Microschools Need Funding

Lack of imagination has always been something of a curse traditional K-12 decision-makers had to endure. When challenged to do something different to help kids learn, most school district leaders just double-down on what they have tried in the past, cross their fingers, and hope for the best.

Education savings accounts presented an opportunity for more flexibility to be introduced to the world of learning, but currently too many states have settled on using these types of vouchers as a way to transfer money from public school districts to private schools. Other learning options have been left out, including microschools.

As The 74 reported recently,

“Public schools are beginning to imagine ways they can benefit from the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, after the Treasury Department clarified last month that district students will be eligible for scholarships.”

“But for microschools, a growing segment of the private school market, the initial guidance from federal officials has left school leaders worried they could be left out.”

“The law says that students can u se scholarships for expenses at a public, private or religious school. But many microschools operate outside of their state’s private school sector – as tutoring centers, homeschool groups and learning pods. Depending on the state law, they may or may not be classified as private schools.”

“Large microschool networks, like KaiPod Learning, are preparing for a patchwork approach across the country.” (Meaning, some states will include microschools in their tax credit plan, while other states will not.)

“With locations in 21 states, KaiPod has 91 affiliated schools, about half of them private schools. The others operate as less-formal learning pods or co-ops, said CEO Amar Kumar.”

“KaiPod will add about 40 more schools next school year, a third of them in Texas, where the state’s new Education Freedom Accounts program launches this fall. With that growth, he thinks the percentage of private schools in the network will likely climb to 65%.”

“Microschools, he said, are moving toward ‘more formalized structures’ as public funding for private school choice expands.”

“’Our view is that this is healthy for the microschool movement,’ he said. ‘Families want flexibility and personalization, but they also want confidence that the school is stable, accountable and able to access available funding.’”

The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program will only be “healthy” for the microschool movement if families who choose to have their young learners enrolled in a microschool have access to money to support the work. If families don’t have access to the money, then their young learners stay in sucky schools.

Let’s make sure we embrace flexibility when it comes to meeting the needs of all young learners in this country. We’ve tried standardization before, and it failed way too many kids.

ABPTL will be off tomorrow as I will be riding across some of Iowa on RAGBRAI (the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa). Til Thursday. SVB