The Learning Curve Kerry McDonald
[00:00:00] Alisha Searcy: Welcome back to the Learning Curve podcast. I’m your co-host, Alisha Thomas. Searcy, and joined by the illustrious Dr. Albert Cheng. Albert, how are you? Hey. Doing well. How about you? I’m doing great. I missed you guys. Glad to be back. I’ve been traveling a lot and working, but all is well. How about with you and your family?
[00:00:43] Albert Cheng: Good. Same thing. The usual thing happens when you have, uh, kids and sickness blows through your house. But we all weather that, I guess.
[00:00:50] Alisha Searcy: Yes, we do. Yes we do. And as you know, my little one is now in college, so that’s Oh yeah, that’s right. Transitioning through her freshman year. And what I’ve learned is it is true that you’ve become a parent and then you become a coach. Ah, a few adult kids. So that has been quite an interesting transition, but I’m, I’m enjoying it. It’s nice to see this chapter.
[00:01:12] Albert Cheng: Great. Great. No, it’s exciting. It is. It is.
[00:01:16] Alisha Searcy: So we’ve got a great show this week, but of course, before we do that, we’ve gotta talk about our stories for the week.
[00:01:22] Albert Cheng: That’s right. Yeah.
[00:01:24] Alisha Searcy: What are you reading these days?
[00:01:25] Albert Cheng: Well, you know, one story that caught my eye, I don’t know if you knew about this, you know, since you were traveling, but just last week, we had thousands of parents, families, and charter school supporters march across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, and so they were advocating for their sector.
[00:01:43] I know you and I talk a lot about. Access to charter schools and equalizing funding, particularly in, in New York City. So there’s a major event, you know, this March to support charter schools. And then, you know, you had that galvanizing event, which galvanized supporters, but it also galvanized some critics.
[00:02:00] And so now some New York State senators are launching an inquiry into whether. There was a misallocation or misuse of time. I guess the, the argument is, look, you canceled class on a weekday to hold this political rally. Is that legitimate? And then, you know, the questions about whether some parents and families felt compelled to participate in this.
[00:02:23] So yeah, I guess the controversy is spoiling and I don’t know, it seems like the temperature is still rising here, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that. But you know, Alisha, I mean, I don’t know if you have thoughts on this. I mean, this is. You’ve been in the state legislature down in Georgia for quite a bit, so you’re accustomed to some of these political stories and intrigue I guess but this is the controversy. So I’m curious if you have thoughts on how all this is shaken out.
[00:02:47] Alisha Searcy: Of course now I have not heard this story. I feel like I’ve, I gotta get back into the swing of things in this regard, but it’s frustrating because with all that’s going on in this country, I was about to say in the world, but it’s not, it’s mainly in this country.
[00:03:04] You know, you have. Folks on both sides of issues, it, it almost feels like it doesn’t matter what the issue is, that we go to extremes. Whether it’s the language, whether it’s violence, whether it is using government to sort of manipulate things to go your way. And this sounds like, and I haven’t read the article, I don’t know the players, but I definitely will be reading the article.
[00:03:28] It feels like. There’s probably some state legislators who are not charter supporters, and they want to use this as an opportunity to kind of bring bad press. Bring a negative reputation to charter leaders, to the charter movement, and frankly, they’re using kids to do it, and I think that’s pretty ugly.
[00:03:52] You know, if you have an issue with adults taking kids out of school, I’m guessing their parents probably signed permission slips so their parents were likely aware. But if you have problems with adults, then take it up with the adults. I would also argue that. We want students to exercise their voice. We want them to participate in the process.
[00:04:15] We want students to attend charter schools to understand that they are constantly under threat, and that’s unfortunate. But participating in this process will teach them the kinds of skills that they’ll be able to use for the rest of their lives. And so I wonder for these same legislators. If it was a rally about something that they cared about, if they would have the same questions.
