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Ranging from 15 to 72 years old. Adults are getting a High School diploma not a GED, proving to themselves that they can succeed in school. 

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Ranging from 15 to 72 years old. Adults are getting a High School diploma not a GED, proving to themselves that they can succeed in school. 

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The Goodwill Excel Center Adult Charter High School is the only adult charter in the district that awards a real high school diploma rather than a GED. After seven years in operation, it boasts about 500 graduates, all of them searching for a second chance to prove to the world - and themselves - that they can succeed in school.

Excel does it by front-loading essential services and personalizing everything it can. Among its features: on-site childcare, free transportation to and from school and classes that meet just four days a week - Fridays are devoted almost exclusively to tutoring. And each student has an academic coach.

The typical class size is just 10 to 12 students, with many even smaller. It does all this, its leaders say, with the same level of funding that other D.C. charter high schools get: about $16,000 to $21,000 per student.

"People know your name, know your story - and then your coach is your main person," said Chelsea Kirk, the schools' executive director, who calls the approach "curated" to the students it serves.

The individualized approach is intentional, designed to reframe the task of high school completion.

"We like to put high school dropouts into a box and say, 'This is why they're a dropout,'" Kirk said. "But we don't ever think about what structures caused that. We don't ever think about 'How could a school change its structures to embrace people?'"

Like Jeffery, many graduates push to get their diplomas because they want to work as attorneys, social workers and the like, devoting their lives to changing the "poor service and broken systems" they've experienced in school and elsewhere as they looked for help.

Doing it for someone

Many Excel students push for their high school diploma because not having it is holding them back from promotions and higher salaries. One alumnus told the school he worked as a paralegal at the same law firm for 18 years, earning minimum wage. A diploma bumped his salary by $20,000.

But for others, the reasons are highly personal. Carla Thompson, 41, said she made her way to Excel after one of her four children, ages 9 to 21, began asking about the point of finishing high school instead of dropping out and getting a job.

"My 14-year-old is questioning that part," she said. "I can't be a hypocrite and say, 'You have to,' and I don't have it."

Brendan Hurley, who handles public affairs for the D.C.-area Goodwill region, said messaging for the school has adjusted to this reality. When the school opened in 2016,recruiting materials were "very data driven," with statistics on how much more high school graduates earn and how they're more likely to find sustainable employment. Two years in, an alumni focus group found that message paled in comparison to the blush of pride students felt from simply getting the diploma and sharing the accomplishment with their loved ones.

"It's the diploma itself that's important," said Hurley. "They want that piece of paper. They want the high school experience that they did not have when they were 16, 17, 18 years old."

The big prize, Kirk added, is the external validation they get, the ability to hold their head up among their children and grandchildren. She calls it a "two-generation" approach. "It's not just about you. It's about the next generation and a generation after that."

'Small wins'

The Excel model originated in Indiana in 2010, when Goodwill centers there struggled to find high school graduates to be front-line store workers. It has since spread to five states and D.C.

The approach takes hold at a moment when U.S. high school graduation rates, while never higher at 86%, are unequally distributed. In fact, D.C. has the worst graduation rate in the nation, at 69%, far below even the worst two states, New Mexico and Arizona.

In D.C., enrollment in the two campuses now sits at 405, with a planned, separately privately funded campus in Baltimore this fall as well. The student body is overwhelmingly Black and about 70% female. For these students, the schools maintain a full-time staff of 49 - many of them younger than the students they serve.

Discussions with Goodwill about opening the center began in 2014, when it got a grant from D.C. to train employees at a planned Marriott hotel. But they found that the No. 1 barrier to jobs at the hotel was a lack of high school diploma. The school opened two years later among the corporate and government highrise canyons just north of The White House. Another campus opened last year near D.C.'s National Mall.

Though most Excel students come from the poorest neighborhoods in the city, miles from downtown, the schools' geography is intentional, Kirk said: Students wanted safe locations away from the crime and violent schools of their neighborhoods. But they also wanted a place that brought them into contact each morning with professional opportunities. As it is, the original school lies squarely between the World Bank and the Council on Foreign Relations.

One key to the school's success is its prioritization of "small wins" for students who may have had few of them in school until now. For instance, a big difference between Excel and virtually every other school model is its academic calendar. No matter what their education or skill level when they enter, every student starts as a ninth-grader and proceeds at her own pace, without a cohort of classmates on the same track.

Students ideally can complete their entire high school education in just two years, with individualized education plans and tutoring for every student that allow them to maintain work and family duties. In reality, many students complete the program more slowly, coming and going as life allows - a few who graduated this July first enrolled in 2016, when the center's doors opened.

The school licenses with the local YMCA to run a full-time, licensed daycare and child development center upstairs from the classrooms.

And instead of 20-week semesters, as in most high schools, Excel offers all its courses in five compact eight-week terms, all of them based on competency, not seat time. Four assessments over the course of each term keep students on track.

But if they lose the thread of a course and tutoring doesn't help, they can simply start over again at the end of eight weeks, without having to wait months or even a year for a "re-do," a major pain point for many students who drop out.

For students with heavy work or family commitments, the school offers a nearly unheard-of accommodation: Staying enrolled requires taking just one class per term.

Jeffery, the valedictorian, showed up to the school in the spring of 2022, after years of bouncing between jobs: dental assistant, tax preparer, fast-food restaurant manager.

"I can get a job without a high school diploma," he said. "I have experience. I know I could have probably come out here and got a job that pays well with my resume. But that wasn't my plan. My plan was to do more with myself because I know I can do more."

He was ready to get on with his schoolwork: "I told them just to fill my schedule up, give me all the classes I can take." He graduated barely a year after he started.

With the school's help, he's close to moving into his own place, if a background check clears. But he acknowledges that he's spent a lot of time "lost, trying to find my way."

By Jeffery's telling, upon his arrest in Texas in 2004, authorities offered this deal: Plead guilty to felony assault stemming from a fight at a nearby high school and walk away with time served plus probation. Or risk going to trial for the fight and serve as much as eight years in prison. Because he was a juvenile, the records remain sealed.

He'd been at the school the night of the fight, but nowhere near the clash, he said - and he hadn't even been questioned about it while sitting in jail for months. But he soon realized he had no choice: With a public defender who did little to stand up for him, Jeffery said, he took the plea deal and earned his release shortly after his 18th birthday.

"I didn't know how the system worked," he recalled, the ordeal still stinging nearly two decades later. "The lawyer that I had, and the judge, they didn't fight for me. They didn't care. They just wanted to get a conviction and call it a day."

For the past year or so, Jeffery's been known to spend more time than most at the school's downtown campus, arriving early and leaving late, ferreting out the teachers who can offer a bit of extra tutoring. He made a point to get to know every teacher and administrator, lingering over conversations before heading back to his tent.

"Those cold nights and those hot summers and those rainy days and those rats, those people who are under the influence of all kinds, they're not fun to live around," he said. The school was "my escape from that world."

'I came in like a sour lemon'

The school follows12 accountability goals set by D.C.'s Public Charter School Board. One of them requires Excel to graduate 20% to 25% of its students each year, which it typically does. According to its 2019 school quality report, it graduated 31.7% and exceeded the board's reading and math proficiency goals. In 2022, it graduated 25%; this year that dropped to 22%, still meeting the board's goals.

