Public schools do not work for everyone. But options have increased since 1922, when Oregon tried to ban private education. The Supreme Court shut down that scheme fast. But now, after more than 100 years, political insiders are rallying again to stop a new source of choice.
The target this time is microschooling, a Covid-era alternative that has outlasted the pandemic. Key players in the movement will gather May 8–9, 2025, at the International Microschools Conference in Washington, D.C. I will join them.
Most likely, I will meet educators running all kinds of programs in all kinds of community spaces. Microschools blur the lines between home, public, and private schooling—combining elements from all three models.
The result is a fourth category of schooling that hinges on flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves, gathering daily or perhaps only once or twice per week. These are the do-it-yourselfers. Professionals also get involved with standalone enterprises and national networks.
Alternative labels include “outsourced homeschooling,” “learning pods,” “tutorials,” and “co-ops.” What these enterprises have in common is size. Microschools are tiny by design, averaging just 16 students each.
In terms of facilities, the norm is a single classroom like the one-room schoolhouse portrayed in the 1970s television series Little House on the Prairie. When considered alongside a public school campus, the difference is like a hand-pulled fruit cart compared to a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
The microschool footprint is small. Yet industry insiders see a big threat.
The Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank, worries about discrimination and accountability. Teachers unions have their own concerns, mostly about money.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, did not try to hide its agenda in 2021 when state lawmakers considered Assembly Bill 122, a failed measure that would have legalized microschooling for up to 20 students from five families.
“While at this point the bill does not shift tax dollars to these schools, as happens in the voucher programs, local public schools would lose per-pupil state funding for students who leave to attend microschools,” the union warned.
State lawmakers have heeded the call, doing what they can to stifle the movement. The most common tactic is to define even the tiniest enterprise as a full-blown school.
The threshold in Wisconsin is any “instructional program provided to more than one family unit.” The threshold in North Carolina is more than two families, while the cutoff in Iowa is any group that includes more than four unrelated children. Parents in New York, meanwhile, cannot collaborate more than half the time.
Vermont enforces its own limits on teamwork, but parents need a flow chart to figure out the law. The state defines “a home study program” as something offered to children from one family plus others “not residing in that home who either are two or fewer in number or who are from one family.”
Try saying that three times fast.
The most likely interpretation is that two Vermont families may collaborate no matter how many children they have. But if three Vermont families work together, at least two of those families must be limited to one child each. Maryland and North Dakota also have confusing laws.