[00:04:36] Albert Cheng: Mm mm Yeah, no, good point. About the potential double standard. Yeah. We’ve definitely seen that happen more than once, um, shall say. Yes, yes. Well, anyway, I mean, look, you know, I guess more details will be forthcoming, so we’ll see how it all shakes out. But that’s maybe the, the latest chapter in the saga of charter school policy in New York.
[00:04:54] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, and New York is a very interesting place for all of that. So thank you for that story. I wanna talk about an opinion piece in Roll Call written by David Winston. And of course, you know when we find someone who has written things that it almost feels like we wrote it ourselves. It’s true. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:11] Very excited about it. And so I came across this piece. It’s entitled, we Are Becoming the World’s D Student. Oh boy. Latest test results suggest the subtitle is How Can We. Out innovate other countries when so many students are not meeting basic math standards. Hmm. So just a couple of highlights from the story before I give my opinion.
[00:05:33] We’re starting with the fact that, and I think we all have seen the NAP scores. We know that, I think the latest ones showed how 12th graders were doing. In reading and math. That’s right. Yeah. And so former Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, talked about the fact that this is an economic emergency that threatens our workforce and national competitiveness because these scores are so bad.
[00:05:55] It’s really sad. And so he talks about how this is not hyperbole that we’re becoming a D, the world’s D student. Mm. He talks about how in reading about one third or 32% of high school seniors were below basic. While 35% were at or above proficient, well, what does that mean? He talks about that for students who are below basic, are unlikely to be able to make simple inferences about a text express or support opinions with text-based evidence, or evaluate the effectiveness of an author’s claim.
[00:06:26] For math, that means applying single step percentages to solve real world problems. To calculate a discount of an $80 shirt on sale for 10% off would likely be beyond many students’ ability. So we’re not talking about trigonometry. Yeah, we’re talking about having the basic math skills to be able to function in society.
[00:06:50] Here is what I think resonated with me the most. When he talks about what does that mean for us to be D students in the world? And I had mentioned right, that I’ve been traveling, I spent in South Africa, I spent a weekend Dubai. So I’m on, you know, two different continents in a matter of 30 days. And there are a lot of things that I recognize there, and we could do a whole episode on that.
[00:07:15] But I think what I walked away with. The most that made me most sad is that we are not the superpower that I once thought believed was told. Mm-hmm. In terms of innovation products and you know, what other countries are coming up with. Hmm. When we talk about academics, right? We used to lead in the world.
[00:07:35] We’re just not there anymore. This article, I hope, is a call to action for folks to understand that this is not about the culture wars and some of these other things that we’ve become mired in, but it’s really about what do we want our position to be in the world. Hmm? We want to reclaim our place as the superpower, the innovator, you know, the place that leads the world in science and math and reading.
[00:08:01] And so the final thing is he ends the article by saying, our K 12 education. Crisis is more than just an education challenge. It is a threat to the economy, national security, and the future of the country. The latest round of Nate results reinforced that we need a fundamental rethink of our K 12 system.
[00:08:20] I don’t even need to say anything more. I think that’s what it comes down to. Yeah. We’ve gotta reimagine what K 12 looks like. It’s not working as we know it, and I think it’s also. The lack of accountability that we have in place and we’re just not focused enough. And I think he would agree. We’re not focused enough on academic outcomes.
[00:08:38] So we’ve got some work to do. We, we have to compete again.
[00:08:41] Albert Cheng: We do. And you know, Alisha, as I’m sitting here kind of listening to share about this story, you know, a lot of things you’ve articulated are, are things we’ve said for, or, I mean, not we, but you know, folks have said for several decades now and you know, to just, to even kind of.
[00:08:55] Hone in on how enduring this issue is. You know, the other day I, I actually was rereading the National Math Advisory panel report. It was released in 2008, talking about the state of math education and where we need to go and, you know, it’s recommendations from major, you know, working groups and, and players and, and the math education space.
[00:09:15] You know, this was published in 2008, and as I was reading that. Math advisory panel report. It just kind of hit me that as you read it, you forget that it’s written in 2008. It’s, it’s almost as if the things that the people were saying in 2008 still apply today. So, I don’t know. I think that I, I think your, your commentary there just kind of reminded me about how, how much inertia there is to changing things.