Its annual attendance goal: 60%, but the school adjusts to students' lives if they show a willingness to persevere and be honest when they can't make it to class. If students have two consecutive absences, the school requests that they create an attendance plan with their academic coach. Students can be kicked out if they don't meet the requirements, but can easily reapply.

Many students, Kirk said, work overnight jobs and care for children and grandchildren, as well as parents. And many, approaching and in some cases exceeding middle age, have health issues that keep them away.

"We don't take it lightly that you show up," she said.

Cheryl Smith, 49, enrolled at Excel 33 years after leaving her D.C. middle school at the end of eighth grade - and a year after beating a lifelong PCP addiction, one that began around the time she dropped out of school. An adoptee who never met her biological parents, Smith had children of her own very young. She eventually had three kids, all before turning 20.

She can count the number of times she tried to quit PCP: 35. Her addiction tore her family apart. Her two sons would eventually be put up for adoption, but she stayed connected to them through a friend and has once more become a steady presence in their lives. Her kids all grew up, and she's now a grandmother of eight.

She enrolled in 2021, recalling, "When I came here, they opened up their arms to me. I came in like a sour lemon, but rose to be an apple."

For Smith, getting her diploma amounts to a kind of redemption and face-saving for her grandkids, the oldest of which is now 16, who spent their lives seeing their grandmother get high.

"The older ones knew," she said. Though she never used drugs around her grandkids, they all saw the aftermath: "sitting there, looking stupid."

She tried to get clean one last time, saying to herself: "I'm just tired of it. It's not a good look."

She had extra motivation: The birth of her youngest grandson Dontae, now 3. Born premature, at just 2 lbs. 11 oz., the size of your hand, "he came out eating," Smith said, thus earning the nickname Munchy.

Now in her care much of the time, he'd come to school with her most mornings, spending his days in the YMCA childcare center upstairs. Growing up in D.C., she said, he'll undoubtedly see drug use around him. But not from his grandma.

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Positive affirmation

In the end, the secret of the school's success may boil down to the simplest of principles: It believes in its students. Ask any Excel student what they missed in their high school career and they'll easily tell you: a sense of possibility, of success.

"That's the piece that a lot of our students have missed, that affirmation piece, that 'Atta boy,'" said Vershaun Terry, who heads special education for the schools. "They want to be seen."

Many observers might mistakenly believe that positive affirmations are only for small children. Even prospective staffers at the school believe they're walking into a space where adults can succeed without a lot of affirmation, Terry said.

"They don't. They come in chronologically at a higher age, but socially, emotionally, they're youth," he said. Many still need that guidance, those affirmations, that structure. "They have a whole world out there to take care of, but they still need it here. They need to get refilled here, too."

As for Cheryl Smith, she graduated alongside Jeffery and 54 others, 35 years after she finished middle school. She has told Kirk she wants to mentor students at Excel, but for now she's grateful for the opportunity to be a role model after all these years. Next she wants to get off disability and find a home that's not Section 8 public housing.

"I'll be 50 next year," she said. "When I get older, I want to be able to sit back in my rocking chair with my great-grandkids and be able to tell the story: 'Yeah, Grandma was a pistol, but she turned out to be a winner.' "

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A High School for Dropouts: Goodwill Offers Adults a Second Chance at a Diploma

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From the organization known for second-hand records and cookware comes a school devoted to personalized attention and 'small wins.'

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The 13th Grade: A model for engaging disconnected youth, those unemployed and not attending college.

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The 13th Grade: A model for engaging disconnected youth, those unemployed and not attending college.

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Why One NYC High School Created ‘13th Grade’ to Help Alumni After Graduation

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Thousands of young adults are not working or going to college. How high schools like NYC’s MESA Charter can bolster support well after graduation.

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Abstinence-only sexual education programs and the lack of evidence-based sexual education for America’s youth leaves them vulnerable to health risks and disparities.

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Abstinence-only sexual education programs and the lack of evidence-based sexual education for America’s youth leaves them vulnerable to health risks and disparities.

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*Correction appended.
Your trusted source for contextualizing education and health news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.
The type of sex ed students in this country receive depends largely on the state they call home. Some youth learn about the importance of consent or contraception, while others receive instruction on abstinence or sexually transmitted infections. Some don't get any sex ed at all.

What nearly all students in the nation have in common, however, is that they live in states that don't require them to be taught comprehensive sexuality education.

Characterized by experts as the gold standard of sex ed, comprehensive lessons are medically accurate, LGBTQ+ inclusive and age appropriate. They address sexual behavior and sexual health, human development and healthy relationships, and research has found that students who receive comprehensive sex ed delay the onset of sexual activity.

Just three states - California, Oregon and Washington - require comprehensive sex ed to be taught in all schools, according to the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). That's a reality that new legislation introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee seeks to change.

By creating federal funding for high quality sex ed, the Real Education and Access for Healthy Youth Act (REAHYA) encourages states nationwide to provide students with evidence-based instruction and sexual health services that are comprehensive, equitable, medically accurate, culturally responsive, trauma-informed and resilience-oriented, among other criteria. In addition to learning about the prevention of STIs and pregnancy, students would learn about interpersonal violence, autonomy in health care and gender identity. Particular attention would be given to addressing how marginalized youth haven't historically received equitable access to sex ed or sexual health services.

"Education is power, and young people have the right to make decisions over their own bodies," Lee, a California Democrat, told The 19th via email. "Abstinence-only sexual education programs and the lack of evidence-based sexual education for America's youth leaves them vulnerable to health risks and disparities. The REAHYA Act would close these disparities in sexual education by giving all students access to the personalized information they need to be safe."

Many of the states that limit what students learn about gender and sexuality also restrict access to reproductive rights, making comprehensive sex ed "exponentially more important," Lee said.

"Those on the far-right want to attack people's ability to make their own decisions over their bodies, while also depriving people of the information necessary to remain well-informed," she said. "They need to keep all of their bans off our bodies and our books."

The legislation has been referred to the Subcommittee on Health and includes 38 cosponsors, including Reps. Alma Adams and Pramila Jayapal as well as Sens. Mazie Hirono and Cory Booker, all Democrats.

REAHYA would provide $100 million in funding from 2024 to 2029 for both K-12 schools and higher education institutions to teach comprehensive sex ed, with a particular focus on serving marginalized young people that have often been unable to obtain quality instruction.

Two years ago, Lee unsuccessfully introduced REAHYA legislation. During an age of parents' rights bills, censorship laws and other legislation that limits what students can learn, what gives her hope about the bill's prospects in Congress this time around?

"Republicans may have the majority, but we have the momentum and the people on our side," Lee said. "I am hopeful that our coalition for reproductive rights and comprehensive health care, including sexual education, will take back the power in Congress and enshrine our rights to make decisions over our own bodies into law."

REAHYA is also drawing attention from young people. In July, Diya Kejriwal, a member of the Teen Advocacy Council of Girls Inc. - a nonprofit that started in 1864 that works to help K-12 girls reach their potential - made a trip to Washington, D.C., with other youth from the organization to lobby for the legislation.

Members of the Teen Advocacy Council of Girls Inc. meet in Washington, D.C., to lobby for legislation. (Girls Inc.)

Kejriwal prepared a presentation, complete with testimonials, about the bill and the importance of comprehensive sexuality education. The 17-year-old Georgian said that she only briefly received sex ed instruction in fifth grade and middle school. In Georgia, schools offer sex education and AIDS prevention education, but the curriculum does not have to meet the National Sex Education Standards developed by the Future of Sex Education (FoSE) Initiative, a partnership between sexual health nonprofits Advocates for Youth, Answer, and SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change.

