What are microschools?

Microschools, also known as pandemic pods due to their rise in popularity as a result of COVID-19, are small groups of families or friends, usually no more than 10, who meet in person to be taught daily by a single teacher or tutor. Microschools are like a re-invention of the traditional one-room schoolhouse; sometimes, they are outside or in someone's home, but they are fundamentally marked by a single teacher and a small group of students. 

More: 

• Microschools are a specific subset of homeschooling, which is a broad umbrella. Homeschooling can be just about anything except public or private schooling. As such, homeschooling is not uniform in its appearance as it could be done entirely at home and taught by parents, entirely online, or taught by teachers once or twice a week with other homeschoolers. 
• Though homeschooling can happen online, microschooling is a specific subset as it involves a real in-person teacher and is NOT online. It is often sought out by people dissatisfied with remote or distance learning. 
• Oftentimes microschools are made up of students from the same neighborhood. 

Microschools are becoming more popular due to increasing concerns about public and private schools opening back in up the fall due to COVID-19. 

• In San Francisco, in particular, pandemic pods have been on the rise. One Bay Area pandemic pods Facebook group started last month, rose to 8,000 members within two weeks, and now has over 36,000 members. (tweet this)
• Since the pandemic began, according to one poll, parents' favorability towards homeschooling has nearly doubled. 

-Michael

Let us know what you think:

What is happening in schools right now?

As schools struggled to adapt to COVID-19 earlier this year, concerns about traditional school structures functioning in the fall have risen. In this section, we want to provide some context to the discussion and update our readers on what's going on with public and private schools now, to set the stage for the microschool debate. 

Does online distance learning work?

• Tracking student attendance and participation online was a huge mess due to non-uniformity in how engagement and participation were tracked and reported across the country.
• Many students just didn't show up for online learning; Los Angeles reported that, on average, 32% of students didn't even log into classrooms. In Chicago, 48% of students engaged in remote learning fewer than three days a week, and only 85% were successfully contacted by their teacher or administrator once a week.
• When the pandemic caused schools to switch to remote learning, student progress dropped dramatically. It's estimated that, on average, students will fall behind academically by seven months going into the fall. 
• The preliminary research shows that students will go into the next school year, with only 70% of the learning gains in reading and 50% in math relative to the previous years. 
• About 20% of students didn't have access to the technology they needed for remote learning. 
• The National Center for Education Statistics reports that students with disabilities make up about 14% of U.S. public school enrollment, and the Pew Research Center suggests that Americans with disabilities reported being less comfortable using technology.
• 23% of students with disabilities said they would never go online for learning. 

Safety and concern of kids and parents

• Most parents think sending kids back to school normally would be unsafe, and 80% of parents support doing school at least partially online.
• In May, 60% of parents said they would like to continue homeschooling, and 30% of them said they would strongly consider homeschooling even if schools did re-open in the fall. 
• Parents have been increasingly open to new schooling options and have been searching for options that are affordable due to concerns about child safety and educational development. 

Safety and concern of teachers

• 82% of K-12 teachers said they are concerned about teaching in the fall, and two-thirds of them would prefer teaching remotely. 77% of teachers are concerned about risking their own health or that of their families, and nearly 84% of teachers said that enforcing social distancing between students would be too difficult. 
• According to the Department of Education, nearly 30% of teachers are over the age of 50, putting them in a higher risk category for COVID-19. 
• A poll conducted in late May found that one in five teachers said they wouldn't go back to teach in the fall if schools re-opened. 
• In New Jersey, teachers and school staff compiled a document of nearly 400 specific questions asking how they were supposed to return and teach in the current climate.

-Michael

Arguments For and Against Microschools – This topic has quickly generated impassioned opinions and disagreements, and not necessarily across traditional political lines. Here are some of the best arguments we found for and against pandemic pods and microschools.

For:

• Kids need education and socialization, and virtual learning isn't working for them – The spring was rife with stories of chaotic online learning environments and ineffective virtual instruction. After months of planning, virtual fall instruction may be no better. 700,000 public school students in California alone don't even have computers. Other school districts are scrambling to organize hybrid in-person/virtual learning plans. Studies have shown that significant gaps in learning can have long-term impacts on student performance. Microschools could offer a safer, more effective learning environment that could establish a sense of normalcy.
• It's relatively affordable – Let's say five families combine to pay a teacher $20/hr for five hours of instruction a day, five days a week. That comes out to only $20/day per family, way less than a traditional private school, and without the worry that a student is learning nothing at home or risking infection at school. (See the "Against" section below for a counterpoint to this argument.)
• It could be a good opportunity for a young teacher – If a regular classroom job is unavailable, a teacher could get great experience in a (relatively) safe environment and earn some money in a period of mass unemployment.
• Microschools avoid jamming classrooms and spreading COVID-19 – Perhaps most importantly, a masked, partially-outdoor learning environment among a few children is far less likely to spread the virus than an environment with hundreds of students (many unmasked) crowding in a school hallway. Though younger children may not be major transmission vectors for SARS-CoV-2, a study from South Korea suggests that children over the age of 10 can spread the virus just as easily as adults.

Against:

• Only the privileged can do it – That $20/day referenced above may not be so affordable for many American families. $20/day is $100/week and ~$400/month, the exact amount of a "surprise expense" that 40% of Americans say they couldn't afford. With many parents out of work due to the pandemic, that percentage may currently be even higher. Families will also need a space to hold these microschools, preferably outdoors. Backyards are plentiful in many neighborhoods, but they may not be available to the rent-burdened in major cities. (That's not to mention the fact that $20/hr for a professional teacher is quite low and doesn't take into account that teachers would have to spend time outside of instructional hours developing a curriculum and lesson plans.)
• It takes resources away from public schools reopening for virtual learning – If wealthy, predominantly white parents are able to pay more for teachers, it could create an imbalanced system that further exacerbates the racial and ethnic achievement gap in the U.S.
• It still risks spreading the virus – Virtual learning is pretty much the only way to ensure that students, teachers, and administrators aren't spreading COVID-19 among their communities. Though pandemic pods are certainly less of a risk than a fully-reopened school, gatherings of children who'll have a hard time sitting still and keeping on face masks certainly present some risk, though it's unclear exactly how much. Furthermore, it's impossible to know what those students and their families are doing outside of a pod. The bigger the pod, the more likely it is that some families are engaging in behavior others would be uncomfortable with. The students themselves may be at very little risk of major health outcomes from COVID-19, but their older teachers and their families might not be.

To address affordability, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced a bill to allow federal education funding to "follow" students, so that parents can choose where to allocate money earmarked for their child. Author and Cato Institute scholar Corey DeAngelis says that, since the U.S. spends $15,424 per child per year in public schools, a ten-child microschool would have $154,240 to use in paying a teacher and providing materials and technology. Opponents say DeAngelis is oversimplifying the issue, and the plan would not be feasible for students in higher grades who require multiple teachers in specific subjects.

These are definitely not all of the arguments for and against microschooling. Feel free to click 'reply' and let us know your thoughts!

-Jonathan

Pandemic pods may be a new development, but microschools are not. Here are some numbers behind the business of education and some startups innovating in the edtech space.

Some stats:

• The cost of reopening schools safely in the fall is estimated to be between $158b and $244b.
• The average cost of private school education per year is ~$11,000.

Investments in edtech:

According to the data available in CrunchBase, in 2019, global edtech investments amounted to $2.6b, and in the first seven months of 2020, the investments crossed $2.8b. In the U.S, edtech investments in 2020 amounted to $565m, down from $1b during the first seven months of 2019.

World’s highest valued edtech startup:

The only decacorn (startup with a valuation of $10b or more) in edtech is Byju’s, which is based in India and provides a learning app starting from first grade to competitive exams. Last year, Byju’s formed a partnership with Disney to feature Disney cartoon characters in its tutorials.

-Nat

Startups related to Microschooling:

• Zutor provides a matchmaking service for parents to find "In-home Zutors" who assist their kids with distance learning. Zutor collect a fee of $700-$1,000 to provide suitable matching tutors to the parents' needs.
• CareVillage provides a platform to share resources within nearby households to provide tutoring, a play pod, study pod, etc.  
• Winnie is a marketplace for childcare and pre-kindergartens with over 200,000 listings. Around 75% of listings accept school-aged kids. It raised $9m in Series A funding last year.
• Weekday offers a platform to find microschools for parents in their neighborhoods. Weekday is in talks with Pacific Science Center to provide virtual field trips and non-screen based activities.
• Prenda, which was started with seven kids in 2018, will have over 200 microschools by fall. It offers microschools in groups of 5-10 students, and also provides resources and support for homeschooling. 
• SchoolHouse provides a platform for parents to find teachers of their choice who are sourced from educational institutions. Once selected, the teacher will conduct a microschool of 4-8 students.
• Dexter provides a platform for interactive lessons for both homeschooling and as a replacement for traditional schooling.*

*Inside.com founder Jason Calacanis is an investor in Dexter.

Resources for homeschooling/microschooling/online platforms/pandemic pods:

• 4.0 provides fellowships for building the leadership skills of people who have an idea related to schooling and education. It provides coaching and grants to test the idea.
• Wonderschool is a software provider for in-home childcare, which recently opened up its software for free for parents and K-12 teachers to create their own microschools.
• Last month, San Francisco announced that it is creating 40 hubs to help 6,000 students with distance learning needs.
• For those looking to start a pod, protocols should be set for social risk management, environmental risk management, testing, re-entry, and conflict management.
• An educational fund of $1m was announced by the VELA board to support innovative microschool opportunities.

-Nat

QUICK HITS - here are a few of today's top business stories:

• The U.S. added 1.8 million jobs in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2% from 11% in June. The job gain was substantially lower than June's (4.8 million) due to the coronavirus surge.
• President Trump issued two executive orders Thursday night to limit Americans' use of the China-based apps TikTok and WeChat starting Sept. 20. Microsoft says it plans to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations by Sept. 15.
• Delta Air Lines is asking for 3,000 of its 20,000 flight attendants to take voluntary unpaid leave for at least four months to avoid forced furloughs and other cuts.
• UPS is planning to increase fees on large shippers over the holidays due to an expected swell in online orders this year.
• Thousands of guys are seeing real results and telling the world about Geologie skincare.*

In yesterday's survey, we asked if you'd signed up for any new streaming services since the start of the pandemic. Here are the results:

• 41% of respondents said yes.
• 59% said no.

*This is sponsored content.