[00:09:43] So anyway, that’s my immediate reaction to your story. But we’ve been talking about nave scores for quite a bit and Yes. Yeah, there’s clearly work that needs to be done and you know, the fact that we’ve, we’re still having these conversations decades later that says something. It does.
[00:10:00] Alisha Searcy: That’s, I was gonna say, that was almost 20 years ago.
[00:10:02] So yeah, the report is still relevant and we still haven’t, and it looks like we’re declining even more. Yeah, we’ve got work to do.
[00:10:09] Albert Cheng: We do. And maybe another show. We’ll, we’ll, you know, I’ll get to share a little bit about some of the math work that I’m doing, but
[00:10:15] Alisha Searcy: Yes.
[00:10:15] Albert Cheng: Anyway, we don’t have time for all that right now.
[00:10:18] Alisha Searcy: Well, we need to do that. Well, thank you for that. And you know, we always encourage our listeners to read these articles and, um, check them out. And so it’s time for our guests. We’re excited to have Kerry McDonald, she’s a senior education fellow at FEE and so we’ll be right back with Kerry McDonald.
[00:10:41] Kerry McDonald is a senior education fellow at Fee and the author of Joyful Learning, how to Find Freedom, happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, an unschooled raising, curious, well-educated children outside the conventional classroom. She’s also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor Kerrys research interests include homeschooling and alternatives to school.
[00:11:13] Self-directed learning, education, entrepreneurship, parent empowerment, school choice, and family and child policy. Her articles have appeared at the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and PR Education. Next Reason Magazine, city Journal, and Entrepreneur among others. She has a Master’s degree in Education policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College.
[00:11:36] Kerry, welcome to the show. We are very excited to have you. Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. So let’s jump in. You’ve become a leading advocate for alternative school choice programs, including micro schools, pods and hybrid learning, as well as the author of the new book, joyful Learning How to Find Freedom, happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling.
[00:11:58] Can you talk to us about your own formative educational background and how you developed your educational philosophy?
[00:12:06] Kerry McDonald: You know, I was an economics major as an undergrad back in the late 1990s, and it was through the lens of economics that I became increasingly curious about why it is that we have so much choice, variety, and abundance.
[00:12:22] In all other parts of our lives. But when it comes to K to 12, education choices are limited. Of course, again, this was the late 1990s before the advent of the modern school choice moment and charter schools and all of that. So choices were even more limited then. But that. Made me more interested in what was available to families, what were some of the choices that families were making outside of a traditional schooling environment.
[00:12:51] And so I became interested in homeschooling and other alternatives to school, and then went to graduate school and education policy at Harvard to kind. Look at this question more fully and actually became connected with the Pioneer Institute back in the early two thousands, and pioneer, of course, a pioneer in helping to incubate the early charter school movement and help charter school founders get off the ground.
[00:13:16] And so that was. Really fascinating for me to be able to kind of see these early seeds of, again, this kind of modern school choice movement take shape. And I was always sort of wondering, you know, what were some of the alternative education models that families would be choosing if. They had more opportunities, you know, what were some of the new schools and and spaces that were coming on the scene and was always really, again, fascinated by homeschooling and unschooling and self-directed education approaches.
[00:13:47] So when I became a mom and my husband and I were thinking about what we wanted to do for our children’s education. Decided to homeschool our children and choose alternative schools for them kind of throughout their K to 12 schooling experience. We live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and you know, access to so many wonderful community resources, museums, libraries.
[00:14:10] Historic sites, cultural events that we just wanted our kids to be sort of immersed in the people, places and things of their community. And we’re able to do that through homeschooling. And of course now, you know, we’re seeing more and more families attracted to homeschooling and alternative education models, which is really the basis for my new book, joyful Learning.
[00:14:32] Alisha Searcy: I love that we know that there are millions of US school aged children who are homeschooled and we believe it’s about 6% of all K 12 students. Can you talk about and kind of sketch for some of the recent history of homeschooling in America, including the various successful policies as well as some of the barriers and obstacles that homeschoolers have overcome in recent decades?