Instead, Georgia's sex ed instruction stresses abstinence until marriage. Last year, the state enacted a law barring divisive concepts in education generally, and this month a teacher was fired for reading a book to fifth graders about gender fluidity.

As a Georgia high school student, Kejriwal said that she's noticed that many of her peers get information about sex from social media sites like TikTok and X (the site formerly known as Twitter) because they don't have access to it in school.

"And that is just not accurate," she said of the material they encounter on social media. "It's not where kids should be getting their information from. It's just something I've always felt very strongly about because it's very clear in certain situations that people do not have accurate sexual education."

She's witnessed classmates ridiculing LGBTQ+ people out of ignorance, she said, and comprehensive sex ed may help to educate students and chip away at their biases.

Lee told The 19th that she is inspired by young people like Kejriwal, but she said students shouldn't have to travel to Washington to fight for their "basic rights."

"Health care is a right, not a privilege," she said. "Young people want to make decisions about their own bodies, and there is no world in which they should be deprived of the information they need to do so."

Gillian Sealy, the chief of staff at Power to Decide - which advocates for bodily autonomy, especially the circumstances under which individuals get pregnant and have children - said that not educating young people about issues such as puberty, adolescence and menstruation is tantamount to cruelty.

On July 1 in Florida, where Sealy lives, House Bill 1069 took effect. That law expands previous legislation widely known as the "Don't Say Gay" law to limit K-12 instruction on human sexuality, reproductive health and gender identity. It also requires students and staff to solely be referred to by the pronouns that correspond with their assigned sex at birth.

"Last summer, the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade really opened up the floodgates to state-level bans and restrictions not just on abortion, as we thought it would, but what we're also seeing now in terms of restrictions on sexuality education and access to reproductive care," Sealy said. "And real people suffer. We've seen a huge amount of purposeful misinformation about sexual health topics, and there is real confusion and fear that this is creating."

Sealy said that teachers now hesitate to discuss a wide range of topics with students for fear that they could be punished. This does a disservice to educators and students, she said.

Stephanie Hull, president and CEO of Girls Inc., is concerned that the lack of comprehensive sex ed mandates across the country makes girls feel it is taboo to talk about their bodies.

"What we're trying to say is gender equity depends on bodily autonomy," Hull said. "It depends on access for women to all rights, that education is a right, that education about your body, therefore, is a right, and we're looking to combat harassment and violence, and we're looking to promote menstrual equity. All of those things are part of a big picture of making sure that women stand in leadership roles and feel the power that they really are entitled to."

REAHYA notes that marginalized youth have faced inequities in sex ed instruction and that Black students specifically are more likely to receive abstinence-only instruction, or "sexual risk avoidance" instruction, which is not as effective as comprehensive sex ed. The disparity contributes to Black students, as well as Indigenous and Latinx youth, disproportionately experiencing STIs, unintended pregnancies and sexual assaults.

Sealy said the time has come to end the myth that comprehensive sex ed will cause young people to rush into sex when research indicates the opposite. That some youth receive abstinence-only sex ed and others get comprehensive sex ed depending on where they live fuels inequity, she added. One's ZIP code shouldn't determine the quality of sexuality education offered to a student, she said.

While Sealy wants schools to provide comprehensive sex ed, she said classrooms are just one piece of a larger puzzle. Both parents and schools can play a role in teaching students about sexual health.

"When we teach comprehensive sex ed at school, that does not mean that somehow the parents' role is negated," she said. "We're hearing that, 'Oh, parents should be the only ones to talk to students about sex and not the school.' Truthfully, it is a collaborative effort, and the parents' rights and their responsibilities are in no way diminished or negated because a student can get comprehensive sex ed at school."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated what REAHYA requires.

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Many states don't require schools to teach sex ed. A new bill hopes to change that.

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The Real Education and Access for Healthy Youth Act urges states nationwide to provide inclusive, trauma-informed sex education in schools.

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Young adults in the U.S. are more likely to turn to pornography than any other source to learn about sex. Massachusetts wants to change that.  

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Young adults in the U.S. are more likely to turn to pornography than any other source to learn about sex. Massachusetts wants to change that.  

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In June 2023, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shared with the public a draft of a new framework that will guide how elementary, middle and high schools in the state approach sex education.

The last time Massachusetts issued guidelines that specify expectations for what Massachusetts students learn about sex in schools was 24 years ago, when most U.S. homes were not yet internet-connected.

The new guidelines are part of a larger framework that addresses many aspects of health, including physical education, nutrition and hygiene. They include important improvements over the 1999 version, including standards that pertain to the well-being of gender and sexual minority populations. That's noteworthy, given that other U.S. states have recently prohibited classroom education about gender identity and sexual orientation.

The draft Massachusetts framework has been in development since 2018 but is not yet final. After a public comment period, which is open until Aug. 28, the framework is subject to approval by the commonwealth's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and could be adopted as early as the fall of 2023.

I'm a public health researcher who focuses on sex education and healthy relationships. I have co-developed and tested a new sex education module for high school students in Massachusetts with funding from the National Institutes of Health, so I read the part of the framework that deals with sex education with great interest.

I'll provide some more detail on the Massachusetts framework below, but first it is important to understand the state of sex education in the U.S.

Sex education and pornography

Many young people in the U.S are not getting the sex education that they need. Currently, only 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia mandate any kind of sex education. As a result, it isn't surprising that fewer than half of U.S. adolescents say that they have received information about where to get birth control before having heterosexual intercourse for the first time. And the racial disparities are concerning: Black and Hispanic teens are less likely than white teens to receive education about prevention of sexually transmitted infections or HIV, or where to get birth control.

So where do teenagers and young adults go to get information about sex, in the absence of comprehensive sex education at school?

According to a nationally representative study that my team published in 2021, young adults in the U.S. are more likely to turn to pornography than to their friends, parents, doctors or any other source. That's a problem, because pornography isn't designed to relay medically accurate or helpful information about sex - it's designed to get clicks or likes, make money and entertain the viewer.

Massachusetts is not one of the states that mandates sex education. However, state law does require all public schools to teach health education. As a local control state, Massachusetts issues frameworks and guidance and allows local school districts boards to decide how to implement them. This approach will continue with the new framework once adopted.

Importantly, the new Massachusetts framework recognizes the prevalence of pornography, and it addresses other critical sex education topics for the modern world.

For example, the framework specifies that in grades 6 to 8, adolescents should learn about laws related to sexual digital imagery. This is important because otherwise they may not realize that possessing or sending nude digital photos of people younger than 18 years old is a crime even if the sender is also a minor.

The framework also suggests that adolescents should be able to analyze similarities and differences between friendships, romantic relationships and sexual relationships, and discuss various ways to show affection within each. It expects them to be able to define sexual consent and describe factors, such as drug and alcohol use, that can influence capacity to give consent. It recommends teaching strategies to help students recognize when someone is grooming or recruiting a young person for possible commercial sexual exploitation like human trafficking.

While these points are strong, I would like to see a recommendation that schools tell youth that mainstream online pornography is not a good source of information about sexual behavior.

A series of online games

Our research team, which includes Kimberly Nelson of Boston University,, Ph.D student Julia Campbell of the University of North Carolina and BU masters student Tomeka Frieson, has been working on new sex education teaching materials for Massachusetts high schools for the past two years. As researchers, we endeavored to create an online sex education module that reflected the best available evidence and feedback that we got from young people.

