Today’s Microschooling Movement keeps on growing, innovating and expanding.
But anyone who’s observed education trends over time can tell you that not all growth is always the healthiest kind, not all innovation is inherently good, and not every expansion accomplishes what it was intended to.
So which are the indicators that can show us that the next growth stage of the microschooling sector lives up to the movement’s transformational potential? That families and educators in communities everywhere are drawn to leave their traditional prior schooling settings to become a part of? What are the 7 most crucial look-for questions for microschooling in 2026?
My “5 Predictions for the Microschool Movement in 2025” did fairly well, some I was perhaps a little too optimistic in terms of timing.
Developments like these are important parts of the story of today’s microschooling movement. But it’s a story packed with realities, some of these complex. As microschooling continues to grow, what are the most pressing questions to watch moving forward? Here are my 7 most crucial.
Will school choice programs add barriers that block nontraditional, smaller microschools from participating, while favoring traditional, larger and older school models that more typify legacy schools of choice? Such barriers, as we see them today, include accreditation requirements designed for older school models, tightly-controlled private school regulations that can be prohibitive for small microschools to meet or afford, and local zoning restrictions making viable, convenient facilities prohibitively expensive for microschools seeking to offer affordable options for families. Already, in Iowa most microschools are blocked from participating in the state’s ESA program, while recent draft federal language from the U.S. Treasury suggests only certain microschools may be considered allowable uses for new tax-credit scholarship programs.
Will public school leaders be able to give microschool educators the flexibilities and autonomy nonpublic microschools rely on to give them the responsive experiences their families value? Forward-thinking leaders of public school districts and charter schools recognize ways microschooling opportunities can allow them to better meet the specific education needs of particular students. Can they deliver the conditions for teaching and learning found in the outside-the-system microschool models that have become so popular?
Will funders and industry authorities resist temptation to pick winners from today’s beautifully diversified microschool models and operators, dispensing advantage from the top down across a popular grassroots movement whose greatest appeal has been rooted in growing from the ground up? Among larger provider networks, whose value propositions range widely, able to secure robust venture capital investments, these can be positioned to invest in elevating their visibility and even lobbying capabilities to give them a leg up on smaller, distributed, individual microschools. And while many of these offer popular, attractive opportunities families want and investments philanthropists find comfortably familiar, this has potential to produce a market distortion antithetical to the spirit of much of today’s microschooling.
Will microschools demonstrate success in ways that matter to their most important stakeholders? Recently, accomplished RAND education researchers warned researchers relying on traditional research models would struggle to frame student outcomes in the same ways with microschools. Among their astute observations, “Many microschool families opt in to the microschool model because they distrust standardized testing or at least share a belief that standardized testing is not aligned with their own educational values or beliefs.” The National Microschooling Center’s Measuring Impact initiative has identified many promising strategies and methodologies microschools use to show their impacts, academic and nonacademic, which frequently align well with their missions and models. Can these, and others, catch on in ways essential stakeholders feel adequate?
Will gatekeepers for education establishment systems succeed in stalling microschool growth in certain communities? The regulatory frameworks within which microschools must operate were designed with traditional, larger schools in mind. So too, even business-friendly local government officials often have strong connections with local school districts which are among their communities’ largest employers, and sometimes place formidable barriers in microschools’ way. Taking official action to block a microschool is not always necessary to prevent it from opening, as some local officials have already learned, when delays can do the job sufficiently. The anticipated pushback is here.
Will microschool founders benefit from the small business supports their entrepreneurial counterparts in other industries use as paths to early-years success? Local small business incubator programs, community-based lending and mentoring programs, chambers of commerce, and the many government programs that support specific categories of businesses (i.e., women-owned, black-owned, veteran-owned) and can represent critical lifelines and support systems for business startups. Many microschool founders represent these same groups of small business owners.
As microschools continue to attract attention, and gain momentum, in jurisdictions around the country, the answers to these questions, and others like them, may prove crucial barometers to contextualizing their growth.