[00:14:57] Kerry McDonald: Yeah, so I mean, I think it’s really interesting to think about the growth and diversification of the homeschooling population over the past few decades. You know, when I first became interested in these alternatives, again, the late 1990s, 1998 was the first time that the US Department of Education began tracking homeschoolers, and they counted about 850,000 at that time.
[00:15:20] And now as use. Say we have millions of homeschoolers. So there was definitely a growth and diversification of the homeschooling community. Homeschooling was becoming much more reflective of the overall US K to 12 school age population over the first two decades of the new millennium. And we were starting to see the introduction of micro schools and early micro school networks in again, the two thousands and 2010s.
[00:15:47] And I and I wrote about this. Kind of nascent movement in my 2019 book Unschooled. And then really, you know, we’re seeing just an explosion in terms of popularity of homeschooling, micro schooling, and other sorts of alternatives to conventional schooling. Since then, really supercharged by COVID. You know, the Census Bureau counted a doubling of the homeschooling population in 2020, sort of the peak of school closures and remote learning.
[00:16:15] They also found a fivefold increase that year in the number of black homeschooling families. But that interest has. Been sustained. You know, the fall of 2023, the Washington Post called homeschooling America’s fastest growing form of education and data backs that up. I think it’s particularly striking to see homeschooling data coming out of the Johns Hopkins University homeschool hub led by Professor Angela Watson where she’s able to collect.
[00:16:47] Data from states that collect homeschooling data and analyze, you know, various state-based records and Census Bureau records. And, and she found that in the 20 23, 20 24 academic year, there were more homeschoolers in 90% of the states that reported homeschooling data that year than the previous year, 2022 to 2023.
[00:17:11] So, you know, her conclusion and, and I think others kind of looking at that data as well, it’s. Say this is beyond kind of the pandemic blip. This is well beyond school closures. You know, things are back to normal and families are continuing to choose homeschooling and micro schooling and other schooling alternatives even more so than in previous years.
[00:17:32] So just an interesting trend that we’re seeing.
[00:17:35] Alisha Searcy: It really is. So a couple of years ago, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartlett, I think it’s pronounced mm-hmm. Made controversial comments about banning homeschool in America. And you were one of the leading national voices who offered a rebuttal to her opinions. Can you explain to our listeners the contours of that public policy debate and what choice critics are saying now?
[00:17:58] Kerry McDonald: In the winter of 2020, Elizabeth Bartlet of the Harvard Law School professor wrote a piece in the Arizona Law Review calling for a presumptive ban on homeschooling, essentially banning homeschooling, unless.
[00:18:12] You know, parents are granted the permission to homeschool their children. And even then some of the recommendations in in her paper were that, you know, these homeschool parents would be kind of kept on a short leash. There would be expectations that students would be still taking classes at local public schools and kind of overseen by public school officials.
[00:18:34] And, you know, needless to say that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and sort of antithetical to parental rights and to really the, the landmark 1925 Supreme Court case, Pierce versus Society of Sisters that says the child is not the mayor creature of the state and really solidifies parental rights and parental choice in education.
[00:18:56] I think what’s particularly interesting, what was particularly interesting about that Arizona Law Review piece and the backlash that it caused was. Sort of this sense that the government knows best that homeschooled parents need permission from the government, that the public schools are the preferred place for kids to be and and anything else is problematic.
[00:19:16] And I think that it was a little bit of the fox guarding the hen house where it sort of neglected the reality that many of today’s homeschooling families are choosing homes. Schooling and similar alternatives because they’re not satisfied with government run schools. In fact, the top motivator for years captured in data from the US Department of Education on on why families choose homeschooling is concerns about the environment of other schools, including safety, drugs, and negative peer pressure.
[00:19:48] So families are often leaving those environments. And wanting something different, more individualized, maybe safer, more nurturing for their kids. So this all came out in a, a spring 2020 debate held by the Cato Institute, where I’m an adjunct scholar and does an OA wonderful opportunity to kind of go back and forth around certainly why I and many others were opposed to Professor Bartlet’s recommendations.
