LiberatED Podcast: Recent Episodes
Kerry McDonald
Conversations with the innovators creating education options for parents and learners outside the conventional classroom.
LiberatED celebrates its 400th episode! Since launching in February 2022, the podcast has featured inspiring conversations with the entrpreneurial parents and teachers who are reimagining K-12 education and building new solutions. We mark this exciting milestone and preview Season 6, featuring a rotating cast of hosts from FEE's Education Entrepreneurship Lab who will bring fresh voices and perspectives to discussions about education entrepreneurship, innovation, and choice. We also tease an upcoming school-starter series launching this fall, made possible through the support of KaiPod.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Guest host Denise Lever talks with Emma Rodriguez, a former public school teacher and founder of Lighthouse Christian Academy, a faith-based K–8 microschool in Frisco, Texas. Emma reflects on a remarkable first year in which enrollment grew from 2 to 20 students—and shares the story of one student whose academic progress, behavior, and confidence were transformed by the school's supportive environment.
Emma explains how multi-age classrooms, small-group instruction, hands-on learning, and a strong sense of community help students thrive. She also discusses the challenges of balancing a founder's educational vision with parents' expectations, the value of mentorship and peer support, and her decision to move from a two-day program to a four-day school model.
The conversation also explores how Texas's new Education Savings Account (ESA) program is expanding access to Lighthouse Christian Academy for families who might otherwise be unable to afford it.
You can listen to Kerry McDonald's 2025 podcast interview with Emma here.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, host Kerry McDonald speaks with Melody Rider, president of ConnectED Polk, a Florida nonprofit helping build stronger connections between education and industry. Rather than creating programs in isolation, ConnectED Polk serves as a community intermediary—bringing together K–12 schools, higher education, employers, and civic organizations to better prepare students for success after graduation.
Melody shares how ConnectED Polk has reached thousands of students through career exploration events and is expanding work-based learning opportunities, including internships, apprenticeships, and other real-world experiences designed to help students discover their interests and build durable career skills.
The conversation also explores ConnectED Polk's partnership with WonderHere to launch an innovative microschool inside a Title I public elementary school in Polk County, which Kerry wrote about at Forbes. They discuss the importance of helping traditional public schools innovate alongside charter and private school growth, and why durable human skills matter more than ever in an AI-driven economy.
Whether you're an educator, parent, policymaker, or employer, this episode offers a compelling look at how community collaboration can create more meaningful pathways from education to employment—and better outcomes for students.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Starting a microschool or other innovative learning environment is about far more than curriculum and community. Founders also have to navigate a maze of zoning rules, fire codes, occupancy limits, licensing questions, and other regulatory hurdles that can make or break their schools.
In this guest-hosted episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Education Entrepreneurship Lab senior contributor and Baker Creek Academy founder, Denise Lever, talks with Lynn Swanson, Chief Counsel, Education at Stand Together, about the organization's Edupreneur Resource Center (ERC) and how it helps education entrepreneurs tackle legal and compliance challenges before they become major problems.
Lynn explains the ERC's free resources—including microcourses, state-specific compliance guides, checklists, and personalized coaching—and shares practical advice for founders facing inspections, regulatory questions, or enforcement actions. She also discusses the most common compliance pitfalls, why facilities issues are often the biggest obstacle for new schools, and how entrepreneurs can stay informed as rules evolve.
Whether you're launching a microschool, hybrid homeschool program, learning pod, or other education venture, this conversation offers actionable guidance to help you navigate the legal landscape with greater confidence.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
For years, Maysaa Bazna led Pono, an innovative outdoor democratic school in New York City, where children followed their curiosity and developed deep connections with the natural world. She saw an opportunity to bring those same experiences to many more children through partnerships with urban Title I public schools.
Today, Maysaa is the founder and executive director of City to Sanctuary, a nonprofit that partners with public schools to take students out of the classroom and into nature every month. Through repeated visits to nature preserves, students participate in activities like bird banding, pond ecology, hiking, and ice fishing while building confidence, curiosity, and a lasting relationship with the outdoors.
In this episode, host Kerry McDonald speaks with Maysaa about her journey from alternative school founder to creator of a vibrant urban nature education program that is seeing significant, positive results for students and teachers. They also discuss City to Sanctuary's expansion plans, bringing nature-based learning to thousands more students across the country.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Guest host Jennie Jones, an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab, interviews Tanner Bowman, founder of Optio, a quest-based learning platform that helps homeschoolers and microschools document and personalize student-directed learning. After teaching across public, private, charter, online, and microschool environments, Tanner concluded that traditional education's standardized structure made meaningful personalization difficult. Inspired by experiments with increased student autonomy during and after COVID, he left his public school position to build Optio.
Tanner explains how Optio grew out of an in-person lab school where students pursued entrepreneurial and passion-driven projects while earning accredited high school credit. He shares how the platform evolved from a one-size-fits-all learning management system into a customizable tool that adapts to each microschool's unique philosophy and teaching style. Throughout the conversation, Tanner argues that teaching is fundamentally an art form, that students are naturally motivated to learn when given meaningful ownership over their education, and that families deserve systems that recognize authentic learning wherever it occurs.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Special Summer Episode! Kym Kent, an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab, is the guest host for today's LiberatED Podcast! Listen in as she interviews Catina Sweedy, a staff member at the Embark Center for Self-Directed Education in Leesburg, Virginia. Catina tells us about this unique, youth-led microschool for tweens and teens.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
When Niki Harris and her husband launched Farm School on their working farm in Northern California in 2018, they were simply looking for a better educational option for their own four children. What began as a part-time co-op quickly grew into a thriving place-based microschool serving dozens of students through multiple programs.
But after nearly a decade of growth, unexpected circumstances forced Niki to make one of the hardest decisions any school founder can face: halting operations in the middle of the school year.
On this episode of LiberatED, Niki shares the remarkable story of Farm School's evolution, the emotional and operational challenges of pausing a beloved microschool, and the lessons every education entrepreneur can learn from her experience.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Peter Holmstrom, Head of School at Summit School in Waco, Texas. Peter shares his journey from social work to public school teaching to leading one of the fastest-growing learner-centered schools in the state.
Since becoming head of school in 2023, Peter has helped grow Summit from fewer than 50 students to nearly 140 learners, while expanding staff, facilities, and programs. He explains how Summit blends nature-based, project-driven learning with strong academic outcomes, creating an environment where children develop curiosity, confidence, and a genuine love of learning.
Kerry and Peter discuss teacher burnout, school leadership, the challenges of managing rapid growth, and the impact of Texas's new Education Freedom Accounts program. Peter also shares why listening to parents, empowering staff, and focusing on joyful learning have been key ingredients in Summit's success.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
On this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Colleen Hroncich, policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, about her new report, Let 1,000 Flowers Bloom: Best Practices for Advancing Educational Freedom.
With more than 70 school choice programs now operating across more than 30 states—and over a dozen states offering universal eligibility—educational freedom is expanding rapidly across the US. Colleen explains why universal access and sustainable funding are essential to creating thriving education marketplaces that serve all families.
Kerry and Colleen also discuss the new federal scholarship tax credit program set to launch in 2027. The conversation turns to the growing ecosystem of education entrepreneurs building innovative schools and learning models, and why parental choice may be the most effective form of accountability in education.
Whether you're a parent, educator, or policymaker, this episode offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of educational freedom.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Katelynn Stone, founder of EverRoot Academy, a new K-8 hybrid learning community set to launch in August 2026 in Crestview, Florida.
After nearly two decades working across public and private education settings—including classrooms, leadership roles, and specialized learning environments—Katelynn is now building her own learner-centered educational model. EverRoot Academy combines virtual and place-based learning, multi-age groupings, community projects, and a flexible learning week designed to meet students where they are.
Katelynn shares the challenges and excitement of launching a microschool, from navigating legal and insurance requirements to developing systems and building enrollment. She also discusses how her tutoring business became a bridge to school founding, why relationships are at the heart of educational entrepreneurship, and her long-term vision for creating a globally connected learning community.
Whether you're an educator considering entrepreneurship, a parent exploring alternative learning options, or simply curious about the future of education, this conversation offers an inspiring look at what it takes to build something new.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
On this episode of LiberatED, LaRae Hulsey tells host Kerry McDonald about her remarkable journey from enrolling her children in a Prenda microschool in rural Apache County, Arizona to launching her own program, LaRae's Learning Lab. Along the way, her family faced extraordinary challenges, including her husband's leukemia diagnosis, which required relocating for medical treatment.
LaRae explains how the flexibility and personal connections of microschooling provided stability during crisis, why she eventually stepped into a leadership role herself, and how her microschool now serves a dozen students in a community where alternative education options are rapidly expanding. She also offers encouragement and practical advice for aspiring founders who may doubt their ability to start something of their own.
In a conversation about resilience, purpose, and the power of personalized learning, LaRae's story highlights how education entrepreneurship often begins with a parent's desire to help their own children thrive.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
This week on the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Serena Wilkie Gifford and Kate Walker of the Birches School, a nature-based K–8 independent school in the Boston area that began in 2012 with just five students and now serves about 75 learners.
Serena and Kate share the school's founding story, its progressive educational philosophy, and how nature is woven throughout the curriculum—from math lessons outdoors to history explorations in the woods. They discuss the benefits of outdoor learning for children's well-being, curiosity, and engagement, while also emphasizing strong academics, close relationships, and child-centered learning.
Kerry and her guests also explore why more families are seeking alternatives to conventional schooling, the growing interest in nature-based education, and how small, mission-driven schools like Birches are creating learning environments where children thrive.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald talks with Mary Wells, co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether, a national nonprofit focused on expanding educational opportunity and innovation. Mary shares the story behind Bellwether's founding and discusses the rapid growth of private school choice programs, microschools, and other emerging learning models.
They explore the opportunities and challenges facing education entrepreneurs, including questions around accountability, sustainability, and scaling innovation. Mary also offers her perspective on the promise—and risks—of AI in education, emphasizing the importance of designing tools that truly support student learning. The conversation also touches on Bellwether's work in student funding formulas, postsecondary pathways, and the evolving future of education.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What happens when homeschooling families want more connection, collaboration, and hands-on learning? In this episode, Kerry McDonald talks with Danika Dunn and Kelly Clearkin of Bramblewood Learning Community, a project-based hybrid homeschool program in Pennsylvania serving around 60 students. Danika shares how she launched Bramblewood in 2020 after searching for project-based learning resources designed specifically for homeschoolers, while Kelly explains how her "Forest Fridays" community grew to more than 2,000 members during the homeschooling surge of the pandemic years. Together, they discuss building intentional culture, supporting homeschool families through conferences and mentorship, and why community-centered, project-based learning is resonating with so many families today.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode, Kerry McDonald talks with Caroline Allen, Chief Program Officer at the Center for Education Reform and Founding Director of the Yass Prize, about how this prize recognizes and celebrates K-12 education innovation and impact across the US.
Caroline shared her journey from public school teacher to philanthropy, and explained the Yass Prize's four core criteria: sustainability, transformation, outstanding performance, and permissionless operation (S.T.O.P.).
She offered practical advice for applicants ahead of this years's June 1 deadline, encouraging educators to clearly articulate what makes their model distinct and in high demand. The conversation also highlighted the diversity of past winners—from microschools to established networks—and the prize's role in connecting innovators while amplifying their work.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald talks with Kelsy Achtenberg, founding teacher and Executive Director of The Innovation School, a private K-8 school in Bismarck, North Dakota. They discuss the school's Reggio Emilia-inspired model, its focus on passion, play, and projects, and the recent launch of a hybrid homeschool program to meet growing demand. Kelsy shares the challenges of running a small private school, the importance of family alignment, and how graduates thrive when transitioning to traditional high schools.
Kelsy is also a new Senior Contributor at FEE's Education Entrepreneurship Lab! Read her articles at edentrepreneur.org.
Also, check out Kerry's latest Forbes.com article, featuring The Innovation School and its new hybrid homeschool program.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald speaks with Marc Porter Magee, CEO and founder of 50CAN, about the organization's nationwide efforts to expand education choice and empower families. Drawing on a new survey of 23,000 parents, Marc shares insights on growing demand for tutoring and flexible learning options and key differences between homeschooling and microschooling families. They explore how policy and advocacy can open access to educational opportunities once reserved for the wealthy—helping more families find the right fit for their children.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Lexi Hanson and Kayla Phipps, two "superguides" at Prenda, a national microschooling network founded in 2018 by Kelly Smith that has since served roughly 10,000 students in hundreds of tiny schools across the US.
Lexi and Kayla share their journeys from traditional education settings to launching and guiding their own Prenda microschools. They discuss how the Prenda model—serving K–8 learners in small, mixed-age environments of less than a dozen students—fosters autonomy, personalized learning, and meaningful connections. The conversation explores how demand for microschools surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and why interest in these flexible learning environments continues today.
As Super Guides, Lexi and Kayla mentor new microschool founders, offering feedback and support to ensure high-quality learning experiences. They also describe what a typical day looks like in a Prenda microschool, including core academic time and community-building activities that balance structure with independence.
Whether you're an educator considering a new path or a parent exploring alternative education options, this episode offers inspiration and practical insights into the growing microschool movement. Their advice to prospective guides and families is simple: Just do it!
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Frish Waller, founder of Brainforest Academy, a Montessori microschool in Florida designed to serve both neurodiverse and neurotypical learners.
Frish shares her unconventional journey toward entrepreneurship—from teaching internationally to serving in the military—and how her personal experiences as a parent of a child with special needs led her to create a more inclusive, child-centered learning environment. She discusses the challenges of launching a microschool, from finding space to building enrollment, as well as the growing demand for flexible education options.
The conversation highlights the power of community, the role of school choice policies in expanding access, and why microschools are becoming an increasingly attractive option for families seeking something different.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Ken Trautwein, founder of Current Education Center, a secular, self-directed learning community outside Philadelphia. After 25 years in conventional education, Ken set out to create a more flexible, human-centered environment where young people can follow their interests while being supported by intentional mentorship.
Opened in early 2025, Current serves teens through a part-time, self-directed model that blends structure with freedom. Ken describes his "riverbank" philosophy of education, where learning flows naturally within a supportive framework, and reflects on the challenges of launching a new center, building community, and rethinking what education can look like.
If you're curious about self-directed learning, microschooling, or what it takes to create something new in education, this conversation offers both inspiration and insight.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Marta MacBan, founder of Sonoran Learning Collective, a hybrid microschool in Cave Creek, Arizona, that's reimagining how and when students learn. Launched in 2024 with just six students—including her own children—the program now serves a growing community of families seeking flexibility, personalization, and strong academic foundations.
Marta shares how her journey from corporate media to education entrepreneurship was sparked by her daughter's struggles during pandemic-era schooling—and how that led her to build a two-day-a-week microschool focused on core academics and critical thinking for grades 4–8.
Kerry and Marta discuss the power of Arizona's ESA program in making alternative education accessible, the benefits of midyear enrollment flexibility, and the importance of community partnerships. Marta also offers candid insights on the challenges of launching a microschool—from finding space to navigating regulations—and why connecting with other founders can make all the difference.
For families exploring new learning models and aspiring founders ready to take the leap, this conversation highlights how small, flexible schools are opening big, new possibilities in education.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
On this week's episode of the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Cory Henwood, innovation coordinator for Utah's Iron County School District and founder of Launch High School, a new public high school focused on personalized learning.
Cory shares his journey from public school math teacher to district innovation leader, and explains how Launch High School blends competency-based learning, personalized schedules, and real-world entrepreneurship. Students spend much of their time building projects and businesses while progressing through academics at their own pace—an approach that has led to some of the strongest academic outcomes in the district.
Kerry and Cory also explore how school districts can respond to the growing landscape of school choice, ESAs, charter schools, and customized learning options. Cory discusses his work supporting new innovative programs across Utah, including emerging models that allow families to combine multiple educational experiences tailored to their children.
They close with a look ahead at the future of education—and why Cory believes that greater family choice, flexibility, and personalization will continue shaping schooling in the years to come.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with May Jewell, founder of Jewell School in Queen Creek, Arizona. Since launching in 2021 with just 18 students, the Waldorf- and Montessori-inspired Christian school has grown to more than 100 students. May shares how she built the program, the challenges and rewards of being a new school founder, the regulatory burdens constraining her growth, and why families are increasingly seeking out alternative learning environments.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Rebecca Thomas, founder of Victory Alliance, a K–12 hybrid homeschool program in Traverse City, Michigan. Rebecca shares how she transitioned from an educator in traditional public, charter, and Christian schools to homeschooling her own child—and eventually launching a microschool during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What began as a tutoring pod in one family's basement has grown to serve 50 students with six teachers, and prioritizes small class sizes, academic rigor, and flexibility for families.
Rebecca explains why she has intentionally capped enrollment to preserve quality, how her first graduates earned multiple college acceptances, and why aspiring education entrepreneurs should begin small, build trust, and let growth happen organically.
This is a conversation about courage, community, and the power of starting before you feel ready.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What does it take to build the first private online school in the United States—before most families even had internet access?
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Alyssa Tormala, Head of School at Laurel Springs School, to explore the school's remarkable evolution from a small distance-learning program in 1991 to a global, accredited K–12 institution that has served more than 6,000 students across 100+ countries. With a proven track record of high-quality online learning, including selective college admissions, Laurel Springs School continues to lead the way in virtual education.
For families exploring alternatives to conventional schooling, this episode offers a compelling look at how private online education can combine personalization, rigor, and worldwide community.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with virtual learning pioneer Julie Young, author of Virtual Schools, Actual Learning: Digital Education in America, published by the Pioneer Institute. Julie shares the inside story of launching Florida Virtual School in the 1990s, building one of the first and most successful statewide online programs in the country, to then spearheading the growth of ASU Prep Digital and consulting with education leaders on the future of online education.
For anyone interested in education entrepreneurship, edtech innovation, or the future of K-12 schooling in an AI-powered world, this conversation offers both a historical lens and a forward-looking roadmap.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Ohio has long been at the forefront of the school choice movement—and today tens of thousands of students participate in one of the state's five scholarship programs.
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Rabbi Eric "Yitz" Frank, President of School Choice Ohio, and Ann Riddle, Director of Provider School Outreach at School Choice Ohio, to explore how Ohio became a national leader in education freedom. They trace the evolution of the state's first Cleveland Scholarship Program in 1995 to today's increasingly robust voucher programs.
But as demand for choice continues to grow, a new challenge has emerged: supply. From facilities constraints to regulatory considerations, what does it take to expand schooling options at scale?
The conversation also turns to the new federal education freedom tax credit program and how Ohio is uniquely positioned to benefit—potentially expanding choice to even more families.
If you're interested in the intersection of policy, advocacy, and education entrepreneurship, this episode offers a compelling look at how one state is leading the school choice movement.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What does it look like to build a school around student voice, joyful learning, and real affordability?
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Elizabeth Dean, Head of Learning at The Village School, a learner-centered school in Arlington, Virginia serving about 70 students. Elizabeth shares her journey from public school teacher and instructional coach to school leader—and how her own negative schooling experiences sparked a commitment to creating more human, joyful learning environments.
Elizabeth explains how the Village School emphasizes hands-on projects, real-world challenges, and two hours of unstructured play every day—while still seeing students perform above grade level on standardized tests. She also discusses the school's deliberate choice to keep tuition below half the cost of most traditional private schools in Northern Virginia, supported by a robust financial aid program that prioritizes access over luxury amenities.
The conversation explores the school's three-way partnership among learners, guides, and parents, the importance of social capital and personal development, and plans to launch a high school program in 2028. This episode is a powerful example of how learner-centered schools can remain financially sustainable, academically strong, and deeply human.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Kalecia Simmons, founder of The Black Homeschools, about how one parent's search for support grew into a thriving homeschooling community serving more than 1,100 Black families across the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area—and beyond.
Kalecia shares her personal journey homeschooling her eight children, the early challenges that motivated her to create a space specifically for African American homeschoolers, and the persistence it took to build trust and momentum—from park meetups with no attendees to massive field trips and events. She explains how The Black Homeschools has evolved into a resource hub offering curriculum guidance, coaching, enrichment classes, NCAA athletics support, and college preparation, all rooted in community and cultural connection.
The conversation also explores the broader rise in Black homeschooling, shifting perceptions of homeschooling as a viable and respected educational path, and Kalecia's ambitious vision for the future—including expansion. This episode is an inspiring look at what's possible when parents trust themselves and build the communities their children—and others—need.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald is joined by Heike Larson, Vice President of Programs at the Roots of Progress Institute, and Dr. Laura Mazer, a surgeon and curriculum lead for the Institute's new summer program, Progress in Medicine 2026. Together, they explore a bold new model for summer teen learning that blends medical history, future innovation, mentorship, and personal development.
Designed for rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors, Progress in Medicine 2026 combines five weeks of live virtual seminars with a multi-day in-person experience at Stanford University. Students examine landmark moments in medical progress, grapple with today's healthcare challenges, and explore diverse career pathways—from medicine and biotech to research, policy, and entrepreneurship.
Heike shares the vision behind the Roots of Progress Institute and its mission to foster a culture of human progress in the 21st century. Laura reflects on her own journey from surgeon to education innovator and discusses how her Montessori-inspired work shapes the summer program's inquiry-driven, student-centered approach.
This episode offers an inspiring look at how summer learning can help teens connect their interests to real-world impact—and begin imagining ans building lives of purpose.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
On this episode of LiberatED, host Kerry McDonald sits down with Emily Barnitz, founder of Zoe Learning House, a fast-growing hybrid homeschool program in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Emily shares her journey from being homeschooled herself to becoming a public school teacher—and ultimately launching Zoe Learning House in fall 2024 with just 10 students in her living room. Eighteen months later, the program now serves 50 students across kindergarten through fourth grade, with plans to expand to fifth grade while maintaining small class sizes and an 8:1 student-teacher ratio.
The conversation explores Zoe's Charlotte Mason–inspired, hands-on learning model; flexible enrollment options for families; and the intentional decision to prioritize educational quality over rapid scaling. Emily also offers practical insights for aspiring education entrepreneurs—on starting small, building visibility through word-of-mouth and SEO, navigating state homeschool regulations, and staying grounded in your "why" as your program grows.
This episode is a must-listen for educators, homeschoolers, and founders interested in hybrid learning models that are both sustainable and deeply student-centered.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What if high school was designed more like a creative studio than a traditional classroom?
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald spotlights NuVu High School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a distinctive, studio-style school for students in grades 7 to 12. Kerry speaks with NuVu co-founder Saba Ghole and NuVu Director of Admissions Karen Sutton about NuVu's remarkable evolution—from a community laboratory partnering with local schools and homeschoolers to a fully recognized private high school.
