Microschools' Diversity of Educational Models

The microschooling sector’s robust diversity of educational approaches is often described by the families who choose it as among its most appealing attributes. The wide range of approaches offered, and the many ways different approaches are combined within different microschooling models, offer families options usually not currently available in the communities they live.

And while many of these approaches, like project-based learning, are popular across all of American education, within the smaller, more personalized and responsive context of a microschool, educators are able to take advantage of their flexibility to delve more deeply into the possibilities of each than they were in the more rigid structures of most traditional schools.

According to 2025 research published by the National Microschooling Center, microschool leaders reported that project-based learning is the most popular educational approach used (72 percent). Respondents were asked to indicate all that apply, so microschools typically indicated incorporating multiple approaches.

Self-directed learning was the second most commonly-utilized approach (65 percent), followed by social and emotional learning (58 percent), religious or faith instruction (29 percent), Montessori (21 percent), and classical education (18 percent). There were many other educational approaches described, with 31 percent of microschools indicating “other,” which included Waldorf, nature-based learning, and unique curricula developed by microschool leaders.

With the microschooling sector’s wide diversity of different educational programs, the most important student outcomes identified by microschool founders also vary broadly. Growth in nonacademic learning was identified by microschool leaders as the most important outcome their microschool seeks, followed by child happiness in their school, skills perceived as needed for future success, academic growth, academic proficiency/mastery and faith- or values- rooted outcomes. Outcomes were ranked according to a weighted score based on the priorities microschools assigned them.

True educational pluralism is a state where families are able to choose options where all of these approaches and outcomes, and more, are emphasized in meaningful ways. Today’s highly diversified microschooling movement delivers this kind of pluralism to a growing number communities across the nation. As microschooling continues to grow, and evolve, these educational approaches can be expected to further diversify, and grow, creating rich ecosystems of choices that become more popular as awareness about them also increases.

For microschools interested in pursuing new ways of measuring their impact, there is still time to join the National Microschooling Center's innovational Measuring Impact Initiative for the 2025-26 school year. Under the leadership of Professor Daniel Hamlin, the project allows microschools to choose impact measures within the domains of Human Capital, Social Capital and Cultural Capital (leaders can choose any or all domains to measure), producing a new and valuable resource which can benefit the movement, and American education, broadly.