Just what is a microschool? The Christian Science Monitor takes a thorough and balanced look at the growing movement.

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.

To that description, I'd just add one more layer of nuance: Many microschools operate in partnership with public schools, for example, by sub-contracting with districts or charter schools, or as affiliates of longstanding private education institutions, like the microschools operated by the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles.

Their diverse missions and configurations share something in common: divergence from the norm in public education. I have yet to encounter a microschool whose founders describe their work in terms that in any way resemble: We offer conventional schooling, only better.

Microschools break from convention, by design. Their breaks from convention could relate to content (they may offer religious instruction that isn't possible in public schools), pedagogy (they might embrace classical education or student-led learning), the identities of students they aim to serve (as in the case of the Black Mothers Forum in Arizona), or the structure of schooling (by bringing together students of different ages or offering hybrid and part-time schedules).

This is where their small size matters. A microschool can make bold and specific choices about what it offers, because it often only needs to attract a small number of like-minded students and educators. This allows microschools to exist in communities that could not possibly muster the numbers to sustain traditionally sized schools aligned to their philosophy or value proposition.

In rural New Hampshire towns where it wouldn't be economical for a conventional private or charter school to offer an alternative to existing public schools, 10 students can sign up with a learning guide to form a Prenda microschool. Under Prenda's flexible, student-led instructional philosophy, they need not even be exactly the same age. The Black Mothers Forum operates a network of microschools in Greater Phoenix, where just 7% of public-school students are Black—less than half the percentage in public schools nationally. These and countless other examples are able to offer particular groups of students something truly different, without having to worry about sanding down the edges of their identity to attract a critical mass.

To be sure, some microschools could grow to the point that "micro" becomes a misnomer. Some could operate "schools" that serve groups of students in multiple locations, or simply enroll enough students that they rival the size of a more conventional learning environment.

Thanks to their ability to operate at a small scale, to bring students together in ways that defy the conventions of age-based grading, and sometimes to blur the lines between schooling and homeschooling, microschools have the potential to enable a new level of pluralism and diversity in education.

Editor’s note: This month, redefinED is revisiting the best examples of our Voucher Left series, which focuses on the center-left roots of school choice. Today’s post explores one of the world’s most robust systems of government-funded private school choice in a country known as a progressive’s paradise: the Netherlands.

By common definitions, the Netherlands is a very liberal place. Prostitution is legal. Euthanasia is legal. Gay marriage is legal; in fact, the Netherlands was the first country to make it so. Marijuana is not legal, technically, but from what I hear a lot of folks are red-eyed in Dutch coffee shops, saying puff-puff-pass without looking over their shoulders.

Given the rep, it might surprise school choice critics, who tend to consider themselves left of center, and who tend to view school choice as not, that the Netherlands has one of the most robust systems of government-funded private school choice on the planet. Next year the system will reach the century mark, with nearly 70 percent of Dutch students attending private schools (and usually faith-based schools) on the public dime.

By just about any measure, the Netherlands is a progressive’s paradise. According to the Social Progress Index, it was the ninth most progressive nation in 2015, down from No. 4 in 2014. (The U.S. was No. 16 both years.) On the SPI, it ranked No. 1 in tolerance for homosexuals, and No. 2 in press freedom. On another index, the Netherlands is No. 1 in gender equality. (The U.S. is No. 42.) It’s also among the world leaders in labor union membership (No. 19 in 2012, with 17.7 percent, eight spots ahead of the U.S.). And by some accounts, Amsterdam, the capital, is the most eco-friendly city in Europe.

Somehow, this country that makes Vermont look as red as Alabama is ok with full, equal government funding for public and private schools. It’s been that way been since a constitutional change in 1917. According to education researcher Charles Glenn, the Dutch education system includes government-funded schools that represent 17 different religious types, including Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Rosicrucian, and hundreds that align to alternative bents like Montessori and Waldorf.