Founded in 2010 by MIT graduate students Saba Ghole and Saeed Arida, NuVu was inspired by the architectural studio model: immersive, hands-on, interdisciplinary work driven by real-world problems. Today, students spend much of their time engaged in multi-week design studios—building, testing, iterating, and presenting projects that demonstrate deep mastery across disciplines.
With more than 100 graduates over 16 years—many heading to selective colleges in design, engineering, and the arts—NuVu offers a compelling example of how today's innovative high schools can prepare students not just for college, but for meaningful work and life beyond school.
For families and founders seeking or building something fundamentally different from conventional high school, this episode offers a powerful glimpse of what's possible.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald is joined by Neal McCluskey, Director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, and co-editor of the new book Fighting for the Freedom to Learn: Examining America's Centuries-Old School Choice Movement, to explore the history of educational freedom in the U.S.
Neal also talks about the Public Schooling Battle Map that he maintains, and explains how allowing families to choose learning environments aligned with their values has long helped preserve social peace. He challenges the assumption that centralized schooling unifies society, and instead makes the case that pluralism, decentralization, and freedom offer a more stable and harmonious foundation.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald is joined by Christina Stead and Hanna Lay, two homeschool mothers from St. George, Utah. Together they founded Desert Blossom Resource Center, a nonprofit created to support homeschooling families through community-led resources, monthly panel discussions, local events, and a growing online hub that now connects more than 80 families across southern Utah.
Originally envisioned as a physical community space, Desert Blossom has evolved into a virtual and community-driven model while the founders work toward securing a permanent location for future lending libraries, microschools, co-ops, and collaborative learning spaces. Christina and Hanna share how their idea began over a decade ago, how COVID reshaped their plans, and how Utah's rapid homeschooling growth has created both opportunity and urgency for better support systems.
This episode is a must-listen for familes and founders who are eager to build the ecosystems that help homeschoolers and microschoolers truly thrive.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this reload of one of our most popular episodes, Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey shares his founder story, explaining why conscious capitalism leads to profound good in the world and offering tips for today's education entrepreneurs.
Here's one gem from the interview: "If you can make a profit, it proves that your business model is good," said Mackey. "That's the way you could do the most good in the world. That's the beauty of capitalism . . . If you have a good school, we need more of them. And how are you going to do it unless you can make money and reinvest it?"
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald speaks with Talon and Travis Holleman, co-founders of Roots Farm and Forest School in Delaware. What began as a small homeschool co-op during the pandemic has grown into a thriving, nature-based learning ecosystem serving more than 1,000 students through microschool programs, homeschool enrichment, after-school offerings, and seasonal camps.
Talon and Travis share their personal journey from successful corporate careers into homeschooling, and why outdoor, play-based, and community-centered education felt like the right path for their family. They walk listeners through the evolution of Roots—from deschooling their own children, to transforming a homestead into a permaculture learning space, to building a financially sustainable microschool inspired by Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia philosophies.
The conversation also explores the realities of running a school as a family business, supporting children's social-emotional growth, and planning for the future with hopes to expand into middle and high school programs.
This episode is a powerful reminder that education entrepreneurship isn't just about building schools—it's about building lives rooted in purpose, connection, and joy.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Bonnie Bradshaw, a longtime homeschool mom and the founder of Royal Oak Academy, a student-centered K-7 microschool in Suffolk, Virginia.
Bonnie shares how her years of homeschooling shaped her educational philosophy and ultimately inspired her to create a learning environment that prioritizes curiosity, autonomy, and individual growth. She discusses the transition from educating her own children at home to launching a microschool that now serves a broader community of families seeking alternatives to conventional schooling.
The conversation explores what it means to design education around students rather than systems, the practical realities of starting and sustaining a microschool, and why more parents and educators are choosing entrepreneurial paths to create meaningful, joyful learning spaces.
This episode is a must-listen for homeschooling families, aspiring microschool founders, and anyone interested in the growing movement toward learner-centered education.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this week's episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald interviews Ali Ghaffari, founder of Divine Mercy Academy, a K–8 classical Catholic school in Pasadena, Maryland, and now Executive Director of the St. John Henry Newman Institute, an organization dedicated to accelerating the renewal of Catholic education worldwide.
Ali's path to school founding is anything but ordinary. After graduating from Colby College, he spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy as an F/A-18 fighter pilot before teaching leadership and ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Raised without religious belief, Ali experienced a dramatic conversion sparked by reading the Great Books—an encounter that convinced him of the importance of deep intellectual and moral formation. When he couldn't find a classical Catholic school nearby for his children, he joined with other families to start one.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
This week on the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald speaks with Tara Famularo-Del Bianco, a former attorney who spent nearly 15 years representing abused and neglected children in New York City before making a dramatic shift into education entrepreneurship. Today, she is the founder of The Magnolia Schoolhouse, a thriving Montessori-inspired microschool in Vero Beach, Florida, that serves 75+ students through 8th grade and blends homeschooling with flexible, part-time, in-person learning.
Her founder path was not easy, as she encountered numerous regulatory roadblocks, and ultimately decided to start a church to run her school.
Kerry's latest Forbes.com article detailing Tara's full story is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2025/12/01/meet-the-founder-who-started-a-church-to-run-her-microschool/
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
This week on the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Susan Yao, founder of Vermont Village School in Brattleboro, Vermont, about her inspiring journey from progressive educator to microschool creator.
After earning an undergraduate degree from Harvard College, Susan worked for several years as a teacher and school administrator in a variety of educational settings. The pandemic led her family to move from Massachusetts to Vermont to begin homesteading and homeschooling. It also led the way for Susan to launch Vermont Village School.
This is a powerful conversation for anyone considering launching a microschool—or anyone curious about how thoughtful, community-centered education takes shape.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
This week on the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with educator-turned-entrepreneur Imani Jackson, founder of Poinciana Montessori in Philadelphia and part of the Wildflower Montessori Network. Imani shares her remarkable journey from a classroom teacher in both public and private schools, to Montessori microschool founder—sparked by her own daughter's experience with Montessori-inspired home learning during the pandemic.
Imani reflects on discovering Montessori education, pursuing her Montessori teacher certification, and learning to balance both teaching and entrepreneurship as she planned and launched Poinciana in 2024. It currently serves students in 1st through 5th grade. Imani explains the Wildflower Network's support in funding, visioning, real-estate navigation, and early-stage enrollment—along with the realities of starting small and growing intentionally.
Kerry and Imani dive into the Montessori math progression, the power of mixed-age learning, and why individualized, child-led education has been so successful for Poinciana's elementary school students. Imani also shares her plans for expanding enrichment offerings and building second-year enrollment.
Whether you're a prospective school founder, a Montessori parent, or simply curious about the rise of teacher-led microschools, this conversation offers honest insights, practical advice, and the inspiring story of a founder staying grounded in her "why."
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this special LiberatED and Teacher, Let Your Light Shine! crossover episode, Kerry McDonald and Makenzie Oliver share how teachers are transforming from classroom educators to microschool founders. Hear Makenzie's inspiring story and Kerry's insights from Joyful Learning on freedom, entrepreneurship, and reimagining education.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald speaks with Julia Bergson-Shilcock and Mike Hilbert, founders of Cupola Academy, a secular learning community in Pennsylvania serving homeschooling families through part-time, in-person programs. Drawing from decades in alternative education—and Julia's own unschooling background—they share how Cupola fosters autonomy, collaboration, and a lifelong love of learning. The conversation explores what's changed in the self-directed education movement over the past 20 years, how alumni thrive in college and beyond, and what advice they offer parents and educators seeking a more human-centered approach to learning.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Joel Hammon—former public school teacher, founder of Princeton Learning Cooperative, co-founder of Liberated Learners, and author of The Teacher Liberation Handbook—joins Kerry to explore the global rise of self-directed learning centers. These community-based programs, including the Princeton Learning Cooperative and many more within the Liberated Learners network, offer homeschooled tweens and teens a flexible alternative to conventional school: no forced curriculum and an individualized path guided by curiosity and purpose.
Joel shares his transformation from classroom teacher to education entrepreneur, and how the North Star model inspired a movement of "learning cooperatives" that work like a YMCA for education—students choose when to attend, what to learn, and how to grow. We talk about college admissions for self-directed learners, how narrative transcripts help teens transition smoothly to their next step, and why demand for these centers continues to rise.
If you're curious about self-directed education—or considering starting a center yourself—this conversation offers inspiration, practical guidance, and a look at the future of learner-driven freedom.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
After years as a speech pathologist in public schools, Lauren Capelli founded Sacred Haven Homeschool Collective, a Christian hybrid homeschool program in Camden County, New Jersey. In this episode, Lauren shares how she turned burnout into purpose, building a personalized, community-based program for roughly two dozen students. She and Kerry discuss curriculum design, individualized learning, outcomes and accountability, and advice for entrepreneurial parents and educators ready to create something new.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald sits down with Kerry Baldwin, co-founder of Vita Nova Academy, a micro-high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico built on Socratic practice and passion-driven learning. Baldwin shares how Vita Nova pairs seminar-style inquiry with a skills-based framework and a partnership with the Mastery Transcript Consortium, helping teens show real evidence of mastery—communication, research, critical thinking—tied to their interests. The conversation digs into aligning parent expectations with what colleges and employers actually value, why Vita Nova includes an alumni board seat for continuous feedback, and how the school plans to grow while retaining its small, community feel. Baldwin also previews a Creative Commons Socratic curriculum other founders can adopt, plus ideas for shared microschool proms and sports. If you're curious about innovating at the high-school level, this episode is your playbook.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
John Danner, co-founder and CEO of Flourish Schools, joins Kerry McDonald to discuss how his new Nashville-based microschool network is reimagining middle school education. Drawing on his experience founding Rocketship Public Schools, Danner explains how Flourish uses AI to automate foundational learning while empowering teachers to focus on students’ “superpowers” — curiosity, communication, and leadership. He and Kerry explore the balance between technology and humanity in education, the promise of microschools in ESA states, and what it takes to build joyful learning environments that truly help children flourish.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald is joined by Professor Eric Wearne, director of the National Hybrid Schools Project at Kennesaw State University, to explore the rapid growth of hybrid schooling. They discuss the historical roots of hybrid schooling, the post-COVID surge in new school launches, and what makes hybrid schools distinct from both traditional schools and homeschooling.
Professor Wearne shares new research on teacher hiring preferences, school size and structure, and why hybrid models are resonating with more families today. The conversation also dives into key challenges, from teacher supply and accountability measures to succession planning for founders and the potential impact of AI on education.
Whether you’re a parent, educator, or entrepreneur, this episode offers a deep look at where hybrid schools are headed—and how they’re reshaping the educational landscape.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald welcomes Jamie Musacchio, founder of Wisdom Warehouse, a microschool that began in Dubai and now thrives in Miami. Jamie shares her journey from over a decade in public school classrooms in New York City and Washington, DC to launching an innovative microschool model that blends rigorous academics with daily creative workshops.
She discusses the philosophy behind Wisdom Warehouse—child-centered, project-based learning in small class sizes—and how students achieve strong academic outcomes without the stress of test prep. Kerry and Jamie also explore the rapid growth of microschools in South Florida, the role of school choice programs in expanding access, and Jamie’s vision for future expansion, including curriculum replication, nature-based programming, and additional locations in Florida and beyond.
If you’re curious about how microschools are reshaping education—and what it takes to turn a tutoring center into a thriving full-day school—this episode offers inspiration and advice.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Kerry McDonald welcomes Charles and Charissa Mitchell, two of the four co-founders of the Threefold Schoolhouse, an Acton Academy located outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They share their inspiring story of building a learner-driven microschool that launched with just 10 students in 2019 and today serves 65 learners from pre-kindergarten through high school.
The Mitchells talks about the entrepreneurial challenges they’ve faced—from zoning restrictions and temporary spaces to navigating outdated education regulations—while staying true to Acton Academy’s philosophy that embraces curiosity, experimentation, and failure as essential parts of the learning process. They also discuss their vision for helping young people discover their calling and make a global impact, and why they believe we are living through an education revolution.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald speaks with parent Gabriel Valles about his family's embrace of alternative education, including homeschooling and microschooling.
Gabriel shares his experience launching a low-cost microschool inspired by Acton Academy, his exploration of homeschooling and classical education, and his current journey with his son at Alpha School in Austin. He reflects on what worked—and what didn’t—when trying to create more affordable models, and why self-directed education and community support remain central to his vision.
Listeners will hear how Gabriel’s personal experiences shaped his philosophy that education should be about self-discovery, responsibility, and joy rather than simply academics or grades. He also discusses the role of alternatives to college like Praxis, the power of student-led projects, and why parents should reconsider what it means to prepare young people for meaningful lives.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with David Richards, founder and CEO of Changemaker Education, about his fascinating career path from banking to teaching, to launching charter schools, and now microschools. David shares how a simple LinkedIn post sparked the launch of six pilot microschools across the country—and how he plans to grow that network to 100 schools over the next decade.
The conversation explores the promise and pitfalls of scaling microschools, including lessons from the charter school movement, the challenges of measuring quality, and the importance of keeping love, empowerment, and innovation at the center. David and Kerry also discuss how microschools can influence broader education systems—much like Netflix reshaped entertainment—and what it will take to prevent them from becoming burdened by bureaucracy.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What does it take to launch and grow a thriving microschool for neurodiverse learners? Kerry McDonald talks with Yorelle Haroush, founder of Trailblazers Microschool in Florida, about her entrepreneurial journey, her adventure-based approach to learning, and the overwhelming demand from families looking for alternatives to conventional schooling. Yorelle discusses both the challenges and the opportunities of starting small, scaling sustainably, and envisioning a global future for microschooling.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Jess Alfreds never set out to build a network of microschools. What began in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina as "pandemic pod" quickly grew into a thriving community of 100 students—and today, Carolina Kids Co-Op has expanded into 20+ independently-operated microschools across five states.
In this episode of the LiberatED podcast, Jess shares how she combined secular academics, social-emotional learning, and outdoor education into an accessible, affordable model serving families with children from age one through sixteen.
Kerry and Jess discuss the entrepreneurial journey behind building and scaling the Carolina Kids Co-OP network, as well as the future of innovative educational models.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of the LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Maggie Van Camp, founder of Happy Hens Farm & Forest School in New Hampshire. Maggie shares her journey from teaching in the Boston Public Schools to building a thriving microschool inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, blending outdoor learning, the arts, acdemics, and homesteading on her 11-acre property.
She explains how her licensed home daycare and K-8 microschool program serve both young children and homeschoolers—most supported through New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Accounts—and why universal school choice is creating fertile ground for microschools across the state. Maggie also discusses her new yurt classroom, the role of play in learning, and her vision for keeping education small, personalized, and deeply connected to nature.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
What does it take to step outside the system and build something new? Nadine Smith, founder of The Gathering Place, an all-girls microschool in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sits down with Kerry McDonald to share her story of leaving the public school system to create a microschool focused on personalized, mastery-based learning. They discuss the realities of running a small school, Nadine’s plans for expansion—including a potential farm-based campus—and why Nadine believes the future of education lies in microschools.
Born in Jamaica and raised in New York City, Nadine is a proud graduate of the New York City public schools. She began her career as a humanities teacher, spending over a decade teaching English Language Arts, Reading, and History. She went on to serve as an instructional coach, assistant principal, and principal. For more than 12 years, Nadine led schools in some of Washington DC’s most historically underserved communities. Nadine ultimately made the decision to walk away from traditional education to become an education entrepreneur.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with education entrepreneur Courtney Klein—co-founder of All One Thing and SUNSCHOOL, and Senior Strategist with ASU Prep. Courtney shares her remarkable journey as a social impact entrepreneur from founding her first nonprofit at age 21, to starting SEED SPOT, a global startup incubator, to now leading cutting-edge ventures in alternative education.
Courtney’s story highlights how entrepreneurship can unlock new opportunities for families, educators, and communities to create flexible, meaningful learning environments that move beyond the traditional classroom.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
Melanie Smith’s path to education entrepreneurship was anything but typical. A U.S. Army veteran who once worked in a European command war room, Melanie found her true calling in peace education through the Montessori method. After years teaching in both public and private schools, she launched Freedom Montessori Academy, an eco-school in Florida that blends individualized Montessori learning with nature-based education.
In this episode, Melanie shares how her military background shaped her vision for peaceful, child-centered learning, why she took the leap to start her own school, and how she rebuilt her program after the challenges of the pandemic. Melanie’s story is an inspiring look at resilience, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit driving today’s microschool movement.
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Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!
In this episode of LiberatED, Kerry McDonald talks with Katie Saiz, founder of Greengate Children’s School in Wichita, Kansas. Katie shares her inspiring journey from running a home-based daycare while homeschooling her children to leading a thriving private school serving nearly 100 students across preschool through middle school, with future plans for high school expansion.
Katie explains how Greengate blends Montessori materials with project-based learning, attracts families seeking alternatives to traditional schooling, and shows how microschools can be both impactful and financially sustainable. She also discusses Greengate’s growth, alongside her vision for partnerships, apprenticeships, and continued innovation in Kansas’s vibrant alternative education landscape.
You will hear candid insights into what it takes to run and expand a microschool, why financial sustainability matters, and how parent demand is shaping the future of education in Wichita and beyond.
*** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
In this episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald talks with Jennifer Palmer, former special education teacher and now founder of Mobile Classroom Solutions in Polk County, Florida. Jennifer shares her journey from the conventional public school classroom to building a thriving microschool and learning pod that serve diverse learners, including many with special needs.
We discuss how COVID sparked her entrepreneurial leap, why families are embracing flexible and personalized education, and how Florida’s school choice programs are empowering parents to find the right fit for their children. Jennifer also highlights her role as co-founder and president of the Polk Microschool Collective, a growing network that connects and supports education entrepreneurs.
Her story is an inspiring look at the creativity, courage, and community-building that are fueling the microschool movement in Florida and beyond.
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Today is the official launch date of host Kerry McDonald's new book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling!
Check out this special interview—and get your copy of Joyful Learning wherever books are sold!
Sulaya Williams has been a teacher and administrator in the Florida public schools for 15 years. She left the school system in June to pursue entrepreneurship full-time as the founder of Link Up & Build Global Academy.
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Think of Alexa Achille as an "Alexa" for innovative education in South Florida. A former special education teacher in the New York City public schools, Alexa finds great fulfillment in helping families discover the benefits of unconventional education. She is the founder of The Collabo in West Palm Beach, Florida, which empowers homeschooling families by providing enriching learning experiences for students, strategic resources for parents, and expert guidance on educational and post-secondary opportunities as a Choice Navigator.
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Today on LiberatED, Kerry McDonald sits down with Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss, the Executive Director of Mosaic at WeAreBornToLearn.org—a vibrant online hub where families can reimagine education in meaningful ways. Founded by philanthropist Jeff Westphal and supported by the Jeff & Jenifer Westphal Foundation, Mosaic blends community with curated resources and practical tools to help young people flourish as curious, confident, self-directed learners outside the bounds of conventional schooling.
One of Mosaic's key goals is to support more research around self-directed education. A study they conducted during the pandemic with over 1,000 participants revealed that parents were widely interested in holistic approaches to education. Now, Mosaic is collaborating with the Institute for Self Directed Learning to launch a new survey to understand the perspectives of teachers and educators.
Read more about Mosaic's mission and research in this recent article by Nasiyah Isra-Ul at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab.
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Kerry's new book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, will be on bookstore shelves two weeks from today—Tuesday, August 19th.
Preorder your copy today at this link and use code JOYFUL20 at checkout for 20% off.
Or visit your favorite local bookstore or online retailer to get your copy.
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Today's guest, Tiffany Blassingame, is reimagining Christian education. As the founder and lead teacher at The Ferguson School—a progressive, faith-based K-5 microschool in Decatur, Georgia—she blends over 20 years of experience in public and private education with a heart for helping students thrive. A fourth-generation educator, Tiffany primarily serves Black and brown gifted and neurodiverse learners. Her passion for nurturing both students and teachers sparked the creation of the Microschool Teacher Academy, where she mentors microschool educators with real-world tools and insights.
Read more about Tiffany in Kerry's recent Forbes.com article.
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Today's guest is Ryan Delk, cofounder and CEO of Primer, a fast-growing platform helping top teachers to launch microschools in their communities. He’s spent the last decade building tech companies (like Square, Gumroad, and Omni), and was homeschooled from kindergarten through 8th grade. Ryan lives in San Francisco with his wife and three kids.
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My guest today is Emma Rodriguez, founder of Lighthouse Christian Academy, a microschool in Frisco, Texas that opened in January of this year. After graduating from Texas A&M University, Emma spent seven years teaching in one of the largest and fastest-growing school districts in the country. While she loved the classroom, she saw firsthand how traditional education often leaves students behind and families yearning for more meaningful connection. So she became an education entrepreneur.
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Today's guest is Sana Khan, a Board-certified Family Medicine Physician and founder of Ihsan Academy of Texas Microschool, a full-time, in-person program serving Grades 1-8 in Katy, Texas. The word Ihsan is Arabic for "Excellence", highlighting the vision of the school to provide Excellence in both the knowledge and application of the Islamic faith, and Academic Scholarship.
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Jackie Bonath was a public school teacher for 14 years before quitting her job earlier this year to launch Creekside Cottage School, a full-time, multi-age microschool located in Gahanna, Ohio, a close suburb of Columbus, that is focused on nature-based learning. With 20 students already enrolled for this fall, and daily inquiries from interested parents, Jackie sees growing demand for innovative education options in her area.
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Today’s guest is Pam Frankforther, founder of Pioneer Reading Center in Wayne, Ohio. Pam left her job as a longtime public school teacher this year to launch Pioneer as full-time microschool for students with dyslexia and other learning differences. She was motivated to create a science-backed, literacy-rich learning environment for children in her community after listening to the popular podcast series, Sold A Story.
Pam also recently published the book Dyslexia and the Public Schools: What They Don't, Can't, or Won't Tell You, and Steps to Take to Advocate for Your Child's Needs.
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Jennie Jones is an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at FEE's Education Entrepreneurship Lab. She is a former professional ballerina, turned homeschooling mom of four, turned education entrepreneur who launched her home-based microschool, Treehouse Agile Learning Community, in St. George, Utah last fall and is expanding into a second location this fall. Jennie was an earlier guest on the podcast talking about her founder journey and returns today to share some of the challenges of growth and regulatory ambiguity.
Check out Jennie's latest article on this topic at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab.
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More than a decade ago, Matt Bowman cofounded My Tech High as a platform that enabled personalized, customized learning through tuition-free partnerships with innovative public and charter schools and in collaboration with individual education providers. With a bold vision to expand personalized learning options to more families, Matt recently rebranded the company to OpenEd.co. To date, his company has served over 12,000 families.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Deja Hillis is the founder of Faithscape Learning Pod, a faith-based K-5 microschool in Casa Grande, Arizona, near Phoenix, which she launched in August 2024. An early elementary school teacher for nearly a decade, Deja has a passion for literacy education and is the author of four children’s books.
