August 5, 2025 • 50 mins
Education is undergoing a seismic shift as families and educators seek alternatives to traditional schooling, with microschools emerging as a powerful option for personalized learning in supportive communities.
• 48% of parents feel education is heading in the wrong direction
• 17.5% of kids are now outside traditional schools (up from 11.8% in 2018)
• The one-size-fits-all classroom approach leaves many students either bored or lost
• Education Savings Account (ESA) programs across 25-30 states are making school choice accessible regardless of income level
• COVID forced education onto kitchen tables, revealing limitations in traditional approaches
• Microschools transform narratives from "problem kid" or "good kid" to recognizing inherent worth and potential
• Prenda provides tools to make starting microschools accessible, including goal-setting features and portfolio-based assessment
• Some forward-thinking public schools are incorporating microschool elements within their existing structures
• The education revolution is gathering momentum, promising to unleash more human potential
Check out Prenda on social media @prendalearn to learn more about starting your own microschool.
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
Important links:
• Connect with us on social
• Get our free literacy curriculum
Interested in starting a microschool?
Prenda provides all the tools and support you need to start and run an amazing microschool. Create a free Prenda World account to start designing your future microschool today. More info at ➡️ Prenda.com or if you're ready to get going ➡️ Start My Microschool
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Kindled podcast.
This is our very first episodeof season three and we are super
, super excited.
We've made a little of just afew changes on the Kindled
podcast.
If you've been a longtimelistener, thank you, and you're
probably noticing Kelly's facehere, who is our new co-host,
which we're so excited about.
Like I said, if you've beenlistening, you're probably used
(00:21):
to seeing and hearing Adriennehere, and she is off on new
adventures, so check out whatshe's doing.
Listen to our last episode forthat summary.
So this season three we'regoing to be joined by Kelly
Smith, the founder and CEO ofPrenda.
Kelly, say hi.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hi Katie and hi everybody.
I'm really excited to be here.
I've been a faithful listenerand behind the scenes on this
thing and love the project.
I can't believe.
I get to talk to interestingpeople and explore ideas around
kids and education and learning,so this is going to be a lot of
fun.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Totally, totally.
I am super excited for seasonthree.
We've got a ton of awesomeconversations that we've been
having and so so excited tolaunch them and share them with
you.
So we thought we'd start thisseason off with kind of like a
recap of the micro schoolmovement and kind of like the
moment we're seeing in historyright now.
So I'm going to hand it over toKelly.
Kelly take us through likeearly days of Prenda.
(01:11):
What were you seeing kind oflike in the education landscape
that made you want to dosomething different?
Give us like the origin storyand like really from your
personal, your personalperspective, but then also kind
of like at a higher level, likemovement wise, Tell us what you
were seeing then and what you'vebeen seeing over the past few
years.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This is one of my favorite parts of my job as a
founder and in a company of anysort, but especially in
education and learning and humanflourishing.
If you want to really zoom outand think about what we're doing
, my job is to read the worldright and see what's going on
and in retrospect, of course,you can see we were a little
early in some ways and we'lltalk a little bit about that.
(01:49):
But right now we are exactlytimed and just grateful to be
part of a really exciting momentin education.
So if you go back in time youcan kind of think about, you
know, american education as this.
I mean just incredible thingthat was done in the mid-1900s,
right Halfway through the 19thcentury.
That people well-meaning peoplesaid we should educate everyone
(02:11):
.
We want everyone able to readand write, we want a whole
society full of literate andthinking educated people.
That was a noble cause and itcontinues to be right.
It's made a huge difference.
I think economists would pointto that and say you know GDP
growth and innovation andtechnology.
You see, you know humanprogress that's created out of
(02:33):
towns with universities andpeople with higher learning, and
so that whole promise ofeducation and it goes all the
way back.
I was done with the very bestof intentions and with the very
best technology that wasavailable in the mid-1800s and
that was you get some smartpeople.
You eventually really built outas an institution with lots of
(03:07):
infrastructure.
We see this in every town youdrive through or visit there's a
school prominently featured.
It's a building where parentssend their kids and the kids
come and they sit down and theyreceive information and learning
and the idea is for that tohappen and I think it's done a
great job.
I think over time there's beena gradual realization that the
world is changing around it andthat that world needed to also
(03:30):
evolve.
And so I think anybody fromteachers to administrators to
thought leaders in the space, topolicy people, but especially
kids and parents, as we kind ofexperience this and go through
this, there's been this justvery, very gradual sense of you
know this could be donedifferently.
Actually, this was just kind offun.
I went back through old journals.
(03:51):
I used to write in a journal asa kid and even at age I was 9,
10, 13, 14.
I remember looking at some ofmy posts that I wrote down in my
sloppy handwriting and I wastalking about.
Why does it have to be this way?
You know what?
I had great teachers that werenice to me but structurally
speaking, you know it was tough,right, they had to spend so
much of their time on.
(04:11):
They had one behavior challengein the class or they were
pushing forward to the nexttopic, even though several of us
really wanted to stay on thetopic that we were on, and I
remember experiencing that as akid, ultimately adding up to a
sense of disengagement.
And, katie, I know you'll talkabout the numbers on this we pay
close attention but thisfeeling of just, you know you're
(04:33):
sitting there, school is thisthing that happens to you.
You either comply, which I did,and you jumped through all the
hoops and I was second in myclass and I got a scholarship.
I played the game but stillfell far short of what I would
call real active, powerfullearning.
Or you do other things right,and I had friends that you know
flipped the bird to the wholething and just kind of they went
(04:54):
their own direction.
They caused problems in class,they would just skip school.
Some of them dropped out rightand they went on to do other
things.
I think they kind of saw thisdisconnect between you know who
they wanted to be as a human andwhat they were being kind of
conditioned to be in the school.
So again, I just want to,zooming out, say that happened
gradually over a lot of decades.
(05:15):
Right, that was a very slowprocess and it's not any one
person or group to blame.
I think people will kind ofpoint fingers on this.
That's not my narrative of this.
I think people will kind ofpoint fingers on this.
That's not my narrative of this.
I think it got to a point whereit was time to ask some hard
questions and rethink somethings.
You saw the education reformmovement over the last 20, 30
years which has tried to do that.
I think there are courageouspeople in that movement.
(05:37):
I think it's really really hardto ask the actual hardest
questions of all when you'reinside of it.
You're steeped inside of it,and I had friends that would run
these workshops, right, theywould get a bunch of great,
forward-thinking teacherstogether in a room and they'd
say, all right, redesign school.
You know, blank piece of paper,no constraints, and they would
(05:57):
sort of start talking anddreaming it up and then by the
end of the session, like threehours later, it looked very,
very similar to what schoollooks like today.
Just, it's not anyone's fault.
It's just really hard to seekind of outside of that.
So what we really need is amoment in time, and this moment
wasn't here in 2018 when westarted our first micro school
(06:17):
in my house, but it is here now,and so over the last five years
, we've really reached thismoment where it just makes sense
.
It's like learning is availableeverywhere.
I think people recognize that.
They see that that's possible,that it's not just about getting
content into the brain of a kid.
If it was about that, thiswould be a really easy problem,
(06:38):
right?
You would just say you know AIfor everyone and two-hour school
or whatever you'd want to do,and then that would be it, but
that's actually an incompletesolution.
What you really need is thishuman, cultural, psychological
and, katie, you're the personthat I would talk to you about
this out of everyone in theworld.
This isn't because we worktogether I mean, you have so
(06:59):
much depth on this but that'sthe missing piece, right?
So you put knowledge andinformation together with a
structure that allows it and aculture that supports it, and
human motivation.
You put all that together.
It's actually the moment formicroschools and I honestly
couldn't be.
I had no idea any of this wascoming.
We'll talk a little bit aboutwhat happened to get us there,
but that we're here is just anamazing moment and it's a great
(07:21):
time to be the number oneprovider in microschools.
You know that we get to beinvolved in this great work.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Absolutely yeah.
Just some stats for listeners.
According to the MorningConsultant, ed Choice, 48% of
parents surveyed in the US feellike right now, education is
heading in the wrong direction.
So there's kind of almost 50%of parents are being like, yeah,
okay, it's time Something's gotto give here.
7% of kids are homeschooled,which is up from 3%, so more
(07:50):
than doubled since before COVID.
So, again like lots of peoplelooking for a different option.
9% of kids are private schooled, which is also increasing, and
we're on the board 2% of kidsare now micro-schooling, which
is like amazing that even peoplelike that's a lot of people
when you're talking about all ofthe people in the United States
, right.
So like collectively, if youadd those up, it's like 17.5% of
(08:14):
kids that are doing somethingkind of like quote unquote out
of system, which is up from11.8% in 2018.
And in numbers, that's 5.9million in 2018 to 8.75 million
now.
So there is this kind of thiscoming moving shift that we're
seeing, where people are doingmore than just like wishing
school was better.
They're actually.
(08:34):
You're seeing parents andteachers like taking education
into their own hands and reallyusing solutions like Prenda and
others.
Lots of really cool, uniquethings happening in education
right now and you see the policyarm kind of coming to support
that with the ESA school choicemovement and it's just kind of
this perfect, perfect moment inhistory and something that I was
just reflecting on as you weretalking about like early public
(08:56):
education and what a boon tosociety it was.
You think of all of the kidswho didn't have a private tutor,
their family didn't have money,right, so that, like all of
that lost potential, rightSometimes people call these like
the lost Einsteins, like whatkind of innovation, what kind of
idea would have come to thatlittle kid in the 1800s if he
(09:16):
had had some sort of education?
Right, like we're leaving allthis human potential and the
potential to solve very realworld human problems on the
table, essentially.
And we saw the first wave oflike collecting this human
potential and ingenuity with theadvent of public education.
And now I think it's time againfor like the next wave of like
collecting this human potentialand ingenuity with the advent of
public education.
And now I think it's time againfor like the next wave of this
as we move to personalizededucation.
(09:38):
We see kids I meanstatistically, when we interview
kids as they come into prendawe have for years and it's
always the same.
A third of them feel likethey're bored and they know
everything and a third of themfeel like they're lost right.
So that's two-thirds of kidswhere we're not developing their
potential and there's so manylost sign signs in that batch
and I think the next wave ofhuman innovation is really going
(09:59):
to come from nurturing that,from finding it, identifying it
and understanding how to reallycultivate that.
So super excited, such a goodmoment.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It's like the most exciting thing in the world to
think about what humans can do,what humans already have done
right With so little.
You know.
One of the moments I go back tois 1957.
My dad was born in 1957 andpeople went outside of their
house and they looked up andthere was this little lit up dot
that flew across the sky and itwas the Sputnik satellite from
(10:27):
Russia, you know.
And we're, of course, in thiscold war and so Americans are
panicked, like can this thinglisten to my conversations?
Can it drop bombs on me?
Like what?
What is this?
There's so much that it was likewe didn't even know what we
didn't know and the reaction tothat as a society, you literally
had the President of the UnitedStates stand up and say, hey, I
need all of you guys to learnmath and engineering, we really
(10:49):
need this, and tons of work wentinto that.
It was done in you know,tradition, what we'd call
traditional kind of factorymethods, because that was the
best they can do.
But I think you know we'rethere even more.
Now there's this need foreveryone not to specifically
figure out satellites, becausethat's not the game.
I mean, I love that there arepeople figuring out space
(11:09):
technologies right now, pleasedo it.
But if your interest is health,if your interest is
relationships, if your interestis healing human, you know,
social fabric.
If your interest is creatingand expanding imagination, I
mean there's literally, you know, there's as many versions of
greatness as there are humansand that was missing right From
(11:31):
every.
That was never possible beforeand now it's possible.
So, yeah, just to think aboutwhat that means in terms of
those lost Einsteins, or losteverything's right and lost
mother Teresa's, last, you know,madam Curie's there, they were
all out there and so many morepeople can now participate and I
just get I mean you can tell Iget like excited out of my chair
(11:51):
to think about what's possible.
