COVID-19 Provides Opportunity to Revolutionize Education

by admin | Aug 11, 2020 | Misc, News and Updates

All across the country, K-12 educators and staff are holding families hostage and threatening to strike (again) if schools open up in the Fall for kids to learn in person.  They are claiming that it is not safe enough to teach, despite the fact that many districts are opening up to offer in person daycare services and are charging for the service. Parents and students that need an in-person learning option have become political pawns in the teacher union chess game to further their agenda.

If the unions and school shutdown lobby think they are winning the debate, they are sorely mistaken. With families getting their first glimpse of substandard online classroom instruction, parents are already sprinting out of their district school and opting for better alternatives.  In states such as Arizona, where school choice is popular and plentiful, parents easily have other options. 

As consumers, we are well accustomed to the luxuries of customization and flexibility.  In fact, we have come to expect it in almost every realm of goods and services.  Yet when it comes to education parents don’t realize they have a right to demand these features for their children. 

Families should have a market of options in which they consider the unique aptitude, learning style and interests of their child. Organizations and school choice advocates have been working for years to advance innovation and diversity in education and to question the top-down system of the status quo.   Additional demand from Covid-19 and opportunistic teacher unions is likely to expedite the revolution of educational options in Arizona.

Microschools

Just as it sounds, microschools are small learning environments between 8 – 10 students that blend homeschooling with an in-class community environment.  In Arizona, this concept has been popularized by the company Prenda whose goal was to create a learning environment that was self-guided and fueled by a child’s own enthusiasm for learning. Prenda created an online platform that has made its model for learning accessible to students across the state.  Even in the most isolated and economically challenged areas of the state, such as the Apache Reservation, a microschool has popped up and is serving a small number of tribal students who would have had no other option but failing district schools.

Homeschooling

Though certainly not a new concept, homeschooling is quickly gaining popularity.  Many parents who were thrust into “being the teacher” at the end of the 2020 school year have discovered they are rather good at it and are opting this year to take on the role full time.  In fact, in Maricopa County the number of families opting to homeschool their children this Fall has tripled over last year.

Pandemic Pods

Similar to microschools, parents are also forming “pandemic pods” for children in their families and neighborhoods; small groups of kids taught under either a parent or paid teacher or tutor.  This allows families to pool their resources and share the costs of a more personalized education.  Companies from Manhattan to San Francisco have popped up to facilitate the matching of families with tutors and teachers; a similar model that already exists with nanny agencies. This model has raised concerns over equity – how do children in families with limited resources and means ensure they still receive a quality education?

Right now, parents are figuring all this out on their own.  Policymakers could help. 

Expanded Empowerment Scholarship Accounts

Arizona already has a vehicle set up for “backpack funding,” a finance system for education that follows the student no matter what educational option they choose.  Currently Empowerment Scholarship Accounts are only open to certain qualifying students – such as for children with disabilities, in the bounds of schools rated a ‘D’ or ‘F’, children of military persons or tribal children. 

The legislature should expand this program for the COVID-19 pandemic.  Doing so would allow all families struggling with the difficult educational choices right now to access needed funds to tailor an education best for their child in this chaotic environment.  This could be done at a fraction of the cost of traditional district school funding.   

These models are the tip of the iceberg.  As families, educators and policymakers navigate what education looks like during the current pandemic; this is an even greater opportunity to explore how to revamp archaic school finance systems, outdated education models, and make parents expert consumers of educational options.

Parents Should #WalkAway From Public Schools Unwilling to Educate AZ Kids

by admin | Jul 29, 2020 | Misc, News and Updates

The would-be school year is fast approaching and thousands of parents across Arizona are panicking. 

How will their children learn this year?  When will they have a physical place to go?  Will parents be able to return to work?  Will they have to pay for tutors out of pocket? 

With most of the critical reopening decisions now in the hands of Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, school districts and ultimately the teachers’ union, it’s obvious now that crafting a system that works for parents and kids won’t be the top priority for the educational establishment.  Every decision from here on out will be to cater to the desires of administrators and teachers. Period.

Come August 17^th, district school families will be forced to accept whatever dysfunctional Covid-schooling platform that is thrusted into their laps.  Parents of low-income families will be hit the hardest, especially those who can’t work from home. Special needs children will be hung out to dry. Kids in abusive households will continue to have no escape from a hostile environment.

And if any parent or taxpayer questions why their needs appear to be secondary to those of the educational establishment, they are immediately shouted down and told that they just want people to die.  So what if your child needs in person learning—you should just accept paying unlimited amounts in taxes to feed a substandard educational system that only adds to the chaos in your life.

Even more infuriating is the “solution” now being offered to parents that require in person schooling to address their work/life situations. Rather than open up for learning, several school districts are now offering paid childcare services. 

That’s right – residents already paying over half of their state taxes to education are now expected to pay to have their kids in school to not learn.   Representatives of the teachers’ union claim it is too risky to teach kids in a classroom, but apparently it is plenty safe to not teach them in a classroom. 

Parents and kids deserve better than this. 

Families were willing to extend grace at the end of the school year when districts scrambled to reformat the educational experience for online and distant learning.  The legislature passed emergency measures to ensure funding would be uninterrupted. And instead of developing a real plan that catered to families that MUST HAVE in person learning, the school districts and education lobby instead put all their time and energy into a public relations campaign to push back the start date of school to October 1^st. 

It should be noted that there are many schoolteachers and administrators ready and willing to resume in person learning.  Afterall, through the peaks and valleys of the pandemic, essential workers have stepped up and done their jobs.  Truck workers continued to deliver critical goods, grocery store workers continued to stock shelves, and doctors and nurses continued to man hospitals and treat the unwell.  Those teachers that recognize that education is an essential service and wish to provide in person learning to our children should not be stopped by administrators and union thug bosses.

If district schools believe that there is no limit to the mistreatment of hardworking families, they are in for a rude awakening.  Most parents are very supportive of their local district school, but they will have no problem walking away from a broken K-12 system if it benefits their child.   

They may not be vocal or have active twitter accounts, but these parents are paying attention and are wide awake to this rolling disaster. They are thinking creatively about education and observing more closely than ever the best ways in which their children learn.  This will lead to rapid innovation and adoption of flexible models. 

Post-pandemic, there may very well be an explosive demand for testing new educational models, from micro-schools, “forest schools,” digital classrooms, to expanded ESAs.  An educational Renaissance is a possible and welcome outcome.