The drop in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year had many who had been pushing for more education options — in Idaho and across the country — convinced that the traditional system’s day of reckoning had finally come. Then, public school enrollment in Idaho rebounded, showing that even far more visibility into their child’s learning and seemingly never-ending mask debates hadn’t shaken most parents’ confidence in traditional schools — at least not enough to permanently pull the plug.
The truth is, the vast majority of parents like their public schools. The nonprofit Learning Heroes found that, even a year into the pandemic, 80% of parents rated the education their child gets from their public school as pretty good or excellent. Lucky for us Idahoans, last session the legislature may have found an interesting way to give parents more options without taking their kids out of public school.
As a Boise resident, former policy advisor at the Idaho State Department of Education, and new dad of a future Idaho student, I’m deeply invested in our education landscape. I recently co-authored a study examining Idaho’s evolving experiences with microschools (also known as learning pods), which are formed by a small group of families bringing their children together to be taught by one or a few dedicated educators. These are by no means the only option for parents fed up with public school districts’ uneven response to the pandemic. However, microschools are an interesting new option because they offer a choice most never knew existed before.
In Idaho, microschools appeal to parents who previously had no interest in homeschooling. This is often because they work during the day, do not feel qualified to teach, or seek some socialization for their child. In microschools, parents seek a different experience from the traditional school setting. These parents want to entrust their child to a skilled educator, and are intrigued with the opportunity to have a say in scheduling, curriculum, and instructional strategies. Last year, this way to empower parents garnered interest from Idaho’s Legislature.
In our research, the policy priorities of microschool parents differed from the homeschool community in an important way. In Idaho and nationwide, homeschool parents tend to be hyper-skeptical of any state aid. They fear that taking money from the state for homeschool-related expenses comes with strings attached and opens the door for more regulation. Microschool parents, on the other hand, are more likely to be comfortable with state support. The research shows this is both because their child has been enrolled in the public school system, and they recognize additional funding makes starting a microschool much easier.
During the 2021 session, lawmakers considered two different options. House Bill 294 was this year’s version of “outside-the-system” bills we’ve seen in the past that establish education scholarships or grants, with the goal of providing more flexible education spending directly to parents. This bill would have allowed for the expansion of microschools along with other options like private school tuition and learning supplies. As with its predecessors, the debate over HB 294 stuck to the typical public versus private school talking points, with opponents fearing that funds would be taken away from school districts. And as with its predecessors, the bill failed.
Instead, the Idaho Legislature passed Senate Bill 1046, giving parents the option of “innovation classrooms,” an approach to microschools within the public school system. Innovation classrooms are established as an agreement between a school district and a group of parents who want to create a small learning community wherein their children learn from a specific teacher using their chosen curriculum. That law took effect on July 1 and parents can pursue an innovation classroom agreement with their district right now.
This new option is encouraging. It moves the debate beyond the well-dug-in positions on grant- or scholarship-based flexible spending policies. Innovation classrooms are a new idea that was home-grown in Idaho.
As it turns out, the inside-the-system innovation classroom approach may be just the thing that allows parents to explore a new option for their child without taking on all the responsibility of the public school system. As I note in my report, the legislators who took the lead on the bill are eager to help parents take advantage of it. Time will tell — we may have stumbled across an exciting solution for families that want more say in what happens at school without doing it all themselves.