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Today’s guest is Joanna Cervantez, founder of A Fuller Education Microschool just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which she launched in the fall 2024. Joanna has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education and began her career as a middle school math teacher in inner-city Los Angeles, later teaching in a school for an orphanage in El Salvador. Since 2013, she has been coaching K-12 teachers and administrators to help them transform their classrooms into joyful learning communities.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Kate Lundquist, founder and principal of Northshore Prep Academy. A former public high school math and physics teacher, Kate opened her secular K-8 hybrid school in Mandeville, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, in 2015. Today, Northshore Prep Academy has 75 students enrolled.
* Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Barbara Jauregui Wurst, a medical doctor and adjunct professor at George Washington University who cofounded Acton Academy Falls Church in Northern Virginia in 2021.
Read Courage To Grow by Acton Academy cofounder, Laura Sandefer.
Check out this new article at our Education Entrepreneurship Lab by a recent graduate of an Acton Academy in Kansas.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Cassandra Orozco, the founder of Beacon of Hope Academy, a faith-based microschool serving K–5th grade students with special needs in Lake Worth, Florida, set to open this fall. As a certified special education teacher with experience in both charter and private schools, Cassandra is passionate about reimagining education to better serve neurodiverse learners. Through Beacon of Hope Academy, she’s creating a nurturing, individualized environment where every child is seen, supported, and empowered to thrive.
* Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today’s guest is Alexandra Batista Rodriguez, founder and director of Steps Learning Center in Orlando, Florida, a specialized K-8 microschool for neurodiverse learners with moderate to significant special needs. Steps Learning Center takes a nontraditional, student-centered approach to learning, and serves a variety of families through various flexible programs, including full-time and part-time microschool enrollment options, tutoring services, and curriculum support for homebound students—all financially accessible to students through the state's school-choice programs.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today’s guest is Sara James, a former public school teacher who founded Spark Christian Academy, an Acton Academy affiliate in Harrison, Ohio, near Cincinnati, in 2022.
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Today’s guest is Sarah Pevehouse, founder of Apogee Dripping Springs Micro High School in Dripping Springs, Texas, west of Austin, which she launched in 2024. With a background in Waldorf and alternative education, Sarah has served as a teacher, administrator, and enrollment director, shaping real-world learning experiences for students. She has taught in overseas military schools, led summer camps, and held leadership roles in private K-8 and preschool programs.
Sarah is a mom of two daughters, ages 13 and 15, and is an active member of both the Apogee Strong network of education centers, as well as the KaiPod Catalyst microschool accelerator program.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Elan Page, the founder of Homeschool Our Way based in Dallas, Texas. She created Homeschool Our Way in 2023 to help other families of color avoid the overwhelm she had experienced in starting something new. Homeschool Our Way offers a weekly podcast, an online course called the Homeschool Launch Blueprint, homeschool coaching services, and other resources to empower families of color to educate their children with confidence and clarity.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly e-newsletter on education entrepreneurship and innovation at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Ali Kaufman, a longtime education entrepreneur who began offering tutoring services more than two decades ago and has since built a thriving hybrid homeschool program, Space of Mind, in Delray Beach, Florida that today serves dozens of K-12 students with both full-time and part-time enrollment options.
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Today's guest is George Philhower, Superintendent of the Eastern Hancock Public Schools in rural Charlottesville, Indiana, who is launching and leading the new Indiana Microschool Collaborative, a non-profit network designed to bring the microschooling model into the public education system.
Read more about public microschooling in Kerry's latest Forbes.com article.
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Nefertiti Harris is a former public school teacher, mom of five, and founder of Empowered Prep Academy, a microschool located in Jackson, Mississippi for students in grades 3-12 who desire a flexible and more individualized learning environment. As a certified special education teacher, Nefertiti focuses specifically on helping dyslexic students and those with similar learning needs.
If you are looking to launch a microschool or similar learning environment in Mississippi, check out Embark.MS to help you on your journey.
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Today's guest is Jody Underwood, the founder and president of EdOpt, a platform offering information, support, and connections to New Hampshire families who want to explore their education options. Jody has spent most of her professional life involved in education, including getting a Ph.D. in science and technology education to complement her Master’s in computer science. She worked for many years in the research division of Educational Testing Services (ETS), the nonprofit that administers tests such as the SAT exam. Jody has helped to support the launch of new microschools in her state, and is working to expand education entrepreneurship and innovation.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly e-newsletter on education entrepreneurship and innovation at edentrepreneur.org.
My guest today is Connor Boyack, founder of the Libertas Network, prolific author, creator of the wildly popular Tuttle Twins book series, and now the new president of Praxis, the decade-old apprenticeship preparation and placement program that the Libertas Network recently acquired.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly e-newsletter on education entrepreneurship and innovation at edentrepreneur.org.
Today's guest is Kathleen deLaski, author of the thought-provoking new book: Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining A Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter. Kathleen spent 20 years as a journalist, including time as an ABC News White House correspondent. In the second half of her career, she has focused on education reform, cofounding or founding several national nonprofits, notably the Education Design Lab, which led her toward this book. After stepping down as president to become board chair, Kathleen also spends time as a senior advisor to the Project on Workforce at Harvard University and teaches human-centered design and higher ed reform as an adjunct professor at George Mason University.
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Today's guest is Crystal Goins, a mom of 5 and founder of Heartwise Scholars Microschool in Chesapeake, Virginia. A public school teacher for over 13 years, Crystal joined the Kaipod Catalyst microschool accelerator program to help get her microschool off the ground, and opened her microschool last August. She shares insights and information for parents and teachers at her website theresilientteachermom.com.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly e-newsletter on education entrepreneurship and innovation at edentrepreneur.org.
My guest today is Tomis Parker, cofounder of the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) network that launched more than a decade ago. Since 2014, Tomis has led business operations at ALC Mosaic in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he recently founded a new project called Prism, which is a web application designed to make it easier to document and communicate the value of emergent, self-directed learning in microschools, homeschool programs, and for homeschooling/unschooling families.
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Today's guests are Laura Greene and Angela Ruth, cofounders of Harmony Homeschool Academy, a secular homeschool hybrid solution for middle and high school students in the greater Raleigh-Durham-Cary, North Carolina area.
Laura is a licensed psychologist with a background in school psychology. She is also a homeschool parent. Angela is also a homeschooling parent who spent her early career working in the US Government and transitioned to being a public school teacher about a decade ago.
Check out this weekend's "Jumpstarting Microschools" event in North Carolina, sponsored by the John Locke Foundation.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends and entrepreneurial stories at fee.org/liberated.
Natalie Mack is a homeschooling mom of 5 children who has been serving military homeschooling families for more than two decades. Her husband is a US Navy chaplain who recently retired after 34 years of service. Through her business, Natalie Mack LLC, she offers consultations to homeschoolers. She is also the founder of the nonprofit Military Homeschoolers Association (MHA), which is an advocacy and resource support organization for military homeschoolers. Natalie hosts the new podcast Base2Base Military Homeschooling.
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David Jackson is an entrepreneur and longtime executive director and president and CEO of Fairmont Schools, a large, secular private school located in Orange County, California serving students in preschool through 12th grade. Fairmont was founded in 1953 by Kenneth Holt, David’s stepfather, and then David joined the school in a leadership role in 1979 where he remained at the helm of the institution for more than 40 years. Now retired, David is the author of a new memoir detailing his life and educational leadership experiences, entitled Landing at the Top: How Embracing Adventure Leads to Extraordinary Success.
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Today's guest is Michael Bonifacio, the founder of Acton Academy Estero in Fort Myers, Florida. Part of the global Acton Academy network of learner-driven schools, Acton Academy Estero operates on a 32-acre working farm. It opened in January 2024 with 9 learners, and today has over 40—with more than 60 students projected for this fall.
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In the final episode of our 4-part series on Homeschooling To College, Kym Kent and I are joined by our two homeschooled high school seniors as they reflect on their homeschooling experience, what the college admissions process has been like, and how they are narrowing down their many college acceptances to choose the one that is right for them by the May 1st college decision deadline.
Check out Homeschooling To College Part 1: High School Prep and the Pre-Application Process
Check out Homeschooling To College Part 2: Common Myths Around Admission & Affordability
Check out Homeschooling To College Part 3: Insights from a College Admissions Counselor
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Today’s guest is Jania Otey, a homeschooling mom and founder of Kids and Culture Camp, an educational enrichment program for homeschoolers and conventionally-schooled children located in Washington, DC.
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Today's guest is Terry Travers, the founder and director of Astrolabe Academy, a unique high school experience and teen community that supports self-directed learners on their individual learning journeys. Terry has a background in communication design, ocean science, and sustainable farming. Passionate about alternative education, she began homeschooling her children in 2008 and transitioned to unschooling by 2011. Terry has hosted numerous homeschool classes and summer camps on her farm, specializing in experiences for teens. Responding to parent demand, she opened a farm-based high school, which evolved into an online unschooling support platform in 2021 due to the pandemic.
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Today's guest is Colleen Hroncich, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. She maintains the Private Schooling Status Tracker, which tracks private school openings and permanent closures along with tuition and demographic information when available. Each week in the Friday Feature blog series, Colleen shares interesting stories in the education space, from innovative schools and exciting educational programs to inspiring students, parents, and teachers. She is a longtime homeschooling mom of 4 children who are now either in college or who have already graduated.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
In part 3 of our 4-part series on Homeschooling To College, Kym Kent and I talk to Rebecca Stuart-Orlowski, an independent college admissions counselor based in Southern California who helps students and families navigate the college admissions process. A former public school teacher, Rebecca homeschooled for 25 years, sending her own three children off to college. A member of multiple professional college admissions organizations, Rebecca has been running Orlowski College Consulting for more than a decade, working closely with students on their college application journey with a particular focus on homeschooled students and others from nontraditional educational backgrounds.
Check out Homeschooling To College Part 1: High School Prep and the Pre-Application Process
Check out Homeschooling To College Part 2: Common Myths Around Admission & Affordability
Subscribe to Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Welcome to the 300th episode of the LiberatED Podcast! That’s hundreds of conversations, stories, and insights all centered around one core mission: reimagining education and helping families, educators, and innovators discover what’s possible beyond the conventional classroom.
Check out Kerry's forthcoming book: Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling
Join our private Facebook group: LiberatED Podcast Community
And sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Today's guest is Ben Draper, Executive Director of the Macomber Center, a self-directed education center for homeschoolers in Massachusetts. Ben is a graduate of the Sudbury Valley School, where he spent most of his childhood and adolescence before attending college at Tufts University and later earning a studio art degree from the Boston Museum School. Ben is part of the founding team of a new organization, Sudbury International, which seeks to promote the Sudbury model of education as well as individual Sudbury-inspired schools and centers.
Register for Sudbury International's upcoming free webinar on April 5th, featuring graduates from four different Sudbury-model schools.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Today's guest is Dominque Burgess, a former public school teacher, visionary education entrepreneur, and a national leader in the microschool movement. As the founder of Burbrella Learning Academy Inc. in Burlington, North Carolina she has successfully launched multiple innovative microschools, including transforming an old Foot Locker in a mall into a thriving, student-centered learning hub.
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Today's guest is Makenzie Oliver, host of the popular podcast Teacher, Let Your Light Shine! and its associated Facebook community. An award-winning public school teacher, Makenzie decided to leave the conventional classroom to launch her own microschool, Lighthouse Learning Microschool and Homeschool Hybrid, in 2020 in Longwood, Florida.
She now helps other teachers to let their light shine through education entrepreneurship by offering a "Microschool Masterminds" program and various coaching resources.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
In this second episode in our series, Homeschooling To College, Kym Kent and I talk about some of the common myths around college admissions and affordability, as well as how to navigate the Common App as a homeschooling family.
"A trend colleges might not want applicants to notice: It's becoming easier to get in" (The Hechinger Report, Nov. 2024)
"The secret that colleges should stop keeping" (The Atlantic, Feb. 2025)
In case you missed it, check out our first episode in this series in which Kym and I discuss preparation for college admissions during the high school years, and the pre-application process.
* Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Today's guest is Lauri Muse, a mom of of 7 children who has been actively homeschooling for 27 years. She recently launched World of Wonder Hybrid Microschool and Homeschool Enrichment Program in Union, Kentucky, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Her weekly homeschool enrichment program now serves over 140 kids, while the 3-day-a-week microschool she opened last fall currently has 15 students—and counting!
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Today's guests are Katie Kilgore and Michael Frost who are the cofounders, along with a third family, of Three Cords Academy, a student-focused, Biblically-centered microschool currently serving 2nd-6th grades which they launched in Fall 2024 in Carrollton, Georgia.
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Today's guest is MacKenzie Price, cofounder of 2 Hour Learning and Alpha School, a K-12 private school in Austin, Texas which she launched in 2014. MacKenzie is currently working to scale the Alpha School model nationwide, with additional schools currently operating or opening soon in several states. A graduate of Stanford University, MacKenzie hosts the Future of Education podcast, which focuses on the advent of AI in education and its impact on student learning and discovery.
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In this episode, Kerry chats with Kym Kent, a veteran homeschooling mom of 6 and founder of a Maryland-based homeschooling program who has already graduated 4 of her children and is currently going through the college admissions process with her son Samuel. Kerry's daughter Molly is a lifelong homeschooler who is also going through the college admissions process this year. Kerry and Kym talk about their experience of homeschooling their kids to college—including things to consider regarding high school course preparation, college list creation, and what to think about in junior year and the start of senior year before completing college applications.
This episode is the first in a series of episodes with Kerry and Kym on homeschooling to college!
Check out Kerry's recent Forbes.com article about an internship for STEM-focused homeschooled high schoolers offered at MIT.
Take a peek at Kym's debut FEE.org article, Yes, You Can Homeschool Your Kids to College.
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Today's guest is Maria Stalsberg, founder of Our Village School, a creative learning environment for homeschooled kids ages 6 and over in Lakeville, Minnesota.
Maria holds a Master’s degree in Teaching and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. She began her career in Corporate America before transitioning to becoming a classroom teacher in the traditional education system, but ultimately stepped away to focus on raising her four children.
After enrolling her oldest in the local public elementary school for kindergarten and first grade, Maria found herself longing for a more dynamic, hands-on approach to learning. Determined to create something different, she pulled her oldest to homeschool and launched Our Village School in 2020. It started as a single day of programming in her backyard with 18 kids and has since grown to now serve roughly 150 students with four-day-a-week programming and flexible attendance options.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
I am so excited to share the news with you that my new book, Joyful Learning: How To Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is now available for preorder!
Published by the big New York City publisher Hachette, under its PublicAffairs imprint, Joyful Learning is brimming with information and inspiration for parents and teachers who are seeking or building innovative schools and learning models.
Joyful Learning will be on bookstore shelves in August, and I am already scheduling book events in various cities at schools and similar learning communities, as well as with parent and policy organizations, and business and entrepreneurship groups. If you’re interested in sharing the ideas of joyful learning with your community, please email me at kmcdonald@fee.org.
And grab your preorder copy today!
Today's guest is Robert Barnett, a former teacher in both public and private schools, and the cofounder and Chief Product Officer at the Modern Classrooms Project, a nonprofit teaching and professional development resource which he helped to launch in 2018.
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Our guest today is Jennie Jones, a former professional ballerina, turned homeschooling mom of four, turned education entrepreneur. In September 2024, Jennie launched The Treehouse Agile Learning Community as a home-based microschool in St. George, Utah that uses agile learning tools to foster intentional community, natural learning, and independence in students ages 5-12.
Read more about Jennie's founder journey in her debut FEE.org article.
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Jake Thompson is the founder of Heroes Academy, an Acton Academy in Boise, Idaho that he opened in 2016. Jake is also now the head of the entire Acton Academy network, which includes over 300 learner-driven schools serving thousands of students worldwide.
Check out Kerry's LiberatED interview with Acton Academy network cofounder, Jeff Sandefer.
Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly LiberatED e-newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Today's guests are Taylor Munro and Lacey Fickes, cofounders of Peak Academy, a microschool in Richmond, Texas currently serving students in grades K-8, with a high school expansion in the works. They launched Peak Academy in August 2022, but prior to that both founders worked for many years as public school teachers in Texas.
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Tonya Kipe was an elementary school teacher in Florida public schools for over a decade before launching Kipe Academy, a microschool in Polk City, Florida. She grew her microschool from one student in January 2024 to 26 students today, including those with special learning needs.
Read more about Tonya's microschool in Kerry's latest article at The 74.
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Today's guest is Latoya Nelson, founder of The Attuned Community School, a hybrid homeschool program in Warner Robins, Georgia. Latoya is an experienced educator who taught in public schools and charter schools for over a decade. She has been especially interested in working with children in foster care, as well as adoptive families. Latoya launched her microschool in August 2022 after participating in the KaiPod Catalyst microschool accelerator program.
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Don and Ashley Soifer of the National Microschooling Center join me to talk about some of their microschooling predictions for 2025.
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Giselle McClymont knew from second grade that she wanted to be a teacher. She went on to earn an education degree in college and taught in Florida’s Broward County public elementary schools for six years before leaving the system in 2022 to be a stay-at-home-mom with plans to homeschool her daughter. A year later, she learned about microschools and was hooked. Giselle soon launched Tree Stars Learning, a microschool in West Sunrise, Florida. She is now in the process of opening a second location in Coral Springs.
Read more about Giselle's entrepreneurial journey in Kerry's latest article at The 74.
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Susan Haws is the founder and Executive Director of Insight Colearning, a private learner-centered, micro-high school located in Durham, North Carolina. She began her career as a Teach For America member in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas in 1993. She went on to teach middle school and high school in traditional public schools, until she left the classroom to earn a Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. Insight Colearning began as a homeschooling collaborative in 2018 and is now a state-recognized private school. In 2022, North Carolina became the ninth state to enact a universal school-choice program enabling education funding to follow students to their preferred educational settings. Insight Colearning participates in the state's school-choice scholarship programs.
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Our guest today is Coi Morefield, founder of The Lab School of Memphis in Tennessee whose newest endeavor is Microschool Masters, a masterclass program for innovative schools and spaces that provides professional development resources for microschool teachers and leaders.
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Melanie Leone is a former public school teacher with a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership. Over the course of her career, she’s worked in multiple states and spent five years as a childcare center director which changed her philosophy of education. In fall 2023, she founded Anchor Center for Learning in Stow, Ohio as a three-day-a-week, multi-age microschool that emphasizes student autonomy, academic personalization, and a sense of wonder.
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Today's podcast guest is Tyler Thigpen, co-founder and CEO of The Forest School: An Acton Academy, The Forest School Online, and the Institute for Self Directed Learning in Fayetteville, Georgia. Tyler is also the Academic Director at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, a guest lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and co-author of the new book, The Playbook for Self-Directed Learning: A Leader's Guide to School Transformation and Student Agency.
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Kate Brockmeyer is the founder of Off the Page Co-Learning, a microschool located just outside of St. Louis, Missouri that now serves nearly 200 students, ages 4 to 17. Kate launched her microschool in the fall of 2022 and has seen the program’s popularity soar since then. She’s attentive to the needs and wants of the homeschooling families she serves, and is continually adding and adapting programming, including introducing a new career and technical education (CTE) program for teens 13 and up.
Boys Are Falling Behind But New School Models Can Help (Forbes.com)
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Melissa Borkowski is the cofounder, along with her husband Nick, of Acton Studios of Rochester in Rochester, New York that is part of the vast Acton Academy network of learner-driven schools serving thousands of learners around the world.
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Debra Ross is a homeschool mom and the founder, publisher, and CEO of Kids Out And About, LLC, a media and marketing company that provides information on family-focused resources and events in communities across the country through its two main platforms, KidsOutAndAbout.com and BeyondTheNest.com, which reach 11 million visitors.
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Sara Casey Taleff has been involved in education for more than 20 years, working in public schools in New York City as well as at the state Department of Education in Montana. For the last 10 years, Sara has lived between Montana and New York creating innovative learning environments. She founded and directs the nonprofit, Cottonwood, which operates learning centers Helena and Brooklyn.
Jenna Hill is an experienced Montessori educator and co-founder of CASCO Learning, a microschool in St. Louis, Missouri. We had Jenna’s microschool cofounder Maria Casco on the show back in 2022 to talk about her founding journey.
Jenna and Sara are working to create CoLearnCo, an interactive virtual campus that aims to connect microschools and build community.
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Collin Hitt, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Policy Research in Missouri Education (PRIME) Center at Saint Louis University in Missouri. He is also a homeschooling dad and the co-author of a new report on homeschooling's growth that was recently published in the Journal of School Choice.
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Luba Vangelova is the founder of The Hub, a part-time online microschool for homeschooled teens and tweens that emphasizes curiosity, collaboration, and community.
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Kimberly Amee is a homeschool mom and former teacher who in 2021 founded Above Reproach Academy, a private umbrella school, homeschool co-op, and educational resource center located in Spring Hill, Florida that now serves over 100 learners.
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Ar'Jillian Gilmer is the founder of Gilmer's Learning Solutions, a tutoring center and microschool in Little Rock, Arkansas. A public school teacher for nearly a decade, Ar'Jillian felt the pull towards education entrepreneurship and creating innovative learning options for local children.
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Danielle Strachman is the cofounder and general partner of the 1517 Fund, an early-stage venture capital fund and community supporting college dropouts and tech-focused scientists working on entrepreneurial solutions to big problems.
Danielle has worked with young entrepreneurs for over a decade, including during the founding in 2010 of the Thiel Fellowship, a program started by entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel to provide funding to ambitious young people who opted out of college in favor of entrepreneurial ventures.
Prior to that, Danielle was an education entrepreneur! She founded and directed Innovations Academy in San Diego, a K-8 charter school serving 400 students, with a focus on student-led, project based learning and other alternative programs.
Read more about 1517 at Substack.
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Kristy Moody is the cofounder, along with her husband, of Acton Academy Palm Harbor in Florida. A former public school teacher and principal, Kristy tried to make change within the conventional system but ultimately decided on entrepreneurship. She launched her school in August of 2022 to provide a space for learner-driven education in her community.
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Nicole Stewart is the founder and president of the National Association of Black Microschool Leaders, as well as the founder of Legacy Prep Collegiate Microschool which opened this fall in Lakeland, Florida. A public school teacher for 18 years, Nicole is finding deep fulfillment in education entrepreneurship, with plans to open more Legacy Prep microschools while helping other founders get their schools off the ground.
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Nance Confer is the founder and director of Florida Unschoolers. Launched in 2001, Florida Unschoolers is a tuition-free, private "umbrella" school for nearly 14,000 Florida unschoolers and homeschoolers.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
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Kidvation Global is a nonprofit focused on administering programs that connect young people worldwide to create innovative, entrepreneurial solutions for present-day issues. Founded in 2022 by Harold Lee and Brent Wheelbarger, Kidvation has worked with over 2,500 students, including microschoolers and others learning in unconventional educational environments.
