LiberatED Podcast

The exodus of parents away from conventional schooling and into homeschooling has unleashed extraordinary levels of education entrepreneurship, as visionary parents, educators, and innovators launch new products and services for families choosing to learn outside of a standard classroom environment. One of those "edupreneurs" is this week's podcast guest, Ada Salie. Recognizing the mounting parent demand for new learning programs, last fall Ada launched Life Rediscovered, a learning center in Massachusetts, and she continues to adapt her programming to meet the needs and preferences of local families.

"School has become a toxic place for children and we refuse to say that publicly," asserts Peter Gray in this illuminating episode. Dr. Gray is a psychology professor at Boston College and the author of the book, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. He speaks and writes frequently on the value of self-directed education, the problems with coercive schooling, and the importance of childhood play, including on his popular Freedom to Learn blog at Psychology Today. Learn more about Peter Gray's research here.  

The past two years of education disruption have catalyzed support for school choice policies that enable education funding to follow students instead of going to bureaucratic school systems that are increasingly unresponsive to parent (and taxpayer) preferences.  In today's episode, Corey DeAngelis, one of the country's leading school choice advocates, talks about why so many Americans now support school choice policies and how these policies expand K-12 learning options for families.  Follow Corey on Twitter @DeAngelisCorey Link to Corey's articles School Choice Myths: Setting the Record Straight on Education Freedom, edited by Corey DeAngelis and Neal McCluskey Education Freedom Pledge

Michael Strong has been a longtime education entrepreneur and advocate of free markets and school choice. He has teamed up with Chris Engl to launch the Liberation of Education, helping parents recognize the many education options available to them. Their first major initiative is an online spring conference showcasing education entrepreneurship, innovative K-12 learning models, and education policy trends. Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, by Michael Strong

Jack Lloyd worked as a lawyer and teacher, which helped shape his views on education early in his career and led him to become a proponent of self-directed learning and unschooling. Today, Jack is a producer for liberty, creating content for a variety of media sites, including The Honest Teacher, and The Pholosopher. In this episode, we talk about education, libertarianism, and Jack's new book, The Definitive Guide to Libertarian Voluntaryism. 

Hybrid schools blur the lines between schooling and homeschooling, expand education choice access to the middle class, and offer personalized, family-centered, hyper-local learning solutions. Today's podcast guest is Eric Wearne, an Associate Professor in the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and Director of the National Hybrid Schools Project. He is also the author of the 2020 book, Defining Hybrid Homeschools in America: Little Platoons.

Tolerance of different viewpoints and values is a key principle of a free society, and yet in classrooms and on campuses across the country, young people increasingly self-censor and self-silence to avoid speaking out against the dominant cultural narrative. Some may not even realize that there are different viewpoints and values, conditioned as they are from their early days in a public school classroom to accept whatever their teachers say. And their teachers are being similarly conditioned, spending time in schools of education that tie grades to ideological activism and link achievement to allegiance with an approved interpretation of concepts like “social justice” and critical race theory.  All of this can lead parents to wonder what they can do to help prevent their children from being indoctrinated into a belief system that may run counter to their own values or may not allow for viewpoint diversity.  The answer, according to Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder, is to undoctrinate your kids. Bonnie is the director of high school outreach at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and author of the new and important book, Undoctrinate: How Politicized Classrooms Harm Kids and Ruin Our Schools—and What We Can Do About It. 

New Hampshire takes the lead as the freest state in the country, according to a new Cato Institute analysis of personal and economic freedom. Not surprisingly, people seem to gravitate toward freedom. In fact, while states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts lost population between July 2020 and July 2021 according to the US Census Bureau, New Hampshire saw its population grow during that time. The state is also gaining a reputation for educational freedom, thanks in large part to the work of our guest in this episode, New Hampshire Commissioner of Education, Frank Edelblut. During Edelblut’s term in the state education department, New Hampshire has expanded school choice policies and introduced an exciting program called “Learn Everywhere,” that enables students to accrue high school graduation credits outside of their schools through their community activities and extracurriculars.  Edelblut is also a homeschooling dad of seven, now-grown children who is supportive of homeschooling families throughout New Hampshire. "New Hampshire Is The Freest State in America: Here's Why," by David Brady (fee.org) "Want to 'Learn Everywhere' In NH?," by Kerry McDonald (The Union Leader)

The American Dream is alive and well, as David Morales illustrates in his powerful, new book, American Familia: A Memoir of Perseverance. David spent his childhood in Puerto Rico and moved to Massachusetts when he was 11, where he was surrounded by the love of his family but also widespread poverty and despair. Determined not to be a statistic and instead to seize the opportunity this country offers, David began embracing an attitude of self-reliance and self-improvement in his early teen years that would ultimately lead to his personal and professional success. His tenacity and grit enabled David to rise above his impoverished beginnings and achieve the American Dream.

Teachers and doctors are confronting similar challenges related to institutional bureaucracy and rising levels of professional burnout. Teachers, in particular, have been quitting at record rates over the past two years, leading to a nationwide teacher shortage. Some of these teachers are leaving the education sector entirely, but more of them are striking out on their own to create microschools, tutoring programs, and other educational services.  Entrepreneurs like Josh and Kirk Umbehr are helping individuals to build these new models. The Kansas-based brothers are the cofounders of a.school, a learning management platform for teachers who are creating new educational programs. The pair launched a similar platform, Atlas.md, several years ago when Josh, a family physician, realized the growing demand for direct primary care practices. Today, doctors and teachers are exiting entrenched institutions and building exciting, new models that offer greater freedom and flexibility for all. More Patients Turning to 'Direct Primary Care' (WebMD article featuring Atlas.md) Got Teacher Burnout? Launch A Microschool (Forbes.com article)