[00:20:15] Alisha Searcy: Very interesting. So I wanna talk about COVID and lessons learned there for just a moment. COVID-19 turned most of America’s over 50 million schoolchildren and their families, I should say, our families into homeschoolers who were largely using some type of, in many cases, poor quality, remote or zoom school to educate our kids. And now that the pandemic is well behind us. I’d love to know your thoughts, your insights, and the big lessons we should all be thinking about from this COVID-19 educational experiment. And its huge learning loss for students.
[00:20:52] Kerry McDonald: So, I mean, it’s interesting because that’s really the, the foundation of joyful learning and kind of why i, I ended up writing the book.
[00:20:57] So on March 11th, 2020, that was the day. That the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and it was the day that I wrote in my forbes.com column about the world’s homeschooling moment. And this was a time that about 300 million students worldwide had been displaced from their classrooms.
[00:21:20] Domestic school closures were coming, and we were expecting to kind of stay out of school for several weeks to flatten the curve. I wrote in that piece that while most school children would return to their classrooms, once schools reopen, and once the pandemic was behind us, some families would be interested in homeschooling and alternatives.
[00:21:44] They’ll sort of poke their heads up and wonder. What else is out there in terms of education options for their kids that they may not have really paid attention to or been aware of, of until schools shut down? And so I, I predicted that even a few weeks of education disruption would lead more families to.
[00:22:04] Become interested in schooling alternatives and to even build some of those alternatives. And, and sure enough, it wasn’t just a few weeks, it was a, an extended period of time of school closures and prolonged remote learning that led parents to take matters in their own hands. We saw the rise of pandemic pods in 2020, kind of these spontaneous parent led learning communities.
[00:22:28] And what I think has just been so fascinating and certainly what I detail in joyful learning is the kind of evolution of that pod movement into micro schools and other emerging schooling models. And that’s really what I document in joyful learning. And you know, I start the book, chapter one of the book, talking about one of these pod founders, Jill Perez, who was a longtime public school teacher in the New Jersey Public schools, and she ended up creating a pandemic.
[00:22:56] Pod in 2020 for her four school-aged children whose schools were shut down. And, uh, it had such a wonderful experience with that, that she ended up having that program evolve into a full fledged micro school called Tranquil Teachings Learning Center that today serves over a hundred students in a, with a full-time micro schooling option that’s really much more focused on kind of individualized learner needs and interests.
[00:23:23] And Jill’s really emblematic of this movement. The vast majority of the founders that I highlight in Joyful Learning are former public school teachers who left a conventional classroom to create a much more sort of individualized, holistic educational option.
[00:23:40] Albert Cheng: Well, Kerry, I just wanna pick up on this conversation, I mean, you were talking about the persistence of the momentum to homeschool and, and explore some of these educational options after the pandemic.
[00:23:51] And you know, one of the reasons this has persisted, or at least. What’s helped it persist is the passage of lots of different universal, um, education, tax, credit, education, savings accounts, programs in a lot of states. So could you just talk about some of these programs in particular, how are, how are you seeing homeschooling families avail themselves of these new programs?
[00:24:13] And then I’d also like you to weigh in on a tough question, a controversy, which is the concern from some critics about are these homeschooling families gonna be accountable financially and, and academically if they participate in these programs?
[00:24:25] Kerry McDonald: Yeah, great question Albert. And I’ll also just clarify a bit when I talk about the programs that I’m highlighting in Joyful Learning, some of them run, as you know, full-time programs for homeschoolers.
[00:24:38] They’re all sort of full-time substitutes for conventional schooling, and some of them run as low cost private schools. And often the decision of a, of a school founder of whether or not to run under homeschooling laws or under private education laws. Depends on state and local statutes. How easy is it to homeschool versus just to create a private school or you know, family and founder preferences.