Read more about Kidvation in this recent FEE.org article.
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Jaclyn Gallo is the founder of Roots Academy in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, a K-5 microschool that she grew from 6 kids in 2020 to 36 kids this academic year. Roots Academy is a recognized private school staffed by certified teachers that emphasizes place-based, child-led learning.
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Johan Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of more than 20 books, translated into more than 30 languages. Today we talk about his most recent book, The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World, which I highly recommend.
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Jennifer Wolverton is the founder and Executive Director of the Microcollective for AI, Robotics, and the Sciences (known as MARS), a nonprofit dedicated to reshaping education through cutting-edge STEM and creative arts. Based in Huntsville, Alabama, MARS is a hybrid homeschooling program that empowers students with hands-on, project-based learning experiences in technology, engineering, and science. Jennifer also runs Log Cabin Schoolhouse, where her flagship curriculum, the AI Writers Guild, teaches students to harness artificial intelligence in novel writing, blending language arts with advanced tech skills. A passionate advocate for education reform, Jennifer actively engages in policy work to expand access to innovative, tech-forward education for all students in Alabama.
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Andreas Marinopoulos is the cofounder of Brilliant Microschools, a national network of online, accredited K-12 microschools that launched in 2020 and today serves over 1,200 learners in the US, with a special focus on neurodiversity.
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Tiffany Thenor is the cofounder and CEO of WonderHere, a play-based microschool network and research hub touting the benefits of play, personalization, and project-based learning. A public school teacher for 15 years, Tiffany left her job in 2016 to launch the first WonderHere with a handful of children in Lakeland, Florida. Today, that location serves over 100 full-time and part-time learners each day. Through a creative licensing model, new founders are now launching their own WonderHere schools across the US.
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Thomas Dowell was a public school teacher in Arizona for several years before deciding to become an education entrepreneur. He launched Moreana Boys Academy earlier this fall as a home-based microschool located just outside of Phoenix that his students attend tuition-free.
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Scott Gallagher taught in public schools for 17 years before joining the founding team of Raritan Learning Collaborative, a full-time self-directed learning center for homeschooled teens located in Flemington, New Jersey. Raritan is part of a consortium of self-directed learning centers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is a member of the Liberated Learners network.
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Rebecca Newby taught high school English in the Pine Bluff, Arkansas public schools before becoming principal of Friendship Aspire Academy, a K-5 public charter school in Pine Bluff that is seeing skyrocketing demand from local families looking for new education options.
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A high school math teacher and principal in Montana public schools for over 10 years, Rusty Bowers launched Bozeman Innovation Academy, a K-8 Acton Academy affiliate, in fall 2023. Acton Academy is a fast-growing network of schools focused on learner-driven education. Founded in 2009, the Acton network now includes over 300 independently-operated schools, serving thousands of learners.
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Nathan Fellman was a public middle school teacher and administrator in New Hampshire for about 20 years before leaving his job to launch The Harkness House, a middle school microschool in Nashua, New Hampshire, which opened in fall 2022. Harkness House is a state-recognized private school that also has part-time enrollment options for homeschoolers, and some students attend at a reduced tuition thanks to the state's school choice programs. More families were asking for high school options, so Nate and his team decided to explore dual enrollment options, partnering with a local community college to expand offerings for high schoolers.
Why Teachers Are Finding Meaningful Careers In Microschools (Forbes.com)
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Founded in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1968, the Sudbury Valley School has been championing non-coercive, self-directed, democratic education for decades, and has inspired the growth of dozens of Sudbury-model schools around the world. If you’re a frequent listener to the podcast, you know that three of my children attend SVS, which is a low-cost, secular, private school located about 45 minutes outside of Boston. My guest today is Mikel Matisoo, who joined the staff at Sudbury Valley School in 1988 after a brief stint as a public school teacher in New York City. His children graduated from SVS and his grandchildren now attend the school, which continues to challenge students, teachers, parents, and policymakers to think differently about education.
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Rachelle Noble is the founder of Microschool Solutions, a microschool accelerator program that helps new microschool founders to launch their programs in communities across the U.S. She also runs Noble Microschools, a home-based microschool in Arizona in which all students attend tuition-free through the state's universal school choice programs.
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Blair Lee is the founder of Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers, an online homeschooling community reaching over 100,000 families with curriculum resources, connection, and encouragement.
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Kymberly Kent is the cofounder and director of eXtend Homeschool Tutorial in Maryland, a faith-based homeschool program offering a la carte classes in core academic subjects for roughly 100 elementary, middle school, and high school homeschooled students.
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A former public school teacher and founder of Colossal Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Shiren Rattigan is expanding her microschool model by creating a franchise network of "colossalized" microschools throughout the Sunshine State, as well as lacunhing Colossal Online to enable learners everywhere to access high-quality, highly individualized education.
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Forest schools and similar nature-based programs are often concentrated in the preschool and early-elementary grades, but Jaime Peterson and Rebecca Westbrook Toker recognized the demand for these programs for middle schoolers and beyond. Listen to their founder journey to create REconnect Nature School in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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Despite frustrating regulatory barriers, Danielle McLean and her cofounders launched Keystone Education Center in Vero Beach, Florida this fall. The microschool currently serves 17 neurodiverse students ages 9 to 13—including Danielle's autistic twin boys. The team plans to add a high school in the coming years. Two of Danielle's cofounders left their jobs as local public school special education teachers to build and work at this school. All of Keystone's students attend with tuition support from Florida's school choice programs.
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At Skola Microschool near Minneapolis, students and teachers spend much of their day outside, leading to happier, healthier experiences for all. Founded in 2022 by Kristin Fink, Skola has reached capacity with 25 K-8 students. Rather than expand, Kristin and her lead teacher, Ginger Montezon, are supporting other entrepreneurial teachers throughout Minnesota who want to launch similar programs in their communities.
The Rise of Education Entrepreneurs in Minnesota (Forbes.com)
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Jill Haskins is a homeschooling mom in Fort Wayne, Indiana and former microschool teacher who now works closely with the National Microschooling Center as an ecosystem builder within Indiana and across the U.S.
Jill currently works with 80 microschools across Indiana—30 of which launched this fall. She expects to see more than 150 microschools in the state in 2025.
Jill estimates that 85% of the students currently in a microschool in Indiana are attending tuition-free or nearly so using one of Indiana's school choice programs.
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Marisa Palmer is the cofounder, along with her husband Brandon, of Acton Academy Madison West in Madison, Wisconsin. A former investment banker and hedge fund analyst in New York City, Marisa launched her microschool in January 2023 with four students as part of the global Acton Academy network of learner-driven schools. Today, she has 15 students enrolled in her school, including her 8-year-old son, and expects to grow significantly over the next three years.
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Ashley Franz is a homeschooling mother of 5 who founded Cross Creek Academy as a PreK-12th Charlotte Mason-inspired hybrid homeschool program in rural central Arkansas. It currently serves about 100 learners with daily programming. Taylor Guy is a parent of three students at Cross Creek and a staff member.
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Today's guest is Tanisha DaCosta, founder of Kingdom Kids Empowerment Academy, a K-12 microschool with a project-based, Montessori-inspired approach that operates on the campus of Barber-Scotia College, an HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) in North Carolina.
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Mary Jo Fairhead is a former public school teacher and principal who in 2021 founded Onward Learning, an affordable, child-centered PK-8 school in rural Martin, South Dakota. As her enrollment climbs, she plans to open additional schools throughout South Dakota.
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Vince and Tiffany Torres are the cofounders, along with two other couples, of Santa Fe Christian, a low-cost private school in New Mexico that they launched in 2022. It began with 20 students and has tripled in size over the past two years.
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Sabrina Reynolds is the founder of Mastery Learning Academy, a first through twelfth grade microschool in Taylorsville, Utah outside of Salt Lake City that focuses on core academic content within a classical-inspired, project-based learning environment.
Sabrina has a Master’s degree in secondary education and taught in both public and private schools for almost 20 years before launching Mastery Learning Academy in 2019. Her school was almost shut down last spring for a zoning issue, but a new microschool bill passed by the Utah legislature saved it.
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Candice Hilton left her job as a public school teacher last year and just opened her K-8 microschool, Hilton Horizons Academy, in Kingsport, Tennessee. Tuition for the three-day program is $4,900 a year. All 12 of Hilton’s students are legally homeschooled, with the vast majority of them new to homeschooling this academic year after being in public school.
Check out Kerry's new article at The 74 on "New Microschools for a New School Year," featuring Hilton Horizons Academy.
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LiberatED Education Associate Nasiyah Isra-Ul interviews Sumay and Aila Lu, the cofounders of the WEquil App educational platform and its virtual school, WEquil School.
For Sumay and Aila, ages 15 and 12 respectively, creating a virtual school, and later a wider community platform, was inspired by their journey from public school into unconventional education during the pandemic. Their edtech platform currently has over 2,400 registered users.
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Tobin Slaven is an educator, entrepreneur, and author who has joined our team as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence. He is the co-founder of Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale in Florida, which is part of the fast-growing Acton Academy network of hundreds of learner-driven schools across the US and globally.
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Michelle Lee Thompson is the founder of Hand In Hand Christian Montessori in Minnesota. She launched Hand in Hand in 1999 as a small summer camp and today it has three campuses serving infants to teens with both full-time private school options and part-time homeschool programs.
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Dr. Erin Flynn is a longtime educator and founder of the Hedge School Cooperative, an inclusive, secular, LGBTQIA-welcoming microschool for homeschoolers in Austin, Texas. The school offers two to four days of in-person instruction for 8th-12th graders.
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Nasiyah Isra-Ul is a young entrepreneur and innovator who has joined our team as the new LiberatED Education Associate, in partnership with Stand Together's Koch Associate Program. Nasiyah launched her own education business as a teen, for which she has won many awards and accolades. She is passionate about youth entrepreneurship, student agency, and education innovation and choice.
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Founded by Amir Nathoo in 2015, Outschool.com offers live, video-enabled online classes for young people ages 3 to 18. Learners can select content ranging from typical academic subjects and tutoring services, to more adventurous classes such as pet-trick training, forensic science, engineering with Minecraft, and wilderness survival skills. Instructors create their own courses based on their own interests and expertise, and set their own prices. Many choose to teach on Outschool.com to share their knowledge and passions within a creative and flexible learning environment. I first interviewed Amir back in 2019 for an article at Forbes and I am so honored to speak with him again today as he shares his founder story and tell us more about Outschool.com's past, present, and future.
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Shante Lane Tamerat is the cofounder of Discovery Lane, a Reggio Emilia-inspired PK-5 private school located in Waldorf, Maryland. Shante has been in education for 15 years, and worked in schools in both Philadelphia and Washington, DC. She has a Bachelor’s in Psychology, a Master’s in Elementary/Special Education, and a Ph.D. in Special Education/Education Leadership.
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Today's guest is Hannah Holguin, founder of Masterpiece Academy located just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. Hannah was a public school teacher for nearly a decade, mostly teaching mathematics. She has also worked as an adjunct professor with a local community college, and founded Masterpiece Academy in August of 2022 as a K-12 microschool for homeschoolers with both full-time and part-time enrollment options.
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Today's guest is David O'Connor, a college lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania for many years and a longtime theatre director and designer. David is a cofounder of Philly ALC, a self-directed school in Philadelphia that also has part-time programs for homeschoolers.
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Ally Adair-Chung is the founder of Beachcities Classical, a Classical Christian homeschooling collaborative based in Huntington Beach, CA. It launched in the fall of 2021 and today serves about 250 students.
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Jill Brown and Susan Deakins are both longtime public school teachers who quit their jobs and, in 2021, launched the Columbia Academy for Learning and Enrichment (CALE), a JK-12 microschool in Columbia, Missouri that has experienced remarkable growth.
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Andreas Widmer is an Associate Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship at The Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business. His most recent book is The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship: Creating Enduring Value. In this episode, Professor Widmer shares his perspectives on entrepreneurship and offers advice for education entrepreneurs.
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Lindsey Vose is a former public school teacher who launched Wild Wonders out of her garage in Belgrade, Montana in 2022. She opened with four students, including her two children. Today, Wild Wonders is located on a five-acre farmstead property near Vose’s home. It has 22 K-6 students who attend the mixed-age, drop-off program Monday through Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. She has 35 students registered for fall and says she can’t keep up with demand. She also plans to open a middle school program soon.
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Priscilla Yuill is the founder and educational director of Casa Ranch Montessori , an eco-conscious Montessori homeschool cooperative program that is educating for sustainability and cultivating environmentally-conscious global citizens. Priscilla has been a passionate Montessori educator for more than 10 years, with early childhood and elementary Montessori credentials and a Master’s degree in Curriculum & Instruction. During Covid, Priscilla began homeschooling her two young boys and that started her on her path toward education entrepreneurship.
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Dale Ahlquist is the cofounder of Chesterton Academy in Hopkins, Minnesota. What started in 2008 as a microschool with 10 students, including some of his own children, has grown into a flagship location with over 150 high schoolers, as well as a global network of over 70 Classical Catholic Chesterton Schools educating more than 2,000 students.
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Amanda Lucas, founder of Lucas Literacy Lab, a middle school microschool in Middlesex County, New Jersey opening this fall. She taught in charter and private schools across New York City for nearly a decade before becoming an education entrepreneur and joining the KaiPod Catalyst microschool startup accelerator program.
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Elmarie Hyman is the founder of Learn Beyond the Book, a California-based secular homeschool resource center for students in pre-K through high school. Young people can attend Learn Beyond the Book’s in-person classes in three locations in the greater Los Angeles area, or take advantage of additional live virtual classes. Students who attend are either homeschoolers who pay out-of-pocket or public charter school students who attend tuition-free, or nearly so, through one of California’s homeschool charter schools.
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Benita Gordon was a longtime public school teacher who is now the founder of Miami MicroLearn Hub, a microschool focusing on rising 6th to rising 12th graders in South Florida opening this August. Benita also founded the educational consulting company, Global Education Concierge.
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John Mackey is an author, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Whole Foods Market. In 2022, he stepped down from his 44 years as CEO of the natural and organic grocer. He is now launching a new startup, Love.Life.
Mackey is the author of several books including the just-released The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism.
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In Stillwater, Minnesota, Amy Marotz launched Awakening Spirit microschool to serve the distinct needs of gifted and neurodiverse learners. After earning an education degree and teaching at a Minneapolis charter school early in her career, Amy began homeschooling her own children and saw a need for a dedicated program to address neurodiversity within a holistic, nurturing environment. She now runs the program from her home and is helping other aspiring founders to create their own innovative schools and spaces.
The Rise of Education Entrepreneurs in Minnesota (Forbes.com)
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Jessica Slayback and Victoria Forsman launched the REALM, Redesigning Education And Living Meaningfully, in 2010 as a microschool with one student and since then they have served 3,000 students with both full-time and part-time learning options. Located in Santa Monica, California, REALM currently enrolls 134 students ages 4 to 14 each semester, with a new high school program opening soon.
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Denice Dixon is a former public school special education teacher and founder of TREAD Academy, a K-12 microschool serving neurodivergent and neurotypical in Atlanta.
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Chip Reichanadter is an experienced Montessori educator and cofounder of Pinyon Montessori, a PreK-6 microschool in Salt Lake City that opened in November 2023 and is the first Wildflower Montessori school in Utah. Founded in 2014, Wildflower is a national network of dozens of teacher-owned Montessori microschools fostering child-centered learning.
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Former public school teacher Coby Aldana is the founder of Refresh Learning Center, a Christian microschool for kindergarteners through high schoolers near Phoenix, Arizona. It opened in August 2023 and focuses on small classes and personalized learning.
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Jackie Hill is the founder of Acton Academy Hampton Roads in the southeast part of Virginia. A mom of 5 and a Montessori teacher, Jackie wanted a different educational experience for her own children. In 2008, she created a little Montessori learning pod in her living room that kept growing and growing and eventually evolved into a democratic school and later into three Acton Academy campuses.
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Magatte Wade is an entrepreneur and author renowned for her dynamic approach to business and her dedication to fostering economic development in Africa. Born in Senegal, Magatte is the founder and CEO of SkinIsSkin.com, a skincare company providing high-quality, ethically sourced products. Magatte’s entrepreneurial journey began with Adina World Beat Beverages, a company she founded in 2004 that produced drinks inspired by traditional African recipes and emphasized fair trade principles. She is the author of the new book, The Heart of a Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to About African Poverty, and What That Means for Human Flourishing.
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Located on beautiful 400-acre organic farm in Smyrna, Tennessee, about 20 miles outside of Nashville, Bloomsbury Farm School began in 2020 with one teacher, Kaiti Dewhirst Monroe, and five homeschooled children, including farmer Lauren Palmer’s own five-year-old. Today, it is a Reggio Emilia-inspired K-5 farm school, with additional parent-child programming for littler ones, that currently serves 86 children with a growing waitlist.
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Founded in 1989 by alternative education advocate Jerry Mintz, the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) continues to provide resources, support, and community for parents, teachers, and learners interested in alternatives to traditional schooling.
AERO's Peter Berg joins me today to talk about the organization's enduring legacy and its upcoming, annual conference being held in June in Minneapolis.
My podcast listeners can click this link to register for the conference at a discounted rate.
"I Quit, I Think," by John Taylor Gatto on AERO's website
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Robert Kimble is the founder of Dream Academy in Dubuque, Iowa. A project of the Dubuque Dream Center, an afterschool program that Kimble cofounded in 2013, Dream Academy is opening this August as a faith-based, K-7 private school with plans to grow through high school by 2029. More than 50 students have already enrolled, and all are attending tuition-free thanks to Iowa's new universal school choice program.
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Corey DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of the new book—out today—entitled: The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.
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Hannah Mackey and Lauren Umlauf are former teachers who cofounded The Dandelion Project, an unschooling community in Philadelphia that offers daytime programming for homeschoolers as well as after school programs and summer camps that emphasize self-directed education. They also do homeschooling evaluations for homeschoolers throughout Pennsylvania through an unschooling lens.
45 Years of Microschools in Philadelphia: Inside the Growing Movement of Child-Centered Schooling Alternatives (The 74)
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Amy Novak is a former teacher who in 2021 launched Acton Academy Red Rock in southern Nevada. Acton Academy Red Rock is part of the fast-growing Acton Academy network of learner-driven microschools that was founded in 2009 and now includes more than 300 schools serving thousands of learners.
Amy's program is intentionally inclusive of neurodiverse learners and those with special learning needs including children with autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, and related diagnoses.
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Christen Parker-Yarnal is the cofounder of the Miami Sudbury School in Miami, Florida, a fully self-directed, democratic K-12 private school modeled after the flagship Sudbury Valley School that was founded in Massachusetts in 1968. Christen was a conventional school teacher for several years in St. Louis, then moved back to Miami where she grew up, unschooled her 3 children, and launched Miami Sudbury School in 2018.
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Anna Graves is the founder of The Field Academy in Denver, Colorado, a traveling high school that this academic year is collaborating with the Aurora Public Schools, the Englewood Public Schools, Stead Charter School, and alternative schools within the Denver metro area to address chronic absenteeism and credit recovery in creative ways. High school students who are not showing up to school, and who have either been referred to the truancy court or are at risk of being referred, are picked up in The Field Academy van each day to learn throughout the community in an immersive, personalized environment.
"Confronting Chronic Absenteeism" (The 74) ***
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Libertas Institute education policy analyst, and former public school teacher turned homeschooling dad, Jon England joins me on the podcast today to talk about removing regulatory barriers for education entrepreneurs. Jon describes new zoning legislation in Utah passed earlier this year to make it easier for microschool founders to launch their programs.
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Dominique Paloma Bible was born in Brazil and raised in Brooklyn, eventually dropping out of high school. That experience led Dominique to discover the importance of personal agency and self-determination, as well as the possibility of alternative learning models outside of traditional schooling. Dominique earned a GED and enrolled at Goddard College. After collecting undergraduate and graduate degrees, Dominique launched Off Da Beaten Path Learning in 2020. It provides personalized guidance, encouragement, and mentorship for young people who are looking to take control of their education in creative, authentic ways, often outside of the traditional K-12 system.
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Bountiful Microschool is a home-based microschool in Bountiful, Utah created by edtech entrepreneur, David Blake, cofounder and CEO of Degreed, and his wife Mikel, cofounder of Tech-Moms. The couple wanted to bring the innovation and personalization they were seeing in the larger tech sector to the K-12 classroom to benefit their own children and others in their community.
"Utah's Emerging Education Ecosystem Is Diverse and Accessible" (Forbes.com)
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The podcast's very first guest, Jill Perez, joins us today to celeberate our 200th episode! She gives us an update on her journey as the founder of Tranquil Teachings Learning Center, a pandemic pod turned microschool, in New Jersey.
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Jenson “Fig” Newton is the founder of Empigo Academy, a faith-based high school focused on career technical education (CTE) that is opening this fall in Des Moines, Iowa. He expects to launch with 50 students, all of whom will attend tuition-free thanks to Iowa's new universal school choice program.
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Kanesha Adams is a former public school teacher and founder of The Learning Lounge, a tutoring center and new microschool in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a low-income community outside of Little Rock. In this episode, Kanesha shares her founder story and explains why Arkansas's new universal school choice program propelled her startup decision.
In Arkansas, School Choice Is Encouraging Education Entrepreneurship (Forbes.com)
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Angela Watson is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and the creator of the new Homeschool Hub at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, providing in-depth data on homeschooling, regulations, and research across the US.
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On the podcast today, Heather DiNino, a former public school teacher and founder of Elements Academy just outside of Boston, talks about the challenges of running a microschool.
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Jennifer Kempin taught for more than a decade in public schools in Pennsylvania before launching her home-based, Waldorf-inspired microschool, Fáilte Microschool, earlier this year.
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Jen Granberry is the founder of ARROWS Christian Academy in Phoenix, Arizona that she launched in August 2023. ARROWS is fully-integrated K-8 private school blending neurotypical and neurodiverse students with a focus on individualized learning, meeting each child where they are at academically and developmentally. She currently has 23 students enrolled with 3 teachers and 3 aides with plans for incremental growth.
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Justine Wilson is the founder of Curious and Kind Education. She has been an educator for 18 years working in a variety of roles including outdoor science educator, public school teacher, and university instructor doing teacher-training. She launched the nature-based Curious & Kind in 2023 as part of the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) Network that prioritizes self-directed education.
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Thomas Arnett is a senior research fellow in education at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. He is the author of a new paper on why parents choose microschools, entitled: Families on the New Frontier: Mapping and Meeting the Growing Demand for Unconventional Schooling.