Glenn, an occasional contributor to redefinED, has written the book on the subject. He calls the Netherlands system “distinctively pluralistic.”

The Netherlands' tradition of pluralism dates back hundreds of years. After the Dutch won their independence in 1609, Amsterdam became the commercial capital of Europe. It served as a hub for trade and finance, a cultural center that produced the likes of Rembrandt, and a refuge for migrants from across the continent, many of whom came fleeing religious persecution.

By the late nineteenth century, however, the country's diverse religious factions, including Catholics, different Protestant sects, and various secular groups had created their own cultural silos, or "pillars." Each had its own churches, its own schools, and its own social clubs. Some wanted public schools to be faith-based. Some wanted them to be “neutral.” Some wanted them to reflect one faith more than another.

The 1917 constitutional change was part of a broader reconciliation in Dutch politics called “The Pacification.” It followed decades of strife over schooling. No remedy worked until different factions agreed to let the parents decide, and let the money follow the child.

The system continues to have its tensions and tradeoffs. Some liberals still wonder if “common schools” would be better at unifying a country that grows ever more diverse. The influx of Muslim immigrants gives people pause, even as older divisions between religious factions fade. The Dutch way also includes far more regulation than some choice stalwarts in the U.S. would be comfortable with.

I don’t know enough to have a good opinion. But Glenn does, and he concludes most parents and the general public in the Netherlands are satisfied with their schools. Ed policy expert Mike McShane also points out the Dutch system produces some of the world’s best academic outcomes (Top 10 internationally in math, science and reading), at less cost per-pupil than the U.S. That should count for something.

For my skeptical liberal friends, I’d like to note that even the socialists are on board. Even before the 1917 constitutional change, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands was backing full public funding for private and faith-based schools. Why? Because, according to a resolution it adopted in 1902:

“Social democracy must not interfere with the unity of the working class against believing and nonbelieving capitalists in the social sphere for the sake of theological differences … “

There you have it: Fight the man. Not school choice.

When it comes to public education, the U.S. stands apart from many industrialized democracies. It excludes private and faith-based schools, and has generally relied on local governments as the sole providers of publicly supported education in a geographic area.

A new volume by Johns Hopkins University researcher Ashley Berner argues this arrangement is largely an accident of history. She points to a new definition of public education, which is publicly funded and publicly accountable — and encompasses private schools.

As she writes in her final chapter:

No One Way to School attempts to draw a more inclusive argument that rests upon the foundational goals of the common school, while affirming that they are better met by plural education, than by uniformity. Excellence, equity, opportunity, and citizenship resonate across America’s educational history.

She contemplates a three-sector approach to public education that fits alongside The Urban School System of the Future, the policy platform of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and precious few others in today's education debate.

Her ideas echo many of the themes we’ve tried to emphasize for more than six years on this blog. And they’re likely to stretch the thinking of people in just about every corner of the school choice movement.

She draws vital lessons from John Chubb and Terry Moe about the ways bureaucracy can vitiate academic excellence, but she abjures the hands-off regulatory approach they advocate as one of several “narratives that risk being counter-productive.”  (more…)

This is the latest post in our series on the center-left roots of school choice.

By common definitions, the Netherlands is a very liberal place. Prostitution is legal. Euthanasia is legal. Gay marriage is legal; in fact, the Netherlands was the first country to make it so. Marijuana is not legal, technically, but from what I hear a lot of folks are red-eyed in Dutch coffee shops, saying puff-puff-pass without looking over their shoulders.

Given the rep, it might surprise school choice critics, who tend to consider themselves left of center, and who tend to view school choice as not, that the Netherlands has one of the most robust systems of government-funded private school choice on the planet. Next year the system will reach the century mark, with nearly 70 percent of Dutch students attending private schools (and usually faith-based schools) on the public dime.

