Think Forward #3: Teachers working in private practice
Why can't teachers have the same choices as doctors, lawyers or accountants?
An interview I conducted almost two years ago still haunts me.
I spoke to Cristina*, a former public-school teacher who felt she had no choice but to leave the classroom after she had her first child in 2019. She started working as a nanny so she could work more flexible hours.
The pandemic created an opportunity to return to teaching. During the summer of 2020, online child-care forums exploded with parents interested in forming one-room schoolhouses in their homes.
That fall, Cristina was teaching four first-graders in a living room. She tailored lessons to each of their needs. She was earning more money and finding more professional fulfillment than ever before. Plus the hours were more manageable, and the job came with built-in child care. Her toddler played contentedly on the floor, and the students enjoyed having a little one around.
When schools reopened the next year, the parents of the first-graders decided to end their pod. But Cristina had discovered new possibilities about teaching: Designing her own work environment, tailoring her teaching to individual students, flexible hours with no time-wasting meetings or administrative overhead. She decided she couldn’t possibly return to a traditional classroom.
Doctors, lawyers and accountants all have choices in where they ply their trade. They can work for a large company, or a major institution like a hospital. They can join with others in their profession to form small, specialized firms. Or they can choose to be their own boss and go into private practice.
For the most part, educators don't have the same range of options. Almost all of them are employed by institutions, like school districts, private schools, or charter networks. Those institutions dictate their hours and working conditions. Teachers typically lack the flexible hours a CPA might enjoy working from their home office, or the granular specialization an attorney might find at a boutique constitutional law firm.
That’s starting to change. New companies like KaiPod Learning and a.school are starting to help private-practice educators with logistics and back-office functions. But there are still barriers keeping other teachers like Cristina from creating learning environments on their terms.
Here are some ways policymakers and philanthropists can help expand these opportunities for educators:
Provide access to public funding. The easier it is for all families to pay for learning pods or microschools, the easier it will be for teachers to offer their services and sustain their efforts. This could include programs that allow parents to direct public funding to education providers of their choice. It could also include charter teacher policies or umbrella arrangements that create microschools inside existing schools — building on the model employed by microschool providers like Prenda. These teachers can enter contracts with schools that grant access to per-pupil funding, as well as other benefits like classroom space in underused buildings or special education services for qualifying students, while allowing them to design the learning experience themselves.
Support professional networks for independent teachers. Teachers who worked in learning pods reported they valued the flexibility to respond to their students’ needs. But they also reported feeling isolated. They need venues to connect to peers and possible collaborators. A teacher passionate about the humanities might want to link up with a teacher specializing in math and science. Associations of independent educators can help them find each other — and provide professional learning opportunities or shared resources for issues like liability insurance.
Rethink educator training. Existing teacher preparation programs are designed for one version of education jobs: those at large institutions. Future teachers should have training options that include courses in education entrepreneurship that prepare them to create their own learning environments or work in private practice.
Redesign teachers' jobs in existing schools. It may seem like a small thing, but teachers in schools that adopt team teaching models can leave work in the middle of the day for a doctor's appointment without having to request a substitute or plead with a colleague to cover their class. School leaders should look for ways to give teachers the flexibility and autonomy that college-educated professionals in other fields have come to expect.
The people working to redesign educators' jobs in existing schools and those working to support the flourishing of education entrepreneurs have a lot to learn from each other.
*Cristina is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of a research subject.
Think Fast
A must-read new report from the think tank Populace underscores something I noticed while visiting microschools in Arizona: There's a major gap between what many education entrepreneurs are solving for (or what students are telling them they want) and what our existing public education system is designed to prioritize.
Newly elected or re-elected governors and their legislative allies are pushing to create programs that let parents direct public funds to the education options of their choice. Education scholarship account (ESA) legislation is advancing in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Momentum appears to be building in Arkansas. Indiana legislation would create "career scholarship accounts," ESAs aimed specifically at students in tenth through twelfth grade who could use flexible funds to pay for career training. Florida legislation would convert the state’s existing school choice scholarship programs into universal ESAs — and call for “choice navigators” who would help students make informed choices about how they use their scholarships.
The nation's most expansive ESA program has come under fire from Arizona's newly elected Democratic governor. However, the program is insulated. The narrow Republican legislative majorities that enacted the expansion last year remain intact. Funding for the scholarships flows through a state formula, which means the program is not vulnerable to a line-item veto.
With a possible recession looming, analysts predict investment in education startups could remain above pre-pandemic levels, but below recent peaks. Workforce training remains a larger recipient of venture capital than K-12 education. The K-12 company that attracted the most venture cash last year, the online learning platform Paper, is hitting snags supporting tutoring programs that see limited participation.
Existing regulations designed around schools and childcare facilities can be an awkward fit for microschools—creating a complicated set of legal issues for their founders to navigate.
Final Thought
“I know that we know that what we do is sacred … We saw the way out —to serve our babies the way we want to, and the way we imagine.”
- Shiren Rattigan, founder of South Florida’s Colossal Academy, describing the connections she forms with other educators-turned-entrepreneurs during a presentation at the International School Choice and Reform Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.