Posted on 07/02/2021 8:03:28 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Speculation abounds over whether or not the pandemic-induced growth in homeschooling is temporary. While there are several signs indicating that parents won’t be sending their children back to public schools this fall, and homeschooling continues to be a popular choice, the question remains: for how long and to what extent?
According to remarks by one prominent investor, this is just the beginning of a widespread shift away from conventional schooling models toward disruptive innovation in education–with homeschooling leading the way. “It certainly feels like we’re on the front end of a pretty dramatic homeschooling boom,” said Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the original Mosaic web browser, co-founder of Netscape, and co-founder and general partner of the leading venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.
Speaking on the “Invest Like the Best” podcast this week, Andreessen said the pandemic has been a catalyst for parent-driven, technology-enabled educational change that will have a large and lasting impact on the education sector. For one thing, the pandemic gave parents a close-up opportunity to view what was happening in their children’s classrooms.
Black homeschoolers led the surge, with a five-fold increase in homeschooling rates from the spring of 2020.
“I think it's the first time parents saw what their kids are getting in the classroom at the K through 12 level, in many, many years,” said Andreessen. “Most parents, if you're in your thirties or forties and your kids are in sixth grade or eighth grade, you were taught in the classroom 30 years ago, it turns out some things have changed. So the current curricula is quite a bit different at a lot of schools. I know a lot of parents were just shocked, absolutely shocked at the stuff that was coming across.” He added that “some set of parents are like, I'm not sending my kids back to that.”
Andreessen explained that his investment firm is eagerly backing online learning startups that can accelerate disruption in the slow-to-change, regulatory-laden education space. An article on the firm’s website provides more details on the forward-looking changes they expect to see in education technology startups as a result of COVID-19’s impact, as well as their investment strategy. In particular, the firm expects to move away from investing in founders who are focused on selling products and services directly to schools in favor of those founders who are selling directly to parents. “Many parents are taking an increasingly pronounced role in the academic experience, and we’ve seen the emergence of new platforms for supplemental education and homeschooling,” the article states.
Abetted by school closures and related pandemic policies, the education sector is ripe for “creative destruction,” the term used by economist Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, to describe the dynamic process of new business models and enterprises replacing legacy organizations and industries. He explained that capitalism is “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” fueled by entrepreneurship and innovation. Schumpeter writes: “The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrated the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”
Parents want more choices and entrepreneurs will provide them.
As parents demand more education options beyond an assigned district school, the opportunity for creative destruction grows. New federal data reveal that overall K-12 public school enrollment fell three percent during the 2020/2021 academic year, while preschool and kindergarten enrollment dropped by an astonishing 13 percent. Many parents opted out of district schooling for homeschooling, which tripled from pre-pandemic rates to over 11 percent of the US K-12 school-age population. Black homeschoolers led the surge, with a five-fold increase in homeschooling rates from the spring of 2020. Moreover, voter support for school choice policies that allow education funding to follow students instead of school systems has just reached an all-time high this month.
Parents want more choices and entrepreneurs will provide them. Legacy schooling models are on borrowed time, as new educational prototypes gain popularity and support. But Marc Andreessen warns that the process of disrupting the educational status quo won’t be easy.
He explains that “new education startups should be ready to come under just withering assault from Washington or from Sacramento because all of the teacher unions, and all of the universities, and all of the people who are basically wired into those systems are going to just try to kill it.”
With the enthusiasm of millions of parents and learners, and the support of prominent investors, there’s never been a better time for entrepreneurs to battle the entrenched education bureaucracy–and win.
With millions of homeschool graduates having gone through colleges already, and most very successfully, that’s a difficult task for the rats to accomplish. Since they are lazy and useless individuals, they won’t do the hard work necessary to succeed in that goal, although they will try.
As I was reading your post, I was thinking of one of my kids. My wife is decent with math but nowhere near his level. His math skills are extremely good and he sailed through college.
He actually is a homeschooled rocket scientist, well Astronautical Engineer to be precise. With a nice career path at NASA.
But, we let our kids follow their own path. His younger brother is a Trucker. He doesn’t earn as much but he’s mature and independent. He has the most important job in the family. He drives a flatbed semi. Not only is r=he expected to drive safely, he’s solely responsible for his load to be balanced and secured. The lumber he delivers to construction sites keeps hundreds of men employed and able to feed their families.