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The Sanctuary Academy on the north side of Chicago is a Catholic microschool focused on learner-driven education enabling each child to follow his or her own unique path. It is part of the global Acton Academy network of hundreds of learner-driven microschools serving thousands of learners. The Sanctuary Academy is the first intentionally Catholic version of the Acton model. It was cofounded in 2020 by Kelly and Michael Sullivan who are homeschooling parents to their 8 children. They currently operate The Sanctuary Academy as a three-day hybrid homeschool program and have 37 students.
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The Cherry Hill School in El Paso, Texas is a Reggio Emilia-inspired, project-based 1st through 5th Jewish microschool that was founded in 2020. Joining me today to talk more about Cherry Hill and its learner-centered educational philosophy is Meg Birk, Head of School Curriculum at The Cherry Hill School. Prior to joining Cherry Hill, Meg spent 36 years as a public school educator in the El Paso School District.
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Rida Rizvi is a cofounder of Al Hadi Learning Organization, a Muslim microschool in the Washington, DC area that sprouted in 2017 as an off-shoot of a mommy-and-me class. It currently operates as a learner-centered preschool and early-elementary microschool. Rida is now creating a new organization called Azeez Academy for upper-elementary students.
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Todd Hepworth is the co-founder of Orchard STEM School, a K-8 microschool located in a working orchard in his rural community of Santaquin, Utah that is scheduled to open this August. Todd worked as a public school teacher for more than a decade, as well as an administrator at a Waldorf-inspired charter school, before becoming an education entrepreneur.
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Alexis and JT Rubatzky are the founders of Triumph: An Acton Academy in Cleveland, Tennessee, just outside of Chattanooga. Triumph is a home-based microschool for homeschoolers that opened in August 2023 and is part of the Acton Academy network of hundreds of learner-driven microschools.
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Rachel Good is the founder of Discovery Learners’ Academy (DLA), a microschool that opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee in fall 2022. Rachel worked for more than 8 years as a public school teacher in Washington and Tennessee before launching DLA as a state-recognized PreK-12 private school with a personalized educational approach. It opened with 21 learners and today has 50—about 15 of whom attend part-time as homeschoolers. About half of the school’s students are neurodiverse, a population that Good caters to as a former special education teacher.
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Iman Alleyne is the founder of Kind Academy and creator of Launch Your Kind, an accelerator program for those interested in opening their own microschools!
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Kaity Broadbent is the Chief Empowerment Advocate at Prenda, the national network that has helped to launch hundreds of microschools serving thousands of learners since 2018. A homeschooling mom, Kaity is a thoughtful and insightful voice on the topic of personalized learning and alternative education models. Prior to Prenda, Kaity was a Speech-Language Pathologist in public schools, literacy coach, and curriculum designer. She's a certified peaceful parenting coach and mom to four Prenda kids ages 4 to 11.
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Denise Lever was a firefighter turned homeschooling mom who launched a Prenda microschool in August 2020 in the rural town of Eager, Arizona in Apache County, which is one of the poorest counties in the US and one of only 3 counties in the entire country where neither English nor Spanish is the primary language spoke at home. In Apache County, that language is Navajo. Denise is also an administrator of 5 other independently operated Prenda microschools in her town of Eager.
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When Shari Robinson's oldest son wasn't thriving in public school, she pulled him out for homeschooling and then began homeschooling her other children as well. It was her personal experience of homeschooling her own children that inspired Shari over the years to create various STEM activities for local homeschoolers, including continuing to lead one of the highest-ranked robotics teams in the state.
Those efforts evolved into Homeschool Resources Group and Pierian Spring Academy of Arts & Sciences, two low-cost education organizations located in Mechanicsville, Virginia, just outside of Richmond. Homeschool Resources Group serves as a membership-based learning center for homeschoolers, while Pierian Spring Academy is a small, recognized K-12 private school that uses a variety of individualized curriculum resources.
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Eric Oglesbee is a school founder turned funder. He helped to launch River Montessori High School in South Bend, Indiana that is currently the only high school in the expanding Wildflower Montessori microschool network. After his experience as a founder, Eric joined The Drexel Fund in 2022. The Drexel Fund is a nonprofit philanthropic fund that provides seed and next-stage funding to high-quality private schools serving low-income students and those with learning differences.
Apply to Drexel's Founders Program.
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Imani Jackson is an experienced educator currently working as an elementary school teacher in a traditional private school who is launching Poinciana Montessori in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia this fall as part of the fast-growing Wildflower Montessori microschool network.
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My guest today is Eric Wearne, Associate Professor at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and Director of the National Hybrid Schools Project. He is also the author of the 2020 book, Defining Hybrid Homeschools in America: Little Platoons.
Eric was previously on the podcast in the spring of 2022 ahead of his inaugural Hybrid Schools Conference. That event was such a huge success that he has expanded the conference each year to larger venues in Atlanta, and this year is also hosting the Western Hybrid & Microschools Forum in San Diego on March 2nd to showcase what’s happening with hybrid and microschools on the West Coast.
There’s still time to register for both conferences!
Western Hybrid & Microschools Forum - San Diego, March 2nd - Registration link
3rd Annual Hybrid Schools Conference - Atlanta, April 19-20th - Registration link
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Angel Sobrino is the founder and director of learning of The Hive Interactive, a homeschooling program and learning platform that embraces passion-driven, self-directed learning, empowering young people to chart their own unique pathways toward adulthood.
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I first met Marissa Hess back in 2022 at the inaugural National Hybrid Schools Conference in Atlanta. She is a former public school teacher and Montessori teacher who was homeschooled for most of her childhood and ultimately returned to the homeschooling model as the founder of Urban Cottage Educational Collaborative in Tampa, Florida that currently serves 84 mixed-age learners with 10 teachers.
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Angie Wakeman and Rebecca Foley are the founders of Providence Hybrid Academy, a faith-based, Charlotte Mason-inspired hybrid homeschool program in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania, a little over an hour outside of Philadelphia. They launched their program as a small co-op in 2016 and today have 145 students in grades K-9, with 15 teachers, 7 aids and administrative staff, and a long waitlist.
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Gisela Quinones is a homeschooling mother of three children who lives just outside of Chicago. She is the founder of LatinosHomeschooling.org, providing resources, support, classes, and community for Latino homeschooling families across the U.S.
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Entrepreneurship is challenging, but cultivating a community of education entrepreneurs can make the experience more personally and professionally rewarding. In this episode, education entrepreneurs Shiren Rattigan of Colossal Academy and Toni Frallicciardi of Surf Skate Science discuss why they teamed up to create the Innovative Educators Network to collaborate with local founders—and why they recommend other education entrepreneurs do the same.
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Melissé Segesman is the homeschool director and a teacher at Montessori Peaks Academy, a tuition-free homeschool enrichment program run through the Jefferson County public school district in Colorado. Melissé has a Bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a Montessori certificate, and she has been serving the Montessori Peaks Homeschool Community since 2014.
Montessori Peaks Academy is a unique public program that caters to homeschooled children ages 5 to 13 who attend part-time during the week. It blends Montessori principles, a project-based approach, and ample time in nature, fostering a holistic, well-rounded educational experience.
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Once a booming area buoyed by the automotive industry, Highland Park, a city just outside of Detroit, has faced decades of blight. In 2011, the city repossessed more than two-thirds of Highland Park’s residential streetlights due to outstanding electric bills. The streetlights were removed, literally leaving residents in the dark.
It was around this time that a visionary woman known to everyone as Mama Shu, decided to embrace a mission of “blight to beauty” for her Highland Park neighborhood known as Avalon Village. She began buying up crumbling properties on her rundown street, having solar-powered lighting installed, renovating buildings or tearing them down and replacing them with new shipping containers to house small shops run by local entrepreneurs. She was named one of CNN’s Heroes.
One of Avalon Village’s great accomplishments is The Homework House, a renovated single family home that now serves as a meeting space for local youth. There, young people can enjoy a warm meal, get help with homework, and gain important life skills.
Under the guidance of our guest today, education director Boniswa Brock, who was a public school teacher and administrator for 35 years, The Homework House also serves as a warm and welcoming hub for local homeschooled students who enjoy daily access to the space for classes and enrichment opportunities.
Boniswa is currently preparing to launch a STEM-focused, child-centered preschool, called Every Child Is A Genius, at The Homework House, but has encountered regulatory snares that have delayed the preschool’s opening. We talk about that frustration and more on today’s episode.
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The Sudbury Valley School is a self-directed, democratic school located in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1968 and has inspired the growth of dozens of Sudbury-model schools around the world over the past half-century. The Sudbury model is based on the belief that children learn best when they have the freedom to explore their interests and take responsibility for their own education. Today's podcast guest is a Sudbury Valley School alumna who now sends her children there and who recently became a staff member.
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Ian Lindsey is the cofounder, along with his wife Stephanie, of Acton Academy St. George in St. George, Utah. It is part of the fast-growing Acton Academy network of learner-driven microschools that includes more than 300 independently owned and operated schools, serving thousands of learners. Ian and Stephanie launched their microschool in fall 2020 with 12 students in their home. They grew to 22 students in their first year, and today have 40 students, pre-K through elementary ages, with plans to open a middle school in Fall 2025 and grow from there.
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Sherrilynn Bair is a certified teacher and school librarian who works for the Snake River Public School District in rural Blackfoot, Idaho. In this episode, she shares her experience with in-system innovation, explaining how she created an entirely new school within her district that focuses on personalized learning and curriculum customization.
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Ross Hill has been in education for over 15 years, with most of that time spent working as a high social studies teacher in public schools. He quit his teaching job in 2023 to launch Mariner Learning Collaborative, a self-directed learning center in Florence, South Carolina. Mariner is part of the Liberated Learners network of non-coercive, self-directed learning centers for homeschoolers that was launched in 2013. Mariner is the first faith-focused learning center in the Liberated Learners network.
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Kristine Fringer was a college administrator for almost two decades before leaving higher education to launch Symbiosis, a learning center for middle school and high school-age homeschoolers located just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Kristine opened Symbiosis in the fall of 2019. She currently serves 20 students with both full- and part-time enrollment options.
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Today’s episode is special in that I am joined by both a school founder and a parent so we’ll hear two interesting perspectives on the draw toward alternative education options.
Sarah Max is a former public school teacher who cofounded Acton Invictus in 2021 in Leander, Texas, just outside of Austin. Acton Invictus is part of the global Acton Academy microschool network that was founded in 2009 and now includes over 300 schools serving thousands of learners.
Tim Tran is an entrepreneur and one of Acton Invictus’s original founding parents. He moved to Texas specifically so that his children could attend an Acton Academy.
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Tobin Slaven is the founder of Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale who was previously on the podcast in fall 2022 (episode #46) to talk about the launch of his microschool. I'm delighted to have Tobin back on the podcast today to kick off 2024 with a conversation about artificial intelligence, technology, techno-optimism, and the future of learning. In addition to leading his microschool, Tobin is also the founder of vPAL Labs, working at the forefront of developing AI companions that combine the roles of a personal tutor, life coach, and mentor.
More School Districts Ban ChatGPT. Here's Why That's A Bad Idea
Why Youth Social Media Bans Are A Bad Idea
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Kyle Gamba is a former public school teacher and principal who in 2021 launched La Luz, a learner-centered lab school focusing on experiential learning for Latino students in Denver, Colorado.
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When Katelyn Shore opened the first Wildflower Montessori microschool in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014, she hoped it would be the start of something big. The vision, introduced by Sep Kamvar at the MIT Media Lab, was to create an open-source network of intentionally small, storefront, neighborhood Montessori microschools that would offer the tools and technology to enable teacher-entrepreneurs across the country to launch their own microschools. Katelyn’s school would be the prototype.
Today, the Wildflower Montessori network consists of more than 60 microschools across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including public charter microschools in Minneapolis, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Most of the network’s microschools focus on early childhood education, but some serve elementary and secondary school children.
Wildflower Montessori supports entrepreneurial, Montessori-trained teachers who want to open their own affiliated microschools. The non-profit Wildflower Foundation offers grants and low-interest loans to these startup founders, and connects them with the vast network of Wildflower Montessori educators who share resources, offer encouragement and provide advice and insights. Katelyn continues to run a Wildflower microschool in Cambridge, while serving as an inspiring mentor for current and aspiring Wildflower microschool leaders across the country.
"How Microschool Networks Are Activating Education Entrepreneurs" (Forbes.com)
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My guest today is Christina Poole, a homeschooling mom of 7 children ages 18 months to 12 years, and cofounder of City Schoolhouse, a low-cost private school in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky. Christina opened City Schoolhouse in early 2017 with 9 students, plus her own 5 children at the time. Today, City Schoolhouse has 45 full-time students, with afterschool programs and vacation camps for local public school students. More than two-thirds of Christina's microschool students receive 100% financial aid assistance.
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What a pleasure to have Lenore Skenazy on the podcast today to talk about a variety of topics but mostly how to give our children the freedom and responsibility that many of us enjoyed as children, before structure and surveillance came to dominate American childhood. Lenore is the author of the popular book, Free-Range Kids, now in its second edition, and is the co-founder and president of Let Grow, a non-profit organization promoting childhood independence.
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Originally from Venezuela, Gaby Narvaez and Andrea Hantman met in the U.S. and launched P.L.A.Y. School Academy (Passion Learning Approach Year-Round), a K-12 microschool in South Florida.
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Tom Bogle is a former public high school teacher turned microschool guide and now cofounder of Microschool Solutions, an organization that helps to activate new microschools across the US and support new founders.
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My guest today is Becky McNichols, founder of Rooted Life Academy, a home-based microschool/homeschool enrichment program in the Kansas City area. Becky taught in public schools for 15 years, including most recently in a Title I public school that served predominantly low-income and migrant students. She grew increasingly drained by her public school teaching job and resigned in the spring of 2022 to launch Rooted Life. Becky opened her pod that fall with eight students ranging in age from kindergarteners to fourth graders. Today, her pod is at capacity with about a dozen students and a waiting list.
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Nathan Fellman was a public middle school teacher and administrator in New Hampshire for nearly 20 years before leaving his job to launch a middle school microschool program in fall 2022. Nate and two of his colleagues from the public school system opened The Harkness House in Nashua, New Hampshire that emphasizes personalized learning for 6th thru 9th graders. Harkness House also offers hybrid homeschool programs for local young people ages 10 to 18 who want to access Harkness House classes.
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Sharon Masinelli is the founder and head of school at St. John the Baptist Hybrid School in Kennesaw, Georgia, outside of Atlanta. Students attend the drop-off program two to three days a week, learning from an assortment of 30 educators, while homeschooling on the remaining days. Sharon launched her hybrid school in 2019 with 47 students. Today, her program has 120 students in kindergarten through 12 grade.
In the summer of 2021, Sharon's program was threatened to be shut down by the county fire marshal. After the Institute for Justice sent a letter citing Georgia's new Learning Pod Protection Act, the fire marshal backed down and Sharon's program was able to operate.
All of this leads us to grapple with the question of regulation, particularly for unconventional learning models like hybrid schools. Do we really need regulation, even if it seems to help founders? What are the benefits and drawbacks of such policies?
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Jack Johnson Pannell is the Head of School and Founder of Trinity Arch Preparatory School for Boys in Phoenix, Arizona, a microschool that launched this fall to serve boys ages 7 to 14. Prior to launching this new school, Jack was the founder of an all-boys public charter school in Baltimore, Maryland called Baltimore Collegiate.
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Happy Thanksgiving! A special note of gratitude to all the entrepreneurs out there. You are the true engines of human progress.
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It is such an honor to have Jeff Sandefer on the podcast today to talk about his experience as the co-founder, along with his wife Laura, of the fast-growing microschool network, Acton Academy. Jeff and Laura launched the first Acton Academy in Austin, Texas in 2009. Today, there are over 300 Acton Academies worldwide, serving thousands of learners.
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More than a decade ago, Dani Foltz-Smith sent her two girls to a new school that had recently opened in Austin, Texas. It was the flagship Acton Academy, launched in 2009 by Jeff and Laura Sandefer to prioritize learner-driven education and enable each child to pursue his or her own “hero’s journey.” Dani’s family adored their Acton experience so much that when they needed to move back to Los Angeles, Dani became the 3rd ever Acton Academy campus, after Austin and Guatemala, opening Acton Academy Venice Beach in 2013.
Today, there are more than 300 Acton Academy microschools serving thousands of learners.
Read more about Dani's school and the greater ecosystem of decentralized education options in the Los Angeles area: In Los Angeles, A Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education (The 74)
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Refine KC is a full-time, faith-based microschool in the Kansas City, Missouri area that launched in August 2022 with 15 K-12 students. Today, it is at capacity with 40 students, 6 teachers, and a waiting list. Three of Refine KC’s founders are with us on today's podcast to talk about why their school is so popular.
"Church-Based Microschools Are 'Sprouting Everywhere'" (The Lion)
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Mercedes Grant and Isis Spann are two founders who launched their microschools this fall in Virginia and South Carolina, respectively. They share their startup experiences, surprises, and challenges, and offer advice to new education entrepreneurs.
Mercedes runs Path of Life Learning in Yorktown, VA, and Isis runs A Home for School in Moncks Corner, SC. Both founders participated in the spring 2023 cohort of the KaiPod Catalyst program.
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As education across the US transforms from a centralized, top-down system to a diverse, decentralized marketplace responsive to the needs and preferences of learners and families, it can create some challenges for the entrepreneurial parents and teachers who are creating these new, bottom-up education solutions.
Joining me on the podcast today is Mike Donnelly, an experienced attorney and vice president at the Yes Every Kid Foundation who is working to support today's education entrepreneurs and champion their innovative learning models.
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I recently spent time in the greater Kansas City area visiting microschools and learning pods, and talking to founders, and was struck by what I found. All seven of the learning environments I visited were founded within the past three years and all of the founders are former public school teachers who quit and created these alternative programs. They also all expressed greater levels of personal and professional fulfillment.
One of those founders is our guest today, Tara Cassidy. Tara was a public school teacher for 17 years, but grew increasingly frustrated with the institutional bureaucracy and was also not happy with her children’s experiences in the local public schools.
In August 2022, she launched Crossroad Trails Education Center, a low-cost microschool with eight students in a commercial storefront location that previously housed a daycare center. By November, she had 20 students. To accommodate local demand for her program, Cassidy opened up walls and expanded into an adjacent space. She is now at capacity with over 30 mixed-age learners in kindergarten through high school, despite no marketing or outreach.
Forbes: Former Public School Teachers Find Happiness in Entrepreneurship
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Alexi Burgess is the co-founder of Alcove Learning, a self-directed learning center for teens and tweens in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alcove opened in January 2020 as part of the Liberated Learners network of self-directed learning centers across the U.S.
In Los Angeles, A Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education (The74)
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A common question about unconventional educational models, and especially about self-directed ones that put young people in charge of their own education, is how do kids turn out?
To help answer that question I’ve invited Evan Hughes, who attended the renowned Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, MA for his childhood and adolescence, and now sends his son there as well.
Sudbury Valley was founded in 1968 and has since inspired the creation of dozens of Sudbury-model schools around the world. It prioritizes non-coercive, self-directed education within a democratically run community where adults and children have equal say in school operations, rule-making and enforcement, hiring and firing decisions, and so on. There are no adult-imposed classes, no grades, no curriculum or top-down evaluative measures. So how exactly does a person learn in this environment?
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Frank Farro is the cofounder, along with his wife Natalie, of Acton Academy North Broward, in Coral Springs, Florida, which they launched in 2020. Acton Academy is of course the popular, fast-growing global network of learner-driven microschools, now encompassing more than 300 independently owned and operated Acton-affiliated schools. I’ve had the privilege of highlighting several affiliated Acton Academies on this podcast and profiling them in my Forbes column, and it’s such a pleasure to have Frank on today’s show to talk about his experience as an Acton-affiliate founder.
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Our guest today is Judy Dwyre, who in the fall of 2019 launched Allium Montessori, a microschool for children ages 6 to 12 that is part of the national Wildflower Montessori microschool network. The first Wildflower microschool opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. Today, there are more than 60 of these microschools across the US and Puerto Rico. Most of them are private, but Wildflower public charter microschools now also operate in New York City, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC. (I visited and interviewed the founders of the Wildflower charter school in the South Bronx back in episode 94.) And I’ve also visited Judy’s Allium Montessori here in Cambridge, which is located just around the corner from me in Harvard Square.
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What is the LiberatED Podcast and who should listen? Check out this quick trailer to learn more!
Today's guest is Lizette Valles, a longtime teacher and school librarian who founded Ellemercito Academy in 2021 as a microschool focused on experiential learning and trauma-informed approaches to education. She is also the founder of Compass Educators, an educational services center that began as a holistic tutoring program but expanded to offer more services driven by parent demand, including support for navigating school choice policies, and support for "road schooling" and "worldschooling" families.
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Bob Luddy is a successful entrepreneur who founded CaptiveAire Systems, the nation’s leading manufacturer of commercial kitchen ventilation systems, and later became an education entrepreneur, founding Thales Academy in 2007.
Thales Academy is a classically-focused network of low-cost, PreK-12 private schools that has seen extraordinary growth from starting as a microschool with 30 students in a temporary spot in the back of Luddy's corporate office to now serving over 6,100 students across 13 locations in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Thales was recently named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Yass Prize for education innovation.
Entrepreneurial Life: The Path from Startup to Market Leader, by Robert Luddy
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Rachel Goff taught in the New York City public schools for 16 years. She was growing increasingly disillusioned by what she was seeing unfold in the conventional classroom and finally decided to leave and launch Creative Space Learning Center in 2021, after choosing homeschooling for her own children. Creative Space is a learning center for PreK- 8th grade homeschooled children in Long Beach, New York, on the south shore of Long Island, that follows a child-led learning philosophy.
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Felicia Rattray decided to launch Permission To Succeed Academy in the summer of 2020 after schools shut down due to the pandemic and the shift to remote schooling gave her an up-close look at her nephew’s classroom. A longtime public school teacher, Felicia realized how far behind he was academically and created her microschool to help students like her nephew with a more personalized, mastery-based, culturally relevant curriculum. The first year of opening she had 6 students. Now, she has 60 in-person learners and 7 teachers.
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Kenneth Mims is the founder of Science Prep Academy in Phoenix, a private STEM microschool for neurodivergent students in grades 6th-12th. Ken founded Science Prep in 2017 after working for several years with autistic students in Arizona. Last fall, Science Prep was awarded the $1 million “Ducey Prize” funded by Janine Yass, founder of The Yass Prize, to enable the school to open at least five more schools in the Phoenix area and increase capacity to 800 students in new schools throughout the country. Ken is also the founder of the Neurodiversity Education Research Center which helps to support neurodivergent students as they prepare to enter the workforce in STEM-related fields. Science Prep Academy is a program of this research center.
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Holler Creek School of Appalachian Ecology is a small, private K-5 school located in Carroll County, Virginia, just below the Blue Ridge Parkway. Its two founders are Aaron Sebens and Melanie Schrage, both experienced educators who wanted to create a school that embraces what they call “radical rural education.” They launched Holler Creek in the fall of 2021.