Our teaching materials are in the form of short, online games that students engage with on their own time, and then come back to the classroom to discuss. One of the games has students order the effectiveness of 11 different contraceptive methods. Another provides them with information about ways pornography can provide unhelpful expectations about sex and sexuality. A third game invites students to act as an advice columnist to solve relationship problems for peers.

When we tested the materials with 54 teens ages 14-18 years old in Massachusetts in 2022, we found a statistically significant positive impact on a range of outcomes, from increased condom use to fewer experiences of abuse by a dating partner. We will partner with a number of Massachusetts high schools in the next several years to continue testing the impact of our module.

Reading the framework

In reading the new Massachusetts guidelines, our team noted several strengths of its approach.

First, the framework is evidence-based. In other words, the recommendations reflect the latest and best available research about how adolescents develop, learn and behave with regard to sex and sexuality.

Second, the guidance is developmentally and age-appropriate, with different recommendations for different grade levels, and with careful attention to diverse perspectives, cultural differences, and the importance of delivering material in a way that would not traumatize students.

Third, the framework encourages youths' critical thinking, reasoning, decision-making and problem-solving.

It is my hope that Massachusetts will strengthen the guidance on pornography. If it does, the new framework will be well positioned to serve as a national model.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Massachusetts is Updating its Sex Ed Guidelines for the First Time in 24 Years

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A dozen U.S. states still do not mandate sex education in schools.

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Gen Z wants K-12 schooling to provide them with practical knowledge and skills that lead to more education, training and career options after graduation than they now have.

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Gen Z wants K-12 schooling to provide them with practical knowledge and skills that lead to more education, training and career options after graduation than they now have.

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What Gen Z Teens Are Asking About Education, Work and Their Future

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Manno: Survey of HS students shows they have doubts about college, want to learn essential skills early and value a healthy work-life balance.

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Gen Z students believe work experience is more important than a college education.

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Gen Z students believe work experience is more important than a college education.

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Consumed with pandemic-era grief, Gen Z's apathy towards attending college has grown - even influencing students as young as middle schoolers.

A new YPulse report found two in five Gen Z students agreed with the statement: "The pandemic has made me less interested in pursuing higher education."

Middle school students, generally 11 to 13 years old, not only contribute to the trend but also lead the view that work experience is more valuable.

That attitude has translated into an 8% decline in college enrollment from 2019 to 2022, showing how attending college is no longer a given for Gen Z.

"Seeing the way many Millennials are saddled with insurmountable debt from the higher ed system, and knowing from their online lives that other paths are possible, these high school and even middle school students are reconsidering if they even need college to be successful," YPulse wrote in the report.

Gen Z advocates Brian Femminella, co-founder and chief executive officer of SoundMind, Bella Santos, community leadership board president of The Conversationalist, and Ian Gates, policy and program quality fellow of The Opportunity Project Tulsa talked about key takeaways from the report:

1. The vast majority of Gen Z middle school students say they don't see a future pursuing college.

YPulse found 80% of Gen Z middle school students and 85% of high school students plan to go to college compared to 100% pre-pandemic.

Gates, 22, said pandemic-era online learning showed younger Gen Z students how monotonous taking classes can be - whether they're in middle school, high school, community college or a four-year institution.

"[Gen Z] is thinking about different options now," Gates told The 74. "A lot of us are thinking about non-college careers...like being a Youtuber, influencer and other alternate paths like that."

Femminella, 23, said his own college education didn't necessarily help him start his mental health company.

"When I see how a lot of younger kids would rather do something else, I applaud that," Femminella told The 74. "We need more folks that want to do different things and shouldn't fall into the stigma of college being a must."

Gen Z Entrepreneurs Tackle Youth Mental Health Crisis With Music Therapy

2. Gen Z students are more likely to find Google and YouTube more helpful than a teacher.

YPulse found Gen Z students were more likely to choose Google and YouTube over a teacher when asked: "If you wanted to learn something new, what resources would you use?"

Santos, 20, wasn't shocked.

"There is often not a ton of oversight when it comes to how choosy schools are with who gets to teach - especially in public schools," Santos told The 74. "Teachers and the system in which they teach aren't always suited for success to begin with."

Gates said disparaging parent attitudes towards teachers and school curriculum also had an effect on how Gen Z grows up to question the value of a college education.

"With the parental rights movement, certainly when you're telling your kid 'hey your teachers are trying to indoctrinate you and make you communist and make you gay' it obviously gets to them," Gates said.

Gates added how states such as Florida, which have banned AP Psychology and AP African American Studies, contribute to Gen Z's disinterest in pursuing higher education by not exposing them to diverse courses.

3. Gen Z college students struggle to stay interested in their classes and believe they don't teach practical skills.

YPulse found 55% of current Gen Z undergraduate students and 38% of Gen Z graduate students found their classes not relevant to their lives - in part because college doesn't teach practical skills such as mental health skills, cooking and personal finance.

"Learning should be an enriching experience no matter what your interests are," Santos said. "Yet school systems are often set up to just drill information into people's brains."

Femminella said mental health concerns should be the foundation on which professors shape their curriculum.

"There are some moments when students in college need to have a mental health day because they're overworked," Femminella said. "There's not a lot of outlets and resources until it's too late...and you're really in the midst of a mental health crisis when there's ways to avoid that."

Femminella also said colleges should require personal finance and cooking courses.

"A lot of colleges forget that when Gen Z students close their computer, they're a human and have to go do other human things like pay bills, cook and clean," Femminella said. "I think it's something that should just be incorporated into the entire university structure."

4. Gen Z students wish they learned about alternative career paths growing up.

YPulse found that 74% of Gen Z students wish they learned more about alternative career paths compared to a traditional college education.

Santos said the social stigma of not attending college is declining among Gen Z students.

"I don't think it's for everyone, I don't think it's necessary, so it makes sense that other people in my generation see that," Santos said.

Gates added how this is especially true for students who come from immigrant families and used to feel "the pressure that college is just what's next."

"Gen Z knows people are graduating college with all these loans," Gates said. "They're taking that into account, especially those from lower income families, and asking themselves if college is really worth it."

What Gen Z Teens Are Asking About Education, Work and Their Future

5. Gen Z students believe work experience is more important than a college education.

YPulse found that 57% of Gen Z middle school students and 49% of Gen Z high school students believe work experience is more important than a college education.

Femminella said work experience has been the most helpful tool to his success.

"When you're in your field and you get to practice, you also get to fail," Femminella said. "And by failing you learn the most, and that's been invaluable to starting my company."

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Gen Z's Declining College Interest Persists - Even Among Middle Schoolers

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Three Gen Z advocates on how the pandemic-era trend continues to grow, pointing to the need for colleges to rethink their outreach strategies.

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Taking a note from other developed countries: AI is your friend not the enemy in the classroom. 

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Taking a note from other developed countries: AI is your friend not the enemy in the classroom. 

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Rapid developments in artificial intelligence, especially generative AI (which is trained to analyze large amounts of data and can produce original content) have taken U.S. schools by surprise. In part due to concerns over student cheating, many districts have passed restrictive policies limiting the use of AI in schools.

I wondered how countries outside the U.S. are dealing with these shockwaves, how they are employing AI more broadly to improve education and what lessons American schools can learn from their approaches.