[00:25:03] What do the families and founders want in terms of structure? So, just a point of clarification there, that sort of half of them are probably private schools and half of them are, are more running under homeschool laws and regulations, yet offer full-time options for families. Typically, so you know the growth of these innovative learning models, micro schools, low cost private schools, learning pods, hybrid home schools, is happening everywhere, all across the us It’s happening in states, certainly with robust school choice programs, but also in states.
[00:25:37] Here like mine in in Massachusetts that has no private school choice programs, and we’re still seeing the growth of these innovative options, particularly since COVID as so many families are looking for something more personalized and more kind of catering to their child’s distinct needs and interests.
[00:25:53] But there’s no doubt that we’re seeing an acceleration of these emerging schools and spaces in states with robust school choice programs that enable a portion of education funding to follow families. And especially true in states that include these creative schooling options in their policies that include micro schools and homeschooling collaboratives and other emerging models.
[00:26:17] You know, I think about Arizona, for example, which is featured prominently in joyful learning. I think that Arizona really shows the possibility when we have a, a diverse and decentralized marketplace of education options that’s fueled by school choice. There’s really, you know, something for everybody there.
[00:26:36] You know, there’s this diversity of models and methods. There’s progressive schools and conservative schools. There’s faith-based schools, secular schools. There’s classical approaches to learning Montessori and unschooling. So families are really able to find just. The right fit that is aligned with their distinct values and viewpoints.
[00:26:58] And, you know, we’re really seeing that kind of unleashing of a consumer base choice enabled education marketplace in in K to 12 schooling that we just haven’t had. So I think that’s what makes this such an exciting time in education. Certainly the most exciting time that I’ve observed and I feel. So optimistic about that.
[00:27:18] And I think, you know, to your point around accountability, as we see that marketplace emerge, we’re seeing accountability in education the same way we witness it in other goods and services in our lives. Whether it’s cafes, clothing stores, car mechanics, the goods and services, the entrepreneurs and providers who are creating sought after solutions and are serving their customers well, they will survive and thrive and those that aren’t will shut down. And that is a signal of a, of a healthy dynamic, again, consumer-based marketplace.
[00:27:55] Albert Cheng: Thanks for that, Kerry, and let’s continue down the road of controversial questions, I guess. So, you know, in your book, joyful Learning You, you discuss Julie Young, so she’s one of the leaders at a Florida Virtual school and Arizona State University’s Prep Digital.
[00:28:08] Then you talk about how your daughter benefited from some high quality online learning. So yeah, I’d just like to hear more about just the role of digital learning. What role are they gonna play? And then what would you say to skeptics who are quick to point to research suggesting that student learning outcomes aren’t great when it comes to digital options.
[00:28:31] Kerry McDonald: Yeah, so of course Julie Young, a rockstar in the virtual learning community as initially the leader of the Florida Virtual School and Leader, Arizona State University Prep Digital, and in joyful learning, I talk about how when COVID hit, you know, we as a homeschooling family, our education ecosystem evaporated in much the same way that students who attended conventional schools had their education disrupted and like.
[00:28:59] So many others across the country and around the world. We went digital and started, you know, with online classes, and so my older daughter was in the seventh grade entering eighth grade at the time that COVID hit, and decided to start taking some online classes, including with a SU Prep, digital. Which is a program that’s tuition free for Arizona residents through the Charter School network, as well as now the ESA program that is universal in Arizona and it’s low cost for those of us who are out of state.
[00:29:31] And my daughter, you know, really loved her classes at a SU Prep, digital, I think programs like. A SU prep digital that had been around for a while, that had sort of perfected remote learning, saw a lot of success. They were able to really scale up quickly, which was in contrast to kind of the scrambling that we saw happen at the district level with, you know, public schools and, and private schools that just weren’t prepared to go online.
[00:29:58] And, and I think had to deal with a lot of difficulties and challenges around that. But for. Programs that were, you know, designed to be online with curriculum that was meant for virtual learning and teachers who were hired, who wanted to educate in that environment. I think we saw a lot of success and certainly a SU prep’s enrollment grew at that time, as did others.
