By Malina Seenarine
When it comes to school funding, Arizona public schools rank near the bottom of the nation. The state’s push to privatize education, which includes for-profit charter schools and voucher programs, has spawned a new way to funnel public-school funds to private hands—one that has gained traction during the pandemic: microschools.
A one-room learning experience that typically includes 5-20 students and takes place in a private home, microschools incorporate online learning programs supervised by an adult, typically a parent. Microschools operate in a “legal grey space” with “no regulatory framework,” said Charles Siler, a communication’s consultant and public-school advocate. Those who run microschools are not required to have any teacher training nor are the schools required to adhere to the state’s curriculum. In Arizona, most microschools are paid for by the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account, a voucher program that diverts per-pupil funding from public schools.
Microschools got a big boost during the pandemic.
“Through the pandemic, I saw the need for parents and students to have a different school-choice option, one that really customized and personalized the learning for the parent and the student,” said Tamara Becker, creator of Adamo Education, which operates a K-8 microschool in Fountain Hills, outside Scottsdale, and is planning to open another one next school year.
While most microschools are run by lone operators, Becker runs her program through a large—and financially troubled–charter network, Edkey, for which she served as the assistant superintendent for eight years prior to founding Adamo Education.
Becker became interested in the microschool movement in 2018 through a group that joined EdKey, Primavera Online School. Becker left the charter network, first, to become executive director of Primavera, and then, after two years, to found Adamo Education in 2021.
Unlike most microschools, Adamo hires teachers to teach cohorts of 12 students each. The teachers are expected to follow the same students as they advance from grade to grade. According to Becker, educators at Adamo need to have Arizona teacher-certification credentials and undergo a security check.
For the fall 2022 school year, Becker is expected to open another microschool location in Queen Creek, outside Chandler.
Microschools, however, are controversial. One of the biggest players in Arizona microschools is Prenda, a company that markets the microschool concept to families and provides an online curriculum for parents running them. In May 2020 Prenda had just three microschools operating in Maricopa County but, by the fall, the number had grown to 25. Prenda currently has over 400 microschools and 4,000 students in Arizona and a few other states.
According to an April 2021 report in The Arizona Republic, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office last year launched an investigation into the relationship between Prenda and one of its partners, Edkey, the charter-school network with which Adamo is also affiliated. The investigation, in turn, grew out of a fraud complaint by a charter-school watchdog and, at the very least, highlights the lack of oversight among microschools.
“The oversight is zero,” says Dawn Penich-Thacker, a public school advocate for Save Our Schools Arizona and a professor at Arizona State University. Penich-Thacker points out that even if the person who signs up to start a microschool receives training and a background check—and not all do–most microschools operate inside a private home, and there is no information known about the other people in the house.
Becker has heard the concerns about the lack of oversight. Recently she had the executive director and assistant director for the state board of charter schools visit her microschool. “They were very pleased to see all the things that we were doing, because it does align to what the State Board for Charter Schools expects from their charter operators.”
That’s not quite what the Arizona State Board of Charter Schools reports. “Our staff has visited Adamo briefly, but a full review has not been conducted at this time,” wrote Serena Campas, assistant director of policy development and government relations at the state board, in an email. An Adamo spokeswoman confirmed in a follow-up email: the school’s “annual review is scheduled for next year.”
Still, some parents appreciate the personal attention their kids receive from microschools and feel that, especially during the Covid pandemic, they are safer in these small settings than in traditional classrooms. “It felt a little more safe because there was less students in the classroom,” said Kylie Chamblee, mother of two and education coordinator at Black Mothers Forum microschools, which her children attend.
Black Mothers Forum started as an advocacy group in 2016. Its original mission was to unite and educate mothers who said Black and Brown children in their community face police brutality. The members of the group came together to advocate for children who, they felt, also were being poorly treated by the school district. In 2021, the group began to build microschools in the Phoenix area, and currently has three locations.
When Chamblee moved to Arizona in June 2020 she enrolled her daughter in Primavera’s first-grade online program for a semester before discovering the Black Mothers Forum’s mission and the microschools they were launching. Chamblee, who has a master’s degree in education, saw her kids struggling in a virtual setting and wanted to get them into a classroom. “As a parent, it was really important that the kids got attention, closer attention,” she said, adding that they also needed to be back with their peers.
As the network’s education coordinator, Chamblee says most kids come into the Black Forum microschools behind academically. But, because of smaller class sizes, she is able to create “close-knit” relationships with the parents to understand the challenges students are facing. “What we really aim to do is really identify those foundational pieces where the students are struggling, and really catch them up,” said Chamblee, adding that she has “seen so much growth” with her own children
Even as restrictions put in place by the pandemic begin to ease, the long-term effects of school closures are likely to shape the future of children for some time to come. How microschools will fare in a post-pandemic world is still uncertain. For now, although they are still largely untested, they don’t seem to be losing momentum. Microschools are spreading nationwide.