Once again our public schools may be under the threat of losing students. There are a growing number of small, personalized schools emerging around the United States called Micro-Schools. The micro-school refers to any school that is typically smaller than most schools with an enrollment of about 150 students or less for grades K through 12. The classes offered are as little as two days to a five-day week, with some using the flipped classroom approach. The micro-school may also be referred to as the ‘one-room schoolhouse’ where multi-aged students work and learn together. A former Google Executive that wanted to transform how students are taught originally created this alternative school.
Some micro-schools have ‘teachers’ and others have what they call ‘learning guides’. Their role is to push students to take control and own their learning. There is also a heavy emphasis on technology.
Micro-schools have come to light in San Francisco, Calif., Austin, Tex, New Orleans, La, and New York. Families are attracted to the new idea (really an old idea modernized) because of their dissatisfaction with the quality of public school options. Nor do parents want to pay the high prices of a private school.
Since micro-schools have small enrollment numbers of mixed age levels, the schools are forced to rethink the traditional age-based classroom. The curricula are also not taught the traditional way. Students rely on personalized instructional methods with interest or thematic based grouping. Thus, permitting various age levels of students to work together.
The small enrollment levels provide personal connections for student-to-student and student-to-adult. They offer similar or higher levels of personalization than traditional independent schools without the high cost. However, they do not offer as many programs as traditional schools. They offer affordability, accessibility, and small classes.
Existing micro-schools
Acton Academy – Compresses students’ core learning into a two-and-a-half-hour personalized learning period daily and a three two-hour project-based learning block each week. It includes a Socratic seminar each day. It also offers a day of art and PE.
QuantumCamp – Offers a hands-on math course for students in grades 1 through 8 along with language arts courses.
AltSchool – A five-day, all day school that is privately funded. This school works on core subjects as well as project based learning.
Can micro-schools change our current educational systems?
It was hoped that the growth of charter schools would improve the educational system. Is the micro-school just another charter school or is it a fancy way of having your own children homeschooled by another person? As originally intended, the growth of charter schools has not changed our public schools.
Will micro-schools hurt public education?
If anything, just like charter schools, the student of affluent families will be taken out of public schools leaving only the lower-middle and low class students. Districts will begin to face financial stress and lack of resources to help students. Will micro-students accept the hard to teach student or will that student be turned away and placed back into the public school?
The right to a free public education is found in the various state’s constitutions. The federal constitution contains no such guarantee. Having a choice of what kind of education your child will have is a wonderful thing. But, is it a wonderful thing to make our public schools weak in the process? Maybe, subconsciously we are trying to recreate our small community schools. Somehow we need to find a way to include micro-schools within our public school and let every student benefit from smaller, individualized classrooms.