I found that other developed countries share concerns about students cheating but are moving quickly to use AI to personalize education, enhance language lessons and help teachers with mundane tasks, such as grading. Some of these countries are in the early stages of training teachers to use AI and developing curriculum standards for what students should know and be able to do with the technology.

Several countries began positioning themselves several years ago to invest in AI in education in order to compete in the fourth industrial revolution.

Singapore's"Smart Nation" strategy, for example, aims to position the country as a world leader in AI by 2030 by bringing together researchers, government and industry. One goal is to help teachers better customize and improve education for every student, particularly those with special needs. An AI-enabled companion will provide customized feedback and motivation to students, automated grading and machine learning systems to identify how each student responds to classroom materials and activities.

One of the most promising applications of generative AI in education is the ability to tailor learning to individual students' needs, and there is a clear trend toward customization in other countries' educational strategies.

'This Changes Everything': AI Is About to Upend Teaching and Learning

South Korea has implemented AI-based systems to adapt homework and assignments based on students' educational levels and " tendencies and learning behaviors." Each child will have a personalized AI tutor and access to an online learning platform, allowing teachers to focus on social-emotional and hands-on lessons. The minister of education says these changes are necessary to allow public schools, which currently emphasize memorization, to provide the same type of personalized and deeper learning that private schools offer. He foresees a future where assessments happen throughout the normal course of daily assignments rather than in an end-of-course exam.

In India, ed tech company Embibe uses AI to clarify complex math and science concepts. Students can use a smartphone to scan a passage from a textbook, and the app uses 3-D imagery to help with visualization. AI is also being used in India to predict student performance, enabling early intervention.

Countries are also investing heavily in AI teacher preparation programs and national curricular requirements. Singapore recently announced a national initiative to build AI literacy among students and teachers to ensure they understand the risks and benefits of the technology. By 2026, training on AI in education will be offered for teachers at all levels, including those in training.

South Korea is investing heavily in preparing students. By 2025, the country aims to have AI coursework in its national curriculum across all grade levels, starting with high school. The Korean ministry of education's Keris unit is designing and piloting extensive teacher development around AI and other technologies. The ministry's Future of Education Center provides model classrooms where visitors can experience the use of advanced technologies in education.

AI Will Not Transform K-12 Education Without Changes to 'the Grammar of School'

Finland, long admired for its high-quality education system and teacher-centric system, has embraced AI with a bold national commitment to educate its citizens with free online coursework. Roughly half of schools use the ViLLE platform to give students and teachers immediate feedback and analytics on student assignments.

In China, the government has invested heavily - via tax breaks and other incentives - in tools, such as the adaptive tutoring platform Squirrel AI, which rely on large-scale data sets and camera surveillance. Most of these products focus heavily on improving performance on standardized tests, so students whose families can afford it get ahead. In countries like China, ethics, equitable access, privacy and other concerns are not high priorities, however.

In contrast, Finland's AI in Learning, a collaboration among a multi-disciplinary group of international researchers and companies, aims to promote equity and quality of learning locally and globally. The project has produced a number of scholarly paperson the ethical use of AI in education and on how these technologies can improve teaching and learning. Its members are designing and testing an intelligent digital system that assesses student wellness and feeds back insights to students and educators.

Evidence matters a lot right now, and many of these countries are investing in research to inform the effective use of new tools as well as to guide regulatory efforts. A research center, AICET, hosted by AI Singapore and funded by the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, works with the Ministry of Education to launch projects that will improve the education system. As part of a five-year plan called AI@NIE, Singapore's National Institute of Education will invest in research and innovation to use artificial intelligence for education.

Early guidelines are in the works, in the U.S., but they are coming late. Though the Department of Education recently released a strong policy paper, and the American Federation of Teachers put out an AI resolution, the European Union issued guidelines two years ago and recently updated their proposed AI regulations. Japan recently released guidelines and has selected a number of schools to pilot them as the government weighs which regulations make most sense.

The U.S. government could start by adding considerations for the use of AI to its National Educational Technology Plan, such as how states and districts should best minimize risks and maximize opportunities. Providing direction about how best to prepare teachers and students for the coming tsunami would help connect the dots to a broader strategy to make U.S. students prepared and competitive in the AI economy.

The push other countries are making toward radically customized education is also one the U.S. should take seriously. Too many education policy people dismiss personalized learning as a remnant of a largely failed effort in the early 2000s, but other countries see that high-quality curriculum can be leveraged by AI in revolutionary ways and can be tailored in real time to a student's particular level.

It's time to up our game on this front and embrace AI-enabled personalized learning like Khanmigo, in part by investing in a national research agenda in partnership with companies to learn whether and how AI can accelerate learning. Finally, we owe it to teachers and districts to offer a comprehensive AI training program ASAP. This is too important a support to be left to schools, districts or even states to figure out.

As the U.S. continues to explore the potential of generative artificial intelligence in education, the federal government and states must accelerate efforts to compete and thrive in an AI-powered world. It will also behoove education leaders, researchers and technology developers, however, to collaborate and share best practices and policies to unlock new frontiers in education and equip students with the skills and knowledge needed for success in an increasingly complex world.

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Shockwaves & Innovations: How Nations Worldwide Are Dealing with AI in Education

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Lake: Other countries are quickly adopting artificial intelligence in schools. Lessons from Singapore, South Korea, India, China, Finland and Japan.

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AI has the potential to help teachers gain access to high quality research that can revamp their classrooms and teaching. 

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AI has the potential to help teachers gain access to high quality research that can revamp their classrooms and teaching. 

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Exclusive: For Busy Teachers, AI Could Crack Open the Dense World of Ed Research

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At least two groups are working on bots that would make peer-reviewed research, buried in expensive academic journals, accessible for everyday use.

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Students might be in the classroom but their teachers could be a 1,000 miles away and teaching over Zoom. 

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Students might be in the classroom but their teachers could be a 1,000 miles away and teaching over Zoom. 

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Last fall, Arkeria Wright wanted to check up on her son's progress in math after a particularly difficult seventh grade year. So she contacted the person she thought was his teacher.

The response shocked her.

The staff member in the room at Bear Creek Middle School in Fulton County, Georgia, was a substitute, there to monitor behavior and ensure students completed their work. His actual teacher was hundreds of miles away, delivering instruction virtually for an Austin, Texas-based company called Proximity Learning.

"We didn't know our kids had virtual teachers," Wright said. "Parents need to be aware that that is the type of learning [students] are getting."

I could not stomach funding this because I would never send my kid to a school where they're in call-center cubicles.
Jennifer Carolan, co-founder, Reach Capital

Live, online instruction in school has long linked students to subjects they couldn't otherwise take, like A.P. Calculus or Latin. But as districts struggle to fill teaching vacancies, they are increasingly turning to companies like Proximity to teach core subjects. Districts are spending thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars on virtual teachers, according to The 74's review of purchase orders in GovSpend, a data service. The practice - derided at the height of the pandemic as "Zoom-in-a-room"- is raising eyebrows as students return to school and continue to grapple with the lingering effects of remote learning.

"This is happening all over," said Jennifer Carolan, co-founder and partner at Reach Capital, a firm that invests in education companies. She estimated that roughly a dozen companies offering virtual teaching have reached "meaningful scale."

But she balked at investing herself after a member of her team visited a high school English class at a school near San Jose, California, taught virtually by a teacher from Coursemojo, another provider. "Ultimately, I could not stomach funding this because I would never send my kid to a school where they're in call-center cubicles," she said. "It doesn't align with how I see education evolving."