And just having seen this, forlittle kids that don't believe
that they have greatness, thatdon't believe you know they've
been getting C's in school andmaybe some behavior problems
it's like guess what messagethey have.
So for them now to see like oh,there's actually a version of
me that blows people away, thatcan make a meaningful
(12:12):
contribution to this world thatI live in, and it can feel good
to me too.
I mean that to me is the wholepremise of this and it's work.
That I mean I'm just going tokeep waking up every day,
excited to do it, because youcan't get tired of work like
that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Totally so.
What are some of the trendsthat you've seen over the past?
You know kind of started in2018, over the past few years
that we've been.
It's been an uphill battle.
Honestly, we I feel like we getpunched in the face like every
other, like every few months youknow something else.
So, like, take us back from thebeginning.
What are?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
you seeing.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
What are kind of like the trends that have allowed
this moment to come 20, 2013,.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I start teaching my kids and other kids coding at
the library.
It really was this likeadventure for me of just like,
let's see if we can do.
I didn't even think of it asdoing education differently.
It was if some of these kidslearn to code and maybe there's
the next Zuckerberg or whateverout of this class like great.
So that was fun.
But over five years of doingthat and watching my own kids
(13:10):
really do what I did in school,like you know, they were doing
fine, but the fire was clearlyout for them.
So I'm putting all thistogether and I'm thinking what
can we do differently?
And so this was the crazy ideain 2018 to start this micro
school that you know that'sseven years ago now, so it's
been a little while.
Seven and a half years ago, westarted that micro school and it
(13:31):
really was this experiment.
So step one was just like doingit and then trying to help
people get their head aroundwhat this even is.
I was shocked, even in 2018,that, you know, no one knew
about it.
Right, they were very puzzled,but there wasn't once they
understood what we were doing.
I'd have people come in andvisit and see it Once.
(13:51):
They saw it and experienced it.
There was generally this senseof like, yeah, that's a great
way to do education, even though, kelly, you're so weird.
Like, this is really weird.
And I interviewed for YCombinator in 2019.
I remember sitting with one ofthe partners and I'll never
forget this because he's a kindof really innovative guy who's,
like, made a lot of money intechnology and innovation and he
(14:16):
lives in the Bay Area and sendshis kids to expensive private
schools and he just looked at melike he said, why would?
Why would anyone do this?
This is crazy.
Like meeting together with yourcommunity, like I would not
send my kids to that and I'mlike, because it's an
opportunity for all these thingswe've been talking about.
I tried to give him the pitchbut he didn't buy it.
Opportunity for all thesethings we've been talking about.
I tried to give him the pitchbut he didn't buy it.
(14:37):
I mean and I think, a lot ofpeople at that time.
Our challenge in 2018 and 19was just convincing people like
look, this is a new way to goand a new way to think about
things.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I remember meeting you then and trying to explain
what micro schools were to likemy.
I was already homeschooling,right, so I was already the
weirdy.
And so now I'm like coming tothe park table with like this
new other weird idea where I'mlike going to bring other people
into the weirdness.
It's going to take like 45minutes of like convincing, of
(15:04):
like really trying to like getanother parent to like see what
this was.
And now I go to a random parkand I say my kids micro school
with Prenda, and 99% of the time, granted, I live in Arizona
where, like Prenda, is.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
We have a lot of micro schools, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, um, and they're like oh cool, like I know what
that is, you don't have toexplain it.
I know someone that did that.
They had a good experience.
I'm like, wow, like that reallyis.
Uh, is progress Not that likePrenda's perfect, or we solved
all of the problems, or anythinglike that.
But like you can see the seedsof a movement and that's just
really exciting.
We're just barely like tappinginto it.
We're at the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Totally.
And two other things happenedBig, big macro things that we
all experienced.
One of them was every singlehuman on the planet, right,
which is COVID, right.
So we were in 2019.
In 2018, there's one microschool and then three micro
schools.
In the fall, we had somethinglike 50 micro schools or
something like that, and in 2019, this is pre-covid, right.
But then, all of a sudden, youknow there's this virus and we
(16:03):
have to be indoors and you can'tbe with other people and
schools are shutting down.
I mean, every parent in the inthe country is desperately for
something and they want to gettheir kids together in person
because the intuition is sostrong that kids need to be
around other kids and they needthat face-to-face and that
energy.
And so how can we do thatsafely in a way that fits within
(16:23):
the kind of COVID protocols ofthe time?
Covid was just a major momentfor education because it really
did two things.
The first was it just itbrought traditional education
right onto your kitchen table,like just laid it out for you.
So you're looking at theseworkbooks, worksheets, you're
watching your kid on zoom.
You know in this, I think, whateveryone would agree the teacher
included, right, that it wasjust a really inefficient kind
(16:47):
of terrible experience foreveryone.
And yet everyone's trying againlike good intentions, using the
tools that we had.
But I think that opened up eyesto what is.
So.
Let's say, this isn't COVID andthis is what it looks like in
my kid's classroom, like I'msending my kid to you for seven
hours a day.
Like does that feel good to me?
So you know, yeah go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I think we all kind of hold this like nostalgia
around, like the classroom andyour teacher and like September.
you know what that feels likeand what it was like for you,
and when you just send your kidsand then they come home, you
can still pretend that that'skind of what they're getting
Right, so it's like it's finebecause, like, I'm just kind of
backfilling with what happenedto me and when you see it,
what's going on now, it's like,oh, this is not that right, like
(17:30):
different things are, aren't,are very, and like I think a lot
of parents were looking at,like what they the skills and
like demands of, like the modernday workplace right, this is
not preparing my child, right,like this is irrelevant, this is
deadening, this is disengaging,like this is the opposite.
So it just really brought thatawareness in, like this visceral
(17:51):
way that you could no longerignore.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Exactly, exactly.
I think people you know maybehad a sense.
We've all seen Ferris Bueller'sDay Off, like I reference this
all the time where it's justlike in what way?
You know the professor's justtalking and all the students are
disengaged.
But you know that, you know, Ithink there was this belief that
somehow it's different.
I've met my kid's teacher.
I know the principal.
(18:13):
These are good people and again, they are good people.
It's just that if you talkseriously to that person,
they're under so much pressurearound test scores and district
requirements and maybe there'ssome sort of cultural thing
happening on campus and they'vegot a difficult situation with a
kid in their class or with aparent in their class and so all
(18:34):
these things adding up to it'sjust not.
That's it wasn't for for verymany people it wasn't really
doing it even before COVID.
Covid forced everybody to seeit.
The other thing that happenedduring COVID was these new
possibilities, right.
So not only is it like that'snot working, it's like my
friend's doing this thing wherethey're like meeting together
with 10 kids and they see eachother all the time.
(18:55):
Anyway, there's this likequarantine group kind of going
and and I'm watching these kidsit feels night and day
difference.
Like they love learning.
I'm seeing them make all thisprogress.
I mean, we get to see.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthis, but you see, this kind of
one to punch right, get themengaged, get them like bought in
, and then look at the progressthat they make and see what
(19:16):
they're able to do, bothtraditional academic measures,
like they're mastering things inmath and English, but also, you
know, and I remember I thinkthis was maybe during COVID or
right after COVID my daughterwas in a micro school.
She was in third grade at thetime and she was obsessed with
theater still is.
She does musical theater.
She wrote, directed like, didall the props, sets, a whole
(19:38):
play.
She did a play herself as aneight year old and she got all
of her friends in her class tolike participate.
Some of them were doing, youknow, the tech crew with like
the sets and everything.
Some of them were headlines andacting in the play.
There was like music.
I mean we I wouldn't watch thisit's not like she's the next
Lin-Manuel Miranda but like tosee the amount of work she put
(19:59):
into this and everything she didto like.
I mean it was education in itskind of finest form, right,
cause she was out there pushingherself, taking feedback,
iterating.
It was a truly unique one ofthese educational experiences
that I think all of us wish fora child.
And that was happening whileeverybody else is doing
worksheets or whatever.
It's like the night and daydifference, right?
(20:21):
So that happened during COVIDand again it did force it.
It forced it into theconsciousness that, one, this
isn't working and two, it couldbe better.
So that's important because,prenda, of course, over that
time we saw this enormousincrease.
Family members, friends, closepeople in my life were all doing
Prenda and then afterwards itwas interesting to hear them
(20:42):
because they'd say besteducation of my kids' whole
school experience.
And we're going back becausethe schools are open and they
want.
But part of this is just the wayinnovation happens, right, like
people, even though we'retalking about you know, you just
threw some numbers out millionsof people now that are starting
to that are not only seeing itbut doing it differently.
(21:03):
There's another 20 million onthe other side of that that see
it.
They're starting to see that itcan be different, but they're
not going to be the ones thattake that leap right away.
It's going to take that.
They want to see everybody elsedo it and those kids turn out
okay.
And so we're still in themiddle of kind of a major change
, but we're at the early part ofit, but it's definitely coming,
and COVID was a part of that.
(21:24):
Then are we ready to talk.
We can jump to kind of seismicshift number two, which was
school choice.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I have a story about penguins.
Real quick, go ahead please.
There's a penguin story here.
Yeah, we were just watching adocumentary about penguins and
it was like so fascinatingbecause they they're trying to
make this big trek and it's alllike the little penguins that
have kind of been like like theyhave to fight.
I don't remember the parent,the penguin, full penguin saga,
sorry.
Nature advocates some penguinsice shelf.
(21:52):
I know we're gonna see, we'regonna hear that in the comments
they get to this like ice shelfand they've gone the wrong way,
right, and they're like on thishuge like cliff and it's like a
big cliff.
They're all like just hundreds,thousands of penguins are just
like lined up along this cliffand they're all just kind of
waiting, looking at this onepenguin and this one penguin.
He's like their little kidleader.
(22:13):
He jumps into the water andthey all see that he's okay and
like a few more jump and soon,like, all of these penguins are
jumping into the water and likeit's okay, this is the right way
, this is the path Right.
But it takes those first bravefew to like make the jump, and I
think that's what we're seeingnow and we're like, we're so
excited.
You know, this is the movement.
It's like this is not just amovement for a small few.
(22:35):
This is the beginning of thenew normal and I think that's
what we're seeing here.
So, yeah, okay, next cosmicshift Go.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, well, okay, so that's a good point.
There are so many people thatwould benefit from this and
we've met a lot of them, I mean,over the years.
People will come to me from allyou know income classes and all
over the world, really.
I mean I remember peoplereaching out from Africa and
other continents and saying wewant to do this.
You know, and I was blown away.
I had no idea that they wouldeven be interested right in
(23:02):
other places.
And so this interest is there.
And then the question becomesokay, well, how can we actually
make this work for as manypeople as possible?
You know private school as aninstitution and you cited some
numbers is.
You know it's great, it'sdefinitely serving a niche, but
the niche is limited and it'sbased on money, like in America.
The way education works iseveryone pays taxes and then the
(23:26):
state takes that tax dollarsand they run.
In the past they ran schools.
Now there's charter schools andsome of these other things.
If you want out of that, youhave to pay.
You have to come up withsomewhere between $10,000,
$20,000, $30,000, sometimes$40,000.
(23:46):
They pay tuition.
These are college idea that aparent can choose the best
environment for their kid.
It feels good.
It's actually always been truein America.
The problem is it's only truefor people that have the money
to to pay for it and can affordit.
And so you know, in some casesthat looks like private school
(24:07):
tuition.
In other cases, in a lot ofcases, people don't think about
this.
It's moving Right.
People will say, hey, I gotthis new job, I'm going to this
new place, and they get onlineand they research and they find
where the schools are good andif they can afford it and, by
the way, every parent's going todo this they are going to pay
for the house that will puttheir kid in the place where
(24:28):
they think is the most likelyfor their child to succeed.
