School choice continues to expand, even in blue and purple states

Press reports tend to draw a hard line between the 17 states which enacted universal school choice programs when both their legislatures and governors were Republican and the 33 others which have not. But it would be more accurate to say that choice is expanding everywhere, just with different structures.

Even in states where at least one branch of government remains opposed to funding non-public education, the rapid growth of three inexpensive K-12 schooling options is making choice a reality for more students.

The most popular of these low-cost alternatives is the so-called “microschool,” a small educational venue which typically serves 16 pupils or less. Spontaneously formed by neighboring families during COVID-19, when the public schools were closed and open private schools were filled to capacity, these small-scale programs have continued to multiply, offering a more personalized learning experience in blue states as well as red. Today, according to National Microschooling Center CEO Dan Soifer, there are around 95,000 microschools across the U.S. serving over 1.5 million K-12 students.

Another economical non-public option which has spread to states without legalized school choice is the “church learning center.” As the name implies, this is a school which operates within a house of worship, typically during weekdays and at other times when its facilities are not used for religious services. Depending on the size of the church, its learning center can be as small as a microschool or serve hundreds of students.

An accurate count of these church learning centers is harder to make, in part because there is no national organization representing all of them and also because the larger ones are reluctant to publicize themselves in ways that might invite regulation as a conventional private school. But a clear indicator of their popularity is the growing number of regional and denominational organizations dedicated to helping churches organize their own programs.

In Kansas, for example, homeschool mom of six Delana Wallace runs the Heartland Education Reformation Organization, a nonprofit that advocates for 15 parish-sited schools and connects local clergy with educators interested in starting new ones. And in Boston, the city’s Family Institute has successfully guided more than 20 religious groups in establishing their own Christian learning centers. At the other end of the country, in California, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has encouraged the formation of five such schools.

The third and final low-cost teaching venue is the “hybrid school,” a term which refers less to a school’s size, location, or curriculum than to how its students divide their time: two or three days a week online at home, and the other days in a more organized group setting. The provider of the structured portion can be a microschool or church learning center, but also a college, business, foundation or public charter school.

One of the newer hybrid options is the traditional private or parochial school which runs a separate part-time academy. For example, the Canterbury Christian School in Los Altos, Calif., offers local homeschooled children a two day per week package of more conventional classroom instruction. “If you’re trying to support a family in a place like Silicon Valley, where ordinary homes cost $3-to-$4 million,” says the school’s headmaster, Rev. Steve Macias, “it’s not easy to pay [our full-time tuition] with after-tax dollars.”

What clearly helps all three kinds of low-cost schools to control their expenses is family involvement in program administration. Students’ mothers and fathers work as classroom aids, break and lunchroom monitors, carpooling drivers, sports coaches and even teachers. Church learning centers have the added benefit of being able to draw on volunteer labor from their congregations.

The second factor which controls expenses for these schools is that their typical student is registered as a homeschooler, which exempts them from a considerable regulatory burden. From the government’s point of view, it is not the microschool, church learning center, or hybrid facility where the child is being educated, but the family home. The school itself is viewed as something more like a tutoring company, although the most accurate descriptor for the vast majority of them would be “collaborative homeschool.”

The final factor which has enabled microschools, church learning centers and hybrid schools to be seen as affordable options, even in the absence of government funding, is that all three of them have become increasingly reliant on the so-called “classical curriculum.” That is to say, a curriculum which emphasizes logical reasoning over the memorization of facts, and the reading of the great books of Western civilization, especially those which inspired America’s Founders.

And while this educational methodology is not necessarily any less expensive than others, the evidence for its efficacy has convinced growing numbers of parents that they are getting an exceptional academic return for their investment.

As the American Enterprise Institute’s director of Education Policy Studies, Frederick M. Hess, has documented, classically educated students get exceptionally high scores on standardized achievement tests. As a result, they also have unusually high college acceptance rates. They even outperform on the SAT — an exam that the classical curriculum does not even attempt to “teach to.”

As for the actual cost of a microschool, church learning center or hybrid school, the answer depends on such factors as the ratio of paid staff to volunteers, the rent required to obtain a venue, and the extracurricular activities provided. On the low end is the Cornerstone Church in Uxbridge, Mass., which has long hosted a parent-run school called DELTIC Prep, short for “Doing Education in Life Together in Christ.” It annually educates 70 to 90 students across multiple grades for just $15 to $75 each per year. There are programs which cost as much as $5,000 to $10,000, but still less than a conventional private or parochial school in their areas. 

Given the continuing reluctance of blue and purple state politicians to fund non-public education, school choice is indeed coming to their communities in a different way than in more conservative jurisdictions. But it is coming.

Lewis M. Andrews is chair of the Kids’ Scholarship Fund.