Microschools and Educational Accountability Systems

As both the microschooling movement and school choice programs continue to grow, what role should government accountability systems play connecting the two? I was recently asked to participate in a panel discussion at the ASU+GSV Summit on the question of if accountability measures are going to be required for microschools operating with taxpayer funding, what should that system look like, and what should it not be?

Today’s microschools are not bound by the limited, clunky metrics of state public school performance frameworks. They frequently emphasize measuring other outcomes, such as nonacademic and academic growth, that are aligned with microschools’ missions and models. And for academic learning, microschools’ models for measuring student growth are frequently clearer, more equitable and more useful than state systems.

For microschools operating as public schools through either school district or charter systems, how they are evaluated by their state’s public school accountability system matters a great deal. While most of these state systems include student growth measures in some form, these are usually merged with snapshot proficiency scores aligned with state standards.

Low baseline scores in the microschooling sector are celebrated as a sign we are serving exactly the kids we were hoping to serve -- children who are not thriving to the extent their families believe they could be.

This is true to a point where it can be termed an enrollment preference for microschools. It also presents distinct challenges in state measuring formulas because it means that they effectively provide disincentives to microschools against serving the children who need them most.

A fairer and more equitable accountability model for public microschools would be one measuring the longitudinal growth of individual children over time as its primary factor. Microschool founders also consistently identify growth in nonacademic learning as among their highest priorities for student outcomes.

This can be accomplished in different ways. Dedicated norm-referenced or criterion-referenced assessments are used regularly by one-third of microschools. Assessments embedded in high-quality digital learning tools can also be utilized to provide reliable growth data when administered correctly.

Last year researchers from the esteemed RAND Corporations noted that, “Microschools may not prioritize academic achievement as measured by standardized assessments, given their larger focus on encouraging social and emotional growth and promoting gains in the soft skills, critical thinking and problem solving, needed for success in life.”

It is important to consider that microschool outcomes can be difficult to assess because of small school sizes (where public use of data may raise student privacy concerns).

“Unbundling” of schooling options, especially in state with ESA-style school choice programs, presents another challenge to documenting microschools’ impact in comparable ways. Families utilizing these programs may choose, rather that enrolling their child in one school on a full-time basis, instead to purchase educational services in a la carte fashion, and may choose to place their child in a microschool two or three days a week, while also utilizing other education providers to round out the educational experience. In these cases, government accountability systems need to manage the contributions of these different providers to accurately reflect their varying contributing roles.

For microschools seeking to demonstrate their impact in ways that matter most to their most important stakeholders – the families who choose them – other measurable factors can also be important.

As one example, the National Microschooling Center is currently conducting a national Measuring Impact report, led by Professor Daniel Hamlin as independent evaluator, where some 50 microschools around the country chose to measure their impact in terms of any or all of human capital, social capital and cultural capital for measurement of impact during the 2025-26 school year. Many microschool founders are motivated to make progress in each of these areas for the children they serve, but education systems have rarely measured these factors.