LiberatED Podcast

Mercedes Grant and Isis Spann, founders of microschools in VA and SC, share their startup stories and advice as education entrepreneurs. They discuss scaling Kipot, benefits of joining a community, freedom of running a microschool, recognition in South Carolina, starting up and scaling challenges, and how to connect with microschools.

As education across the US transforms from a centralized, top-down system to a diverse, decentralized marketplace responsive to the needs and preferences of learners and families, it can create some challenges for the entrepreneurial parents and teachers who are creating these new, bottom-up education solutions. Joining me on the podcast today is Mike Donnelly, an experienced attorney and vice president at the Yes Every Kid Foundation who is working to support today's education entrepreneurs and champion their innovative learning models. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

I recently spent time in the greater Kansas City area visiting microschools and learning pods, and talking to founders, and was struck by what I found. All seven of the learning environments I visited were founded within the past three years and all of the founders are former public school teachers who quit and created these alternative programs. They also all expressed greater levels of personal and professional fulfillment.  One of those founders is our guest today, Tara Cassidy. Tara was a public school teacher for 17 years, but grew increasingly frustrated with the institutional bureaucracy and was also not happy with her children’s experiences in the local public schools.  In August 2022, she launched Crossroad Trails Education Center, a low-cost microschool with eight students in a commercial storefront location that previously housed a daycare center. By November, she had 20 students. To accommodate local demand for her program, Cassidy opened up walls and expanded into an adjacent space. She is now at capacity with over 30 mixed-age learners in kindergarten through high school, despite no marketing or outreach.  Forbes: Former Public School Teachers Find Happiness in Entrepreneurship *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Alexi Burgess is the co-founder of Alcove Learning, a self-directed learning center for teens and tweens in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alcove opened in January 2020 as part of the Liberated Learners network of self-directed learning centers across the U.S.  In Los Angeles, A Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education (The74) *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

A common question about unconventional educational models, and especially about self-directed ones that put young people in charge of their own education, is how do kids turn out? To help answer that question I’ve invited Evan Hughes, who attended the renowned Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, MA for his childhood and adolescence, and now sends his son there as well.  Sudbury Valley was founded in 1968 and has since inspired the creation of dozens of Sudbury-model schools around the world. It prioritizes non-coercive, self-directed education within a democratically run community where adults and children have equal say in school operations, rule-making and enforcement, hiring and firing decisions, and so on. There are no adult-imposed classes, no grades, no curriculum or top-down evaluative measures. So how exactly does a person learn in this environment? *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Frank Farro, cofounder of Acton Academy North Broward, discusses the impact of learner-driven education, exploring education options, growth challenges and expansion, and the potential of learner-driven education to revolutionize the way we view education.

Our guest today is Judy Dwyre, who in the fall of 2019 launched Allium Montessori, a microschool for children ages 6 to 12 that is part of the national Wildflower Montessori microschool network. The first Wildflower microschool opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. Today, there are more than 60 of these microschools across the US and Puerto Rico. Most of them are private, but Wildflower public charter microschools now also operate in New York City, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC. (I visited and interviewed the founders of the Wildflower charter school in the South Bronx back in episode 94.) And I’ve also visited Judy’s Allium Montessori here in Cambridge, which is located just around the corner from me in Harvard Square. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.  

What is the LiberatED Podcast and who should listen? Check out this quick trailer to learn more!

Today's guest is Lizette Valles, a longtime teacher and school librarian who founded Ellemercito Academy in 2021 as a microschool focused on experiential learning and trauma-informed approaches to education. She is also the founder of Compass Educators, an educational services center that began as a holistic tutoring program but expanded to offer more services driven by parent demand, including support for navigating school choice policies, and support for "road schooling" and "worldschooling" families. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Bob Luddy is a successful entrepreneur who founded CaptiveAire Systems, the nation’s leading manufacturer of commercial kitchen ventilation systems, and later became an education entrepreneur, founding Thales Academy in 2007. Thales Academy is a classically-focused network of low-cost, PreK-12 private schools that has seen extraordinary growth from starting as a microschool with 30 students in a temporary spot in the back of Luddy's corporate office to now serving over 6,100 students across 13 locations in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Thales was recently named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Yass Prize for education innovation.  Entrepreneurial Life: The Path from Startup to Market Leader, by Robert Luddy *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.