[00:30:20] And since then, you know, we’ve seen the emergence of more high quality virtual learning options. I think about. The Socratic experience, which is, you know, a self-directed online school. I think about Sora Schools another high quality remote learning option for families. It’s a full-time online private school that many families are able to access through universal choice programs.
[00:30:44] And you know, again, I think consumer accountability, you know, should be our model is are these programs that families are satisfied with? Is it working for their child in, in whatever way that might be? And I think it’s particularly important to think about accountability. For these emerging schools and spaces, including virtual schools, in the context of the recent data around, you know, student performance in conventional classrooms.
[00:31:12] As you know, we saw the release of the National Assessment of Education Progress, the NAP scores recently that found a. Steady decline in student performance persists with reading and math scores for high school seniors, you know, reaching their lowest point in more than two decades. So why should we be holding emerging schooling models and virtual schooling models and others to the same accountability metrics that traditional schools regularly fail to?
[00:31:38] Albert Cheng: Yeah, that’s a good point. And I mean, let’s kind of talk about these NAPPE scores a bit. You know, I, I think there’s another concern that folks who are quick to point to NAPPE scores would raise, which is, you know, they might get excited about the opportunities for innovation and, and new models of education that come up with micro schooling, hybrid homeschooling, and, you know, et cetera.
[00:31:57] But, you know, they’re, they might express concern that well look, some of these models might use pedagogical methods that maybe lack some research basis or there’s. Pretty strong evidence against claiming that they’re, they’re effective for improving academic outcomes. So what’s your response to that? How could these alternative learning models hold some promise in improving outcomes generally?
[00:32:20] Kerry McDonald: So the schools and spaces that I feature in joyful learning, I think clearly demonstrate that a learner-centered approach to education results in far higher levels of happiness and fulfillment for, you know, both students and teachers than a system centered one. You know, I think we often forget that teachers are just as constrained within a standardized classroom as there’s.
[00:32:47] Students are that their creativity and autonomy is often stifled in much the same way that their students’ creativity and autonomy are stifled. And that’s why so many of these founders who I I interview and who I write about in joyful Learning are leaving a conventional classroom to launch their own new schools and spaces so that they can have that autonomy and that creativity and that personal and professional fulfillment.
[00:33:12] And I think one, you know, interesting note is, and I talk a lot about this in joyful learning, is a lot of these founders will say that they have students coming to them from conventional public or conventional private schools entering a micro school or similar model, several grade levels behind their peers academically.
[00:33:30] Many of them, you know, use sort of. Entrance exams to kind of figure out where kids are in terms of ability, not to weed them out, but just to see where they are academically, and they’ll find that there are these academic gaps, and yet they’ll report that many of these gaps are able to be more quickly closed because of that.
[00:33:50] Highly individualized curriculum. Really being able to see the ways in which an individual child learns best, where are they performing in terms of math and reading and so on. And then adjusting the curriculum directly for that child, looking at that child as an individual, not as sort of a, a member of a collective.
[00:34:07] And I think that’s really the power of. This emerging schooling movement as we’re really shifting from a top down system of standardization and stagnation to kind of a bottom up system defined by individualization and innovation that that I believe is much better able to meet the realities of the 21st century.
[00:34:27] Albert Cheng: That’s a very hopeful answer, Kerry. And lemme ask one more question that maybe gets at that. And you know, what we’ve noticed under the pandemic and you know, through the mo more recent NA scores is that, you know, achievement gaps between folks that are from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds are, are, are growing, you know.
[00:34:46] Black and white achievement gaps as well. But incidentally, it turns out that these very families are also more interested in these new educational options. So talk about what your book has to tell us about efforts to develop and expand charter options, private school options, and the alike to serve underserved communities and their urgent educational needs.
[00:35:10] Kerry McDonald: Yeah, an important question, Albert, and I think it’s, it’s worth sort of reflecting on what’s been occurring over the past five years in education and beyond. And so, you know, certainly we’ve, we’re continuing to see the rise of homeschooling and micro schooling and these emerging schooling models. We’re seeing the growth of school choice programs that act as an accelerant for some of these programs.