I don't blame anyone for that.
That's school choice for theones who can afford it, and I
just want to make that pointreally, really clear.
What's happening now and this isthe second seismic shift is
that policymakers in some statesin the United States are
recognizing that that's notreally fair, that you shouldn't
just be able to have schoolchoice and opt out of systems.
(24:51):
If you can afford it, youshould be able to make that
choice, whether or not you canafford it, and everyone should
be able to do that.
So this is the deal that theystruck is they worked it out
where there are these programsand they're typically called ESA
programs.
So think like HSA.
Sometimes people will say butit's like education savings
account, or they use differentletters, every state's different
(25:12):
, but it's some amount of moneycount, or they use different
letters.
Every state's different, butit's some amount of money.
It's always less like,sometimes half as much as what
the schools you know, thetraditional schools spend on
educating their child, but lessmoney.
But they'll give it to theparents and say, parents, you
use this for your kid'seducation?
Okay, so that's um.
For those of you who arelistening to this and never
heard of ESAs, that's what it is.
Arizona started the first onein 2011.
(25:34):
It was limited just to acertain number of kids.
In 2022-ish, arizona expandedthat program to be available to
everyone.
Lots of other states WestVirginia's done it, florida's
done it, texas just passed ahuge one, but if you look,
there's something like 25 statesthat have 25, 30 states that
have some version of ESA, andsome of them are universal
(25:57):
expansive programs that allowanybody to participate.
This is a movement that's it'sbeen building over the last
literally three years, and itcontinues to grow, so it looks
like there's still a lot more tocome.
And what that means, then, isit opens doors for people to
participate in micro schools,which are a low cost, private
(26:21):
option, and to do that paid for,with school choice programs,
means that you don't have to berich to get access to these
micro schools right.
You can not only send your kidto a micro school, you can
create a micro school.
You can build the environmentthat you want and regardless of
your you know income level andyour personal wealth and things
like that.
So it's a really exciting shift.
It's definitely changed thingsup and it's been a ride, as
Prenda's tried to navigate,participating in all of these
(26:42):
programs and working together sothat these micro schools can be
available to as many people aspossible.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Totally.
Yeah, the ES.
Like there's always been thiskind of like underlying, like
bubbling pressure in theeducation world.
And when we have people comingto us to start micro schools,
they talk about four maindrivers that I hear.
Maybe you hear others, the fourthat I hear they want better
academics.
Right, if you look at thescores, like the NAEP scores,
(27:09):
which is like our nation'sreport card for academics,
roughly we have a third of kidsthat are proficient in math and
a third of kids that areproficient in reading.
Two thirds of the kids arestruggling.
And you'll hear like a lot oflike flashy news titles about
this being so terrible and solike it gets new.
Like if you look at the 40 yeartrend line they started this
measurement in the 70s it's aflat line of like pretty much a
(27:33):
third of the kids are winningand two thirds of the kids are
not.
And then recently there's been,like you know, there's like
little dips where it's like, yay, we improved the score by 1% or
something like that.
It's like education solved.
Or if we dip down by 1%, it'slike everything's terrible, like
everything's been like this hasbeen the best the system could
do for quite a while and I don'tknow why we, looking at the
(27:54):
data, like that isn't thepredominant story.
But so better academics is oneyou know.
When you're in a classroom youdon't get a personalized
education.
So you're sitting receivingwhole group instruction from
like a specific for a specificmanufactured date or grade level
or age Right, and if you'reabove that you're bored, if
you're behind that you're lost.
(28:15):
So leaving a lot of kids on thetable.
They're just not fully allowingthem to chart a hopeful path
forward, for them to reallyflourish.
So that's one thing.
Better academics, values,alignment there's a lot of like.
What kids are being taught inschool doesn't align with family
values, social, emotionalwellness.
We have a huge mental healthand anxiety depression issue
(28:36):
going on in the youth population.
A lot of people are saying thatthey're looking for other school
options because of bullying.
This is a big deal, and thenthat's kind of like the parent
driver and then teachers aredriving this because I mean I
don't know if you, I always usedto be a speech language
pathologist, so I would work inschools and I would, you know,
(28:57):
go into a classroom where thisamazing woman or man would be
like just owning that room with30 kids sometimes more than 30
kids and like like they're doinggreat things in there, but I
would like leave with my one ortwo kids and like go play games
my speech games with them andstuff, and I'm like I don't know
how this person is doing that.
They're wearing so many hats,they're a mom or a dad, a social
worker, they're handing theeducation.
(29:18):
All of the behavior Like it'sjust so, so hard.
And anytime we hear some sort oflike, there's always like a
legislative reaction to thatwhere it's like, well, we're
going to raise standards orwe're going to like double down
on testing, like all of thesethings to fix that problem.
All that stuff just tricklesdown to making the classroom
teacher's job next to impossible.
And we have so much empathy forfor that person Cause you, you
(29:39):
don't go into teaching, causeit's like not for the money and
it's not for it's like this verynoble calling where it's like I
just want to inspire the heartsand minds of the next
generation, right, and then youget in there and it's like, oh,
this is not that.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Katie, can I throw in a story on this really quick.
I was sitting with a teacherwho's currently making the
decision, like, do I go anotheryear in a traditional classroom
or do I jump and make my ownmicro school?
This was two days ago.
I was sitting in a coffee shop.
We're just having a little chatand it was interesting because
we were kind of going over thesesame questions.
You know how frustrating shefeels.
Her heart is clearly there forthese kids.
She knows there are.
(30:18):
There are many in her class thatshe's just not reaching and
she's not able.
She could reach them underdifferent circumstances but
given the constraints she can't.
And it's interesting becauseshe kind of alluded to this you
know, one third board, one thirdlost kind of thing that you're
talking about, and maybe thethird in the middle, I would
(30:39):
even say the third in the middleare it's questionable if
they're all with you, you know,on a given day.
But but she said you know thedistrict just says they tell her
to differentiate instruction.
This is the phrase.
It's like just differentiateinstruction.
She's like you're literallyasking me something that's
impossible, like if I'm the oneinstructing, like I've got all
of these kids and she's justaware enough to realize that
that's frustrating, and so thenit feels disingenuous and even
(31:00):
insulting to her as aprofessional.
She's like I can'tdifferentiate to 30 individuals,
I can't even differentiate to.
you know, people do these groupsand rotations and stuff but, so
far from being able to actuallydo what she knows she wants to
do, what her heart says to do,and so I just felt for her.
You know these teachers aretrying so hard but they're given
(31:22):
.
I mean I've said this before,it's hard because I know there
are people that are doing itreally well, but it essentially
is an impossible job.
And so if you're doing theimpossible, kudos to you.
If you're trying to do theimpossible, like thank you for
that sacrifice and work, but wefeel you.
I mean that is so, so hard tobe in inside of those
(31:42):
constraints and micro schools.
Of course you know we'll get tothat.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah.
So it's like you're sitting inthis tension where it's like no
one's happy but there just isn'tanother thing to do besides,
like I'm so unhappy, I willhomeschool, like right, like
that's like the ultimate, likeopt out.
So we see that, and it's 3%,what now?
6.7%?
Right, like that people thatare that in that much pain or,
like you know, want to do that,like that's growing still.
(32:07):
But for the people who are likeI can't quite do that but I
need a better option, I thinkthat's where the combination of
options like Prenda, makingstarting your own school like
90% easier, right, like, if youthink about you having the idea
I'm going to start my own schooland then your first day of
school or your last, you know,just like in there you're like
we're doing this right.
(32:28):
It's like that moment in PeterPan where they're like I'm doing
it, like you're flying, likeit's happening this, this
magical moment.
Well, it's like there's like athousand things in your way.
It's like this weight of likeI've got to figure out the laws
and I've got to figure outtuition and I've got to figure
out curriculum this laundry listof things that's like maybe
I'll just sit in my pain alittle longer yeah maybe it's
(32:48):
not that bad.
And then we, we stick it out.
I'll, you know'll, teach foranother year, like we'll just
keep them in, like it's fine.
And we just kind of get finewith mediocrity or like just
accustomed to our pain and withESA being like okay, now it's
affordable.
And with options like PrendaI've been like and now it's
easier.
You're seeing this hugepotential for like all of these,
(33:08):
all of this kind of pain that'sin the system inherently is
like now.
Like okay, now there's adifferent option that's a little
easier and it's not expensive.
Like those were my two bigblockers.
Those things aren't issuesanymore and people.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You just see this huge flow.
Wow, katie, did you justcompare prenda to pixie dust on
accident?
Is that what just happened?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I think I might have you can fly sorry?
Perfect.
There's lots of uh.
Yeah, I know you're new tohosting, so like I will tell you
there's.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's fine to sing as the host, so oh okay, I just
worried about disney, um disneycopyright law, so do I have to
edit out?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
all right, so anything else you want to share
about that?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
no, I think you nailed it.
I mean, and those, thosedrivers?
So to go through those twomajor things, covid, and then
school, school choice, andschool choice being a driver
that continues right.
That's a vector that's justleading to more possibilities
for more people.
I spent time in Arkansasrecently.
It's a new law.
There are lots of people thatare.
I mean, they're chomping at thebit to do these kinds of things
for all the reasons we've beentalking about.
(34:10):
So, yeah, you know, we talkedabout the moment.
This is the time for microschools.
Right now, it's not one penguinjumping off a cliff.
This is, you know, dozens ofpenguins and pretty soon it's
going to be thousands of them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yes, and I will.
I just want to bring up onething before we fully move on
here.
Yeah, I think it's interestingthat there's this like opt out
notion or like that you have toleave the system to get this.
And right now I think thatthat's by and large true because
of, like what you're saying,like you have to differentiate
your instruction, you have toexpose to grade level content,
like there's things that arehard coded into the system that
make doing something differentlike literally illegal.
(34:44):
Right, but there are someforward thinking, progressive
like educators out there.
We've actually run a microschool inside of a public school
.
What is this like?
Year six of this fun littlemicro school?
year, six or seven, can you likewalk through that because like
it doesn't like jumping off thepenguin cliff, like does not
necessarily meaning likedisenroll from your, from your
(35:06):
neighborhood school.
Like we could form partnerships, like prenda early days we
operated within the charterworld.
Like there could be apartnership and and we want I
think from Prenda's perspective,would prefer that like we want
to, you know, encourage peopleto participate in the already
established things in theirneighborhood.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
We've just gotten so much pushback yeah, so I'll just
do it like I think it's reallygreat we'll do it as a teaser,
because we are going to do anepisode, hopefully.
This is on the books it hasn'tbeen recorded yet, but I want to
spend a whole episode on thisand actually a second episode.
There's a forward thinkingsuperintendent out in Indiana
that's been making someheadlines doing micro schools
(35:45):
and he's agreed to come on thepodcast as well.
So, fingers crossed, I'll doboth of these interviews.
But early in Prenda's story Igot some feedback that I think
was really good feedback.
That said, look, you're goingto design for the people around
you and the people that you workwith, and if you want this to
really be transformational, youneed to make sure you have, as
part of your design, a chance todo this work in different
(36:06):
communities than yours.
So I went to friends in townit's not that far from my house,
it's maybe three miles away.
There's a Title I elementaryschool, but it is a different
crowd and some really you knowtrauma and different challenges
that some of these families arefacing and these kids and they
have a visionary principal thathopefully you guys will get to
meet that immediately saw howhaving a micro school on campus
(36:30):
could not only open uppossibilities for 10 kids in a
micro school and on campus microschool, while those kids still
got to participate in free lunch, free breakfast, social
services, sports music, pe,recess, all this.
You know, the non-educationstuff that you know.
(36:50):
I think it was really visionaryfor him to say we could do
education differently.
The core he had to, you know,do some negotiation right with
with his leadership and you knowthey were able to see, and
thankfully very quickly, theysaw kids off to the races
academically and the metricswere looking good.
So he was able to justify like,let's keep doing this, but yeah
, to put that in place, it notonly helps those 10 kids.
(37:13):
What happened is there werekids that were wanting more from
education and as a the time,you know, there's series of
disciplinary checkpoints.
I don't know the exact system,but he was level C or something
(37:39):
and the next level was go to adifferent school.
They have a school just forthose kids that are like on the
verge of you know, just, thedistrict doesn't educate you
anymore.
But there's one more like lastditch effort, and he was going
to get transferred to thatschool and I was calling it like
a jail school.
It's just like you're going tothe prison and it's sad to be
(38:00):
joking about this, but that'sliterally what was happening for
this boy.
Of course, that's not who hereally is.
He was responding to a wholebunch of stuff and the principal
brilliantly saw an opportunityfor this kid, said let's put him
in the micro school, this guy,within weeks.
I mean just seeing.
One of the things Prenta does isit allows kids to set their own
goals.
We introduced them to KhanAcademy.
We said what, where are you atin Khan Academy right now?
It was like he was at right ongrade level, like sixth grade.
(38:22):
I think he was at the beginningof sixth grade math and where
do you want to be by the end ofthe year?
He was like I don't know, likeI want to do, I'll finish all of
sixth grade.
Well, he starts in.
It was a little bit into thesemester, so I think he started
in like October, early October.
By Christmas he had finishedall of sixth grade math.
He was doing more than hisrequired goal every day by a lot
.
He was like engaged.
(38:43):
They started calling it.
There was a math competitionbetween him and this other kid
in the class and pretty soonit's like you know what what's
going on Like and I think histeachers would have been shocked
that like, oh, this guy turnsout, loves math, has a gift for
it and he's all about likedriving himself and pushing
himself.
Meanwhile his behavior problemsdisappear and his teacher in
(39:03):
the old classroom that wasspending so much of her day kind
of battling with him is now nothaving to do that right and
able to still run her class withease.
So yeah, to think about this asa plug-in to really the system
in any format, and I lovetelling parents and teachers
that come to me wanting to starta micro school, say, look, you
(39:25):
don't have to do the full-onthing, you can start with a
conversation where you just askyour principal, ask your
district, you know, say this iswhat I'd like to do and see what
happens.
I think it's always worth havingthat conversation.
I will just say there's a lotof inertia and just I think
people are pretty comfortable.
So I have had thoseconversations go well, like I
just talked about, but I've hadmore of them go not great.
(39:47):
And I literally remember oneprincipal and I think she was
really well-meaning but she justlooked at me and was like why
would we do that?
You know it's she's strugglingalready to just keep everything
running as it is and so for herit was this unnecessary leap and
you may run into that, andthat's OK.
Like I think the main thing islet's give it a try and there's
lots of ways we can.
We can do this innovationtogether.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yep, I think that a lot of the things we see kids go
through in the traditionalclassroom that's just
information.
All their behavior, all theirstruggles, just information
about what the needs that aren'tbeing met.
And it's irresponsible of us tocontinue to just tell the
teacher like meet their needs,like you have to be this, like
infinite well of need, meetinglike they can't.
(40:27):
That's not an infinite system.
We're humans, right, we have tobuild a system that creates the
culture and enables kids to settheir own goals.
Like.
What happened in that story wasthat kid was bored, probably,
and he started acting out to getlike either some connection,
some relationship, to feel likehe was in control, things like
(40:48):
that.
And then he suddenly becamelike the bad kid, right.
So now he's telling himselfthis story about he's the
problem kid and all the teachersare like oh, that kid, like you
know, he's that in thenarrative of his life, he's that
character, right, and whatPrenda aims to do is meet needs
social, emotional, academic,everything so that kids can be
(41:10):
like I can actually revisit thenarrative, right.
So that kid went from being theproblem kid to like math hero
in a few months and nobody,nobody in that kid's life would
have predicted that.
Right, because we're not.
The schema that we're used tolike living in is like oh, like
that's a helpful child, that's agood kid, right, like they
(41:31):
listen, like they're easy,they're good, like that's.
These are those stories andnarratives, and it's not until
we change our beliefs abouthuman potential that we'll see
kids potential changing.
And it's just, it's just soexciting to be, to be involved
in like this, this movementwhere we can really do so much
human healing.
And I'm just like every daywhen we sit down to build Prenda
(41:52):
, I'm like, oh, it's such a joy.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Katie, I know we're running out of time, but I'd
love to just add one more storyto this, and it's personal
because it's my own daughter, somy older daughter.
I already shared about Maisie,my younger daughter, doing her
play.
My older daughter was she wasgetting all the so.
Similarly, she had a story.
The story was she's the goodkid, right, she made her
teacher's life easy.
She sat there politely, quietly, she did anything that she was
(42:20):
asked to do.
She, you know, kind of didn'tever disrupt or disturb.
She could even be likeactivated to like go take care
of some sort of chore if theteacher needed something.
So you know, we would go toparent teacher conferences and I
just remember the teachers justraving about Molly.
It was like she is the best.
We like love her so much andshe really is like a sweet
personality.
But what was funny is my wifewent in and visited the
(42:42):
classroom and she's looking.
She's like wait a minute,that's not even.
That's not even her.
Like she.
She was adopting like thenarrative, she was buying into
what just like you justdescribed, right, but in this
case it wasn't a bad I'm the badkid narrative.
It's like I'm the good kid andin a way that was holding her
back.
She wouldn't take any risks,she wasn't really engaging.
We saw her learning her herbackflip at gymnastics.
(43:06):
I remember she she did tumblingand she's learning this back
tuck and it was like so muchwork.
She's falling on her head andwe're out there spotting her and
she won't give up.
I mean her ferocity.
So I'm seeing these things inother aspects of her life, like
that's her, that's what she'scapable of, that type of
greatness.
And that wasn't not only wasn'tbeing exercised or practiced in
(43:27):
the classroom, it was beingdownplayed and diminished in the
classroom.
Right, it's like we don't wantyou to do that, we don't want
you to try for something biggeror more.
And I saw I mean I kind of sawall at once, like what the
implications might be of thatfor her life.
She would, like me, you know, gothrough and get patted on the
head and get A's or whatever,and never really find out what
(43:49):
she's capable of in this world.
And so seeing that all happen,that was a big part of me
wanting to start the microschool.
And then, you know, fastforward years later and she's
doing robotics and she's writinga novel and she's doing these
things that she wouldn't haveotherwise tried through her
micro school and I believe andshe's turning 16 pretty soon
she's obsessed right now withdriving.
(44:10):
She's always asking me to likego out and drive and she just
has this like this gusto.
You know, she just wants to gotake on the world and I love
that about her and I think itwould have been a risk, right,
I'm not sure that that wouldhave emerged to the degree that
it did if we had sort of lefther in a traditional environment
.
So I'm so grateful that eachkid can have a change of
(44:30):
narrative, embrace that newnarrative and then build into it
for greatness.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Can we circle back to her narrative that you labeled
I'm the good kid.
Can I change?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
it yeah sure.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think her narrative was I'm the good kid if and
when she jumps through thosehoops and it's helpful that
reinforces the goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
but it reinforces a conditional goodness which
plagues us for the rest of ourlives.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Right, there's also a lot of crying on the Kindle
podcast.
Um, but when we, when we teacha kid, you are good, you are
valuable and I don't care if youare helpful, you know like, yes
, I want you to do thosepro-social behaviors and we'll
get there.
But it's like when we infusekids with like value, then
they're able to take those risksbecause they're not trading on
their value right, like they'renot risking.
(45:18):
They're not risking their value, their worth as a person,
because they know that they,that nothing can change that.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
That's the inner change that we're looking for
and I think it's so, so vitaland so like what a glory that
she has was able to to make thatshift and to sustain herself,
her like inner self, as her, andnot like the conditions that
other people were putting on her.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Okay, so to wrap up quick like overview.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
What's Prenda working on?
Prenda's not perfect, but Iwant to dive in a little bit on
like what are the problems we'restill seeing, even in the micro
school space?
That?
We're kind of like give us alittle teaser for what we can
see oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Okay, I'm going to do that.
I have to do this quick andwe're going to need another
episode because we are like outof time.
But we, there's structural, thestructural thing of like what a
micro school is, how toactually put that together.
You talk, we talked about pixiedust, like the thousand things
that you have to worry about andPrenda's knocking out, you know
, one after another, it getseasier to start a micro school
literally every day as Prendacontinues to invest in just
(46:19):
structurally setting that up andI have people all the time that
will come and just like I wantto do this, my heart wants to do
this, I have no idea, and it'slike we've got you, like,
literally, just click thisbutton, follow our instructions,
we'll talk to you on the phone,our team will help you out.
It still is hard to do microschools.
The hard part is human, and Iwould say that's the second
thing is.
I call it human technology orsocial technology of just how to
(46:41):
do, katie, what you just talkedabout.
Right, it's to actually see ahuman being through all this,
and you know it's so easy forhumans to slip into.
This is a, you know, some fillin the blank with the label or
this is a problem to be solved,or this is a widget in an
assembly line, or this is a, youknow, a test score that's going
to count against me later, likeall these things that we might
do to objectify children.
(47:02):
But what we want to do, insteadof objects, we want to see
humans with infinite worth andinfinite potential, right Like
what is this child really andwhere does their value come from
and what are they they capableof?
To be able to systematicallybuild that and to know how to
apply it.
We've gotten really good atthat and, katie, you've been
such a huge part of developingthat.
Our guides will talk about thetrainings you give and the
(47:23):
things that you're teaching themover and over again, as this is
what makes me truly effectiveas an educator, and then I'll
just add content, obviously aspart of this and learning, the
actual learning systems.
We live in a world that's superexciting, where you can
actually have each child rightat their learning frontier.
We intentionally and to do itfor really efficient, effective,
(47:55):
powerful learning, and sothat's really what we're about
is trying to sort of build thosetools and systems in.
So I'll talk about just quicklya couple of those.
One of them is this goalsetting feature.
So kids set the goal at thebeginning of the year.
They do that with their guideand with their parent.
If we can get that conversationgoing, they work towards that
goal.
Our software breaks it down forthem so they can see every day
(48:17):
what they need to be doing.
And then we have we've replacedthe report card.
We think letter grades arestupid and arbitrary and
ineffective.
But if you show here's yourgoal, here's where you are
towards your goal, it could be areally powerful feedback loop.
So you know, okay, I've got tospend a little bit more time on
math today, or maybe I can skipmy ELA work and just read my
book today, or you know thingslike that.
(48:38):
So if you know helping kidsstay on their goals, the other
piece of that in the report cardis the ability to just put your
work out there.
And we have a portfolio kidsshare.
You know artifacts of the workthat they've done.
It tends to be visual and funand interesting.
So you could imagine a video ofmy daughter's play, a script,
(48:58):
some photos of the costumes thatshe designed.
You know all of these resourcesthat kind of come with this
huge educational undertaking andnow it's documented and it
shows up in the portfolio.
And then, finally, we're payingclose attention to how these
kids see themselves as learners.
We want to change theirnarrative right.
So we ask kids every week doyou like learning, do you feel
like you're challengedappropriately?
(49:19):
Too hard, too easy?
We ask them if you're motivatedand we ask them if you felt
control in your education, andthen we keep track of that data
and we show it back to the kidsso they can kind of see, look
like maybe I'm feeling a littlepassive in my learning and I can
engage in a way that that willhelp me feel more control.
So I know I'm going super fastthrough this.
I'd love to spend more time onall of this, but Prenda's really
(49:41):
built tools to put into actionthese concepts and these ideas
that we've been talking aboutand that you know, you guys on
this first two seasons of thispodcast and we'll going forward
these principles that we talkabout.
But Prenda is all aboutapplying them and making it easy
to operationalize, to put thatinto action for lots and lots of
kids.
So I'm more excited than I'veever been.
(50:01):
I can't wait for what we'redoing.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Same same.
All right, well, let's wrapthis up for season three.
Just quick housekeeping.
You'll see Kelly and Ialternating as host.
We're going to dig into a lotof like learning science type
things.
Let's talk about math, let'stalk about writing, let's talk
about policies, talk about allof it.
So we already have a ton ofreally, really great episodes
coming, uh, coming your way andwe're super, super excited about
(50:24):
them and we hope that you'llparticipate in this community
and let us know.
If there's a guest we shouldinterview or a topic that we
should tackle, like, let us knowwe're here.
So with that we'll wrap this up.
So thanks for joining useveryone and thanks, kelly.
We'll see you next episode.
The Kindled podcast, is broughtto you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing micro school
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
(50:46):
podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn and
if you'd like more informationabout starting a micro school.
Hello and welcome to the Kindled podcast.
This is our very first episodeof season three and we are super
, super excited.
We've made a little of just afew changes on the Kindled
podcast.
If you've been a longtimelistener, thank you, and you're
probably noticing Kelly's facehere, who is our new co-host,
which we're so excited about.
Like I said, if you've beenlistening, you're probably used
(00:21):
to seeing and hearing Adriennehere, and she is off on new
adventures, so check out whatshe's doing.
Listen to our last episode forthat summary.
So this season three we'regoing to be joined by Kelly
Smith, the founder and CEO ofPrenda.
Kelly, say hi.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hi Katie and hi everybody.
I'm really excited to be here.
I've been a faithful listenerand behind the scenes on this
thing and love the project.
I can't believe.
I get to talk to interestingpeople and explore ideas around
kids and education and learning,so this is going to be a lot of
fun.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Totally, totally.
I am super excited for seasonthree.
We've got a ton of awesomeconversations that we've been
having and so so excited tolaunch them and share them with
you.
So we thought we'd start thisseason off with kind of like a
recap of the micro schoolmovement and kind of like the
moment we're seeing in historyright now.
So I'm going to hand it over toKelly.
Kelly take us through likeearly days of Prenda.
(01:11):
What were you seeing kind oflike in the education landscape
that made you want to dosomething different?
Give us like the origin storyand like really from your
personal, your personalperspective, but then also kind
of like at a higher level, likemovement wise, Tell us what you
were seeing then and what you'vebeen seeing over the past few
years.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This is one of my favorite parts of my job as a
founder and in a company of anysort, but especially in
education and learning and humanflourishing.
If you want to really zoom outand think about what we're doing
, my job is to read the worldright and see what's going on
and in retrospect, of course,you can see we were a little
early in some ways and we'lltalk a little bit about that.
(01:49):
But right now we are exactlytimed and just grateful to be
part of a really exciting momentin education.
So if you go back in time youcan kind of think about, you
know, american education as this.
I mean just incredible thingthat was done in the mid-1900s,
right Halfway through the 19thcentury.
That people well-meaning peoplesaid we should educate everyone
(02:11):
.
We want everyone able to readand write, we want a whole
society full of literate andthinking educated people.
That was a noble cause and itcontinues to be right.
It's made a huge difference.
I think economists would pointto that and say you know GDP
growth and innovation andtechnology.
You see, you know humanprogress that's created out of
(02:33):
towns with universities andpeople with higher learning, and
so that whole promise ofeducation and it goes all the
way back.
I was done with the very bestof intentions and with the very
best technology that wasavailable in the mid-1800s and
that was you get some smartpeople.
You eventually really built outas an institution with lots of
(03:07):
infrastructure.
We see this in every town youdrive through or visit there's a
school prominently featured.
It's a building where parentssend their kids and the kids
come and they sit down and theyreceive information and learning
and the idea is for that tohappen and I think it's done a
great job.
I think over time there's beena gradual realization that the
world is changing around it andthat that world needed to also
(03:30):
evolve.
And so I think anybody fromteachers to administrators to
thought leaders in the space, topolicy people, but especially
kids and parents, as we kind ofexperience this and go through
this, there's been this justvery, very gradual sense of you
know this could be donedifferently.
Actually, this was just kind offun.
I went back through old journals.
(03:51):
I used to write in a journal asa kid and even at age I was 9,
10, 13, 14.
I remember looking at some ofmy posts that I wrote down in my
sloppy handwriting and I wastalking about.
Why does it have to be this way?
You know what?
I had great teachers that werenice to me but structurally
speaking, you know it was tough,right, they had to spend so
much of their time on.
(04:11):
They had one behavior challengein the class or they were
pushing forward to the nexttopic, even though several of us
really wanted to stay on thetopic that we were on, and I
remember experiencing that as akid, ultimately adding up to a
sense of disengagement.
And, katie, I know you'll talkabout the numbers on this we pay
close attention but thisfeeling of just, you know you're
(04:33):
sitting there, school is thisthing that happens to you.
You either comply, which I did,and you jumped through all the
hoops and I was second in myclass and I got a scholarship.
I played the game but stillfell far short of what I would
call real active, powerfullearning.
Or you do other things right,and I had friends that you know
flipped the bird to the wholething and just kind of they went
(04:54):
their own direction.
They caused problems in class,they would just skip school.
Some of them dropped out rightand they went on to do other
things.
I think they kind of saw thisdisconnect between you know who
they wanted to be as a human andwhat they were being kind of
conditioned to be in the school.
So again, I just want to,zooming out, say that happened
gradually over a lot of decades.
(05:15):
Right, that was a very slowprocess and it's not any one
person or group to blame.
I think people will kind ofpoint fingers on this.
That's not my narrative of this.
I think people will kind ofpoint fingers on this.
That's not my narrative of this.
I think it got to a point whereit was time to ask some hard
questions and rethink somethings.
You saw the education reformmovement over the last 20, 30
years which has tried to do that.
I think there are courageouspeople in that movement.
(05:37):
I think it's really really hardto ask the actual hardest
questions of all when you'reinside of it.
You're steeped inside of it,and I had friends that would run
these workshops, right, theywould get a bunch of great,
forward-thinking teacherstogether in a room and they'd
say, all right, redesign school.
You know, blank piece of paper,no constraints, and they would
(05:57):
sort of start talking anddreaming it up and then by the
end of the session, like threehours later, it looked very,
very similar to what schoollooks like today.
Just, it's not anyone's fault.
It's just really hard to seekind of outside of that.
So what we really need is amoment in time, and this moment
wasn't here in 2018 when westarted our first micro school
(06:17):
in my house, but it is here now,and so over the last five years
, we've really reached thismoment where it just makes sense
.
It's like learning is availableeverywhere.
I think people recognize that.
They see that that's possible,that it's not just about getting
content into the brain of a kid.
If it was about that, thiswould be a really easy problem,
(06:38):
right?
You would just say you know AIfor everyone and two-hour school
or whatever you'd want to do,and then that would be it, but
that's actually an incompletesolution.
What you really need is thishuman, cultural, psychological
and, katie, you're the personthat I would talk to you about
this out of everyone in theworld.
This isn't because we worktogether I mean, you have so
(06:59):
much depth on this but that'sthe missing piece, right?
So you put knowledge andinformation together with a
structure that allows it and aculture that supports it, and
human motivation.
You put all that together.
It's actually the moment formicroschools and I honestly
couldn't be.
I had no idea any of this wascoming.
We'll talk a little bit aboutwhat happened to get us there,
but that we're here is just anamazing moment and it's a great
(07:21):
time to be the number oneprovider in microschools.
You know that we get to beinvolved in this great work.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Absolutely yeah.
Just some stats for listeners.
According to the MorningConsultant, ed Choice, 48% of
parents surveyed in the US feellike right now, education is
heading in the wrong direction.
So there's kind of almost 50%of parents are being like, yeah,
okay, it's time Something's gotto give here.
7% of kids are homeschooled,which is up from 3%, so more
(07:50):
than doubled since before COVID.
So, again like lots of peoplelooking for a different option.
9% of kids are private schooled, which is also increasing, and
we're on the board 2% of kidsare now micro-schooling, which
is like amazing that even peoplelike that's a lot of people
when you're talking about all ofthe people in the United States
, right.
So like collectively, if youadd those up, it's like 17.5% of
(08:14):
kids that are doing somethingkind of like quote unquote out
of system, which is up from11.8% in 2018.
And in numbers, that's 5.9million in 2018 to 8.75 million
now.
So there is this kind of thiscoming moving shift that we're
seeing, where people are doingmore than just like wishing
school was better.
They're actually.
(08:34):
You're seeing parents andteachers like taking education
into their own hands and reallyusing solutions like Prenda and
others.
Lots of really cool, uniquethings happening in education
right now and you see the policyarm kind of coming to support
that with the ESA school choicemovement and it's just kind of
this perfect, perfect moment inhistory and something that I was
just reflecting on as you weretalking about like early public
(08:56):
education and what a boon tosociety it was.
You think of all of the kidswho didn't have a private tutor,
their family didn't have money,right, so that, like all of
that lost potential, rightSometimes people call these like
the lost Einsteins, like whatkind of innovation, what kind of
idea would have come to thatlittle kid in the 1800s if he
(09:16):
had had some sort of education?
Right, like we're leaving allthis human potential and the
potential to solve very realworld human problems on the
table, essentially.
And we saw the first wave oflike collecting this human
potential and ingenuity with theadvent of public education.
And now I think it's time againfor like the next wave of like
collecting this human potentialand ingenuity with the advent of
public education.
And now I think it's time againfor like the next wave of this
as we move to personalizededucation.
(09:38):
We see kids I meanstatistically, when we interview
kids as they come into prendawe have for years and it's
always the same.
A third of them feel likethey're bored and they know
everything and a third of themfeel like they're lost right.
So that's two-thirds of kidswhere we're not developing their
potential and there's so manylost sign signs in that batch
and I think the next wave ofhuman innovation is really going
(09:59):
to come from nurturing that,from finding it, identifying it
and understanding how to reallycultivate that.
So super excited, such a goodmoment.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It's like the most exciting thing in the world to
think about what humans can do,what humans already have done
right With so little.
You know.
One of the moments I go back tois 1957.
My dad was born in 1957 andpeople went outside of their
house and they looked up andthere was this little lit up dot
that flew across the sky and itwas the Sputnik satellite from
(10:27):
Russia, you know.
And we're, of course, in thiscold war and so Americans are
panicked, like can this thinglisten to my conversations?
Can it drop bombs on me?
Like what?
What is this?
There's so much that it was likewe didn't even know what we
didn't know and the reaction tothat as a society, you literally
had the President of the UnitedStates stand up and say, hey, I
need all of you guys to learnmath and engineering, we really
(10:49):
need this, and tons of work wentinto that.
It was done in you know,tradition, what we'd call
traditional kind of factorymethods, because that was the
best they can do.
But I think you know we'rethere even more.
Now there's this need foreveryone not to specifically
figure out satellites, becausethat's not the game.
I mean, I love that there arepeople figuring out space
(11:09):
technologies right now, pleasedo it.
But if your interest is health,if your interest is
relationships, if your interestis healing human, you know,
social fabric.
If your interest is creatingand expanding imagination, I
mean there's literally, you know, there's as many versions of
greatness as there are humansand that was missing right From
(11:31):
every.
That was never possible beforeand now it's possible.
So, yeah, just to think aboutwhat that means in terms of
those lost Einsteins, or losteverything's right and lost
mother Teresa's, last, you know,madam Curie's there, they were
all out there and so many morepeople can now participate and I
just get I mean you can tell Iget like excited out of my chair
(11:51):
to think about what's possible.
And just having seen this, forlittle kids that don't believe
that they have greatness, thatdon't believe you know they've
been getting C's in school andmaybe some behavior problems
it's like guess what messagethey have.
So for them now to see like oh,there's actually a version of
me that blows people away, thatcan make a meaningful
(12:12):
contribution to this world thatI live in, and it can feel good
to me too.
I mean that to me is the wholepremise of this and it's work.
That I mean I'm just going tokeep waking up every day,
excited to do it, because youcan't get tired of work like
that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Totally so.
What are some of the trendsthat you've seen over the past?
You know kind of started in2018, over the past few years
that we've been.
It's been an uphill battle.
Honestly, we I feel like we getpunched in the face like every
other, like every few months youknow something else.
So, like, take us back from thebeginning.
What are?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
you seeing.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
What are kind of like the trends that have allowed
this moment to come 20, 2013,.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I start teaching my kids and other kids coding at
the library.
It really was this likeadventure for me of just like,
let's see if we can do.
I didn't even think of it asdoing education differently.
It was if some of these kidslearn to code and maybe there's
the next Zuckerberg or whateverout of this class like great.
So that was fun.
But over five years of doingthat and watching my own kids
(13:10):
really do what I did in school,like you know, they were doing
fine, but the fire was clearlyout for them.
So I'm putting all thistogether and I'm thinking what
can we do differently?
And so this was the crazy ideain 2018 to start this micro
school that you know that'sseven years ago now, so it's
been a little while.
Seven and a half years ago, westarted that micro school and it
(13:31):
really was this experiment.
So step one was just like doingit and then trying to help
people get their head aroundwhat this even is.
I was shocked, even in 2018,that, you know, no one knew
about it.
Right, they were very puzzled,but there wasn't once they
understood what we were doing.
I'd have people come in andvisit and see it Once.
(13:51):
They saw it and experienced it.
There was generally this senseof like, yeah, that's a great
way to do education, even though, kelly, you're so weird.
Like, this is really weird.
And I interviewed for YCombinator in 2019.
I remember sitting with one ofthe partners and I'll never
forget this because he's a kindof really innovative guy who's,
like, made a lot of money intechnology and innovation and he
(14:16):
lives in the Bay Area and sendshis kids to expensive private
schools and he just looked at melike he said, why would?
Why would anyone do this?
This is crazy.
Like meeting together with yourcommunity, like I would not
send my kids to that and I'mlike, because it's an
opportunity for all these thingswe've been talking about.
I tried to give him the pitchbut he didn't buy it.
Opportunity for all thesethings we've been talking about.
I tried to give him the pitchbut he didn't buy it.
(14:37):
I mean and I think, a lot ofpeople at that time.
Our challenge in 2018 and 19was just convincing people like
look, this is a new way to goand a new way to think about
things.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I remember meeting you then and trying to explain
what micro schools were to likemy.
I was already homeschooling,right, so I was already the
weirdy.
And so now I'm like coming tothe park table with like this
new other weird idea where I'mlike going to bring other people
into the weirdness.
It's going to take like 45minutes of like convincing, of
(15:04):
like really trying to like getanother parent to like see what
this was.
And now I go to a random parkand I say my kids micro school
with Prenda, and 99% of the time, granted, I live in Arizona
where, like Prenda, is.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
We have a lot of micro schools, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, um, and they're like oh cool, like I know what
that is, you don't have toexplain it.
I know someone that did that.
They had a good experience.
I'm like, wow, like that reallyis.
Uh, is progress Not that likePrenda's perfect, or we solved
all of the problems, or anythinglike that.
But like you can see the seedsof a movement and that's just
really exciting.
We're just barely like tappinginto it.
We're at the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Totally.
And two other things happenedBig, big macro things that we
all experienced.
One of them was every singlehuman on the planet, right,
which is COVID, right.
So we were in 2019.
In 2018, there's one microschool and then three micro
schools.
In the fall, we had somethinglike 50 micro schools or
something like that, and in 2019, this is pre-covid, right.
But then, all of a sudden, youknow there's this virus and we
(16:03):
have to be indoors and you can'tbe with other people and
schools are shutting down.
I mean, every parent in the inthe country is desperately for
something and they want to gettheir kids together in person
because the intuition is sostrong that kids need to be
around other kids and they needthat face-to-face and that
energy.
And so how can we do thatsafely in a way that fits within
(16:23):
the kind of COVID protocols ofthe time?
Covid was just a major momentfor education because it really
did two things.
The first was it just itbrought traditional education
right onto your kitchen table,like just laid it out for you.
So you're looking at theseworkbooks, worksheets, you're
watching your kid on zoom.
You know in this, I think, whateveryone would agree the teacher
included, right, that it wasjust a really inefficient kind
(16:47):
of terrible experience foreveryone.
And yet everyone's trying againlike good intentions, using the
tools that we had.
But I think that opened up eyesto what is.
So.
Let's say, this isn't COVID andthis is what it looks like in
my kid's classroom, like I'msending my kid to you for seven
hours a day.
Like does that feel good to me?
So you know, yeah go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I think we all kind of hold this like nostalgia
around, like the classroom andyour teacher and like September.
you know what that feels likeand what it was like for you,
and when you just send your kidsand then they come home, you
can still pretend that that'skind of what they're getting
Right, so it's like it's finebecause, like, I'm just kind of
backfilling with what happenedto me and when you see it,
what's going on now, it's like,oh, this is not that right, like
(17:30):
different things are, aren't,are very, and like I think a lot
of parents were looking at,like what they the skills and
like demands of, like the modernday workplace right, this is
not preparing my child, right,like this is irrelevant, this is
deadening, this is disengaging,like this is the opposite.
So it just really brought thatawareness in, like this visceral
(17:51):
way that you could no longerignore.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Exactly, exactly.
I think people you know maybehad a sense.
We've all seen Ferris Bueller'sDay Off, like I reference this
all the time where it's justlike in what way?
You know the professor's justtalking and all the students are
disengaged.
But you know that, you know, Ithink there was this belief that
somehow it's different.
I've met my kid's teacher.
I know the principal.
(18:13):
These are good people and again, they are good people.
It's just that if you talkseriously to that person,
they're under so much pressurearound test scores and district
requirements and maybe there'ssome sort of cultural thing
happening on campus and they'vegot a difficult situation with a
kid in their class or with aparent in their class and so all
(18:34):
these things adding up to it'sjust not.
That's it wasn't for for verymany people it wasn't really
doing it even before COVID.
Covid forced everybody to seeit.
The other thing that happenedduring COVID was these new
possibilities, right.
So not only is it like that'snot working, it's like my
friend's doing this thing wherethey're like meeting together
with 10 kids and they see eachother all the time.
(18:55):
Anyway, there's this likequarantine group kind of going
and and I'm watching these kidsit feels night and day
difference.
Like they love learning.
I'm seeing them make all thisprogress.
I mean, we get to see.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthis, but you see, this kind of
one to punch right, get themengaged, get them like bought in
, and then look at the progressthat they make and see what
(19:16):
they're able to do, bothtraditional academic measures,
like they're mastering things inmath and English, but also, you
know, and I remember I thinkthis was maybe during COVID or
right after COVID my daughterwas in a micro school.
She was in third grade at thetime and she was obsessed with
theater still is.
She does musical theater.
She wrote, directed like, didall the props, sets, a whole
(19:38):
play.
She did a play herself as aneight year old and she got all
of her friends in her class tolike participate.
Some of them were doing, youknow, the tech crew with like
the sets and everything.
Some of them were headlines andacting in the play.
There was like music.
I mean we I wouldn't watch thisit's not like she's the next
Lin-Manuel Miranda but like tosee the amount of work she put
(19:59):
into this and everything she didto like.
I mean it was education in itskind of finest form, right,
cause she was out there pushingherself, taking feedback,
iterating.
It was a truly unique one ofthese educational experiences
that I think all of us wish fora child.
And that was happening whileeverybody else is doing
worksheets or whatever.
It's like the night and daydifference, right?
(20:21):
So that happened during COVIDand again it did force it.
It forced it into theconsciousness that, one, this
isn't working and two, it couldbe better.
So that's important because,prenda, of course, over that
time we saw this enormousincrease.
Family members, friends, closepeople in my life were all doing
Prenda and then afterwards itwas interesting to hear them
(20:42):
because they'd say besteducation of my kids' whole
school experience.
And we're going back becausethe schools are open and they
want.
But part of this is just the wayinnovation happens, right, like
people, even though we'retalking about you know, you just
threw some numbers out millionsof people now that are starting
to that are not only seeing itbut doing it differently.
(21:03):
There's another 20 million onthe other side of that that see
it.
They're starting to see that itcan be different, but they're
not going to be the ones thattake that leap right away.
It's going to take that.
They want to see everybody elsedo it and those kids turn out
okay.
And so we're still in themiddle of kind of a major change
, but we're at the early part ofit, but it's definitely coming,
and COVID was a part of that.
(21:24):
Then are we ready to talk.
We can jump to kind of seismicshift number two, which was
school choice.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I have a story about penguins.
Real quick, go ahead please.
There's a penguin story here.
Yeah, we were just watching adocumentary about penguins and
it was like so fascinatingbecause they they're trying to
make this big trek and it's alllike the little penguins that
have kind of been like like theyhave to fight.
I don't remember the parent,the penguin, full penguin saga,
sorry.
Nature advocates some penguinsice shelf.
(21:52):
I know we're gonna see, we'regonna hear that in the comments
they get to this like ice shelfand they've gone the wrong way,
right, and they're like on thishuge like cliff and it's like a
big cliff.
They're all like just hundreds,thousands of penguins are just
like lined up along this cliffand they're all just kind of
waiting, looking at this onepenguin and this one penguin.
He's like their little kidleader.
(22:13):
He jumps into the water andthey all see that he's okay and
like a few more jump and soon,like, all of these penguins are
jumping into the water and likeit's okay, this is the right way
, this is the path Right.
But it takes those first bravefew to like make the jump, and I
think that's what we're seeingnow and we're like, we're so
excited.
You know, this is the movement.
It's like this is not just amovement for a small few.
(22:35):
This is the beginning of thenew normal and I think that's
what we're seeing here.
So, yeah, okay, next cosmicshift Go.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, well, okay, so that's a good point.
There are so many people thatwould benefit from this and
we've met a lot of them, I mean,over the years.
People will come to me from allyou know income classes and all
over the world, really.
I mean I remember peoplereaching out from Africa and
other continents and saying wewant to do this.
You know, and I was blown away.
I had no idea that they wouldeven be interested right in
(23:02):
other places.
And so this interest is there.
And then the question becomesokay, well, how can we actually
make this work for as manypeople as possible?
You know private school as aninstitution and you cited some
numbers is.
You know it's great, it'sdefinitely serving a niche, but
the niche is limited and it'sbased on money, like in America.
The way education works iseveryone pays taxes and then the
(23:26):
state takes that tax dollarsand they run.
In the past they ran schools.
Now there's charter schools andsome of these other things.
If you want out of that, youhave to pay.
You have to come up withsomewhere between $10,000,
$20,000, $30,000, sometimes$40,000.
(23:46):
They pay tuition.
These are college idea that aparent can choose the best
environment for their kid.
It feels good.
It's actually always been truein America.
The problem is it's only truefor people that have the money
to to pay for it and can affordit.
And so you know, in some casesthat looks like private school
(24:07):
tuition.
In other cases, in a lot ofcases, people don't think about
this.
It's moving Right.
People will say, hey, I gotthis new job, I'm going to this
new place, and they get onlineand they research and they find
where the schools are good andif they can afford it and, by
the way, every parent's going todo this they are going to pay
for the house that will puttheir kid in the place where
(24:28):
they think is the most likelyfor their child to succeed.
I don't blame anyone for that.
That's school choice for theones who can afford it, and I
just want to make that pointreally, really clear.
