Which state policies can best support today’s microschools?
The Center is often asked this question, nearly always by well-meaning leaders and organizations who want to help. Some foundational understandings are important to understand.
The two major drivers of growth in a state’s microschools sector are, first, demand and interest from local families, and second, the statutory and regulatory frameworks within which microschools must operate.
Since we govern education mostly at the state level in this country, there are 50 different sets of frameworks defining the ways microschools need to comply.
Even in many school-choice-friendly states, outdated regulatory and statutory frameworks often stand in the way of establishing the microschools families seek, or blocking them from using state school choice programs to choose microschools.
In fact, restrictions holding back microschool growth are often found in non-education frameworks as well, such as those governing zoning, land use, business licenses, or childcare facility requirements so voluminous as to effectively block the innovative small learning environments parents seek.
So with these considerations in mind, the National Microschooling Center offers the following list of Do’s and Don’ts for policy decisionmakers with regard to microschools:
Do: Learning Pod Protection Acts, and especially those passed in Tennessee and Texas, represent valuable approaches that offer microschools meaningful support. Microschools have the opportunity to opt into the law’s protections (neither seeks to define them) from problematic education restrictions and fire marshal requirements that can be prohibitively problematic for small microschools, which share a small size but vary greatly in missions and models. Georgia, Indiana and Utah are also states where related protections help microschools utilize viable facilities locations.
Don’t: Attempt to force a statutory definition of what a microschool is on this ever-evolving sector of innovative, mostly nontraditional small learning environments. These can restrict the very innovating that makes this sector so popular with its families, become highly difficult to update when they become outdated, and present an often-irresistible bulls-eye target for state lawmakers fond of passing laws mandating the ways certain subject matters are taught (as obscure as the name of the South China Sea or as impactful as book bans).
Do: Support the innovative small learning environments families are seeking to operate in different types of facilities and locations practical for their size and convenient for their families. We see examples all over the country where commercial and retail storefronts, warehouse and light industrial space, private homes, family farms and homes that are not currently residences, art studios, nonprofit offices, houses of worship and government-controlled buildings all make excellent, highly-functional facilities for microschools. And any of these should be allowed to locate where convenient for the families they serve, because education is something we all want for our children.
Don’t: Rigid or seemingly-arbitrary zoning, business license approval and land-use regulation should not block educators from opening microschools that meet the needs of the families who see these options as a good match to meet their families’ education needs.
Do: Expand school choice opportunities to allow families to choose microschools without forcing those microschools to give up the crucial flexibilities that allow the innovative models families value.
Don’t: Force participating schools to adhere to rigid accreditation options limited to those designed for large, traditional schools that can be impossible, or prohibitively expensive, for innovative microschool models popular with families to gain approval.
Also Don’t: Require microschools to prove their impact in state standardized testing regimes, which families and educators alike chose to walk away from for a wide range of reasons. Microschools are remarkably, and creatively adept at demonstrating their impact in a host of ways that align with their highly diversified missions and models, showing the growth of the students they serve in ways that matter to the families who choose them.
Do: Allow all private schools flexibility to offer innovative models, including small sizes, without needing to be priced above what working families can afford simply to pay for layers of compliance. Microschools should be able to utilize their flexibility to offer options families can choose that are not currently available in their communities.
Don’t: Perpetuate mandates that nonpublic schools demonstrate adherence to state standards, which reasonable families of all backgrounds question as the best way to prepare their child to succeed today’s, or tomorrow’s, economy.
Also Don't: Require new layers of compliance. Microschools are businesses and are subject to regulation as such. If they rent commercial space, this is subject to usual oversight and inspections. Microschools that serve 15 children should not be required to purchase the same, expensive sprinkler systems that charter schools that serve 1,000 students, or to comply with outdated rules designed for larger, traditional schools and the institutional buildings they occupy.
Have questions or want to talk about it? Email me at don [at] microschoolingcenter.org and I’d be happy to discuss your state’s frameworks and possible strategies to make them more friendly to innovative microschooling.
Photo attribution: Steve & Christine from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons