Can Entrepreneurs Save Learning, Part 2?

Here’s Part 2 of “Can Entrepreneurs Save Learning?”

The 74 online published an article today entitled “10 Education Entrepreneurs Offer Advice To New Founders in 2024.” The article was written by Kerry McDonald, the host of the LiberatED podcast. The advice contained in the article came from McDonald’s podcast interviews over the past few months. Here’s their entrepreneurial advice, along with commentary from me:

“Seize This Innovative Moment in Time – I think now is an energizing moment for visionary education entrepreneurs to push forward on a new frontier in education. Jack Johnson Pannell, founder Trinity Arch Preparatory School for Boys, a private microschool located in Phoenix, Arizona.”

I used to think the way Pannell thinks, but now I’m not so sure. It just seems like it’s less work to keep sending kids to bad schools. I’ve told this story before, but here it is again. Before I started ABPTL, my partner and I worked with families trying to offer different options for their kids when it came to sending them to bad schools. After weeks, and sometimes months, or working with these families, all of them – ALL OF THEM – chose to keep their kids in the sucky school they were assigned.

“Know Your Limits – Know your strengths, know your passions, but most importantly, know your limits. When I finally realized that by trying to serve everyone I would only8 end up recreating the system we are all trying to leave – a system in which the highest priority is efficiency, not quality or the health of the educator – it freed me to create the school I knew I could sustain based on my unique talents, passions, and limitations. Devan Dellenbach, founder of Re*Wild Family Academy, a home-based K-12 microschool in rural Abbyville, Kansas.”

Although microschools offer public schooling, they aren’t, or shouldn’t be, traditional public schools. A vision here might be small microschools all over the place offering kids specifically what they need when it comes to their personalized learning plan. The learning plans define the microschool.

“Keep Experimenting – The world is ready for new education models. We know things have to change, and our young people deserve change. Keep experimenting, keep moving things forward, and keep listening to the young heroes. Danelle Folz-Smith, founder of an Acton Academy in Venice Beach, California. The Acton Academy network started with one school in Austin, Texas in 2009 and now includes more than 300 schools serving thousands of learners.”

Is the world, or even America, ready for new education models. Seems like new learning models float around the periphery of the learning option world, while the traditional school system still controls much of the learning world property.

“Maintain Confidence While Swimming Against the Current – A big part of this is actually just the deschooling process from a lifetime spent in the conventional school system. Then there’s also the uneasy feelings you have when you’re stepping out of line, going against the grain, and bucking the system…which is exactly what you’re doing. I’m mid-way through my second year and while I’m much better about all that now, I still regularly turn to all the great literature on self-directed education for reassurance! You’re NOT alone and it’s good, needed, and purposeful work! Troy Salazar, founder of Liberty Self-Directed Learning Center, a full-time K-12 learning center for homeschoolers in Des Moines, Iowa.”

Our learning coaches, at the personalized learning lab school we opened around 2014, exemplified what Salazer says above. Cicely and Aditi didn’t care about what the traditionalists were saying. They only cared about “working their kids’ learning plans,” and they did it daily with intensity and passion. Sadly, we couldn’t find enough Cicely’s and Aditi’s to scale our little lab school, which reminds all of us the important of adult professional development when it comes to introducing new learning options for kids.

“Always Remember You’re Helping to Change the World – A little progress towards building alternative education ends up changing the world. Tara Cassidy, founder of Crossroad Trails Education Center in the Kansas City area, a full-time microschool that provides maximum curriculum choice and customization within a project-based, collaborative learning environment.”

Yea, I heard this same message from the charter folks twenty-five years ago. The problem with charter schools, and possibly the microschool movement of today, is that there was too little progress to make a difference in a large majority of kids in this country that desperately needed a different place to learn. So, you have be as entrepreneurial as you like, but is the microschool movement doesn’t scale any better than the charter school have in this country, black, brown, and poor children are still in trouble.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB