Why The Microschool Love?

Microschools are having a moment, again, according to Politico. 

This time it's because Florida's latest grab bag of education policies (i.e. a bag full of opportunities that lets profiteers and privatizers grab whatever they can get their hands on) includes some microschool gifts, a loosening of regulations about where and how you can set these up.

A microschool is a simple thing. All you need is a handful of students, probably a computer, and some adult. Doesn't have to be a teacher--the teacher's in the software--but just some "coach" to keep things organized and on track. It's a super-modern iteration of a on e-room schoolhouse. It's a homeschooling co-op. It's also a version of the distance learning that so many people hated during the pandemess, but you won't hear that mentioned often. The Microschools Network website defines it this way:

An intentionally small student population,
An innovative curriculum,
Place-based and experiential learning,
The use of cutting-edge technology, and
An emphasis on mastering or understanding material.

Microschools are a big business, particularly if, like industry giant Prenda, you can get an entire state to give you a contract. The Koch-topus loves micro-schools. Reformster Travis Pillow wrote a legitimately strong response to one of my microschool pieces. Betsy DeVos says nice things about them. And Prenda itself got a healthy shot of investment money from a newish Koch-Walton initiative called VELA Education Fund. Headed up by Meredith Olson (a VP at Koch's Stand Together) and Beth Seling (with background in the charter school biz), the board of VELA is rounded out by reps from Stand Together and the Walton Foundation.

In short, Florida is jumping on a bandwagon that has already drawn a crowd.

So why so much love for what is a meager holdover from the bad old days of pandemic pods?

As with every other "innovation " in education, I have no doubt that you can find some examples of people accomplishing good stuff. But I don't think that's why privatizers love microschooling.

Microschooling plugs a huge hole in the privatization marketing argument. It's the solution to the marketing problem of school choice, which is that school choice really isn't. 

Says a parent, "I gathered up my voucher and started shopping on the free and open market. But first I noticed that there aren't any actual choices in my area. So I widened my search, and then found a school that I liked but which told me they would not accept my child. Apparently they can reject my kid for religious reasons or academic reasons or whatever-they-feel-like reasons. Oh well-- what difference does it make because my voucher would barely dent the tuition anyway. You promised me and my fam ily choice, but we got none."

"Never fear," respond privatizers. "You can have a microschool! Anyone with a computer and an internet connection and an adult with some free time on their hands can have a microschool!"

Microschools let privatizers maintain the fiction that school choice works for everyone. Can't make choice work for you? Don't want to return to a public school that has had its funding gutted by choice? You can always have a microschool. 

Microschools allow choicers to push back against the argument that a free market commodified education system will not honor the promise to educate all students. Microschools buttress the argument that choice will serve everyone. 

"This stinks," bemoan parents shopping in the Big Grocery Store of Education. "I've got this voucher, but I still can't afford the meals I want or any vegetables and the people at the meat counter said they refuse to sell to me."

"No problem," reply privatizers with an expansive sweep of their well-clothed arms. "We have a whole shelf of ramen noodles for you right here. Nobody goes hungry at our store!"

Again- are there people who can fashion a delightful meal out of ramen? Probably, but that's not really the point. The point is that Microschools help complete the con, the trick of getting people to give up the whole notion of education as a public service that promises a decent meal for every student. Florida's support just underlines that con job.

OH: Religion Skip Days

You've probably heard of Senior Skip Days, the odious tradition of 12th graders taking a day off just for being seniors, just cause they felt like it (yeah, I was never a fan).

Well, Ohio will now go one better.  They have just passed HB 214, creating Religious Expression Days. (This is actually not the first time this bill has been brought up.)

Under the new law, each public school must adopt a policy that “reasonably accommodates the sincerely held religious beliefs and practices of students; to require each public school to adopt a policy regarding certain expectations related to the performance of staff member professional duties.” 

The policy must allow students to skip up to three days of school for "reasons of faith or religious or spiritual belief system or participate in organized activities conducted under the auspices of a religious denomination, church, or other religious or spiritual organization." 

And if you are imagining that this policy is ripe for abuse, the policy says that the school must approve the absences "without inquiry into the sincerity of a student’s religious or spiritual belief system." Also, students will still be eligible to participate in sports on the days they missed school for their religious thing. Teachers will provide make-up work or an alternative test if needed. The school is allowed to require a parent's signature to okay the students' religious time off. 

All right. It's marginally better than having the school rule on which religions are "legit." And I can see the value of such accommodations for all the religious holidays that aren't Christian and therefor already baked into the school calendar. But that doesn't seem to be where this is coming from. As reported at Mahoning Matters:

“Ohio’s recent political climate has raised concerns that Ohio’s K-12 public school teachers, staff and students may face negative consequences for expressing certain political perspectives or failing to conform to specific ideological viewpoints,” bill sponsor Rep. Adam Holmes, R-Nashport, told the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee during testimony. “More directly, concern is growing that employment, funding, promotion, certifications, and classroom evaluations in Ohio’s public schools are increasingly tied to demonstrated support for specific ideologies and political opinions.”

Given that Adam Holmes has previously backed Ohio's parental rights bill and a bill to exempt homeschoolers from oversight and accountability, I don't think he's worrying about how conservative christianists are imposing their world view on others.

But I also fully expect the Satanic Temple to start sponsoring Three Days Of Rational Activity time off for students. And that's even before the students themselves start getting creative. "I need a day off to go worship at my beloved First Church of Because I Feel Like It." I reckon one unexpected consequence of this law will be a huge rise in the number of Ohio students and parents who develop a habit of putting the word "religion:" in air quotes. Maybe this is supposed to increase respect for religion, but I don't think that's how it's going to play out.

The law also includes some section about not allowing schools to inquire into staff beliefs when hiring. It does not, however, extend to staff the privilege of taking three religious holidays per year. Nor does it explain how this dovetails with the rising alarm over school absenteeism.

School districts have 90 days to get that policy whipped up. Presumably they will not be able to demand an extension for religious reasons.

Godspeed, Coach Stewart

In the gallery of high school teachers who taught me about the different ways to be a teacher, there will always be a spot for Joe Stewart.

Joe Stewart's claim to fame in our small town was as a hard-driving successful football coach in a town in which football was the only real sport. I played in the marching band, and it was partway through my junior year that I ever saw the football team lose. Pennsylvania's high school sports system had not yet figured out just how much money they could grab with post-season play, but it was clear that Coach Stewart's team would be one to beat on the larger level.

There is that persistent stereotype of the high school coach who only became a teacher so he could coach and whose classroom work showed little effort, who barely shows up during the day to lead his students on a desultory journey to easy As. 

That was not Joe Stewart.

He taught chemistry, and in the classroom his students never dared to be inattentive, unprepared, or off the mark. In retrospect, I'm not sure exactly why. His temper was a thing of legend--but only on the field, where his explosions were epic. I can still remember a football game at which we were suddenly surprised by a cloud of arms and legs flying, like a Warner Brothers cartoon battle, down the sidelines. Coach Stewart was in there somewhere.

But that was not the classroom. He almost never raised his voice, was never cruel or unkind, and yet... He absolutely demanded your full attention, all the time. Wisecracking students used to turning to deliver a split-second bon mot to fellow students found that they couldn't find even that little pause in the class to do their thing (at least, that's what I heard.) In Joe Stewart's c las, you paid completely attention from bell to bell, and you had better be prepared enough to deal with any questions lobbed your way. As one friend said to me as we marveled over the class, "You just have to pay attention so hard. It's exhausting." Years later I ran into Coach Stewart and was shocked to discover that he was not a particularly tall man at all; in his classroom, he always seemed like a giant.

Coach Stewart and his family moved into my neighborhood, two houses up the street. His oldest son was one of my best friends in those years, and we accompanied each other through a variety of nerdtastic adventures. None of his three boys were the kind of hard core athletic types that some might have imagined for Coach Stewart's kids. The two younger sons were cut from a somewhat different cloth, but they were smart and decent and the home was filled with warmth and love. Joe's wife was an extraordinary woman in her own right. And at the time I liked to think that as he watched his own boys grow up, Joe gained some new insight into why his teenaged students were They Way They Were.

There were stories about underprepared and slacking students being called up to his desk, during class, and breaking into tears before he said a word. But here's what I witnessed in my own class. Debbie, who would be our valedictorian and go on to double major in biochemical engineering space economics or some other improbably challenging field, set out one lab period to boil water over a Bunsen burner. But she did it in a styrofoam cup, and as the styrofoam slowly melted around the boiling water, Debbie started making noises of alarm, as Coach Stewart slowly worked his way around the room. This, we expected, would be an epic evisceration of a student. Instead he looked, chuckled a bit, and moved on.

I never imagined that I could run a classroom with that type of intensity, nor was it a style I had any desire to emulate. But there was something in Joe Stewart's work that stuck with me, typified by an illustration he delivered one day. 

I don't remember if it was prompted by a student complaint about the expectations in the class, or just something he decided to talk about. But he stood in front of us and explained about why his expectations were so high. "I know that if I ask for this--" and here he held up his hand to indicate a line somewhere above his head "--that I will get this." And here he held the hand around shoulder level. "And that's what I want to get. But if I ask for this" (hand still at the shoulder) "then I will get this" and here his hand dropped to his waist. It was as clear an explanation of expectations as I would ever get from a teacher training course, and perhaps more realistic. 

Every once in a while that old saw crops up about whether it's better for a teacher to be feared or loved, and I reckon that some FHS grads would say that Joe Stewart was feared, but I don't think that's right. I think his expectations were high, his demands were rigorous, and he treated students as if they were grownups who had no excuses, least of all the excuse of youth, for not producing the work he demanded of them. What you feared was not Joe Stewart, but the loss of his respect. 

He was a good man with a great coaching career and a great teaching career. He passed away last week at the age of 92. His memory, I am quite sure, is a blessing to many.

ICYMI: Surprise, Surprise Edition (7/28)

Hard to believe that just a week ago, we still thought the Joe Biden was running for another term. Sometimes life just comes at you quickly. And some times the actual news will fit in a couple of sentences, but because we want to wrestle with it more, we listen to a whole lot of blather about the actual news. Enough of that. Let's get on with it. Here are some things to read.

A Florida school district banned ‘Ban This Book.’ Author says that’s ‘erasure of the highest order’ and wants it reinstated

CNN continues coverage of this very meta story, with Moms for Liberty snarling in the wings.

Florida 7-year-old compelled to testify in book ban lawsuit

Escambia school district has decided that a seven year old is too young to read a book about a penguin with two dads, but old enough to be forced to testify for 90 minutes.

Deer Creek, Yukon latest to refuse Ryan Walters' order to add Bible to curriculum

Walters decrees "Thou shalt teach the Bible." A growing list of school districts says, "No."

We can teach Black kids to read and love who they are. Here’s how.

Sharif El-Mekki writes about an initiative for the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

It’s Time to End Federal Funding for Reckless For-Profit Charter Schools

Carol Burris profiles a new bill that would straighten out some of the charter school funding shenanigans on the federal level.

COVID-19 devastated teacher morale − and it hasn’t recovered

Lesley Lavery and Steve Freiss look back at the punch in the face that was covid and our reaction to it. Nothing here you don't know, but I bet you'd put it out of your mind as much as you could.

High Schoolers in rural, western Illinois town learn the history of why their town is white.

Emily Hays for IPM news with a story about teaching hard things and why making kids uncomfortable might be a good thing. 

Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education

Nancy Flanagan on the tiny parts of education and when parents get obsessed with them.

How the Culture Wars Are Undermining Public Education

Jacobin runs an interview with Jennifer Berkshire, with plenty of pithy insights about the culture panic being directed at public education.

What's Ryan Walters really want, because all he's doing now is getting ignored?

A very cool thing is happening in Oklahoma. A whole lot of school districts are telling Ryan Walters to take his mandatory Bible teaching and stick it where hymns are not heard. Clay Horning writes about it for Oklahoma Columnist.

'Parental choice': Nonprofit creates Bible opt-out form for parents, Ryan Walters reacts

On top of that, there's now an opt-out form for parents who want to exercise those parental rights that Walters is so concerned about.

Florida’s School Grade Calculations: The Only Constant Is Change

Sue Kingery Woltanski reminds us that Florida's crappy school evaluation system moves the goalposts regularly.

AI is not what you think unless you think it is hot garbage

A set of presentation slides, both hilarious and insightful and also slightly rage-making.

Over at Bucks County Beacon, I point out that while folks are justifiably worked up over Project 2025, we should also pay attention to Agenda 47, in which Trump's plans for the future come out of his own mouth.

Also, for The Progressive, my concerns about Josh Shapiro as VP material.

Join me on substack, where you get all the current stuff plus regular repeats of old favorites from the blog.

Say No To VP Shapiro

Josh Shapiro has been a swell governor of Pennsylvania, certainly far superior to some of the far right wingnuts that we've had running in this state. But word is out today that he's on the Very Short List for the Kamala Harris VP, and all I can say is, I sure hope they don't pick him.

Shapiro has a good ear for many things, and as governor has gotten stuff done in a state where we often find a Democratic governor and a GOP-dominated legislature looked in paralytic embrace. He fixed a bridge--quickly.  Even the right-tilted Washington Examiner said he "met the moment" after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. 

But when it comes to school vouchers, he is not a public school supporters dream.

He hasn't been shy about it. He ran on a platform that included explicit support for school vouchers, explicit in favoring the super-vouchers that Pennsylvania's GOP has been pushing for years.

Josh favors adding choices for parents and educational opportunity for students and funding lifeline scholarships like those approved in other states and introduced in Pennsylvania.

His education transition team included several choicers, including Amy Sichel, the superintendent who drew flak for selling naming rights for a high school to Donald Trump buddy Stephen Schwarzman, and Joel Greenberg, co-founding partner of Susquehanna International Group with Jeff Yass, Pennsylvania's most well-heeled deep pocketed activist for school vouchers.

The state Democratic Party was on the verge of telling him to back off the vouchers, but then they decided that just wasn't as important as other stuff. 

School privatizers worked out a bill that they thought would provide Shapiro sufficient political cover, meeting his requirement that it wouldn't take money from public schools (spoiler alert: it totally would), then were Very Upset when Shapiro decided not to sign off on that voucherpalooza. 

However, Shapiro immediately signaled that his voucher love was still strong and that he still wants to find a way to make it happen. In the meantime, he threw choice a bone by giving supporters a chance to "improve" the state charter board. And his crew went ahead and approved a new cyber-charter when there was every reason in the world to say no.

Look, it's not as if he's been sneaky or underhanded about his voucher love, but it's also not as if he's shown openness to consider evidence that his affection might be misplaced. Meanwhile, other governors like Governors Roy Cooper (North Carolina), Andy Beshear (Kentucky), Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), and Tim Walz (Minnesota) have stood up for public education in their states (yes, they're not all available, but they are proof that such defenders exist).

The state Dems were willing to throw public education under the bus, and I don't expect much better from the national party. But it would be nice. It would be nice to have the nation's top spots occupied by solid supporters of public education who oppose privatization, who did not calculate that education is one place where they can just go ahead and adopt a slightly watered down version of right-wing policy, who did not embrace the kind of neo-liberal baloney that we've suffered under in previous administrations. 

The push to privatize education has never pushed harder, and public education has never been more in need of a champion at the highest level. Josh Shapiro is not that champion.

Where's My Bubble?

We just took a quick day trip with the board of directors to an amusement park, one that has become a favorite of mine after roughly 17,000 excursions there as a class trip chaperone. One small incident reminded me of one reason we are having a moment about vouchers and choice in this country.

To understand the story, let me tell you a few things about regular life for the board of directors. The twins are now 7 and get very little screen exposure. In the summer, they get one "show" each on a daily basis (less during school). They don't have devices of their own, and they don't get to share ours. They do have screen time at school. But they are used to watching shows from tv or disc. Also, they are very accustomed to hearing some version of "no." 

So. We booked a hotel room for the night before. When we're doing longer traveling, we usually have a laptop with us, which, time permitting, let's them have a daily show. But this time we didn't. All we had was the cable for the hotel tv.

They were absolutely baffled. Why could we not just watch their shows? Why wouldn't we pull up Netflix? Why was this program in the middle and what did we mean, we couldn't just go back to the beginning and start over?  

None of this was angry or entitled, but about 1 part bemusement and 2 parts frustration with the grownups who were not smart enough to make things work the way they are obviously supposed to.

We have raised and are raising generations of citizens who are used to living in a bubble, a bubble in which they control most of what goes on, how it goes on, when it goes on. 

I have used before my tales of being a band bus chaperone and the effects of technology on shared space. Ages ago, the inside of a band bus was a shared space, as exemplified by the music. Ages ago, you got whatever the driver picked up (or could pick up) on the radio. Then debates over what tape to play. The use of boom boxes to break the space into smaller spaces. And finally, we arrive at the age of walkmans and ipods, in which what was once shared space is not shared at all.

Most of our popular culture in the 20th century was shared space. If you skip Super-Bowls and political debates, all of the most viewed episodes on tv are from at least thirty years ago; an entire generation has grown up with no idea of what Must-See TV is. 

I'm not waving my old man fist at technoclouds. Things change. But I do think that sometimes we overestimate the power of deep policy decisions and the long slow game for school choice and the privatization of education and underestimate the degree to which a generation has been affected by growing up in their own individual bubbles. 

Of course, the thing about bubbles is that they're fueled by available choices, and has always been true, the number of choices you have available is directly proportional to the amount of money you have to spend on them. Bubbles favor the haves way more than the have-nots; in fact, bubbles are often about the haves keeping the have-nots out.

Nor do I think society benefits from a shortage of shared spaces. But shared spaces are at odds with the commercial, mercenary consumer mindset, a mindset that encourages us to scrimp and save and hoard the resources we need to make ourselves the best damned bubble ever. Gimme my fully furnished neo-liberal bubble, baby.

Robert Putnam in The Upswing suggests that maybe we will figure out the value of shared spaces and bounce back. And maybe we will be moved by the loneliness of tiny gods; certainly the signs are that we are feeling it. Lots of folks like to point at social media and smartphones as culprits, and I have long resisted that notion because I have witnessed what a huge connective power that social media exerts, how it allows people to stay in contact with a myriad of human beings. But it does so as part of the process of building that bubble, and I think that bubble, that lack of time spent in shared spaces, is the more likely culprit in the steadily worsening mental health of younger generations (as well as, suggests Hannah Arendt, the growing attraction to totalitarianism). 

Public schools have been one of the great shared spaces in this country, shared not only because every child goes there, but because every taxpayer participates and contributes.

Preserving them as a shared space is crucial to our collective health. Some public school defenders link public schools to democracy, both as contributor and benefactor, but I think the issue is deeper than that, more fundamental our health as human beings. We need shared space to be fully, healthily human, even if we have to share that space with people with whom we disagree. Maybe even especially if we have to share the space with those people.

How to do this when so much of the tide is sweeping away shared spaces? How to make the argument to folks whose position is a simple, dispassionate "Why should I have this particular feature in my world when I don't want to and I don't have to?" 

There is a big bundle of questions to solve here, and I don't take them as simple theoreticals, because my sons and my grandchildren are the people who are growing up needing the answers, who are having their shared spaces devoured out from under them, and I worry about them reaching the point when their bubble is not a preference, but a necessity. 

ICYMI: Fun Field Trip Week Edition (7/21)

The Chief Marital Officer of the Institute took a couple of days this week to adventure with me. We even took the Board of Directors on one trip (details to come). Our anniversary was this week, so we were involved in some mild adventures preparatory to vacation, which is coming up soon. 

But there are still things to read, so here's your list for the week.

Ohio Charter Schools Still Struggle

Stephen Dyer provides an update on Ohio's attempt to improve their dismal charter school performance. Spoiler alert: it's not going well.

Ohio Seems to Be Throwing Away Public Education, Arguably America’s Most Important Institution

Jan Resseger connects several dots while looking at the current threats to public education in Ohio.

Mike Miles Moved Texas School Funds To Colorado

Josephine Lee reports for the Texas Observer on some financial shenanigans by the turnaround king. 

The Impact of Diverting Public Money to Private School Vouchers in Kentucky

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy takes a look at the impact that vouchers would have on Kentucky. A warning for many states.

No cellphones in classroom? Pa.’s new state budget has funding for that

One more state tries to take a side in the cell phone debates.

Inside Ziklag

ProPublica looks into yet another Christianist group trying to work its will on education.

When Transparency Wins, Wyoming Wins 

Columnist Rod Miller writes about a Wyoming decision slapping down an education department official for spending public money on politics. (Take notes, Oklahoma)

How do you really know if data-driven policies and outcomes are accurate?

John Thompson makes a guest appearance in The Oklahoman, asking about that data-driven stuff.

The Potential for Race Discrimination in Voucher Programs in a Post-Carson World

Yes, it's an academic paper, but it's by Preston Green, Bruce Baker, and Suzanne Eckes, and it looks at some important questions about the aftermath of SCOTUS chipping away at the church-state wall. What happens when free exercise beats civil rights?

The Rich Are Pushing Right-Wing Tax Education in Schools

There's a whole new education program headed to a school near you, and it's all about teaching the youngs to see that taxes are bad and rich folks shouldn't pay them. 

School Vouchers Were Supposed to Save Taxpayer Money. Instead They Blew a Massive Hole in Arizona’s Budget.

ProPublica again, by Eli Hager. Yes, universal school vouchers aren't saving money for anyone except the wealthy folks using them.

2024-25 Florida Voucher Funding Approaches $4 Billion

Speaking of blowing holes in budget, Sue Kingery Woltanski reports from Florida on their massive private school subsidies.

How the Culture Wars Are Undermining Public Education

At Jacobin, an interview with Jennifer Berkshire, whose new book you should definitely read.

Project 2025: Politicking for Jesus.

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider gives her take on Project 2025.

I am a Patriot

Nancy Flanagan on patriotism and the teaching thereof.

Republican candidate for NC Superintendent says Black men commit more than 50% of all crime in the United States

Running for the title Worst Education Chief In The US" is Michele Morrow in North Carolina, and Justin Parmenter has been patiently cataloging her awfulness. Here's just a sample.

A battle of wits between humans and chatbots

Benjamin Riley plays connections with chatbots. Some interesting outcomes ensue.

I've been busy outside of the mother blog ship. 

At the Bucks County Beacon, I took a look at Bernie Sanders report and its charges that a bunch of right wing billionaires are trying to mess with public education.

At Forbes.com this week--

* My attempt at a clear-eyed look at what Project 2025 says about education

* Some talk about the mostly impossible task at the heart of all education

* The latest news in the ongoing attempt by the Nebraska legislature to avoid letting voters have a say about school vouchers

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