School choice: Vital, but not automatic
Post-pandemic America is in a heyday for school choice, at least in red states. From Florida to Ohio to Arizona, parents can get new state subsidies via education savings accounts (ESAs) to choose extracurricular activities, support homeschooling, or pay at least partial tuition in private schools. Elected officials and advocates behind these new supports for […]
The rise of unconventional teaching roles: How do educators in these roles feel about them?
Many are talking about ways to rethink the role of teaching these days, whether by reorganizing teachers into teams, leveraging community educators, or allowing teachers to teach in unconventional school models like micro-schools. In the past, the motivation to experiment with new staffing models was sometimes in response to teacher labor shortages, teacher burnout, or […]
Don’t engage families: Liberate them
I set out to reflect on parent engagement as we settled into another school year in the U.S. where 84% of Black eighth-graders lack proficiency in reading. And then something happened. On the evening of Sept. 19, more than 30 Oakland, Calif. mamas, grandmas, dads, and uncles graduated from the Oakland REACH’s Literacy Liberator fellowship. […]
Unconventional private schools are attracting parents with tailored offerings. Public schools can, too.
Small learning environments that operate outside public schools—such as microschools, hybrid homeschools, and learning pods—exploded into broad public consciousness during the pandemic. While many children who were in these programs have now returned to public school, entrepreneurs continue to expand alternative learning options, and many families are interested in what they offer. One thing is abundantly […]
Teachers want to innovate. Schools that don’t let them are losing out
This piece was originally published in The 74. Waite: Education entrepreneurs are taking their creativity and ingenuity to hybrid schools and microschools — and taking their students with them At the end of April, I attended a conference in Atlanta featuring a small but heterogenous group of self-described education entrepreneurs. It was the second year […]