Given shortages, however, district leaders insist a virtual teacher is better than none at all.

"At the end of the day, you've got to find a way to get instruction in front of those children," said Andy Pruitt, spokesman for the Charleston County schools in South Carolina.

Charleston paid over $450,000 for Proximity teachers in math, language arts and social studies for 22 classes across seven schools last year - and sent an email to parents informing them of the practice prior to the start of school, Pruit said. But the district, which is using federal relief funds to give each of its almost 3,600 teachers a $5,000 bonus this year, doesn't expect to need Proximity again this fall.

The picture looks different in Colleton County, about an hour to the west. The 4,900-student district will once again fill positions with teachers from New York-based Fullmind. Last year, students had virtual teachers for required courses in algebra, biology, English and history.

The practice sparked some disarray, including students wandering out of class during lessons. Such concerns led the school board earlier this year to approve $18,000 for high-tech cameras that allow virtual teachers to see the entire classroom.

During a June board meeting, Wilsey Hamilton, the district's human resources director, told members that with more than 60 open positions, her team is trying to lure back retired teachers and is advertising job openings on social media and digital billboards. But she couldn't rule out using Fullmind for another year.

"We don't see any other option but to continue that partnership to help fill some of our vacancies," she said.

No shame

More than 40% of the nation's schools reported teacher vacancies last year, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, with the worst shortages at high-poverty and high-minority schools. Heading into the new school year, many large districts, including Los Angeles and St. Paul, are scrambling to fill positions.

Like Charleston, at least 13 other South Carolina districts have used Proximity over the past two school years to fill gaps.

Representatives from Education Solution Services, which owns Proximity, did not return calls or emails seeking comment on this article.

Catherine Schumacher, executive director of Public Education Partners, a Greenville-based nonprofit, said keeping pace with rapid enrollment growth in the state is likely one reason for the vacancies. Negative sentiment toward teachers could be another.

"It is really important that we do not shame districts for doing the absolute best they can to get qualified teachers," she said. "We have systematically underpaid ... educators for years, and we have been tolerating a climate that is demonizing teachers and public schools."

"It is really important that we do not shame districts for doing the absolute best they can to get qualified teachers. We have systematically underpaid ... educators for years, and we have been tolerating a climate that is demonizing teachers and public schools."
Catherine Schumacher, executive director, Public Education Partners

GovSpend reflects the mushrooming demand for virtual teachers. Yearly spending by districts on Proximity, for example, increased from $6.3 million in 2020 to over $21 million last year. And while Reach Capital didn't fund Coursemojo, A-Street, another education sector investor, did. A third venture firm, General Catalyst, is betting on Chicago-based Elevate K-12, contributing last year to a total $40 million investment in the company.

"It seems to be developing into a behind-the-scenes boom industry," said Kerry Chisnall, principal of Hawley Middle School in Creedmoor, North Carolina, which used four Elevate K-12 teachers last year. Located on the fringes of the Research Triangle, Chisnall said his district can't pay teachers as much as larger districts, like nearby Durham. Elevate K-12, he said, is "a godsend, absolutely."

Over 100 districts or charter networks, including at least 40 in Texas alone, have paid Proximity a total of more than $31 million for virtual teachers since the fall of 2021, GovSpend shows. They include the Little Rock School District, which spent $546,000 for science and math courses, and the Jefferson Parish school system in Louisiana, which has spent $570,000 and recently signed a new contract with the company for $861,000, to be financed with federal relief funds.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools in Tennessee is one of Proximity's best customers - spending $6.63 million since January 2022.

When the district first contracted with Proximity in 2019, Keith Williams, head of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, dismissed it as a "quick fix" and "another fly-by-night program." But now on the school board, he voted in June with the rest of the board in favor of a $7 million contract for 600 "live sessions."

Williams didn't return calls or emails seeking comment, and the district declined to respond to questions about Proximity.

Before school started last week, Interim Superintendent Toni Williams told reporters that the company is one way the district is addressing vacancies.

But virtual teaching outposts also struggle with shortages, and a contract for remote instruction doesn't guarantee a teacher will be there when students come back to class. "Proximity has challenges recruiting teachers just like brick-and-mortar schools," said Rachael Spriggs, a former teacher in the district who ran unsuccessfully for school board last year. The model, she said, is also "extremely expensive because you are funding two positions per Proximity class."

Danette Stokes, president of the United Education Association of Shelby County, another union in the district, said with classes taught by substitutes and virtual teachers throughout the year, it's often unclear who is accountable for student performance.

"The children don't care; they're in and out," she said. And she echoed concerns about transparency. "The principal is not going to introduce the Proximity teacher at a parent-teacher conference."

A Season of Scandal Leaves Memphis-Shelby Parents in the Dark on COVID Spending

'This problem isn't going away'

While researchers are still examining the impact of pandemic-era remote learning on students, there's ample evidence that it set achievement back decades. Unreliable internet access, financial distress, disengagement from school and the health effects of COVID all limited students' ability to learn while schools were closed.

Teaching the 'Roomers' and the 'Zoomers:' No Small Task for Elementary School Teachers

But done well, virtual teaching has the potential to accommodate educators' increasing demands for flexibility and offer a better way to handle vacancies, said Shaily Baranwal, who founded Elevate K-12. "Schools were just putting kids in front of software or doing anything they could as a Band-Aid," she said. "Our pitch to school districts is that this problem isn't going away. It can't be about filling a shortage; it has to be real teaching."

"Our pitch to school districts is that this problem isn't going away. It can't be about filling a shortage; it has to be real teaching."
Shaily Baranwal, founder, Elevate K-12

Over 260 districts across 33 states now use the program. The students don't wear headphones, allowing them to interact more easily, and Baranwal expects districts to commit to an Elevate K-12 teacher for a full school year to provide consistency.

But for Wright's son in Fulton County, the in-school, virtual learning experience was frustrating. When a substitute wasn't available, the school dispatched Proximity students to empty desks in other classrooms. From January to March, he took his remote math lessons in a regular social studies class, trying to block out distractions and listen to the Proximity teacher through headphones. The math teacher would sometimes mute the students' microphones and only let them communicate through the chat function, Wright said.

Wright, herself a fourth grade teacher in another Atlanta-area district and head of a parent advocacy organization, isn't opposed to virtual instruction. In fact, she considered applying for a Proximity job because she enjoyed teaching remotely during the pandemic.

"I understand what it takes to have engaging instruction," she said. "When the child disappeared [from the screen], I was able to immediately text that parent."

Brian Noyes, a spokesman for Fulton schools, said the district tries to keep disruption to a minimum, but splitting up Proximity students is sometimes unavoidable when a substitute can't be found. While the district is now "99% staffed," he said, some students will still get Proximity teachers this fall.

Wright hopes her son isn't one of them.

"The environment wasn't conducive to learning," she said. "Coming out of the pandemic, it doesn't support them being able to function in the classroom."

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Exclusive Data: Fueled by Teacher Shortages, 'Zoom-in-a-Room' Makes a Comeback

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As students return to school, the much-derided practice of in-class, virtual instruction has spawned a multi-million dollar 'boom industry.'

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Fewer students mean more time for one-on-one interactions and student-led learning in microschool environments. 

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Fewer students mean more time for one-on-one interactions and student-led learning in microschool environments. 

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In the back room of a Jewish temple, the kids are running the show.