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Pastor Joshua Robertson is the Senior Pastor of The Rock Church of Harrisburg, PA and CEO and founder of Black Pastors United for Education. Through his role, he has spearheaded a variety of community initiatives aimed at education and youth empowerment, including establishing church-based learning centers for local young people who are enrolled in one of Pennsylvania’s virtual charter schools.
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Josh Pickel grew up in Canton, Illinois and returned home to teach at the public schools he had once attended. As time went on, he felt increasingly unsettled about the coercive classroom dynamics characteristic of conventional schooling.
Josh began researching alternative education models and came across Liberated Learners, a network of self-directed learning centers for teenagers modeled after North Star, a learning center in western Massachusetts that was started in 1996 by Ken Danford, who was also a disillusioned public school teacher.
Last summer, Josh quit his teaching job to open Canton Learning Collaborative, a self-directed microschool for homeschoolers. It grew from 5 learners last fall to 15 young people over the course of its first year.
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Today’s episode covers three interesting and intersecting topics: unschooling, careers in the trades, and barriers to youth apprenticeships and employment. My guests are Wendy Zanders and her 16-year-old son, Keyshon, a certified welder with dreams of someday running his own business.
Related article: Loosening Youth Employment Regulations Empowers Teens
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Jenna Wertheimer leads Grace Preparatory Academy, a University Model® hybrid homeschool just outside of Boston. Students in kindergarten through 8th grade attend drop-off classes with hired teachers two days a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and then continue to work on their curriculum at home with their parents or in self-organized cooperatives.
Grace Prep was launched in 2012 by two homeschooling moms who wanted more consistent structure and social interactions for their homeschooled children within a faith-based learning environment. Their initial class had seven students. Today, Grace Prep serves more than 70 K-8 students with 11 staff members.
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Elements Academy is a private preK-12 microschool and family wellness community located in Braintree, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Its founder is Heather DiNino, a former teacher and special education department chair in the Massachusetts public schools for more than a decade who realized that learning could and should be different. At Elements Academy, she has built a stunning alternative to conventional schooling where young people thrive.
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Kenisha Skaggs founded SOAR Academy in Georgia in 2011 as a non-traditional private school that focuses on an individualized approach to learning. Approximately 85% of SOAR Academy's students are neurodiverse or have special learning needs. Since its founding, SOAR Academy has reached more than 500 students and continues to have a long waitlist.
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Stacey Hammerlind and Jessica Rothbart are the cofounders of Micah Studios, a low-cost, secular microschool for children ages 6-18 in Newport, New Hampshire with a specific focus on low-income students who are now eligible for various school choice programs. Jessica is a homeschooling mother of six children and Stacey is a mother of four adult children and grandmother to two with a shared passion for education and expanding learning options for local families.
Register here for the Encouraging Education Entrepreneurship & Innovation in N.H. Conference (September 30, 2023)
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Eric Eisenbrey is the founder of the Eyes and Brains STEM Center, a microschool in the small town of Elkins, West Virginia that opened last year with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math.
Eric was a public school teacher for 10 years before creating his exciting year-round, K-12 microschool, which he launched with the help of Microschool Builders.
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Dal “Doc” Richardson launched BreakOut School in Utah County, Utah in 2019 as an outdoor-based microschool focusing on kids with ADHD and neurodiversity. After a 20-year career as a pharmacist, he saw the need to create new and different learning options for young people in his community.
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Laura George is a mom of 11 now-grown children who homeschooled for 20 years before launching Compass Prep Academy in 2005 in Cherokee County, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. Compass Prep is a faith-based hybrid homeschool programs that is open to everyone. Hybrid homeschool programs began to emerge back in the mid-1990s and have gained tremendous traction over the past decade—and especially over the past 3 years.
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Our Resilient Community ALC is a Georgia-based microschool for LGBTQ+ youth. It is part of the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) network of self-directed education schools and homeschool learning centers across the US and around the world. Thea Canby and Nicole Gustafson cofounded Our Resilient Community in January 2022, but both of them had been working at an ALC prior to launch, and each have more than 10 years of experience as educators.
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Olivia Hasey and Emily Sieger are the cofounders of Raindrop Academy, a drop-off K-6 microschool for homeschoolers in the rural town of Rogue River, Oregon, located about four hours south of Portland. Raindrop Academy meets in a bright and cheerful agricultural grange and incoporates elements of Waldorf, Montessori, and self-directed, democractic educational philosophies.
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Chioma Onyewuchi is the founder of Heart & Heritage Center, an alternative experiential, outdoor program for homeschoolers in Houston, Texas that focuses on childhood creativity, curiosity, and a deep connection to African heritage and culture. Chioma was born and raised in Aba, Nigeria, and came to the U.S. for college, where she graduated summa cum laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She currently homeschools her two children, ages 10 and 8.
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Karinna Fairbanks has experienced a wide variety of learning environments during her childhood and adolescence, including public schooling, virtual schooling, homeschooling, microschooling, and unschooling. Now, at age 15, she is entering college this fall as a sophomore, having accumulated numerous credits as a self-directed teen.
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Phoebe Love and Jennifer Lin and staff members at the Saint Louis Sudbury School, a self-directed, democratic, Sudbury-model school located in Saint Louis, Missouri.
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Nicole Doyle is a longtime homeschooling mom and home education advocate who cofounded the Georgia Black Home Educators Network in 2022. She is also the president of DeKalb Christian Home Educators, a homeschool co-op that’s been serving the metro Atlanta area since 1989.
The Network hosted its first annual Flourish Black Family Homeschool Conference in January 2023 with nearly 350 attendees, and is expecting its January 2024 conference to be even bigger!
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Noah Mayers has been working in education for over 20 years. He was a teaching artist for 8 years in both public and charter schools, then worked as a woodshop teacher at a private school for a year for before launching Brooklyn Apple Academy in New York City in 2010. Located in the Park Slope neighborhood, Brooklyn Apple is a self-directed learning center for homeschoolers and unschoolers. It currently serves about 50 learners who attend part-time throughout the week.
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Dr. LeDonna Griffin is the founder of Leaders to Legends Academy in Omaha, Nebraska. She works directly with families who are seeking alternatives to conventional schooling to educate their children. LeDonna worked in the Nebraska public schools as both a teacher and principal for 30 years. In 2019, she launched Leaders to Legend as a homeschool co-op, and in 2020, interest in her model soared.
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Troy Salazar is the founder of Liberty Self-Directed Learning Center in West Des Moines, Iowa. Troy worked in public schools for 22 years, first as a second grade teacher in a rural community in Iowa and later in the Des Moines public schools where he spent most of his teaching career. He launched Liberty SDLC in Fall 2022 after becoming frustrated by the conventional schooling model. Liberty is part of the Liberated Learners global network of self-directed learning centers.
“I remember saying to colleagues and friends, why are there so many unhappy kids? It just blew my mind,” said Troy in our interview. “There were several times in the last few years where I said I can't do this anymore. Then, in my last year, I called my wife and said the idea of our grandkids being in this classroom scares me. I wasn't exaggerating or being dramatic, and it was nothing that the kids were doing. It was the response that the kids were having to this system. They were so checked out.”
Read the recent Forbes.com article featuring Troy and Liberty SDLC: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2023/07/21/its-the-year-of-universal-school-choice-but-barriers-remain/
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Listen to Kerry's keynote presentation on education entrepreneurship and innovation at the 2023 Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) conference, recorded live on June 23, 2023 at Long Island University.
Read the case study of education entrepreneurship across the US.
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Karema Akilah is a former teacher in the Maryland public schools who began homeschooling her children 20 years ago, of which the past 12 have been devoted to unschooling, or self-directed education. Through her personal unschooling journey, she began wondering about the possibilities of Web 3.0, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence to capture the magic of the unschooling educational experience. She launched The Genius School and the Genii DAO app to blend the theory and practice of unschooling with decentralization technologies to help build the future of learning.
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Linsey Knerl is a mom of 6 in Nebraska who has been a working and homeschooling mom for over 15 years. In 2021, her book, Homeschool Hacks: How to Give Your Kid a Great Education Without Losing Your Job (or Your Mind), was published by Simon & Schuster and served as a timely resource for the many parents who were drawn to homeschooling as a result of the education disruption caused by the pandemic response. It remains highly relevant today.
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Nestled at the end of a residential cul-de-sac in Hopewell, Virginia is Dream Tech Academy, a microschool founded by former public school teacher, Danette Buckley. Dream Tech Academy launched in 2019 with four children, including three of Danette’s own, as a homeschooling and tutoring program. It is now a recognized K-12 private school with about 30 children and four hired educators and is located in an inviting single family home just outside of Richmond that Danette purchased exclusively for her school.
Read Kerry's Forbes article featuring Danette and her microschool.
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Matt Dreier and Kristen Braia are the cofounders of a new Acton Academy affiliate microschool, Pace Academy, in North Chesterfield, Virginia, about 10 miles outside of Richmond.
Matt retired from a 20-year career in the US Marine Corps and began pursuing his interest in education. He earned a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and then teamed up with his niece, Kristen, a mom and successful entrepreneur, to launch their microschool.
When Pace Academy opens this fall, it will join approximately 300 other microschools in the fast-growing Acton Academy network, and will be one of six Acton affiliate microschools in Virginia.
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Kimberly Stringer is the founder of Kreative Kids Academy in Wichita, Kansas, a child-led, outdoor-based licensed preschool that during the pandemic response and school shutdowns expanded to include a school-age program that continues to grow and flourish. I had the chance to meet Kim and visit Kreative Kids and was so taken by its beauty, warmth, joyfulness, and emphasis on the value of abundant outdoor time for children.
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Cecile Enright is the founder of River’s Edge Academy Charter School (REACH), which she launched in 2011 with 70 students in a leased church space in rural Rogue River, Oregon. Today, the school serves over 200 students in two locations.
REACH is a K-12 hybrid charter school, enabling students to be on campus for part of the week and to learn from home or in the community for the remainder of the week, often taking enrichment classes in areas such as art, music, and 4-H with local community partners. As a charter school, REACH students attend tuition-free.
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When schools shut down in 2020, Detroit mom Danna Guzman joined countless parents across the US who created “pandemic pods” to enable their children to continue learning together during school shutdowns. Mounting enthusiasm for her learning pod led Danna to expand it into an established microschool for homeschoolers that continues to grow and flourish today.
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Maysaa Bazna haș been involved in education and alternative education for many years. She earned her doctorate in curriculum and teaching at Columbia University, and was a professor in Columbia’s Teachers College and the City University of New York (CUNY). She has taught in the areas of learning disabilities, disability studies, and inclusive education.
Maysaa is currently the Director of Professional Practice and Community Partnerships at the School of Education, Queens College, CUNY.
In 2010, looking to create the kind of hands-on, self-directed educational experience she wanted for her child, she launched Pono, an outdoor, democratic education co-learning community in New York City. She continues to serve in an advisory role for Pono while also expanding her passion for outdoor education by partnering with the New York City public schools.
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Today's guest is Ariel Maguire, an accountant and mom of 4 who lives in a rural area of the Big Island of Hawaii. In early 2022, she and a group of local moms got together to create Kulike Learning Garden, a Waldorf-inspired microschool structured as a Private Membership Association, or PMA, to help with the care and education of their children in an area with severe child care shortages. They hired an experienced teacher and were successfully operating the program for about a year until state regulators shut them down, and fined Ariel $5,000, for running an "unlicensed" school.
Local Hawaii news coverage of Ariel's story.
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“A lot of families started realizing things weren’t working in the conventional system,” said Syreeta Farria, a homeschooling mother of two children in Detroit who, along with another homeschooling mother, Victoria Washington, runs a weekly homeschooling program for local families. Farria has seen the growth in homeschooling over the past three years, particularly among families of color. “There are a lot of stereotypes about what homeschoolers look like. And quite often, most people do not see moms like myself and Victoria. They do not see that there are Black and brown families in urban areas that are moving away from traditional learning and deciding to do homeschooling or non-traditional methods when it comes to educating their children.”
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Cara Frantz is a certified professional midwife who never planned to launch a microschool until the school closures and education disruption of 2020 led her to create Envision Homeschool Collective for her children, their friends, and members of the community. Envision Homeschool Collective consists of two microschools, one for high schoolers on her property and the other for middle schoolers just a mile down the road, with three hired educators. Prompted by local demand, Cara intends to expand her microschools over the coming months.
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Ben Kestner and Lisa Pavlock are experienced educators who taught in both public and private schools in the US and internationally before leaving conventional education in 2013 in search of something different. They moved to Montana with their young daughter and founded a Sudbury-inspired, democratic school on a Native American reservation.
In 2021, they moved to Ibiza in Spain to help lead The Learning Project in Ibiza, a new Sudbury-model, democratic school focused on non-coercive, self-directed learning.
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Coi Morrison worked for several years as a public school teacher in both the Chicago Public Schools and the Memphis Public Schools. She became frustrated by the standard education system and left education, earned an MBA, and worked in banking for a while before returning to teaching. It was searching for a school for her own four children that led her to create The Lab School of Memphis in 2021.
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Becky Abrams is a longtime homeschooling mom in the Rogue Valley of southern Oregon who started a small, parent-run homeschool co-op in 2015. That co-op led to the creation of Arrows Christian Academy, a drop-off, K-8, hybrid school with nearly 200 kids and 25 staff members in two locations.
As she delegates more of Arrow’s day-to-day operations, Becky is now helping other education entrepreneurs to create similar learning models across the country through her website, nonprofitedsolutions.com.
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By the time Covid hit and schools shut down, Bernita Bradley had been working on education issues in Detroit for a decade, including as an AmeriCorps volunteer. In 2020, she launched Engaged Detroit, a citywide co-op for about a dozen families who wanted to homeschool their children during the pandemic. Today, Engaged Detroit serves as a resource center for more than 100 Detroit homeschooling families.
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What began as a microschool in 1967 for Clonlara School founder Pat Montgomery’s two children and six others has grown into an internationally-renowned, K-12 private school serving 2,000 off-campus students around the world through its online program, as well as a small group of on-campus students at its Ann Arbor, Michigan headquarters.
It quickly became clear that parents outside of Ann Arbor were attracted to this learning model, particularly as the modern homeschooling movement gained traction beginning in the 1970s. Some Michigan families were investigated or charged with truancy for homeschooling their children, so Montgomery mounted a lawsuit against the Michigan State Board of Education. Thirty years ago this month, on May 25, 1993, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in Clonlara's favor. That case, and two related ones that were decided on the same day, secured homeschooling rights in the state.
Today, I am so honored to be joined by Pat Montgomery and her daughter, Chandra Montgomery Nicol, who was Clonlara’s first student, served as its longtime Executive Director, and is now Clonlara’s board chair.
Read more about Montgomery and the May 1993 legal decisions in my latest Forbes article.
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Dr. Cory Steiner is the superintendent of the Northern Cass School District in rural Hunter, North Dakota. Northern Cass was a 2022 finalist for the prestigious Yass Prize for education innovation, particularly for its unique strategy of reaching rural students in a more personalized, learner-centered way.
Northern Cass Personalized Learning Institute June conference information and registration link.
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Today marks the 100th episode of the LiberatED podcast, which I launched back in February 2022 as a once-a-week podcast, and boosted to a twice-weekly show last fall because there are just so many stories to tell of the entrepreneurial parents and educators who are transforming US K-12 education from the bottom up. In recognition of this milestone, I thought I would share a few reflections.
Thank you so much for listening, sharing, and supporting this podcast! I am so grateful.
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Karen Weary was a licensed teacher in Colorado who taught for many years in both public and private Montessori schools before moving to the rural Rogue Valley area of southern Oregon. There, she taught in an established, private Montessori school. The education disruption of 2020 prompted her to explore other education options, and in the fall of 2021 she opened Mountain Montessori, a child-centered K-3 microschool in a small, renovated classroom above her garage.
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Nasiyah Isra-Ul, the founder of Canary Academy, an online learning platform for homeschoolers that provides curriculum curation and instruction, learning tools, coaching, and community engagement for homeschooling families across the US. Nasiyah launched Canary Academy as a 15-year-old homeschooler trying to make her own family’s homeschooling experience easier and more efficient. She officially launched her organization as a non-profit in 2021, with a specific focus on expanding access to homeschooling resources to low-income families.
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A former teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, Vijay Shah founded The Humanist Academy in 2016 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. An Acton Academy affiliate, this learner-driven microschool now has over 85 students.
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Dr. Gina Riley is an educational psychologist, clinical professor, and program leader of the Adolescent Special Education Program at City University of New York (CUNY)–Hunter College. She has over 15 years experience working with teens diagnosed with learning disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders. She is also widely published in the fields of special education, psychology, school psychology, and mental health counseling.
My listeners may know Gina most for her internationally-renowned work in the fields of homeschooling, unschooling, and self-directed learning. She has authored numerous academic journal articles on unschooling and self-directed education, as well as co-authored many others with Boston College professor Peter Gray (episode #12). Gina is the author of the 2021 book, The Homeschooling Starter Guide: How to Create and Adapt the Best Education Action Plan for Your Needs.
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Felicia Wright is a US Army veteran and former teacher in the Nevada public schools who decided to pull her daughter out of kindergarten for homeschooling and eventually launched a microschool called The Learning Outpost in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Learning Outpost now serves 22 kids, including two of Felicia’s children, and employs two teachers, in addition to Felicia.
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In the South Bronx, the teachers at the Wildflower New York Charter School are creating a nurturing space for children’s intellectual and emotional development. Located in the Morrisania neighborhood, the charter school is a collection of three separate Montessori microschools that priorize child-led learning, including for the more than 30% of their students with identified special needs.
The Wildflower New York Charter School is part of the national Wildflower Montessori’s network of microschools that is focused on activating and supporting teacher-entrepreneurs to serve their local neighborhoods within an intentionally small, mixed-age, personalized setting.
Our guests today are Aura Cely and Mario Benabe two of the teacher-entrepreneurs who helped to open the Wildflower New York Charter School in the fall of 2020.
New York Post article on innovative NYC charter schools
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Mercedes Grant had a tough childhood and became a public school teacher to help students like her. After teaching in four states, she finally decided that she had to leave the system to create new, learner-focused education options. She is now the founder of Path of Life Learning, a new microschool in Virginia that just opened for fall registration and is already near capacity at over 20 learners. In the future, Mercedes hopes more at-risk youth gain access to schooling alternatives that recognize and appreciate their individual gifts.
Learn more about KaiPod Catalyst.
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Amber Okolo-Ebube is a mom of 5 and longtime homeschooling parent in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas who runs Leading Little Arrows, a weekly homeschooling enrichment program focused on nature, art, and STEM subjects. She launched last spring and her program has become so popular that she recently leased a building across the street from the University of Texas at Arlington campus. With 33 students ages 3-17, and several adult facilitators, she is already near capacity, and will be expanding to run a microschool this fall.
Approximately three-quarters of Okolo-Ebube’s students are neurodiverse, with several, including one of her own children, on the autism spectrum. Leading Little Arrows provides the individualized learning environment and freedom of movement that enable both neurodiverse and neurotypical children to thrive.
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Kenneth Danford is one of the true pioneers in alternative education. In 1996, Ken launched North Star, a self-directed learning center for teen homeschoolers in western Massachusetts which was one of the first such spaces to exist. Prior to launching North Star, Ken was a middle school social studies teacher in public schools and wanted to create a new, non-coercive learning option for young people. Fast forward to 2013, Ken and his colleague Joel Hammon created Liberated Learners, a global network of self-directed learning centers modeled after North Star that continues to help aspiring education entrepreneurs launch self-directed learning centers in their own communities. In 2019, Ken published the book Learning is Natural, School is Optional.: The North Star approach to offering teens a head start on life, which I highly recommend.
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Alycia Wright taught middle school in the Virginia public schools for over a decade before becoming a homeschooling mom to her four children. She is the founder of Cultural Roots Homeschool Cooperative, a non-profit with the mission of creating a liberated educational space for children of color in Richmond, Virginia that currently serves over 125 learners. I recently had the chance to meet Alycia in person when I was visiting the Richmond area and am so glad to share her story here.
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Barefoot University is truly one of the most exciting organizations you’ll hear about this year. It is a rapidly expanding network of outdoor education programs that brings families together for weekly nature meetups and theme-based learning activities. Barefoot University was founded in 2019 by our guests today, Madeleine Braden and Amber Brown, who were looking for more ways to connect their kids with nature and bring other like-minded families along. It started with just a handful of families in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, and has now grown to serve more than 3,000 students nationwide.
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Chrystal and Joshua Bernard are pastors of their local church as well as the cofounders of Braveheart Christian Academy, a microschool in Arlington, Texas and part of the vibrant cluster of microschools and innovative learning models in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Chrystal is a former high school mathematics teacher in the Texas public schools. She left to run her own CPA firm, which she still manages on the side while overseeing Braveheart Academy that she and Joshua launched in the fall 2021.
Education Entrepreneurs in Texas Are Expanding Options for Families (Forbes.com)
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There is a vibrant and growing hub of education entrepreneurship and alternative learning models in New York City, and our guests today are a part of that. Jacob Greebel and Melissa Sornik, both licensed social workers and experienced therapists, founded Acton Academy Seacliff in 2020 in Seacliff, New York on Long Island, but decided to move their Acton Academy into the heart of Manhattan. In their private practice, they see mounting school-related youth anxiety and believe that alternative education models, and the Acton model in particular, can be a beneficial antidote.
Jacob and Melissa are planning to open the doors on Synergy: An Acton Academy in New York City this fall.
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Dr. Natalie Summerville taught for over 20 years in the Virginia public schools before first launching The Grand Magnolia School, a microschool in Richmond, Virginia that her grandchildren and others attend.
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Today's guest is Yesi Sol, a former New York City public school teacher and founder of The Joyful Learning Academy. Joyful Learning is a learning center for homeschoolers in the DUMBO (down underneath the Manhattan Bridge overpass) area of Brooklyn, New York that also provides after-school enrichment and tutoring services to local learners. I had the chance recently to meet Yesi and visit her beautiful learning center and am excited for her to share more about her journey toward alternative education and education entrepreneurship.
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Jerry Mintz has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement for over 30 years. In addition to his 17 years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped to found more than one hundred public and private alternative schools and organizations. In 1989, he launched the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) and since then has served as its director. He is the author of the 2017 book, School’s Over: How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education .
Register here for the 2023 AERO Conference!
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Wade Moore runs Urban Preparatory Academy in Wichita, Kansas, a private K-8 school where most of the students attend tuition-free through the state’s low-income tax-credit scholarship program. Pastor Moore has been a longtime advocate for expanding education choice programs to enable more children to have access to the best educational fit for them. "It's life and death to students," he says.
Urban Prep was a 2022 finalist for the prestigious Yass Prize, winning a $500,000 grant to expand Urban Prep to a second location in the Wichita area and serve more students.
