LiberatED Podcast

In the small town of Abbyville, Kansas, located an hour outside of Wichita with a population of 83 people, lies Re*Wild Family Academy, a microschool run by our guest today, Devan Dellenbach. Devan was a certified elementary school teacher in Kansas public schools for five years before leaving the classroom to be a stay-at-home mom to her two children. Stay-at-home parenthood evolved into homeschooling for Devan and now into microschooling, as she attracts other families to the personalized, nurturing, and tranquil learning space she has created in her home. I had the chance to see Devan’s microschool up close when I visited her rural Kansas community earlier this month.  Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.  

One of the high-quality virtual learning platforms that I am especially enthusiastic about is Great Hearts, which is expanding this year into a national online private academy with a Classical education focus.  A network of public charter and tuition-based private schools and microschools, with both brick-and-mortar and virtual offerings, Great Hearts is the largest provider of liberal arts classical education in the country, serving more than 26,000 students at 33 schools across the US.  Our guest today is Kurtis Indorf, Chief Innovation Officer for Great Hearts America, and the Founder and President of Great Hearts Nova. Apply here for the 2023 Ed-Prize Awards for education entrepreneurship and innovation!  Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

When Emily Williams told her parents that she was leaving her job as a certified public school teacher to launch a microschool, they thought she was crazy. Both longtime public school educators themselves, they couldn’t understand why Emily, who taught in Mississippi public schools for more than a decade, would want to give up a good district salary, insurance, and retirement benefits to become an education entrepreneur. Emily, however, felt drawn to create an educational environment that would emphasize individualized learning, personal autonomy and mutual respect. She launched Micah’s Mission, a low-cost, faith-based microschool located in Vicksburg, Mississippi that serves about 50, K-12 students, including several students with significant disabilities and special needs.  Read more about Emily in my Forbes article: "Former Public School Teachers Are Earning More As Education Entrepreneurs" Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Self-directed education is a tough concept for many people to grasp. It challenges the ways in which many of us were educated, and the ways many of our children continue to be educated, by flipping the entire idea of education as a top-down model of coercive schooling to a bottom-up model of individual agency and self-determination. My 2019 book, Unschooled: Raising Curious Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, details the history and philosophy of non-coercive, self-directed education tied to one’s individual interests, goals, and life pursuits.  One place that has become a beacon for parents and educators interested in the philosophy and practice of self-directed education is the Sudbury Valley School, that I write extensively about in Unschooled. Sudbury Valley was founded in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1968 and continues to flourish today more than 50 years later. It has also inspired the creation of dozens of democratic, Sudbury-model schools around the world, as well as various unschooling programs. If you remember back to episode 39 in October, I interviewed Sudbury Valley School cofounder, Mimsy Sadofsky, and explained why my husband and I decided to send our children there instead of continuing with homeschooling. But today I thought it would be interesting and insightful to hear from another parent, Nick Warren, who pulled his two children out of public school in 2021 and enrolled them at Sudbury Valley. Like us, Nick and his wife drive a long distance each way every day so that their kids can attend Sudbury Valley, but it’s totally worth it. We talk more about why that is in today’s show.  Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

For Becky Elder, education entrepreneurship is nothing new. In 1963, her parents founded a private school in Wichita, Kansas. Becky then homeschooled her own children even before the practice was legally recognized. In 1993, she helped to launch Northfield School of the Liberal Arts as a small, classically-oriented school for approximately 50 middle and high school students in Wichita.  Dalena Wallace is a next-generation education entrepreneur, following in Becky’s footsteps. She is a homeschool mom of 6 children ages 8-15 who lives in a small rural community about an hour outside of Wichita. Dalena has been running a popular homeschool co-op for several years and received a microgrant from the VELA Education Fund which helped to connect her to other local education entrepreneurs in the greater Wichita area, including Becky. Dalena and Becky, along with some of the other Wichita education entrepreneurs I have had on the podcast, created the group WISE - Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators— to support the growth and success of more microschools, low-cost private schools, learning pods, homeschool collaboratives, and other innovative K-12 education models. Check out my case study of education entrepreneurship in Wichita! Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Sean Harrell is the president of Integration Charter Schools (ICS) on Staten Island in New York City. ICS is a collection of four charter schools focused on fully integrating students with special needs (about 40%)and general education students.  Sean has worked as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, and school district administrator for more than a decade. He founded and serves as executive director of the Progressive Educators Group, and is also an edtech entrepreneur who launched the teacher recruitment app, EdSwipe!, in early 2022.  I had the chance to meet Sean and visit ICS during my recent trip to the Big Apple to uncover innovative learning models there. Check out my latest New York Post article featuring Sean, ICS, and other innovative learning models in NYC. Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.    

Despite his MBA and a B.S. degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as a prestigious career as a naval officer and flight test engineer, James Lomax was prohibited from opening a secular private school in the state of Nevada due to occupational licensing regulations. Read more in my latest Forbes article: "Why Can't A Retired U.S. Navy Officer And Engineer Open A Private School In Nevada?"   Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.      

Our guest today is Dr. Lisa Scott, founder of The Art of Words Community School, a small private school in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, NY. Lisa earned her PhD in Education from Claremont Graduate School and taught classes in the history and philosophy of education at both CUNY-Queens and Hunter College before leaving to launch her microschool in September 2020.  Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Michael Strong, founder of The Socratic Experience, discusses his high-quality online school that emphasizes personalized and purpose-driven education. Topics include alternative education options, limitations of conventional schooling, advice for parents seeking alternatives, tips for education entrepreneurs, and inspiring stories of education entrepreneurs.

Turan Rush grew up in West Virginia on Charleston's West Side and was a star football player at Capitol High School, going to on to play at the collegiate level at Eastern Michigan University. He decided to come back to Charleston after graduating in 2021 to make a positive impact on the youth in his neighborhood. He teamed up with Jeff Biddle, a pastor and mentor to Turan, to open a thriving, sports-focused, youth after school program in Charleston. The duo now has their sights set on opening a low-cost private school in the same location as their after school program to provide greater learning opportunities to Charleston’s young people.  "Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline, One Microschool At A Time" (Forbes.com) Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.