It's just after 6 p.m. on a Thursday, and the learners at Life Skills Academy have invited their parents to take a seat. Board games and video games - made by the older children - await the visitors, who, for the next hour, will try them out.

As her classmate gives the go-ahead, 7-year-old Freya Rollinson leads her father and younger brother to a corner. Her exuberant giggles punctuate the directions she's trying to explain. She says the goal of the game, which features square blocks designated as creatures such as a dog, snake, and unicorn, is to "try not to get tricked."

Why We Wrote This

A story focused on

The one-room schoolhouse is typically considered a relic, but the intimacy and sense of community it represents are making a comeback in today's microschools.

"What made you pick all these?" her father, Piers Rollinson, asks.

"My mind," she replies.

Her answer speaks to the very nature of this learning environment. By Nevada law, Life Skills Academy can't call itself a school, but education is its mission, albeit in an atypical format. The Montessori-inspired microschool, which rents space at the Jewish temple, served 13 children from age 5 through fifth grade during its inaugural 2022-23 academic year.

But don't call them students. Here, they're "learners" who chart their own educational journey through critical thinking and project-based learning. They even make up the classroom rules. The two teachers, known as "learning guides," take a supporting role in the background.

"We're building a civil society from scratch," says James Lomax, founder and director of Life Skills Academy, which is part of the Acton Academy network of microschools. "They, over the course of that first six weeks, make the rules that they live by."

Most passersby wouldn't know this place exists. And, in some ways, that's symbolic of the entire microschooling movement. Tiny learning environments - reminiscent of the one-room schoolhouse - are sprouting in churches, temples, commercial spaces, and even houses across the United States. They're in bustling cities, rural communities, and suburban enclaves.

Oftentimes, they're created by parents or teachers who wanted something for their children or students that couldn't be readily found in traditional schools. But it was the pandemic that thrust this model into the limelight, as families scrambled to make remote learning work. So-called learning pods came into vogue, with kids clustered around kitchen tables, working elbow to elbow with neighborhood pals, relatives, or family friends. The city of North Las Vegas even temporarily ran its own microschools in recreation centers during the pandemic.

Some saw this approach as a Band-Aid solution to a difficult situation. For others, it was just the beginning.

"For lots of people, schools just got too big," says Michael McShane, director of national research at EdChoice. "They felt like they were a number. They did not feel like they knew the other people in their community."

Ask a dozen microschool leaders to describe their schools, and you'll likely receive a dozen slightly different responses:
Montessori-inspired, nature-focused, project-based, faith-oriented, child-led, or some combination of other attributes. They may exist independently, as part of a provider network, or in partnership with another entity such as an employer or a faith organization. Their schedules vary, too. Some follow a typical academic calendar, while others operate year-round, and some allow students to attend part time.

In other words, there is no one-size-fits-all definition for microschools. But, in general, they're intentionally small learning environments. They often serve fewer than 30 students total and operate as learning centers to support home-schooled students or as accredited or unaccredited private schools. Their exact designations differ based on state laws.

"What I love about microschools is that [they're] kind of providing this middle ground between public school or home schooling," says Dalena Wallace, founder and president of Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators, a support network for alternative education models.

The National Microschooling Center launched in August 2022 to support this patchwork quilt of tiny learning communities dotting the American landscape. For a sector analysis released in April, the center examined 100 microschools that exist in 34 states, as well as 100 prospective microschools preparing to open. Though it's difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the exact number of students attending microschools, researchers say it's likely between 1.1 million and 2.1 million. On the low end, that would mean microschools serve an estimated 2% of school-age children in the U.S.

"I don't expect that it's ever going to displace public school systems," says Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, which is based in Las Vegas. "But it really wouldn't surprise me if you were to get much closer to a 10% market share."

The center's analysis found that although current microschool leaders are predominantly white (64%), that share drops to 55% among prospective founders - indicating a gradually diversifying sector. More than a quarter of those seeking to start their own microschools are Black, and 5% are Latino.

It's also not an ideologically homogeneous group, Mr. Soifer says. Microschool leaders and families come from all different backgrounds, political perspectives, and religious beliefs. The center's analysis found that only 27% of microschools offer faith-based instruction.

Kerry McDonald is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and author of "Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom." For years, she has been studying the microschooling movement, which she says dates back to the mid-1990s. That's when a self-directed learning center in Massachusetts called North Star opened, and hybrid home-schooling programs popped up around the U.S. Ms. McDonald says she has been struck by the cooperation among microschool entrepreneurs who may have very different learning philosophies.

"They come together in the spirit of collaboration and community, sharing knowledge with each other, referring families to each other's programs, providing resources and encouragement and support," she says.

But many prospective leaders have one big thing in common: Fifty-two percent are professional or licensed educators, according to the center's analysis.

Felicia Wright fits that description. A former public school teacher, Ms. Wright founded The Learning Outpost in Las Vegas last year. It was the culmination of a dream that started percolating after her first year of teaching in 2014.

"There's no way I can do this forever," Ms. Wright recalls thinking. "This is bananas."

The workload and emphasis on testing, she says, made the job feel less focused on the children. She hopped from a traditional public school to a charter school but didn't notice any drastic differences. So she left the field altogether - questioning her teaching chops - and went into marketing. But the tug of the classroom was too strong to ignore. She started an education-related YouTube channel and began tutoring, all of which led friends and family members to nudge her to start her own school.

In 2022, she and her husband took out a $9,000 loan from his retirement account to open The Learning Outpost, which operates out of rented space at a church. When classes began last August, the microschool served four children - two of whom were the Wrights' own daughters.

"It was a rough go," she says. "We were running in the red, and I did not have a whole lot of money to sustain this place."

By October, Ms. Wright made a strategic change to entice more students. She created "flex" scheduling, allowing students to come all day for a minimum of two days a week in addition to the existing full-time option. She announced the flexible scheduling in an email blast, and, within two hours, her phone started ringing. Initially, the surge of interest came from home-school families, Ms. Wright says. As the months progressed, she started welcoming full-time students from private schools whose parents sought a change after noticing their kids' high stress levels.

Her pitch to parents: "We're not in a rush here, and kids are on their own journey."

That journey may look like learning about first aid or purifying water with a solar cell as part of a desert island survival-themed unit. There are no academic standards directly tied to those lessons, Ms. Wright says, but The Learning Outpost weaves in "mini lessons" about more traditional subjects - phonics and math, for instance - throughout the day.

In late June, Ms. Wright toiled in The Learning Outpost, hanging posters and lugging books to different locations. New signage, made by her father, greets visitors at the front entrance. It's a refresh and reorganization as she preps to begin her second year - this time with an expected 26 students, two teachers, and one executive assistant. She describes her vision come to life as a "microschooling center" or "project-based learning center."

"I want them to feel at home here," she says. "That's important to me."

In some ways, the microschooling movement echoes a largely bygone time in American education when a little red schoolhouse drew children from the surrounding community. Today, the public one-room schoolhouses that exist typically function out of necessity, serving students in sparsely populated areas.

But the themes inherent in them - multi-age, communal environments with small student populations - have consistently reemerged over the decades as Americans rejected sprawling schools with hundreds or even thousands of students, says Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at the University of Pennsylvania.

He points to the open-schools phenomenon in the 1960s, when classroom walls were removed to foster movement and collaboration, followed by a push more recently from policy leaders and philanthropists, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to create smaller high schools.