[00:35:32] But one of the other things that began happening in 2020, and it has also continued since then, is the surge. In American entrepreneurship more generally. So the US had been an entrepreneurial slump for years prior to COVI and that reversed in 2020 and has been sustained since then with more and more Americans starting small businesses.
[00:35:56] And we were seeing that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that’s so central to the American ethos, you know, really alive and well and growing. And if you look at data on who’s been starting these small businesses. Over the past five years, it’s primarily driven by women, people of color and immigrants. And certainly that’s what I’m seeing in the education entrepreneurship movement and in joyful learning.
[00:36:22] I sort of talk about the ways in which education entrepreneurship in these new school founders are very much a part of a much larger entrepreneurial boom in recent years, and that these founders are, are very reflective of founders and all. Sectors, again, particularly women, people of color and immigrants.
[00:36:41] And in fact, data from our friends at the National Micro Schooling Center have kind of backed this up and they find that a desire to serve historically marginalized groups is very often a key motivator for many of today’s new school founders. So I think school choice policies make these programs much more accessible.
[00:37:03] I also think sort of an interesting trend and we’ll. I suspect we’ll see much more of this over time is traditional public schools and school systems respond to this kinda innovation happening outside of conventional classrooms. We’re already starting to see this in joyful learning. I have a whole chapter on intrapreneurs or teachers and administrators working within traditional public schools and school systems who are trying to make change from within.
[00:37:30] Often inspired by what’s happening. Side and with these micro school founders and others. So I think we’re going to continue to see public schools and school systems respond and continue to enjoy much more individualization and innovation and choice in education.
[00:37:48] Alisha Searcy: Excellent. Excellent. Kerry, it has been so great having this conversation and hearing your perspective. I learned a lot. So thank you for joining us.
[00:37:57] Kerry McDonald: Oh, thank you so much. It was a real pleasure to be here.
[00:38:12] Alisha Searcy: Wow. I loved that interview. Kerry has so much insight about the options that are happening around the country. How exciting.
[00:38:19] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And there were folks like Peter Gray who came before her to talk about homeschooling and raise that as a possibility and, and it’s nice to see her kind of take the mantle of that. So yeah, real excited to help us. You know, imagine the possibilities. I mean, Alisha, you know, we were talking at the beginning of the show about what reform ideas are there and certainly there, I think there’s some opportunities here with new ways of schooling that are emerging these days.
[00:38:44] Alisha Searcy: Yes. We talk about reimagining, I think we’ve got some ideas.
[00:38:48] With that said, before we go, will you give us our tweet of the week?
[00:38:52] Albert Cheng: Yeah, sure. Uh, this one comes from, well, pioneer Institute. I guess we have to, who’s that? Yeah, who’s that? But it’s a plug for a new report that discusses expanding access to vtech schools below. So Tweet reads, uh, students want in demand for vocational technical programs in Massachusetts.
[00:39:11] It’s soaring and applications are up. 24% since 2011, but thousands are still turned away each year. So to learn more about that, look at that tweet. It’s linked to the report, so check it out.
[00:39:23] Alisha Searcy: Yes. Yes. Well, thank you for that. It’s been a great show. Great to be with you again. And it’s nice to have all the gang back together again.
[00:39:31] Albert Cheng: That’s right. That’s right. I know. Yeah, let’s get a stretch in here. Although, look, our other guests are great too. We don’t wanna throw them under the bus.
[00:39:38] Alisha Searcy: Of course. We appreciate them. Let’s see when they sit in for us. So thank you for that. And so for next week, make sure to join us. We will have.
[00:39:46] Professor Randall Woods. He is a John A. Cooper Distinguished professor of History at the University of Arkansas, an author of John Quincy Adams, A Man for the Whole People. So be sure to join us next week. Thanks again, Albert.
[00:40:00] Albert Cheng: Yeah, great to be on the show with you.
[00:40:03] Alisha Searcy: Hey, this is Alisha. Thank you for listening to the Learning Curve.
[00:40:06] If you’d like to support the podcast further, we invite you to donate at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.