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In the small town of Abbyville, Kansas, located an hour outside of Wichita with a population of 83 people, lies Re*Wild Family Academy, a microschool run by our guest today, Devan Dellenbach. Devan was a certified elementary school teacher in Kansas public schools for five years before leaving the classroom to be a stay-at-home mom to her two children. Stay-at-home parenthood evolved into homeschooling for Devan and now into microschooling, as she attracts other families to the personalized, nurturing, and tranquil learning space she has created in her home. I had the chance to see Devan’s microschool up close when I visited her rural Kansas community earlier this month.
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One of the high-quality virtual learning platforms that I am especially enthusiastic about is Great Hearts, which is expanding this year into a national online private academy with a Classical education focus.
A network of public charter and tuition-based private schools and microschools, with both brick-and-mortar and virtual offerings, Great Hearts is the largest provider of liberal arts classical education in the country, serving more than 26,000 students at 33 schools across the US.
Our guest today is Kurtis Indorf, Chief Innovation Officer for Great Hearts America, and the Founder and President of Great Hearts Nova.
Apply here for the 2023 Ed-Prize Awards for education entrepreneurship and innovation!
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When Emily Williams told her parents that she was leaving her job as a certified public school teacher to launch a microschool, they thought she was crazy. Both longtime public school educators themselves, they couldn’t understand why Emily, who taught in Mississippi public schools for more than a decade, would want to give up a good district salary, insurance, and retirement benefits to become an education entrepreneur. Emily, however, felt drawn to create an educational environment that would emphasize individualized learning, personal autonomy and mutual respect. She launched Micah’s Mission, a low-cost, faith-based microschool located in Vicksburg, Mississippi that serves about 50, K-12 students, including several students with significant disabilities and special needs.
Read more about Emily in my Forbes article: "Former Public School Teachers Are Earning More As Education Entrepreneurs"
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Self-directed education is a tough concept for many people to grasp. It challenges the ways in which many of us were educated, and the ways many of our children continue to be educated, by flipping the entire idea of education as a top-down model of coercive schooling to a bottom-up model of individual agency and self-determination. My 2019 book, Unschooled: Raising Curious Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, details the history and philosophy of non-coercive, self-directed education tied to one’s individual interests, goals, and life pursuits.
One place that has become a beacon for parents and educators interested in the philosophy and practice of self-directed education is the Sudbury Valley School, that I write extensively about in Unschooled. Sudbury Valley was founded in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1968 and continues to flourish today more than 50 years later. It has also inspired the creation of dozens of democratic, Sudbury-model schools around the world, as well as various unschooling programs.
If you remember back to episode 39 in October, I interviewed Sudbury Valley School cofounder, Mimsy Sadofsky, and explained why my husband and I decided to send our children there instead of continuing with homeschooling.
But today I thought it would be interesting and insightful to hear from another parent, Nick Warren, who pulled his two children out of public school in 2021 and enrolled them at Sudbury Valley. Like us, Nick and his wife drive a long distance each way every day so that their kids can attend Sudbury Valley, but it’s totally worth it. We talk more about why that is in today’s show.
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For Becky Elder, education entrepreneurship is nothing new. In 1963, her parents founded a private school in Wichita, Kansas. Becky then homeschooled her own children even before the practice was legally recognized. In 1993, she helped to launch Northfield School of the Liberal Arts as a small, classically-oriented school for approximately 50 middle and high school students in Wichita.
Dalena Wallace is a next-generation education entrepreneur, following in Becky’s footsteps. She is a homeschool mom of 6 children ages 8-15 who lives in a small rural community about an hour outside of Wichita. Dalena has been running a popular homeschool co-op for several years and received a microgrant from the VELA Education Fund which helped to connect her to other local education entrepreneurs in the greater Wichita area, including Becky. Dalena and Becky, along with some of the other Wichita education entrepreneurs I have had on the podcast, created the group WISE - Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators— to support the growth and success of more microschools, low-cost private schools, learning pods, homeschool collaboratives, and other innovative K-12 education models.
Check out my case study of education entrepreneurship in Wichita!
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Sean Harrell is the president of Integration Charter Schools (ICS) on Staten Island in New York City. ICS is a collection of four charter schools focused on fully integrating students with special needs (about 40%)and general education students.
Sean has worked as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, and school district administrator for more than a decade. He founded and serves as executive director of the Progressive Educators Group, and is also an edtech entrepreneur who launched the teacher recruitment app, EdSwipe!, in early 2022.
I had the chance to meet Sean and visit ICS during my recent trip to the Big Apple to uncover innovative learning models there.
Check out my latest New York Post article featuring Sean, ICS, and other innovative learning models in NYC.
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Despite his MBA and a B.S. degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as a prestigious career as a naval officer and flight test engineer, James Lomax was prohibited from opening a secular private school in the state of Nevada due to occupational licensing regulations.
Read more in my latest Forbes article: "Why Can't A Retired U.S. Navy Officer And Engineer Open A Private School In Nevada?" Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.
Our guest today is Dr. Lisa Scott, founder of The Art of Words Community School, a small private school in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, NY. Lisa earned her PhD in Education from Claremont Graduate School and taught classes in the history and philosophy of education at both CUNY-Queens and Hunter College before leaving to launch her microschool in September 2020.
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Today's guest is Michael Strong, a longtime education entrepreneur and innovator and now founder of The Socratic Experience, an online school that emphasizes personalized and purpose-driven education, which I highly recommend.
Michael is the author of the 2009 book, Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, which includes a Foreword by John Mackey, the cofounder and former CEO of Whole Foods Market, with whom Michael has collaborated on initiatives related to conscious capitalism and entrepreneurship. Michael is also the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice, and we’ll hear more about what that looks like in his new online school focused on Socratic principles.
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Turan Rush grew up in West Virginia on Charleston's West Side and was a star football player at Capitol High School, going to on to play at the collegiate level at Eastern Michigan University. He decided to come back to Charleston after graduating in 2021 to make a positive impact on the youth in his neighborhood. He teamed up with Jeff Biddle, a pastor and mentor to Turan, to open a thriving, sports-focused, youth after school program in Charleston. The duo now has their sights set on opening a low-cost private school in the same location as their after school program to provide greater learning opportunities to Charleston’s young people.
"Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline, One Microschool At A Time" (Forbes.com)
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In the summer of 2019, after 15 years of teaching in the Portland, Oregon public school district, Greg Brown resigned to pursue Activate full-time. During COVID, Activate evolved into a full-time microschool with a dyslexia focus, and it continues to expand today to serve more learners in the Portland area.
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Today marks one year since the launch of this podcast! It has grown so much, with inspiring stories of microschool founders and other education entrepreneurs who are building bottom-up learning models to challenge longstanding, top-down systems. I am thrilled to celebrate today's podcast anniversary with Sarah Tavernetti and Yamila De Leon, cofounders of Bloom Academy, a self-directed microschool in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Nick Lachen is a former high school physics teacher with a Master’s degree in teaching who, along with his wife, decided back in 2020 to launch a self-directed Sudbury-model school in the Des Moines, Iowa area. The state told them they couldn't. Iowa has some of the most restrictive private school regulations in the US, constraining the entire private education sector there long before introducing school choice policies. Hear Nick's story, including what's next for his family, in today's episode.
Iowa Enacts Universal School Choice, But Regulations Will Limit the Supply of Options for Families (Forbes.com)
Planning Kit for Sudbury Schools
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Tamara Becker has been an educator for over 25 years, working in both district and virtual schools as a teacher, administrator, special education director, assistant superintendent, and most recently, as the superintendent of Primavera, Arizona’s largest online school. In August 2021, she launched her first tuition-free Adamo microschool with 12 students in kindergarten through seventh grade in Fountain Hills, Arizona. In August 2022, Tamara opened her second Adamo microschool in Queen Creek, with plans for additional microschool locations in the coming months.
Watch the podcast--and today's tour--on YouTube.
Read Kerry's Forbes article about Adamo.
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Mara Linaberger worked for 25 years as a public school educator, teacher trainer, and administrator. She has a doctorate in Instructional Technology and has become a leader in the microschooling movement, launching her organization, Microschool Builders, in 2018 that helps to support microschool founders around the world. Mara's book, The Micro-School Builder’s Handbook, is a wonderful resource for current and prospective founders.
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Melissa Mohr worked for 17 years as a teacher and an administrator in a traditional private school in West Virginia, but last year she and some of her colleagues decided to venture out on their own to create a microschool. Her City on a Hill microschool opened in Bridgeport, West Virginia in September 2022 with about 50 kids and continues to attract families who want an alternative to a conventional public or private school. City on a Hill blends the freedom, flexibility, and personalization of homeschooling with the structure and support of a classroom experience. West Virginia's new microschool legislation helped to carve a pathway for founders like Melissa.
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Amar Kumar, founder of KaiPod Learning, recently introduced a new program called KaiPod Catalyst which helps entrepreneurial parents and educators to launch a microschool in their local community. One of the entrepreneurial parents who has teamed up with KaiPod is Ben Ashfield, who was on the podcast in September talking about his New Jersey microschool, The Village Electric. In this episode, Ben updates us on his microschool while Amar shares more about KaiPod Catalyst and how it can help aspiring education entrepreneurs to launch a microschool this year!
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JeVonne Tanner worked as a public high school biology teacher but she and her husband Paul grew increasingly frustrated by the constraints of a conventional classroom, including for their own children. They began to look for something different and discovered Acton Academy, a network of independently-owned and operated microschools that was launched in 2010 and now have more than 280 affiiliated microschools worldwide. At the urging of their children, JeVonne and Paul launched CHOICE Acton Academy in Utah in 2020.
Education Entrepreneurs Face Regulatory Challenges Everywhere. Utah Is Trying To Help. (Forbes.com)
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After many years of stay-at-home motherhood and homeschooling her 6 children in Florida, Candace Lehenbauer wanted to do something different. She decided to create Tapestry Academy, a home-based microschool in Boca Raton. Candace also runs MicroschoolFlorida.com, a resource directory of microschools in South Florida.
Case study of South Florida education entrepreneurship, produced for the VELA Education Fund
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Today's guest is Susan Safra, founder and director of Flex Learning Academy, a microschool in South Florida and one of the many innovative education options that are sprouting in that area.
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Before joining Empower Mississippi and spearheading Embark, a microschool accelerator, Elyse Marcellino helped to launch a classical charter school in Georgia, worked as a classroom teacher for several years, and earned a graduate degree in education from Harvard University. Today, she is helping to activate microschools in her home state of Mississippi, while creating a blueprint for others to follow.
"MISSISSIPPI MICROSCHOOLS ARE EXPANDING EDUCATION OPTIONS FOR FAMILIES"
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Cassidy Younghans taught in conventional schools for 5 years before shifting her focus toward self-directed education. She interned at several prominent self-directed learning settings across the U.S. before becoming a cofounder of a full-time, self-directed learning center in Dallas. She learned a lot from that initial entrepreneurial experience, and in 2021 founded Wild Roots, a grassroots self-directed learning community in Dallas.
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Jenny Clark is an Arizona mother of 5 who has been working vigorously over the past several years to expand education options for families, as well as help parents across the country gain a better understanding of the various options available to them. She is the creator of LoveYourSchool.org which is a fantastic platform that highlights various education options and also provides practical learning resources and tools for families.
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Candace Fish planned to open a microschool with just a few students, but when the former public school teacher launched her low-cost private school, Freedom Preparatory, this August, she had over 130 students signed up. Parents in Wichita, Kansas, as elsewhere, are looking for more education options, and a collaborative entrepreneurial community is creating them.
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In August, Michael Parsons opened Vandalia Community School as a microschool in Charleston, West Virginia serving about 10 students with two teachers. Infused with Montessori principles and focused on ample outside time, Vandalia serves a diverse group of learners. With the implementation of West Virginia's new Hope Scholarship Program, a near-universal education savings account for K-12 students, Vandalia and models like it are now more accessible to many more families.
Read more in my latest Forbes article: In West Virginia, Microschools Come With Hope
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Gayle Nagle and Maura Duignan founded the Sligo Sudbury School in Sligo, Ireland in 2018. The Sligo Sudbury School is one of dozens of Sudbury-style schools around the world that are modeled after the original Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts that was founded in 1968. Sudbury schools value freedom and autonomy, non-coercive learning, personal responsibility, and democratic self-governance.
In episode 39, I interviewed Sudbury Valley School cofounder Mimsy Sadofsky, and I wrote extensively about Sudbury Valley and the Sudbury model of self-directed education in my Unschooled book.
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Homeschooling parents Toni and Uli Frallicciardi run Surf Skate Science in South Florida, offering weekly classes for approximately 250 homeschoolers and microschoolers in the greater Fort Lauderdale area each semester. They blend their passion for surfing and skating with their interest and background in science and engineering to create hands-on lessons for local students, as well as for young people across the U.S.
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Pam McEwen is a longtime educator and former certified teacher in the public schools in Wichita, Kansas who decided to launch a tutoring center in 2019. Amidst the education disruption of 2020, parents urged Pam to turn her tutoring center into a full-time, in-person microschool. So, she resigned from the school district to run the Izora Elaine Dean Education Center full-time.
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Matt Bowman began his career as a public school teacher and quickly recognized the ways in which educational technology could act as both an accelerator for education entrepreneurs and as an access point for families who want a more customized, personalized, self-directed approach to education. He launched My Tech High in 2008 and now works directly with public school districts across the country, serving 20,000 students in 10 states.
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Like many educators today, including some that have been on this podcast, Jon England was a longtime public school teacher who left the classroom to pursue other education-related opportunities. He worked in the public schools for 14 years teaching 5th and 6th grades, and also worked as an elementary school administrator. Jon received his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Utah and a master’s degree in educational leadership from Western Governors University. He also spent time as a sergeant in the US Marine Corps. Today, Jon is an education policy analyst at the Libertas Institute in Utah working to support education entrepreneurship and school choice, among other policy initiatives. He and his wife also recently launched a podcast called Dimond Education which helps other parents find the best educational fit for their children.
"Education Entrepreneurs Face Regulatory Challenges Everywhere. Utah Is Trying To Help." Forbes.com
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Donna Akers had been a public school special education teacher for almost 30 years when she retired in 2020 and decided to launch Ivy Greene Academy, an affiliate of the highly-regarded and fast-growing Acton Academy microschool network. Not only is Ivy Greene the only Acton Academy in all of Mississippi, it is located in the rural town of Pontotoc in an area with almost no other private education options or schooling alternatives for families. In fact, one family drives 1 1/2 hours each way from Memphis, TN just to attend Ivy Greene. What began as a desire to find a better educational environment for her son has turned into a thriving, sought-after, learner-driven microschool that now serves more than 40 children. Far from retiring, Donna is only just getting started.
Mississippi Microschools Are Expanding Education Options for Families (SPN.org)
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When Stephanie Harper decided to open Harper Learning Academy in Byram, Mississippi in August, her goal was to create a small, personalized educational setting in which her daughter would thrive. Conventional classroom environments weren’t a good match for Harper’s child. They also weren’t working well for the daughter of Harper’s colleague, Tekeeta Funchess. Harper and Funchess had been longtime teachers in the Jackson Public Schools before they left their jobs to provide educational consulting services to public school districts through the firm Harper founded in 2016.
As they worked together, they realized their daughters were experiencing similar challenges in standard school settings. So, they decided to build what they couldn’t find and create a warm and welcoming microschool where children can thrive.
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Maria Casco is a former Montessori teacher who launched a microschool, CASCO Learning, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her journey toward education entrepreneurship began in 2020 when some local parents urged her to create a “pandemic pod." That pod has now evolved into an established learning center for homeschooling students of all ages, with a focus on Spanish language immersion, self-directed learning, and enrichment opportunities. Additionally, Maria also hosts international family travel expeditions for her microschooling community, and provides parenting workshops and coaching. Demand for her educational offerings continues to grow.
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Kelly Smith launched the first Prenda learning pod in his Arizona home in early 2018 with 7 children, including his son. Today, Prenda has reached over 10,000 learners in hundreds of pods, with the help more than 1,000 educator-guides in 5 states. On today's episode, Kelly talks about the growth of Prenda, the rising popularity of microschools and learning pods, and why aspiring education entrepreneurs should just jump in.
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I’m sure many parents will relate to the story of my guest today, Elizabeth McMeans. Elizabeth’s pathway to education entrepreneurship stemmed directly from her efforts to find a more nurturing, personalized educational environment for her son as he approached kindergarten age. He would have been one of the youngest in his kindergarten class, and that concerned Elizabeth as she saw the ways in which today’s kindergarten classrooms are more rigid and less play-based than they were even a few decades ago. She discovered the idea of hybrid homeschooling and eventually launched her own Prenda-affiliated learning pod in Wichita, Kansas.
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Acton Academy was one of the very first national microschool networks to get started back in 2010, before microschools, or small, mixed-age, personalized learning environments, became one of the fastest-growing and most popular educational trends of the 21st century. Founded in Austin, Texas by Laura and Jeff Sandefer, Acton Academy now has about 280 independently run but Acton-affiliated schools in more than 30 states and 25 countries.
Its growth and impact is continuing and accelerating, as Acton gains notoriety among parents, learners, and entrepreneurial educators. One of the latest Acton microschools to open is Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale, that was launched recently by our guest today, Tobin Slaven, along with his wife Martina.
Rising Demand for Learner-Driven Education Spurs Acton Academy Growth (Forbes.com)
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During my recent visit to the flourishing hub of microschools and education entrepreneurship in South Florida, my first stop was at Compass Outreach and Education Center, a microschool run by our guest today, Laurel Suarez.
Suarez was one of the first microschool/hybrid school founders in the greater Fort Lauderdale area, launching her microschool in 2019, and she has become a mentor and source of support and encouragement for many of the other microschool founders who have created or expanded their programs over the past few years.
In South Florida, Microschools Are Reshaping K-12 Education (Forbes.com)
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Tucked inside her beautiful farmhouse on her sprawling farm property in Wichita, Kansas is Jessica Ramsay’s cozy classroom where she offers one-on-one tutoring to local children. A longtime teacher in the public schools, Ramsay decided to resign from the district in 2021 to become an education entreprenuer. She opened Farmhouse Phonics, which is now so successful that she is actually earning more money as a tutor than she was as a public school teacher. She is also able to see real, sustained success in helping children in her community to read and gain academic proficiency that they were previously lacking.
Former Public School Teachers Are Earning More As Education Entrepreneurs (Forbes.com)
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Today's podcast guests are Molly and Noah Stephenson. They have experienced the benefit of small-scale, personalized learning first-hand, initially as unschooling parents and now as founders of the Wildflower Community School, a microschool in Wichita, Kansas. Only about 4 out of their current 35 students would be considered neurotypical, with most of their students having specialized learning needs, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and so on.
For Neurodiverse Children, Microschools Can Be An Ideal Learning Environment (Forbes.com)
Joe Connor founded Odyssey to help connect families to the available education choice programs in their respective states, ensuring that all eligible families are able to access these choice programs. His work also helps to inspire and activate entrepreneurial parents and teachers who are looking to create new education solutions in their local communities.
This week, Odyssey announced a $4.75 million seed funding round with the prestigious venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.
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Our guest today created her thriving, award-winning microschool for her own son. He was the catalyst. Like any entrepreneur, especially a "parentpreneur," Iman Alleyne saw a gap and set out to fill it.
She built the Kind Academy microschool located in Coral Springs, Florida, which has received philanthropic support from the VELA Education Fund and has recently been named a semi-finalist for the prestigious million-dollar Yass Prize.
But Iman isn’t resting on her laurels. She has big plans for the future and for expanding Kind Academy to many more people and places.
'100 Schools in 10 Years', Award-Winning Microschool Founder Shares Her Vision (Forbes.com)
There is something extraordinarily special happening in South Florida these days. It has become a hub of education entrepreneurship and emerging K-12 learning models, creating increasingly more abundant and diverse education options for families.
I recently had the opportunity to spend several days in the Fort Lauderdale area gathering with these incredible microschool founders. Shiren Rattigan is one of them. She runs Colossal Academy, a beautiful and inviting microschool for middle schoolers. Shiren also does an incredible job of connecting local founders and other education entrepreneurs with each other and with the greater community, sharing resources, hosting gatherings, offering support and encouragement, and really helping to accelerate this entrepreneurial cluster of innovative learning models and schooling alternatives.
Colossal Academy is a VELA Education Fund grant recipient, as are many of the other microschools in the South Florida area. VELA is a non-profit, philanthropic organization that offers grants to education entrepreneurs who are creating non-traditional learning options and other schooling alternatives, including microschools, homeschool collaboratives, learning pods, etc.
The Sudbury Valley School is legendary in alternative education and unschooling circles. Founded in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1968, Sudbury Valley has become a beacon for parents and educators interested in non-coercive, self-directed education, and has inspired the creation of dozens of Sudbury-style schools around the world.
Our guest today is Mimsy Sadofsky, one of the original founders of the Sudbury Valley School who continues to work at the school as a full-time staff member.
This episode is also personally very special because I wanted to share with you our family's journey toward enrolling at Sudbury Valley School.
Episode-related links:
Sudbury Valley School open house
Planning kit for starting a Sudbury model school
Award-winning filmmaker and Sudbury Valley School alumna, Laura Poitras
American Journal of Education research paper on SVS graduate outcomes
Free At Last, by SVS cofounder Daniel Greenberg
Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, by Peter Gray
Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, by Kerry McDonald
It’s been a hope-filled week in West Virginia!
Yesterday, the West Virginia Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling against the Hope Scholarship program and lifted the injunction on the scholarship to enable West Virginia families to immediately take advantage of this expansive education choice program—which is the second most comprehensive education savings account (ESA) program in the US, after Arizona’s sweeping school choice legislation was passed and upheld this year.
Today's BONUS episode of the podcast features Jamie Buckland of West Virginia Families United for Education (WVFUE), and Katie Switzer of the Monongalia Forest School.
"How One State Went From Bottom to Top in Education Choice and Innovation" (fee.org)
Chris Turner is a tech entrepreneur turned education entrepreneur who founded Moonrise.com as a colearning space for kids in Decatur, Georgia. I first featured Moonrise in my Forbes column last year and was inspired by Chris’s vision to bring the Moonrise experience to more communities to help make childhood and parenting more joyful and rewarding.
Chris is building an entirely new of category of education that doesn't fit neatly into existing definitional or regulatory boxes. Encouraging education entrepreneurs like Chris to start and scale their businesses by reducing or eliminating regulatory barriers can go a long way toward expanding access to more diverse, creative education options from which families can choose.
