday. They sit in assigned seats 6 feet apart, divided into two cohorts per rec center that meet in separate rooms. Groups are not allowed to intermingle, and masks are required.

Staff members assigned to each room assist with technology and help clarify a teacher’s instructions. Students bring their district-issued devices and use the center’s wi-fi to access their classes. A limited number of city computers are available on site for students who lack their own devices, and the city provides headphones for each student. High-touch areas get extra cleaning.

Best of all, the learning pods are free for those who qualify based on need while others pay a $5 fee per day for each child.

While a handful of COVID cases have been reported at the centers, infection has been well contained through federal safety protocol and robust contact tracing, Early said.

The city has yet to determine whether it will continue to offer the program during second semester. Early said the decision will hinge on whether Gov. Ron DeSantis shuts down district online programs and orders a full return to campus when the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1. But at least for now, the learning pods appear to be for many families a glass slipper with a perfect fit.

November 17, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Legislation Featured Jonathan Butcher Microschools Parental Choice School 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

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Jack Coons Microschools Parental Choice School Choice

The pod: problem or opportunity?

John E. Coons November 6, 2020

John E. Coons

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

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

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

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

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

But so what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are we ready?

November 6, 2020 0 comment