By just about any measure, the Netherlands is a progressive’s paradise. According to the Social Progress Index, it was the ninth most progressive nation in 2015, down from No. 4 in 2014. (The U.S. was No. 16 both years.) On the SPI, it ranked No. 1 in tolerance for homosexuals, and No. 2 in press freedom. On another index, the Netherlands is No. 1 in gender equality. (The U.S. is No. 42.) It’s also among the world leaders in labor union membership (No. 19 in 2012, with 17.7 percent, eight spots ahead of the U.S.). And by some accounts, Amsterdam, the capital, is the most eco-friendly city in Europe.

Somehow, this country that makes Vermont look as red as Alabama is ok with full, equal government funding for public and private schools. It’s been that way been since a constitutional change in 1917. According to education researcher Charles Glenn, the Dutch education system includes government-funded schools that represent 17 different religious types, including Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Rosicrucian, and hundreds that align to alternative bents like Montessori and Waldorf.

Glenn, an occasional contributor to redefinED, has written the book on the subject. He calls the Netherlands system “distinctively pluralistic.” (more…)

This is the latest post in our series on the voucher left.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democratic icon, was an unabashed supporter of school choice, as we’ve been happy to note.

For years, he led an effort to establish tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools – an effort that never became law but did, at one remarkable moment in 1977, draw 50 co-sponsors, 26 of them Republicans and 24 of them Democrats. Except for a massive expansion of Florida’s tax credit scholarship program in 2010, which won backing from more than 40 percent of the state’s Democratic lawmakers, no major piece of private school choice legislation that we can think of has drawn that level of bipartisan support.

But while we’ve noted Moynihan’s passion for choice, it’s worth taking a closer look at his rationale. Nowhere does he lay out his case more clearly than in this April 1978 essay in Harper's.

For Moynihan, public support for private schools was a matter of historical fact and constitutional authority, and of being clear-eyed about the well-intentioned but still-smothering effects of government bureaucracy.

It was also about staying true to one of America’s most enduring principles:

I take pluralism to be a valuable characteristic of education, as of much else in this society. We are many peoples, and our social arrangements reflect this disinclination to submerge our inherited distinctiveness in a homogenous whole.

Our private schools and colleges embody these values. They provide diversity to the society, choices to students and their parents, and a rich array of distinctive educational offerings that even the finest of public institutions may find difficult to supply, not least because they are public and must embody generalized values.

Diversity. Pluralism. Variety. These are values, too, and perhaps nowhere more valuable than in the experiences that our children have in their early years, when their values and attitudes are formed, their minds awakened, and their friendships formed. We cherish these values, and I do not believe it excessive to ask that that they be embodied in our national policies for American education.

Moynihan, of course, isn’t the only choice supporter who stressed diversity. Those arguments come from all points on the political spectrum. The Cato Institute makes them frequently and convincingly. So do some academics (see here and here). So does this rising political star, and fellow Democrat, from Moynihan’s home state:

“In every state in this country, we talk about diversity,” New York Assemblyman Marcos Crespo said at a gathering of Hispanic school choice supporters in Florida last year. “We talk about the strength of our diverse communities, we talk about the diversity of faith, of cultures and languages that make the United States what it is, certainly New York what it is. But then we don’t translate that very concept into the way in which we provide opportunities. Ladies and gentlemen, one size doesn’t fit all.”

While Moynihan could be quite the maverick (and an inspiration for decades-long debates), he wasn’t a lone wolf when it came to school choice and the Democrats of his era. (more…)

The American school system was, from its inception, a product of intolerance for human difference. Grounded in 19^th Century religious and cultural prejudice, it was artfully designed to assure no government resource would end up supporting the teaching of religious or cultural notions that were uncongenial to the Protestant majority. Carefully limited by the constitutions of various states, the curriculum was centralized and sanitized in each of the 50 school systems to favor the beliefs and values of the dominant group. Further, students were confined to their own school districts - indeed to their own neighborhoods - assuring (at least in the cities) that children of different social classes and races would see little of each other within government schools.

