We are just weeks away from “back to school,” yet millions of parents do not know how or even where their children will be educated. A growing number of parents have decided to take matters into their own hands.
Seemingly overnight, microschools or “pandemic pods” have become ubiquitous. Fed up at being unable to send their children to school, parents have banded together to make their own schools. Countless Facebook groups helping families organize their own pods already have tens of thousands of members, with local chapters springing up nationwide.
The catalysts for this sea change are legion. Some parents desperately need to return to work, but many public schools are either only partially reopening (half-days a few times a week) or not reopening at all in the near future. Multiple teachers unions are holding their children as political hostages by demanding policy changes — many unrelated to school safety, such as “Medicare for all” and defunding the police — as conditions to reopen schools. Some school districts are even charging parents hundreds of dollars a week for on-campus child care, gathering children together for online learning in the very buildings they are telling parents are unsafe to open for in-person instruction.
Even where schools are reopening, other parents already had one foot out the door. Whether concerned that their children could be exposed to COVID-19 among crowds of children or that measures to prevent transmission (canceling recess, lunch at a plexiglass-enclosed desk) would drain the joy out of their children, many parents were already exploring other options.
And yet, few parents are particularly enthusiastic about another semester of children at home staring at screens. While some schools transitioned seamlessly to distance learning this spring, evaluations show it was a social and academic catastrophe for too many students. McKinsey estimates that students will suffer substantial learning losses in schools that do not reopen and that the least-advantaged will suffer the most.
Enter microschools.
Microschooling can take many forms. Sometimes, this involves a team approach to teaching, and in others, the families hire instructors to educate small groups of students in families’ homes, church basements, or whatever space they can find. What they have in common is in-person instruction often aided by digital options and socialization with a small number of peers while mitigating the risks posed by large institutions.
While interest in microschooling has spiked, the concept isn’t new. Before the pandemic, highly motivated or sometimes highly dissatisfied families and teachers served as trailblazers as public school teacher job satisfaction steadily declined and rates of student bullying, anxiety, and depression rose. In just two years, the Prenda Schools in Arizona went from educating just a handful of students in a living room to thousands of children in hundreds of microschools across the state.
One of the consistent attributes one notices in visiting microschools is that they not only seem effective: They also seem fun for both the teacher and the students. You did not need to be a soothsayer to see where this was headed, but the pandemic accelerated the trend.
Microschooling is an opportunity for teachers too. Many teachers leave the profession frustrated by bureaucracy and a lack of support. Microschooling offers them the chance to teach the way they want to teach, and many are finding they can earn more money — even while teaching fewer students.
Shaken by the possibility that microschooling parents and teachers might not return when the pandemic passes, defenders of the status quo are already charging that this development advances “white supremacy” because low-income minorities are less likely to benefit from it.
The critics have a point about inequality, but the solution is not to shame parents for doing their best to educate their children during trying times. Instead, we should find ways of extending these opportunities to everyone.
U.S. public schools spend more than $15,000 per pupil on average. If that money were to follow the child, a microschool with 10 children could have upward of $150,000 — more than enough to hire a competent instructor and purchase needed materials.
States such as Arizona and Florida have enacted publicly funded K-12 education savings accounts that empower families to customize their children’s education. In addition to tuition, families can use the accounts for tutoring, textbooks, online learning, educational therapy, and more. ESA families can hire the instructors and purchase the materials needed to run their own microschools.
Other states are following suit. This month, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina each announced plans to use federal relief funds to empower families with education savings accounts for low-income families. Likewise, Pennsylvania lawmakers recently introduced legislation to create “Back on Track” education savings accounts.
Well-to-do families have seized the initiative to educate their children under difficult circumstances. With education savings accounts, policymakers can ensure that all children have access to these opportunities. This should not be a privilege for the few but rather a birthright for all.
Matthew Ladner (@matthewladner) is Executive Editor of RedefinED. Jason Bedrick (@JasonBedrick) is Director of Policy at EdChoice.
