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Massachusetts Can Do More to Encourage Education Entrepreneurship. White Paper No. 286

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Massachusetts Can Do More to Encourage Education Entrepreneurship. White Paper No. 286
Language: English
Authors: Lynn Swanson, Amar Kumar, William Heuer, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
Source: Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. 2025.
Availability: Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. 185 Devonshire Street, Boston, MA 02110. Tel: 617-723-2277; Web site: http://www.pioneerinstitute.org
Peer Reviewed: N
Page Count: 23
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Reports - Evaluative
Descriptors: Entrepreneurship, Private Education, Home Schooling, Small Schools, Nontraditional Education, Educational Finance, State Aid, Educational Environment, Educational Innovation
Geographic Terms: Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Utah, West Virginia
Abstract: Across the U.S., a growing movement toward education freedom is driving the rise of "edupreneurs"--educators, parents and entrepreneurs creating innovative learning environments designed to meet the needs of individual kids. As used in this paper, the term edupreneur includes owners and operators of private schools and programs for children who are homeschooled. It does not include operators of charter schools or other forms of public school. As discussed later, these programs may be called many names such as microschools, hybrid schools, learning centers, learning pods, homeschool coops, resource centers and more. They may be formed as nonprofit or for-profit entities. To meet the demand for a more individualized approach to education that moves away from the traditional school paradigm of one-size-fits-all, many of these learning environments are quite small frequently having 30 learners or less. This shift, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to an explosion of innovative learning environments nationwide. Many states have embraced and invited the introduction of new and novel approaches to education. Florida and Arizona have vibrant educations savings account ("ESA") programs that enable families to withdraw from public school and use a portion of the funds allocated to educate their child for other educational purposes including private school tuition, tutoring and, other forms of educational services, curriculum and other educational materials. In April 2025, Texas enacted an ESA program that will be the largest such program in the United States. Georgia, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have adopted statutory provisions protecting certain types of learning environments from unnecessary government regulation. The recognition of alternative education environments and some state's willingness to allow families to use their tax dollars to pay for alternatives to in-system education have resulted in a blossoming of options for children and families. It is difficult to get accurate counts on microschool enrollment, but estimates are between 750,000 and 2.2 million students across the United States use microschools as their main schooling provider.1 Dividing those numbers by an enrollment of 30 students, which is likely either an over or understatement, it equates to 25,000 to over 73,000 programs run by edupreneurs. There is no available data that measures how many innovative learning environments exist in Massachusetts. However, looking at data that correlates with the existence of innovative learning environments, it appears that Massachusetts is lagging many states in the growth of this new education sector. This paper seeks to explore why edupreneurs are not flourishing in Massachusetts and suggest ways that the ecosystem could be improved to encourage more innovation.
Abstractor: ERIC
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: ED675437
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:Across the U.S., a growing movement toward education freedom is driving the rise of "edupreneurs"--educators, parents and entrepreneurs creating innovative learning environments designed to meet the needs of individual kids. As used in this paper, the term edupreneur includes owners and operators of private schools and programs for children who are homeschooled. It does not include operators of charter schools or other forms of public school. As discussed later, these programs may be called many names such as microschools, hybrid schools, learning centers, learning pods, homeschool coops, resource centers and more. They may be formed as nonprofit or for-profit entities. To meet the demand for a more individualized approach to education that moves away from the traditional school paradigm of one-size-fits-all, many of these learning environments are quite small frequently having 30 learners or less. This shift, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to an explosion of innovative learning environments nationwide. Many states have embraced and invited the introduction of new and novel approaches to education. Florida and Arizona have vibrant educations savings account ("ESA") programs that enable families to withdraw from public school and use a portion of the funds allocated to educate their child for other educational purposes including private school tuition, tutoring and, other forms of educational services, curriculum and other educational materials. In April 2025, Texas enacted an ESA program that will be the largest such program in the United States. Georgia, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have adopted statutory provisions protecting certain types of learning environments from unnecessary government regulation. The recognition of alternative education environments and some state's willingness to allow families to use their tax dollars to pay for alternatives to in-system education have resulted in a blossoming of options for children and families. It is difficult to get accurate counts on microschool enrollment, but estimates are between 750,000 and 2.2 million students across the United States use microschools as their main schooling provider.1 Dividing those numbers by an enrollment of 30 students, which is likely either an over or understatement, it equates to 25,000 to over 73,000 programs run by edupreneurs. There is no available data that measures how many innovative learning environments exist in Massachusetts. However, looking at data that correlates with the existence of innovative learning environments, it appears that Massachusetts is lagging many states in the growth of this new education sector. This paper seeks to explore why edupreneurs are not flourishing in Massachusetts and suggest ways that the ecosystem could be improved to encourage more innovation.