One overall effect was and is a quasi-market for the affluent; well-to-do families choose admission to the government school of their preference. By contrast, for the ordinary family, government schools are a compulsory monopoly. There are, of course, private schools, and we know from survey research and direct experience that they are very attractive to the poor. Nevertheless, though most such schools are relatively inexpensive, they can scarcely compete with the “free” government alternative. It is, therefore, remarkable that the private sector is still able to attract nearly 10 percent of the total student population; equally impressive is the proportion of these students who come from poor families who make enormous sacrifice to pay tuition. I suppose Justice Sotomayor’s story suggests this reality.

The tragedy is 19^th Century America, a new country exploding with creativity, decided to hobble the minds and souls of its children with a system of finance and assignment that for ordinary families was, and remains, oppressive. Americans spend $800 billion each year in state-owned schools; I suspect they constitute the largest socialist enterprise outside of China.

The effects of this government monopoly upon the ordinary family have been what one would predict: The family is put under the most destructive pressures. At age five the child is taken from the parent who has been both friend and advocate. The child now discovers the parent is impotent to intervene. The parent learns self-contempt and withdraws from responsibility.

Whatever one’s philosophical starting point, schools in the U.S. pose a moral issue of crisis proportions. Intellectual monopoly by The State is especially peculiar in a culture as diverse as ours. Where there is no consensus about values, it is on its face ludicrous for an ephemeral regime of bureaucrats to impose its own favorite curriculum upon everyone. The case against monopoly, however, need not rest upon pluralism. Monopoly control over value content is unjust and, in the end, will be destabilizing even in a society with a common culture. The idea of a social consensus itself rests upon an underlying conception of human freedom. That is, consensus is a clustering of beliefs that are voluntarily held. We value these ideas not simply for the numbers who profess them, but out of respect for the individual human persons who freely believe them. Consensus can, of course, be one among other principles of policy, but it is a very weak principle. A just government never opposes value diversity as such, but only those rare forms of diversity that threaten social order. To say diversity itself is socially destructive is merely to beg the question. It may be quite the opposite. That very issue seems to me at the heart of the problem.

In the end it boils down to this question: Whom do we trust to choose the ideas the child of the ordinary family will study - the family or the government? Society needs a theory of the best decider - the one who decides best for the good of individual children and for the common good. (more…)

The belief that a society or a nation can be unified - its barriers of religion, class, and race broken down - by bringing its children together in common schools that express a lowest-common-denominator vision of national life is a persistent theme throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and has especially been evoked against schools created by immigrant groups to teach their children within their own religious tradition.

Critics like Jeff Spinner-Halev counter that pluralism is a positive social good, and allows individuals freedom to shape their own lives in terms of real choices:

A relentless diversity flattens the pluralism of society. … A pluralistic society is not a place where every institution mirrors the ethnic, racial, and gender composition of society.  A pluralistic society has different kinds of groups with different kinds of memberships. …  This kind of society will offer its members more choices than one that is diverse “all the way down.” … the irony of a diversity that is taken too far: eventually it makes society more homogeneous rather than heterogeneous. ... A society that has different institutions with different audiences, customers, clienteles, or students will be more pluralistic than a society where all the institutions are composed of the same people.

Advocates for an educational system that encourages non-government schooling argue that freedom in educational provision and the pluralism of the education provided requires the flourishing of alternatives to the schools operated by government, but only if these alternative schools are not compelled – or seduced – into adopting a pédagogie d’état which makes them essentially similar to government schools.

For the sake of freedom of conscience and of expression – itself founded on the principle of tolerance as well as ideological and philosophical principles of non-discrimination – no educational monopoly by the state can be justified within the democratic order. Freedom of conscience and expression are meaningless if children are subjected to mandatory indoctrination in a particular viewpoint selected by the state. (more…)