What's happening now and this isthe second seismic shift is
that policymakers in some statesin the United States are
recognizing that that's notreally fair, that you shouldn't
just be able to have schoolchoice and opt out of systems.
(24:51):
If you can afford it, youshould be able to make that
choice, whether or not you canafford it, and everyone should
be able to do that.
So this is the deal that theystruck is they worked it out
where there are these programsand they're typically called ESA
programs.
So think like HSA.
Sometimes people will say butit's like education savings
account, or they use differentletters, every state's different
(25:12):
, but it's some amount of moneycount, or they use different
letters.
Every state's different, butit's some amount of money.
It's always less like,sometimes half as much as what
the schools you know, thetraditional schools spend on
educating their child, but lessmoney.
But they'll give it to theparents and say, parents, you
use this for your kid'seducation?
Okay, so that's um.
For those of you who arelistening to this and never
heard of ESAs, that's what it is.
Arizona started the first onein 2011.
(25:34):
It was limited just to acertain number of kids.
In 2022-ish, arizona expandedthat program to be available to
everyone.
Lots of other states WestVirginia's done it, florida's
done it, texas just passed ahuge one, but if you look,
there's something like 25 statesthat have 25, 30 states that
have some version of ESA, andsome of them are universal
(25:57):
expansive programs that allowanybody to participate.
This is a movement that's it'sbeen building over the last
literally three years, and itcontinues to grow, so it looks
like there's still a lot more tocome.
And what that means, then, isit opens doors for people to
participate in micro schools,which are a low cost, private
(26:21):
option, and to do that paid for,with school choice programs,
means that you don't have to berich to get access to these
micro schools right.
You can not only send your kidto a micro school, you can
create a micro school.
You can build the environmentthat you want and regardless of
your you know income level andyour personal wealth and things
like that.
So it's a really exciting shift.
It's definitely changed thingsup and it's been a ride, as
Prenda's tried to navigate,participating in all of these
(26:42):
programs and working together sothat these micro schools can be
available to as many people aspossible.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Totally.
Yeah, the ES.
Like there's always been thiskind of like underlying, like
bubbling pressure in theeducation world.
And when we have people comingto us to start micro schools,
they talk about four maindrivers that I hear.
Maybe you hear others, the fourthat I hear they want better
academics.
Right, if you look at thescores, like the NAEP scores,
(27:09):
which is like our nation'sreport card for academics,
roughly we have a third of kidsthat are proficient in math and
a third of kids that areproficient in reading.
Two thirds of the kids arestruggling.
And you'll hear like a lot oflike flashy news titles about
this being so terrible and solike it gets new.
Like if you look at the 40 yeartrend line they started this
measurement in the 70s it's aflat line of like pretty much a
(27:33):
third of the kids are winningand two thirds of the kids are
not.
And then recently there's been,like you know, there's like
little dips where it's like, yay, we improved the score by 1% or
something like that.
It's like education solved.
Or if we dip down by 1%, it'slike everything's terrible, like
everything's been like this hasbeen the best the system could
do for quite a while and I don'tknow why we, looking at the
(27:54):
data, like that isn't thepredominant story.
But so better academics is oneyou know.
When you're in a classroom youdon't get a personalized
education.
So you're sitting receivingwhole group instruction from
like a specific for a specificmanufactured date or grade level
or age Right, and if you'reabove that you're bored, if
you're behind that you're lost.
(28:15):
So leaving a lot of kids on thetable.
They're just not fully allowingthem to chart a hopeful path
forward, for them to reallyflourish.
So that's one thing.
Better academics, values,alignment there's a lot of like.
What kids are being taught inschool doesn't align with family
values, social, emotionalwellness.
We have a huge mental healthand anxiety depression issue
(28:36):
going on in the youth population.
A lot of people are saying thatthey're looking for other school
options because of bullying.
This is a big deal, and thenthat's kind of like the parent
driver and then teachers aredriving this because I mean I
don't know if you, I always usedto be a speech language
pathologist, so I would work inschools and I would, you know,
(28:57):
go into a classroom where thisamazing woman or man would be
like just owning that room with30 kids sometimes more than 30
kids and like like they're doinggreat things in there, but I
would like leave with my one ortwo kids and like go play games
my speech games with them andstuff, and I'm like I don't know
how this person is doing that.
They're wearing so many hats,they're a mom or a dad, a social
worker, they're handing theeducation.
(29:18):
All of the behavior Like it'sjust so, so hard.
And anytime we hear some sort oflike, there's always like a
legislative reaction to thatwhere it's like, well, we're
going to raise standards orwe're going to like double down
on testing, like all of thesethings to fix that problem.
All that stuff just tricklesdown to making the classroom
teacher's job next to impossible.
And we have so much empathy forfor that person Cause you, you
(29:39):
don't go into teaching, causeit's like not for the money and
it's not for it's like this verynoble calling where it's like I
just want to inspire the heartsand minds of the next
generation, right, and then youget in there and it's like, oh,
this is not that.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Katie, can I throw in a story on this really quick.
I was sitting with a teacherwho's currently making the
decision, like, do I go anotheryear in a traditional classroom
or do I jump and make my ownmicro school?
This was two days ago.
I was sitting in a coffee shop.
We're just having a little chatand it was interesting because
we were kind of going over thesesame questions.
You know how frustrating shefeels.
Her heart is clearly there forthese kids.
She knows there are.
(30:18):
There are many in her class thatshe's just not reaching and
she's not able.
She could reach them underdifferent circumstances but
given the constraints she can't.
And it's interesting becauseshe kind of alluded to this you
know, one third board, one thirdlost kind of thing that you're
talking about, and maybe thethird in the middle, I would
(30:39):
even say the third in the middleare it's questionable if
they're all with you, you know,on a given day.
But but she said you know thedistrict just says they tell her
to differentiate instruction.
This is the phrase.
It's like just differentiateinstruction.
She's like you're literallyasking me something that's
impossible, like if I'm the oneinstructing, like I've got all
of these kids and she's justaware enough to realize that
that's frustrating, and so thenit feels disingenuous and even
(31:00):
insulting to her as aprofessional.
She's like I can'tdifferentiate to 30 individuals,
I can't even differentiate to.
you know, people do these groupsand rotations and stuff but, so
far from being able to actuallydo what she knows she wants to
do, what her heart says to do,and so I just felt for her.
You know these teachers aretrying so hard but they're given
(31:22):
.
I mean I've said this before,it's hard because I know there
are people that are doing itreally well, but it essentially
is an impossible job.
And so if you're doing theimpossible, kudos to you.
If you're trying to do theimpossible, like thank you for
that sacrifice and work, but wefeel you.
I mean that is so, so hard tobe in inside of those
(31:42):
constraints and micro schools.
Of course you know we'll get tothat.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah.
So it's like you're sitting inthis tension where it's like no
one's happy but there just isn'tanother thing to do besides,
like I'm so unhappy, I willhomeschool, like right, like
that's like the ultimate, likeopt out.
So we see that, and it's 3%,what now?
6.7%?
Right, like that people thatare that in that much pain or,
like you know, want to do that,like that's growing still.
(32:07):
But for the people who are likeI can't quite do that but I
need a better option, I thinkthat's where the combination of
options like Prenda, makingstarting your own school like
90% easier, right, like, if youthink about you having the idea
I'm going to start my own schooland then your first day of
school or your last, you know,just like in there you're like
we're doing this right.
(32:28):
It's like that moment in PeterPan where they're like I'm doing
it, like you're flying, likeit's happening this, this
magical moment.
Well, it's like there's like athousand things in your way.
It's like this weight of likeI've got to figure out the laws
and I've got to figure outtuition and I've got to figure
out curriculum this laundry listof things that's like maybe
I'll just sit in my pain alittle longer yeah maybe it's
(32:48):
not that bad.
And then we, we stick it out.
I'll, you know'll, teach foranother year, like we'll just
keep them in, like it's fine.
And we just kind of get finewith mediocrity or like just
accustomed to our pain and withESA being like okay, now it's
affordable.
And with options like PrendaI've been like and now it's
easier.
You're seeing this hugepotential for like all of these,
(33:08):
all of this kind of pain that'sin the system inherently is
like now.
Like okay, now there's adifferent option that's a little
easier and it's not expensive.
Like those were my two bigblockers.
Those things aren't issuesanymore and people.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You just see this huge flow.
Wow, katie, did you justcompare prenda to pixie dust on
accident?
Is that what just happened?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I think I might have you can fly sorry?
Perfect.
There's lots of uh.
Yeah, I know you're new tohosting, so like I will tell you
there's.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's fine to sing as the host, so oh okay, I just
worried about disney, um disneycopyright law, so do I have to
edit out?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
all right, so anything else you want to share
about that?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
no, I think you nailed it.
I mean, and those, thosedrivers?
So to go through those twomajor things, covid, and then
school, school choice, andschool choice being a driver
that continues right.
That's a vector that's justleading to more possibilities
for more people.
I spent time in Arkansasrecently.
It's a new law.
There are lots of people thatare.
I mean, they're chomping at thebit to do these kinds of things
for all the reasons we've beentalking about.
(34:10):
So, yeah, you know, we talkedabout the moment.
This is the time for microschools.
Right now, it's not one penguinjumping off a cliff.
This is, you know, dozens ofpenguins and pretty soon it's
going to be thousands of them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yes, and I will.
I just want to bring up onething before we fully move on
here.
Yeah, I think it's interestingthat there's this like opt out
notion or like that you have toleave the system to get this.
And right now I think thatthat's by and large true because
of, like what you're saying,like you have to differentiate
your instruction, you have toexpose to grade level content,
like there's things that arehard coded into the system that
make doing something differentlike literally illegal.
(34:44):
Right, but there are someforward thinking, progressive
like educators out there.
We've actually run a microschool inside of a public school
.
What is this like?
Year six of this fun littlemicro school?
year, six or seven, can you likewalk through that because like
it doesn't like jumping off thepenguin cliff, like does not
necessarily meaning likedisenroll from your, from your
(35:06):
neighborhood school.
Like we could form partnerships, like prenda early days we
operated within the charterworld.
Like there could be apartnership and and we want I
think from Prenda's perspective,would prefer that like we want
to, you know, encourage peopleto participate in the already
established things in theirneighborhood.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
We've just gotten so much pushback yeah, so I'll just
do it like I think it's reallygreat we'll do it as a teaser,
because we are going to do anepisode, hopefully.
This is on the books it hasn'tbeen recorded yet, but I want to
spend a whole episode on thisand actually a second episode.
There's a forward thinkingsuperintendent out in Indiana
that's been making someheadlines doing micro schools
(35:45):
and he's agreed to come on thepodcast as well.
So, fingers crossed, I'll doboth of these interviews.
But early in Prenda's story Igot some feedback that I think
was really good feedback.
That said, look, you're goingto design for the people around
you and the people that you workwith, and if you want this to
really be transformational, youneed to make sure you have, as
part of your design, a chance todo this work in different
(36:06):
communities than yours.
So I went to friends in townit's not that far from my house,
it's maybe three miles away.
There's a Title I elementaryschool, but it is a different
crowd and some really you knowtrauma and different challenges
that some of these families arefacing and these kids and they
have a visionary principal thathopefully you guys will get to
meet that immediately saw howhaving a micro school on campus
(36:30):
could not only open uppossibilities for 10 kids in a
micro school and on campus microschool, while those kids still
got to participate in free lunch, free breakfast, social
services, sports music, pe,recess, all this.
You know, the non-educationstuff that you know.
(36:50):
I think it was really visionaryfor him to say we could do
education differently.
The core he had to, you know,do some negotiation right with
with his leadership and you knowthey were able to see, and
thankfully very quickly, theysaw kids off to the races
academically and the metricswere looking good.
So he was able to justify like,let's keep doing this, but yeah
, to put that in place, it notonly helps those 10 kids.