"This image or this metaphor - that's really what it is," Dr. Zimmerman says, referring to nostalgia surrounding the one-room schoolhouse, "has something to offer everyone."

In Denver, it's a little yellow schoolhouse, though. The Highlands Micro School sits on a leafy residential street about 3 miles northwest of downtown.

Anne Wintemute forged the trail in 2015, well before the term "microschool" had created any dent in the education sphere. At the time, the mother of three was simply looking for a different kind of schooling for her children and had heard that a few small schools existed across the country. She parlayed her business development background into launching the microschool, starting with a hunt for the perfect house. Denver allows educational uses in most zone districts across the city if certain codes are met.

By August 2016, a brown duplex had been transformed into a yellow schoolhouse, complete with a red front door and a cupola containing a bell. A treehouse-inspired play structure built by Ms. Wintemute, a dirt pit for play excavation, and a garage converted into an art studio take up the backyard.

Ms. Wintemute says she built the microschool on an ideological foundation centered around these questions: "What does a school look like if relationships are guiding the decisions? What does it look like to have high standards on an individual level versus the same standards for all? And is it possible to build an educational organization - a school - that serves the needs of the learners?"

Highlands Micro School, considered a private school in the eyes of Colorado, serves 24 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Ms. Wintemute, who is transitioning out of a leadership role to pursue other opportunities, says the students take a normed assessment three times a year to ensure they're meeting or exceeding academic standards comparable to their peers' in public schools. But proof of concept also comes into play when students age out of Highlands and go on to another school.

Kate Giacomini, who is taking over as the microschool's director and owner, says she witnessed that firsthand with her son. He joined Highlands as a second grader and graduated to a 600-student public middle school.

"He was able to flourish because he's really flexible," she says. "He was given the tools he needed to problem-solve and learn and be confident in his own skin."

Her son's experience mirrors what Mr. Lomax hoped would be the outcome when he started Life Skills Academy. The U.S. Naval Academy graduate and engineer had encountered a frustrating trend in the workplace: young hires from some of the nation's top universities who had earned high grades but lacked the ability to problem-solve or navigate human relationships.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lomax and his wife were concerned their daughter's preschool was more focused on academics than soft skills, such as her ability to make friends and resolve conflicts.

Life Skills Academy aims to foster a learner-directed model where the children chart their own educational trajectory and, in the process, gain leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, Mr. Lomax says. The children move along at their own speed, mastering English language arts and math lessons in the morning before spending the afternoons doing project-based units.

As a kindergartner in 1985, Mr. Lomax says his teacher likely had no idea how the internet would transform future careers. Likewise, with artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, he says educators can't fathom the job market for today's children.

"I can't prepare them for that, but what I can do is make sure they know how to learn," he says.

Mr. Rollinson says he saw evidence of that happening in his daughter, Freya, and son, Elliott, after they started attending Life Skills Academy. Instead of coming home anxious, the way Freya had while enrolled at a charter school, she now seems reinvigorated - asking lots of questions and loving to read and write stories.

Freya puts it this way: "We get more free time. There's no homework. You get to take off your shoes."

The key to keeping the lights on in a microschool is the same as in any public or private school - money.

Nearly 9 in 10 microschools rely on tuition as their primary source of funding, according to the sector analysis by the National Microschooling Center. About 18% receive state funding provided through school choice programs. Microschools often cobble together other funding streams from fundraising or grants as well.

When Michael Parsons launched the Vandalia Community School in Charleston, West Virginia, last year, he set the microschool's tuition at $6,800 annually and created avenues for financial aid. He says the rate is lower than nearby private school tuition, a strategic move to make the microschool more accessible.

Mr. Parsons says he is proud that his microschool - which launched with nine children, including two of his own - serves a racially diverse student population as well as both neurotypical and neurodivergent learners. But those equity-minded efforts could go by the wayside if tuition is out of reach.

"We're always doing our best to kind of fall in that sweet spot where if somebody wants to come to our school, within reason as much as I possibly can, I want to remove money as a deal breaker," he says.

West Virginia families have a tool at their disposal to help cover that cost: the Hope scholarship. The education savings account program allows families to use state aid - $4,488 per child for the upcoming academic year - for microschool tuition, among other options. Similar programs exist in other states that have passed expansive school choice legislation, such as Florida and Arizona.

As of early June, the West Virginia treasurer's office had awarded Hope scholarships to 5,099 students, with hundreds more approvals expected this summer. It's unclear how many of those students are attending microschools, as the money can be directed to everything from tutoring services and textbooks to private school tuition.

Still, the situation has drawn the ire of groups such as the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), which contends that public schools will be hurt as schools with few, if any, accountability measures receive taxpayer funding.

"Not only are there no restrictions on the educator; there's no accountability for the students," says Dale Lee, president of the WVEA, which represents nearly 10,000 educators across the state. "We don't know if their education is progressing as it should, and yet we're comparing our public schools and scrutinizing them over test scores when the microschools and learning pods don't have to have any accountability."

Some microschool leaders wince at the idea of regulation stymieing creativity. They argue their accountability comes in the form of a contract with the parents who enroll their children. Depending on the microschool, those academic measures of progress could take the form of occasional testing, a portfolio review of a student's work, or something else entirely.

Ms. Wallace, of the Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators support network, says she anticipates greater regulation if microschools accept public money, but if they're relying solely on tuition and private funding, she believes they should be granted more freedom. Her own six children, whom she home-schools, attend a microschool one day a week in rural Abbyville, Kansas. The arrangement provides variety during the week, she says, and also "helps keep it sustainable for families that need a little bit of additional support."

Ultimately, Mr. McShane, of EdChoice, expects more attempts to regulate microschools as the sector expands. A hint may lie in how states handle home-schoolers.

"There's a wildly different home-schooling regulatory environment from state to state," he says. "And I imagine something similar will probably happen with microschools."

Regardless of whether state money is available to parents, microschool leaders are tapping into private funding sources to make ends meet.

In Las Vegas, Ms. Wright received three grants totaling $52,000 for The Learning Outpost during one week last year. "Those opportunities make a big difference" for small enterprises operating on thin margins, she says.

A powerhouse in the grant-making arena is the VELA Education Fund, which gives money to "everyday entrepreneurs in unconventional education." Since 2019, the nonprofit fund - whose board members include representatives from the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Foundation - has distributed more than $24 million, some of which has gone to microschool leaders.

A report released by VELA this year notes that 93% of its grantees serve children whose families identify as low income or historically underserved, with 38% focusing on those student populations.

No matter how microschools are financed, Dr. Zimmerman considers quality monitoring a civic responsibility given the need for an educated populace.

"It's not just about these people," he says. "It's about all of us. And so they should be allowed and encouraged to innovate, but the rest of us should be watching closely."

Mr. Parsons, from West Virginia, doesn't see microschools fizzling out as a fad. Down the line, he even envisions an education landscape where school choice isn't seen as a divisive concept.

Could microschools forge partnerships with nearby public schools? He thinks yes. In an ideal world, Mr. Parsons says microschool students could participate in sports or extracurricular activities at public schools. Conversely, students struggling in larger public school settings could be referred to microschools.

"I hope to see this become something [in which] the adults are behaving like adults, and we're talking and we're collaborating," he says. "The students benefit from that."

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Rise of the microschool: Small, student-centered learning spaces take off

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The intimacy and sense of community associated with one-room schoolhouses are making a comeback in today's microschools.