Report: "Encouraging Education Entrepreneurship: State Policy Ideas for Supporting the Creation of Innovative K-12 Learning Models and Schooling Alternatives" (State Policy Network)
I have been really excited to see the bundling of education entrepreneurship and innovation in certain regions of the US. You’ll recall that we recently talked about the education entrepreneurship that’s sprouting in New Jersey. There is also a flurry of activity in New Hampshire. I will be spending more time in the coming weeks highlighting the stories of education entrepreneurs who are geographically concentrated, which can often lead to ongoing collaboration and network effects that help to sustain these new enterprises and begin to shift the culture toward a greater embrace of education innovation and schooling alternatives.
Today, I am excited to focus again on Nevada and the burgeoning microschool movement there. You’ll remember back in May we talked to Ashley and Don Soifer from MicroschoolingNV about the gains in Nevada, and especially in the Las Vegas area. And now I am thrilled to introduce you to Emily Grégoire, a Las Vegas homeschooling mother of 4 and education entrepreneur who founded the Rainbow Room as a part-time, full-day, drop-off program for local homeschoolers.
Hannah Frankman is the founder of Rebel Educator, a resource hub for parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs who are seeking or building alternative education models that challenge traditional schooling.
Hannah grew up homeschooled and decided to skip college to pursue other goals, including becoming an entrepreneur. Follow Rebel Educator on Twitter @rebelEducator.
How do state-level education choice policies influence the amount and variety of education entrepreneurship? Kate Baker Demers and I dig into this question and more in today's lively episode.
Kate is the Executive Director of New Hampshire’s Children’s Scholarship Fund, a non-profit organization that helps to administer New Hampshire’s nationally-recognized tax-credit scholarship program, as well as its newly implemented education savings account program.
Kate has been a longtime champion of education choice and opportunity, helping families find the best learning environments for their children and supporting entrepreneurial parents and educators who are looking to launch new schools, microschools, learning pods, homeschooling centers, and more.
There is some microschool magic happening in New Jersey these days. You’ll remember that our very first podcast episode back in February was with Jill Perez, a long time teacher and student-teacher supervisor, whose pandemic pod turned into an established microschool in New Jersey with over 40 kids last year and several teachers whom she recruited from the New York City public schools.
Then, in May, we heard from Lorianne Bolotin who, like Jill, turned her pandemic pod into a full-fledged microschool in New Jersey last fall and continues to grow and expand her program this year.
Today, we get to hear from more New Jersey education entrepreneurs who launched a learner-driven colearning center named The Village Electric in Mountainside, NJ. It opened last fall with 45 kids in grades K-6.
Ben Ashfield and his wife Tammy Tiranasar couldn’t find what they were looking for in terms of schooling options for their own children, so they decided to create it with The Village Electric. They join us today to talk about their vision and to tell us more about why it is that New Jersey is quickly becoming a hub of education entrepreneurship and innovation.
Everyone got a taste of virtual learning in 2020, in the wake of widespread school closures. But the district Zoom schooling that most families encountered was nothing like what real, high-quality, virtual learning platforms can offer. These platforms are designed for an online environment, with curriculum tailored to that medium and with teachers who enthusiastically seek out, and are well trained in, virtual instruction. One of these high-quality, well-established virtual platforms is Arizona State University Prep Digital, or ASU Prep Digital for short.
As someone both personally and professionally interested in ASU Prep Digital and similar high-quality online learning models, I invited ASU Prep Managing Director and Vice President of Educational Outreach, Julie Young, to join me on today’s episode. Julie was the founding President and CEO of the Florida Virtual School, the world’s first virtual statewide school district that began as a small IBM grant initiative in the 1990s and grew to become the largest public K-12 program in the U.S.
Lainie Liberti is an author, speaker, community leader, teen coach and alternative education advocate who helped to spearhead the thriving worldschooling movement. She is also a mentor and source of inspiration for those of us who embrace the philosophy of non-coercive, self-directed education, or "unschooling."
Lainie co-founded Project World School with her son Miro in 2012. They run teen retreats as month-long immersive learning communities to support self-directed teens from around the world.
In 2020, Lainie founded a new organization, Transformative Mentoring for Teens, that offers virtual, one-on-one coaching for teenagers as well as intensive, multi-week courses. Lainie is an adolescent behavioral specialist, certified life coach, and author of the new book, Seen, Heard & Understood: Parenting & Partnering with Teens for Greater Mental Health.
Disruptive innovations begin on the margins and don’t penetrate the mainstream until their quality is proven to be as good, if not better, than more established models. Disruptive innovation is a term that was coined by Clayton Christensen and his colleagues back in the 1990s, and its effects have been seen in many sectors over the years, including education.
In today's episode of the LiberatED podcast, I talk with Michael B. Horn, chairman, co-founder, and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute in Massachusetts. He has written several books on disruptive innovation in education, and his latest book, From Reopen To Reinvent: (Re)creating School for Every Child was just released this summer. Michael serves as an executive editor at Education Next and is a venture partner at NextGen Venture Partners.
Follow Michael on Twitter @michaelbhorn.
Hillsdale College in Michigan was founded in 1844 by abolitionists, and gained widespread notoriety when it refused to accept any federal or state education funds, including indirect funds such as student loans and grants, so that it could retain its full independence.
It also has a reputation for academic excellence and cultural impact. Despite being a small liberal arts college with about 1,500 students, it is a leader in higher education and, now, in K-12 education as well. Hillsdale is expanding its affiliated classical charter school network into several states, as well as providing curriculum support and resources for homeschooling families and classroom teachers.
Our guest today is Dr. Kathleen O’Toole, Assistant Provost for K-12 Education at Hillsdale College, where she leads Hillsdale’s work in K-12 Education. Prior to joining Hillsdale, she was the founding headmaster of Founders Classical Academy of Leander, TX, a classical charter school serving 700 students in grades K-12. Dr. O’Toole holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in American Politics and Political Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, and a B.A. in Politics from the University of Dallas.
Hillsdale K-12 Education Resources
"A College Fights 'Leftist Academics' by Expanding Into Charter Schools," The New York Times
West Virginia has experienced a dramatic expansion of educational freedom, from the state legislature passing a near-universal Education Savings Account Program, called the Hope Scholarship, to loosening state compulsory school attendance laws for participants of learning pods and microschools.
Microschools, learning pods, homeschooling collaboratives, and low-cost private schools are launching or growing to meet parent demand for more education possibilities. The education entrepreneurs who are creating these models are diverse in their educational philosophies, building a dynamic landscape of learning options from which families can choose.
Our guest today is one of these visionary West Virginia education entrepreneurs. Katie Switzer is a mom of four young children and founder of the Monongalia Family Forest School. A mechanical engineer who spent 10 years working at companies such as SpaceX, Katie launched her forest school program last fall and it quickly doubled in size. Her program also recently won a grant from the VELA Education Fund, a philanthropic non-profit whose goal is to provide startup and expansion support for non-traditional K-12 learning models.
Many parents today are understandably concerned about what their children may be learning, or not learning, in school. Curriculum battles have been waged in several states over what government-run schools should and shouldn’t teach, and even some private schools have seen teachers and parents speak out against ideological bias in the classroom, which they say often occurs at the expense of academic rigor.
A champion of individual liberty, limited government, and free markets, Connor Boyack has been instrumental in supporting parents who want to expose their children to the principles of a free society—principles that are frequently ignored or undermined in schools. Connor is the creator of The Tuttle Twins children’s book series, as well as many other books for children, teens, and adults. He is the president of Utah’s Libertas Institute which he founded in 2011.
Connor joins us on this episode to talk about the current state of American education, what parents can do to help balance the perspectives their children are being taught, and his newly released 240-page Tuttle Twins book on American History.
CNN Slams Libertarian Children's Books--Causing Sales to Surge (FEE.org)
From Queens, New York to Charlotte, North Carolina, Tiffany Pierce has been building and expanding homeschooling co-ops and co-learning programs for several years now.
When the pandemic hit, her New York City co-op doubled in size, pivoting to a fully outside model with pop-up tents in local parks. Last year, she relocated to North Carolina and replicated her learning model there, bringing together a new and different group of families for co-learning and connection. Now, she hopes to scale her model with a mobile classroom, and help more communities build schooling alternatives.
LEAF Facebook group
Connect with Tiffany at tiffanyspierce {at} gmail
I love entrepreneurs. They take risks, seize opportunities, invent and innovate, and create abundance for all of us. But I am especially in awe of education entrepreneurs. They plunge into a highly-regulated sector with huge barriers to entry in an effort to challenge the schooling status quo and expand learning options for families.
Manisha Snoyer is one such education entrepreneur. She was a teacher and tutor turned startup founder who has launched various programs and platforms designed to make it easier for parents to personalize their children’s education. Her new startup, Modulo.app, prioritizes child-directed learning while enabling parents to discover resources and tools to help their children grow and flourish.
"I do not think governments should be dictating in any way, shape, or form the content of the minds of children, either in the United States or anywhere else in the world," says Clemson University Professor C. Bradley Thompson in this compelling episode.
Thompson is a Political Science Professor at Clemson University and Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University and has also been a visiting scholar at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of London.
His most recent book is America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It, published in 2019.
You can follow Thompson’s writings on his Substack at https://cbradleythompson.substack.com, and visit his website, EdWatchDaily.com.
Thompson's articles at The Objective Standard
In this episode, recorded live at the 19th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest) in New Hampshire, Michelle McCartney joins the show to talk about how to be an education entrepreneur, including tips and challenges. Michelle is the owner of Granite Minds Homeschooling Center in Weare, New Hampshire, a mom of two, wife, small business owner, and liberty activist.
Granite Minds on Facebook
This episode was recorded live today at the 19th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest) in Lancaster, New Hampshire! It features a conversation with three New Hampshire homeschooling parents about homeschooling and unschooling. We talk about homeschooling rewards and challenges, how the past two years of education distruption impacted the homeschooling community, and advice for new, current, and prospective homeschooling families!
Latitude Learning Resources learning center, Derry, NH
Moms for Liberty - Hillsborough, NH
David D. Friedman, a physicist, economist, and law professor who is the son of the famed Nobel Prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman, is a staunch supporter of unschooling, or the idea of self-directed, non-coercive learning that occurs either as an approach to homeschooling or in “unschooling schools,” such as those schools modeled after the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts.
I wrote extensively about unschooling, Sudbury Valley, and other “unschooling schools” in my 2019 Unschooled book.
I had been familiar with David Friedman’s libertarian writings and focus on anarcho-capitalism, but I somehow missed his focus on unschooling until recently. The most recent edition of Friedman’s well-known book, Machinery of Freedom: Guide to A Radical Capitalism, first published in 1973, includes a chapter on unschooling entitled, "Unschooling: A Libertarian Approach to Children," which also appears on his blog.
Despite today’s dominant cultural messaging that insists that young people must go to college, there are in fact multiple pathways to adulthood and to a fulfilling, successful life.
A longtime leader in building alternatives to college is Praxis, an apprenticeship boot camp program that helps young people to gain mastery of sought-after workplace skills while connecting these apprentices with eager employers.
I am thrilled to be joined on this episode by Cameron Sorsby, CEO of Praxis.
"College Enrollment Drops, Even as the Pandemic's Effects Ebb," New York Times
The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money, by Bryan Caplan
Skip College: Launch Your Career Without Debt, Distractions, or a Degree, edited by Connor Boyack
I came across the work of our guest today, Luma Mufleh, back in 2019. Even then, I was enchanted by the story of how she created Fugees Academy, a successful private school in Georgia for refugee children who are too often overlooked and underserved in traditional district schools. But I recently finished reading Luma’s newly released book, Learning America: One Woman’s Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children, which joins the story of Fugees Academy with her own powerful story as an immigrant, entrepreneur, soccer coach, school founder and change maker, and wife and mother. Truthfully, Learning America is one of the most extraordinary books I have read in awhile, and it should definitely be on the top of your list of books to read this summer.
Fugees Family
Luma Mufleh's 2017 TED Talk
Lorianne Bolotin, an immigrant physician and midwife who grew up in the Dominican Republic, and Jack Bolotin, a finance executive, never thought that they would be in the education business, until mandates and lockdowns of 2020 led them to find an alternative for their children’s education.
After months trying to balance career and homeschooling and connecting with like-minded families, Lorianne and Jack founded Metsada, a Private Membership Association (PMA) dedicated to protecting families’ freedom of choice in health and education.
As a project of Metsada, they created Independence Day Academy, a parent-organized discovery site (PODS) in New Jersey that enables families to have their kids learn in a homeschooling-style environment with high parental involvement, while allowing parents to stay in their jobs and fulfill other demands of daily life.
Metsada is hoping to create a network of independently run learning centers, and shortly after the opening of Independence Day Academy, Lorianne and Jack welcomed Jenny Markus to the Metsada family.
Jenny is a lifelong New Yorker, parent, and self-directed education advocate. She is the co-founder of Coney Island Clubhouse, a child-led learning center in Brooklyn, NY.
In this episode, Lorianne and Jenny talk about their experiences and educational vision.
The past two years have seen a rise in education entrepreneurship, as parents have fled district schools for other options including homeschooling, virtual schools, pandemic pods, and microschools. Entrepreneurs like today's guest are building new learning models that recognize and respond to mounting parent demand for customized schooling alternatives. Amar Kumar is the founder of KaiPod Learning, a fast-growing, venture capital-backed network of learning spaces designed to blend a highly-personalized, online curriculum with a dynamic, social, in-person community. Empowerment, Exit and Entrepreneurship Will Continue to Transform Education (Forbes.com)
Advocates of school choice policies that enable education funding to follow students instead of going to school systems are typically motivated by stories like that of our guest today, Denisha Merriweather. The tax-credit scholarship program that her family stumbled upon when she was young allowed her to escape a public school system that was not serving her well.
In my Forbes spotlight of Denisha earlier this year, she said that school choice changed her life, and she has spent most of her adulthood advocating for expanding school choice policies. Today, she works for the non-profit American Federation for Children promoting school choice through the Black Minds Matter initiative that she founded in 2020. One thing that the Black Minds Matter website does is capture the growing list of hundreds of black-owned schools across the country, helping to elevate their work, inform families of their options, and inspire greater education entrepreneurship.
Microschooling, and its various iterations including learning pods and hybrid homeschools, is swiftly and dramatically changing the face of education across the US. Microschools are modern twists on the quaint, one-room schoolhouse model, where small, typically multi-age groups of students learn together in more intimate educational settings, including private homes and small community spaces, with individualized curriculum and personalized attention from adult educators and mentors.
The microschooling movement was gaining traction before 2020, but interest in this innovative education model has accelerated over the past two years, as Don Soifer and Ashley Campbell have witnessed first-hand.
Don and Ashley lead MicroschoolingNV, a non-profit organization that developed a first-of-its-kind, public-private partnership microschool with the City of North Las Vegas. They have continued their work as leaders in the microschooling movement, helping individuals, businesses, and municipalities across the country to launch microschools.
In 2021, MicroschoolingNV won the prestigious Ed-Prize award for their efforts.
Further Reading:
Got Teacher Burnout? Launch A Microschool
The push for federally-funded universal preschool and child care programs continues despite new data showing the harms of government preschool programs, as well as harms to small community preschool providers who get pushed out of business when a “free” universal preschool program emerges.
To talk more about the educational and economic hazards of universal government preschool programs, I am joined in this episode by Colleen Hroncich who recently published a new policy analysis on this topic for the Cato Institute. Colleen is a policy analyst with Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom.
Further reading:
Vanderbilt University Study Shows Why Biden's Universal Government Preschool Program Would Be a Disaster
The exodus of parents away from conventional schooling and into homeschooling has unleashed extraordinary levels of education entrepreneurship, as visionary parents, educators, and innovators launch new products and services for families choosing to learn outside of a standard classroom environment. One of those "edupreneurs" is this week's podcast guest, Ada Salie. Recognizing the mounting parent demand for new learning programs, last fall Ada launched Life Rediscovered, a learning center in Massachusetts, and she continues to adapt her programming to meet the needs and preferences of local families.
"School has become a toxic place for children and we refuse to say that publicly," asserts Peter Gray in this illuminating episode. Dr. Gray is a psychology professor at Boston College and the author of the book, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.
He speaks and writes frequently on the value of self-directed education, the problems with coercive schooling, and the importance of childhood play, including on his popular Freedom to Learn blog at Psychology Today.
Learn more about Peter Gray's research here.
The past two years of education disruption have catalyzed support for school choice policies that enable education funding to follow students instead of going to bureaucratic school systems that are increasingly unresponsive to parent (and taxpayer) preferences.
In today's episode, Corey DeAngelis, one of the country's leading school choice advocates, talks about why so many Americans now support school choice policies and how these policies expand K-12 learning options for families.
Follow Corey on Twitter @DeAngelisCorey
Link to Corey's articles
School Choice Myths: Setting the Record Straight on Education Freedom, edited by Corey DeAngelis and Neal McCluskey
Education Freedom Pledge
Michael Strong has been a longtime education entrepreneur and advocate of free markets and school choice. He has teamed up with Chris Engl to launch the Liberation of Education, helping parents recognize the many education options available to them. Their first major initiative is an online spring conference showcasing education entrepreneurship, innovative K-12 learning models, and education policy trends.
Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, by Michael Strong
Jack Lloyd worked as a lawyer and teacher, which helped shape his views on education early in his career and led him to become a proponent of self-directed learning and unschooling. Today, Jack is a producer for liberty, creating content for a variety of media sites, including The Honest Teacher, and The Pholosopher.
In this episode, we talk about education, libertarianism, and Jack's new book, The Definitive Guide to Libertarian Voluntaryism.
Hybrid schools blur the lines between schooling and homeschooling, expand education choice access to the middle class, and offer personalized, family-centered, hyper-local learning solutions.
Today's podcast guest is Eric Wearne, an Associate Professor in the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and Director of the National Hybrid Schools Project. He is also the author of the 2020 book, Defining Hybrid Homeschools in America: Little Platoons.
Tolerance of different viewpoints and values is a key principle of a free society, and yet in classrooms and on campuses across the country, young people increasingly self-censor and self-silence to avoid speaking out against the dominant cultural narrative. Some may not even realize that there are different viewpoints and values, conditioned as they are from their early days in a public school classroom to accept whatever their teachers say. And their teachers are being similarly conditioned, spending time in schools of education that tie grades to ideological activism and link achievement to allegiance with an approved interpretation of concepts like “social justice” and critical race theory.
All of this can lead parents to wonder what they can do to help prevent their children from being indoctrinated into a belief system that may run counter to their own values or may not allow for viewpoint diversity.
The answer, according to Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder, is to undoctrinate your kids. Bonnie is the director of high school outreach at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and author of the new and important book, Undoctrinate: How Politicized Classrooms Harm Kids and Ruin Our Schools—and What We Can Do About It.
New Hampshire takes the lead as the freest state in the country, according to a new Cato Institute analysis of personal and economic freedom.
Not surprisingly, people seem to gravitate toward freedom. In fact, while states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts lost population between July 2020 and July 2021 according to the US Census Bureau, New Hampshire saw its population grow during that time.
The state is also gaining a reputation for educational freedom, thanks in large part to the work of our guest in this episode, New Hampshire Commissioner of Education, Frank Edelblut. During Edelblut’s term in the state education department, New Hampshire has expanded school choice policies and introduced an exciting program called “Learn Everywhere,” that enables students to accrue high school graduation credits outside of their schools through their community activities and extracurriculars.
Edelblut is also a homeschooling dad of seven, now-grown children who is supportive of homeschooling families throughout New Hampshire.
"New Hampshire Is The Freest State in America: Here's Why," by David Brady (fee.org)
"Want to 'Learn Everywhere' In NH?," by Kerry McDonald (The Union Leader)
The American Dream is alive and well, as David Morales illustrates in his powerful, new book, American Familia: A Memoir of Perseverance. David spent his childhood in Puerto Rico and moved to Massachusetts when he was 11, where he was surrounded by the love of his family but also widespread poverty and despair. Determined not to be a statistic and instead to seize the opportunity this country offers, David began embracing an attitude of self-reliance and self-improvement in his early teen years that would ultimately lead to his personal and professional success. His tenacity and grit enabled David to rise above his impoverished beginnings and achieve the American Dream.
Teachers and doctors are confronting similar challenges related to institutional bureaucracy and rising levels of professional burnout. Teachers, in particular, have been quitting at record rates over the past two years, leading to a nationwide teacher shortage. Some of these teachers are leaving the education sector entirely, but more of them are striking out on their own to create microschools, tutoring programs, and other educational services.
Entrepreneurs like Josh and Kirk Umbehr are helping individuals to build these new models. The Kansas-based brothers are the cofounders of a.school, a learning management platform for teachers who are creating new educational programs. The pair launched a similar platform, Atlas.md, several years ago when Josh, a family physician, realized the growing demand for direct primary care practices.
Today, doctors and teachers are exiting entrenched institutions and building exciting, new models that offer greater freedom and flexibility for all.
More Patients Turning to 'Direct Primary Care' (WebMD article featuring Atlas.md)
Got Teacher Burnout? Launch A Microschool (Forbes.com article)
It’s been a tragic few days in Ottawa, Canada as the Canadian government used rare emergency powers to round up and arrest peaceful protesters and freeze their bank accounts. It’s hard to believe this is happening in North America, and in peace-loving Canada no less.
My guest today is Patti Tinholt, a Canadian mother of 5 children and a successful wellness entrepreneur who is deeply saddened by the recent events in her beloved country. She talks about what she has witnessed, what we should say to our children about this current moment, and what she thinks the future holds.
Will freedom prevail over force?
You won't want to miss my conversation with Patti of Joy, Health, Freedom.
According to new data released from the US Census Bureau on Dec 21st, California led the nation in the most population loss in 2021, after years of increase. The other top two states for population loss last year were Illinois and New York. In contrast, Florida and Texas topped the Census list of states with population gains between 2020 and 2021. States' varied responses to the coronavirus have likely influenced this population shift.
People are moving from states like California, Illinois, and New York which had, and continue to have, some the most restrictive coronavirus policies, and are heading to freer and more open states.
Bretigne Shaffer is one of the many people who has left California for more freedom and opportunity elsewhere. She talks about her family's decision, and what she thinks of her new home, in this episode.
Follow Bretigne at Bretigne.com
Learn more about the Freogan Fellowship at Freoganfellowship.org
Listen to Bretigne's podcast, What Then Must We Do?
Read the FEE article, “I Was Fired From My Teaching Job for Refusing to Get Vaccinated. Here’s How I Prepared,” by Joshua Mawhorter
Read the FEE article, "New York, California, and Illinois Saw Historic Population Drops in 2021," by Peter Jacobsen.
The coronavirus response over the past two years has transformed education, putting parents back in the driver’s seat and inspiring education entrepreneurs to create new K-12 learning models. Jill Perez is one of these educators. A longtime teacher and mom of 4, Jill is the founder of Tranquil Teachings Learning Center in Monmouth County, New Jersey that is meeting mounting parent demand for freer and more flexible education options.
Join the discussion at the LiberatED Podcast Community Facebook group!
Connect with Kerry at fee.org/kerry.