I agree 100%... some areas are starting to see the potential athletes among homeschoolers and letting them play for their public school teams. We knew one homeschooler that played for his local school and he’s playing in the minors (as a catcher), but you have to be pretty exceptional for a school district to be willing to make that exception.
I know in Idaho homeschoolers can play sports and use some of the other resources of the local schools, at least it was that way a few years ago when we were looking at moving there.
The homeschool sports program near me is about 15 years old with about 2,000 participants- but the people that manage it are paid. It is moving towards being under the umbrella of a local hybrid school which means homeschoolers will no longer be allowed. That will ruin it IMO... especially for football, the school is not big enough to field a decent team without the homeschoolers.
Parents are banding together and hiring teachers to teach a small pod of kids part online part in person. Great idea!
Focusing on the HSed kids who get into Ivy League schools or become surgeons, while laudable, is a slippery slope. What if most HSed kids became long-term unemployed? Would we say that HSing should be abolished? No way, because the right of a parent to have plenary control over their child's education is as fundamental as free speech, self-defense and is entwined with the right to self-determination. THAT is the basis for homeschooling.
Having said that, most HSed kids do very well academically and certainly better than had they been through the public and, I'd add, private schools. The reasons why are varied, but they emanate from love and sacrifice. Teachers on the payroll may be good, but they will rarely have the same level of concern as that of parents or guardians.
Regardless of academic outcomes, HSed kids simply think for themselves, and THAT is, inter alia, why they want to kill it.
Well said. I don't know much about the other "blue states," but I agree with you that outsiders really misunderstand NJ, especially south NJ. Most people here have a strong libertarian streak.
Even though I've "retired" from HSing, I hope it continues to thrive here, free from regulation and intrusion. I hope the new HSers love liberty as much as we did!
Wow... 2,000 students in the sports program? What a shame if the hybrid school starts turning the homeschoolers away.
The homeschool sports programs where I live were always organized and coached by nonpaid volunteers. But, when the children of those volunteers finished homeschooling, the younger, newer homeschool parents never stepped up to take over. Many of the larger HSing organizations here folded over the years. They were replaced by different groups... but there are no sports programs here, anymore, as far as I know.
Yeah, they have most sports, even an equestrian team, and middle school, JV and Varsity. The teams are still coached by parents but the athletic director is very good at weeding out the parents who want to coach but who are all about daddy-ball.
My husband stayed on to coach a varsity baseball team after my son graduated just because he knew the kids and wanted to keep some continuity. The JV coach will coach the varsity next year.
It’s sad, but the last of the homeschoolers who were grandfathered in graduated last year.
That sounds like a great program! Too bad it will lock out homeschoolers now.
Around here, about 15 years ago, the local homeschool sports programs were organized through homeschool groups, and they competed against the private schools.
A hybrid school opened locally, some years ago, but I don’t think it did very well. The tuition was too high.
Right before the pandemic, though, some local co-ops were thriving, larger than ever with about 400 students at each one.
They are going to do considerably more than that. CA is seriously legally harassing and attacking homeschoolers.
They are not “public” schools, they are GOVERNMENT schools. Your children are being “educated” by the collective.
The hybrid school here is doing well, it is really more private school than homeschool, as it’s all teacher led. But it is an easier transition from public school. The costs aren’t too bad. We liked another co-op/school near me, they offer classes a la carte, taught by homeschool parents but most of them were retired teachers. That program was more of a supplement to parent teaching and it was great. We’ve tried a couple other similar programs and were happy with them. We’ve been blessed to have a lot of choices.
My youngest decided he liked online learning best so he did high school with Alpha-Omega Academy and dual enrolled online at Liberty. He’s a Junior at Liberty now.
Excellent.
I always loved homeschooling because it offered so many options to all families, no matter what our circumstances were. I hope the homeschool community continues to flourish.
Agreed - it was hands down one of the best things we ever did for our kids.
will add this to the list of curriculum to look into.
I am a credentialed teacher (but ran screaming) and have tutored 1:1 for many years. We homeschooled - one of our group’s parents was accosted by social workers bc her In-laws were teachers and accused her of harming her children. That was in 1991 California. DIL homeschools in New Jersey now and said ‘it is normal now in California but they think I am weird.’ The unions don’t like it and I expect to see legislators try to make it illegal but it is the only way. (I will chat / mentor) w anyone who is starting out. To arms!
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