(37:13):
What happened is there werekids that were wanting more from
education and as a the time,you know, there's series of
disciplinary checkpoints.
I don't know the exact system,but he was level C or something
(37:39):
and the next level was go to adifferent school.
They have a school just forthose kids that are like on the
verge of you know, just, thedistrict doesn't educate you
anymore.
But there's one more like lastditch effort, and he was going
to get transferred to thatschool and I was calling it like
a jail school.
It's just like you're going tothe prison and it's sad to be
(38:00):
joking about this, but that'sliterally what was happening for
this boy.
Of course, that's not who hereally is.
He was responding to a wholebunch of stuff and the principal
brilliantly saw an opportunityfor this kid, said let's put him
in the micro school, this guy,within weeks.
I mean just seeing.
One of the things Prenta does isit allows kids to set their own
goals.
We introduced them to KhanAcademy.
We said what, where are you atin Khan Academy right now?
It was like he was at right ongrade level, like sixth grade.
(38:22):
I think he was at the beginningof sixth grade math and where
do you want to be by the end ofthe year?
He was like I don't know, likeI want to do, I'll finish all of
sixth grade.
Well, he starts in.
It was a little bit into thesemester, so I think he started
in like October, early October.
By Christmas he had finishedall of sixth grade math.
He was doing more than hisrequired goal every day by a lot
.
He was like engaged.
(38:43):
They started calling it.
There was a math competitionbetween him and this other kid
in the class and pretty soonit's like you know what what's
going on Like and I think histeachers would have been shocked
that like, oh, this guy turnsout, loves math, has a gift for
it and he's all about likedriving himself and pushing
himself.
Meanwhile his behavior problemsdisappear and his teacher in
(39:03):
the old classroom that wasspending so much of her day kind
of battling with him is now nothaving to do that right and
able to still run her class withease.
So yeah, to think about this asa plug-in to really the system
in any format, and I lovetelling parents and teachers
that come to me wanting to starta micro school, say, look, you
(39:25):
don't have to do the full-onthing, you can start with a
conversation where you just askyour principal, ask your
district, you know, say this iswhat I'd like to do and see what
happens.
I think it's always worth havingthat conversation.
I will just say there's a lotof inertia and just I think
people are pretty comfortable.
So I have had thoseconversations go well, like I
just talked about, but I've hadmore of them go not great.
(39:47):
And I literally remember oneprincipal and I think she was
really well-meaning but she justlooked at me and was like why
would we do that?
You know it's she's strugglingalready to just keep everything
running as it is and so for herit was this unnecessary leap and
you may run into that, andthat's OK.
Like I think the main thing islet's give it a try and there's
lots of ways we can.
We can do this innovationtogether.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yep, I think that a lot of the things we see kids go
through in the traditionalclassroom that's just
information.
All their behavior, all theirstruggles, just information
about what the needs that aren'tbeing met.
And it's irresponsible of us tocontinue to just tell the
teacher like meet their needs,like you have to be this, like
infinite well of need, meetinglike they can't.
(40:27):
That's not an infinite system.
We're humans, right, we have tobuild a system that creates the
culture and enables kids to settheir own goals.
Like.
What happened in that story wasthat kid was bored, probably,
and he started acting out to getlike either some connection,
some relationship, to feel likehe was in control, things like
(40:48):
that.
And then he suddenly becamelike the bad kid, right.
So now he's telling himselfthis story about he's the
problem kid and all the teachersare like oh, that kid, like you
know, he's that in thenarrative of his life, he's that
character, right, and whatPrenda aims to do is meet needs
social, emotional, academic,everything so that kids can be
(41:10):
like I can actually revisit thenarrative, right.
So that kid went from being theproblem kid to like math hero
in a few months and nobody,nobody in that kid's life would
have predicted that.
Right, because we're not.
The schema that we're used tolike living in is like oh, like
that's a helpful child, that's agood kid, right, like they
(41:31):
listen, like they're easy,they're good, like that's.
These are those stories andnarratives, and it's not until
we change our beliefs abouthuman potential that we'll see
kids potential changing.
And it's just, it's just soexciting to be, to be involved
in like this, this movementwhere we can really do so much
human healing.
And I'm just like every daywhen we sit down to build Prenda
(41:52):
, I'm like, oh, it's such a joy.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Katie, I know we're running out of time, but I'd
love to just add one more storyto this, and it's personal
because it's my own daughter, somy older daughter.
I already shared about Maisie,my younger daughter, doing her
play.
My older daughter was she wasgetting all the so.
Similarly, she had a story.
The story was she's the goodkid, right, she made her
teacher's life easy.
She sat there politely, quietly, she did anything that she was
(42:20):
asked to do.
She, you know, kind of didn'tever disrupt or disturb.
She could even be likeactivated to like go take care
of some sort of chore if theteacher needed something.
So you know, we would go toparent teacher conferences and I
just remember the teachers justraving about Molly.
It was like she is the best.
We like love her so much andshe really is like a sweet
personality.
But what was funny is my wifewent in and visited the
(42:42):
classroom and she's looking.
She's like wait a minute,that's not even.
That's not even her.
Like she.
She was adopting like thenarrative, she was buying into
what just like you justdescribed, right, but in this
case it wasn't a bad I'm the badkid narrative.
It's like I'm the good kid andin a way that was holding her
back.
She wouldn't take any risks,she wasn't really engaging.
We saw her learning her herbackflip at gymnastics.
(43:06):
I remember she she did tumblingand she's learning this back
tuck and it was like so muchwork.
She's falling on her head andwe're out there spotting her and
she won't give up.
I mean her ferocity.
So I'm seeing these things inother aspects of her life, like
that's her, that's what she'scapable of, that type of
greatness.
And that wasn't not only wasn'tbeing exercised or practiced in
(43:27):
the classroom, it was beingdownplayed and diminished in the
classroom.
Right, it's like we don't wantyou to do that, we don't want
you to try for something biggeror more.
And I saw I mean I kind of sawall at once, like what the
implications might be of thatfor her life.
She would, like me, you know, gothrough and get patted on the
head and get A's or whatever,and never really find out what
(43:49):
she's capable of in this world.
And so seeing that all happen,that was a big part of me
wanting to start the microschool.
And then, you know, fastforward years later and she's
doing robotics and she's writinga novel and she's doing these
things that she wouldn't haveotherwise tried through her
micro school and I believe andshe's turning 16 pretty soon
she's obsessed right now withdriving.
(44:10):
She's always asking me to likego out and drive and she just
has this like this gusto.
You know, she just wants to gotake on the world and I love
that about her and I think itwould have been a risk, right,
I'm not sure that that wouldhave emerged to the degree that
it did if we had sort of lefther in a traditional environment
.
So I'm so grateful that eachkid can have a change of
(44:30):
narrative, embrace that newnarrative and then build into it
for greatness.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Can we circle back to her narrative that you labeled
I'm the good kid.
Can I change?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
it yeah sure.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think her narrative was I'm the good kid if and
when she jumps through thosehoops and it's helpful that
reinforces the goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
but it reinforces a conditional goodness which
plagues us for the rest of ourlives.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Right, there's also a lot of crying on the Kindle
podcast.
Um, but when we, when we teacha kid, you are good, you are
valuable and I don't care if youare helpful, you know like, yes
, I want you to do thosepro-social behaviors and we'll
get there.
But it's like when we infusekids with like value, then
they're able to take those risksbecause they're not trading on
their value right, like they'renot risking.
(45:18):
They're not risking their value, their worth as a person,
because they know that they,that nothing can change that.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
That's the inner change that we're looking for
and I think it's so, so vitaland so like what a glory that
she has was able to to make thatshift and to sustain herself,
her like inner self, as her, andnot like the conditions that
other people were putting on her.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Okay, so to wrap up quick like overview.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
What's Prenda working on?
Prenda's not perfect, but Iwant to dive in a little bit on
like what are the problems we'restill seeing, even in the micro
school space?
That?
We're kind of like give us alittle teaser for what we can
see oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Okay, I'm going to do that.
I have to do this quick andwe're going to need another
episode because we are like outof time.
But we, there's structural, thestructural thing of like what a
micro school is, how toactually put that together.
You talk, we talked about pixiedust, like the thousand things
that you have to worry about andPrenda's knocking out, you know
, one after another, it getseasier to start a micro school
literally every day as Prendacontinues to invest in just
(46:19):
structurally setting that up andI have people all the time that
will come and just like I wantto do this, my heart wants to do
this, I have no idea, and it'slike we've got you, like,
literally, just click thisbutton, follow our instructions,
we'll talk to you on the phone,our team will help you out.
It still is hard to do microschools.
The hard part is human, and Iwould say that's the second
thing is.
I call it human technology orsocial technology of just how to
(46:41):
do, katie, what you just talkedabout.
Right, it's to actually see ahuman being through all this,
and you know it's so easy forhumans to slip into.
This is a, you know, some fillin the blank with the label or
this is a problem to be solved,or this is a widget in an
assembly line, or this is a, youknow, a test score that's going
to count against me later, likeall these things that we might
do to objectify children.
(47:02):
But what we want to do, insteadof objects, we want to see
humans with infinite worth andinfinite potential, right Like
what is this child really andwhere does their value come from
and what are they they capableof?
To be able to systematicallybuild that and to know how to
apply it.
We've gotten really good atthat and, katie, you've been
such a huge part of developingthat.
Our guides will talk about thetrainings you give and the
(47:23):
things that you're teaching themover and over again, as this is
what makes me truly effectiveas an educator, and then I'll
just add content, obviously aspart of this and learning, the
actual learning systems.
We live in a world that's superexciting, where you can
actually have each child rightat their learning frontier.
We intentionally and to do itfor really efficient, effective,
(47:55):
powerful learning, and sothat's really what we're about
is trying to sort of build thosetools and systems in.
So I'll talk about just quicklya couple of those.
One of them is this goalsetting feature.
So kids set the goal at thebeginning of the year.
They do that with their guideand with their parent.
If we can get that conversationgoing, they work towards that
goal.
Our software breaks it down forthem so they can see every day
(48:17):
what they need to be doing.
And then we have we've replacedthe report card.
We think letter grades arestupid and arbitrary and
ineffective.
But if you show here's yourgoal, here's where you are
towards your goal, it could be areally powerful feedback loop.
So you know, okay, I've got tospend a little bit more time on
math today, or maybe I can skipmy ELA work and just read my
book today, or you know thingslike that.
(48:38):
So if you know helping kidsstay on their goals, the other
piece of that in the report cardis the ability to just put your
work out there.
And we have a portfolio kidsshare.
You know artifacts of the workthat they've done.
It tends to be visual and funand interesting.
So you could imagine a video ofmy daughter's play, a script,
(48:58):
some photos of the costumes thatshe designed.
You know all of these resourcesthat kind of come with this
huge educational undertaking andnow it's documented and it
shows up in the portfolio.
And then, finally, we're payingclose attention to how these
kids see themselves as learners.
We want to change theirnarrative right.
So we ask kids every week doyou like learning, do you feel
like you're challengedappropriately?
(49:19):
Too hard, too easy?
We ask them if you're motivatedand we ask them if you felt
control in your education, andthen we keep track of that data
and we show it back to the kidsso they can kind of see, look
like maybe I'm feeling a littlepassive in my learning and I can
engage in a way that that willhelp me feel more control.
So I know I'm going super fastthrough this.
I'd love to spend more time onall of this, but Prenda's really
(49:41):
built tools to put into actionthese concepts and these ideas
that we've been talking aboutand that you know, you guys on
this first two seasons of thispodcast and we'll going forward
these principles that we talkabout.
But Prenda is all aboutapplying them and making it easy
to operationalize, to put thatinto action for lots and lots of
kids.
So I'm more excited than I'veever been.
(50:01):
I can't wait for what we'redoing.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Same same.
All right, well, let's wrapthis up for season three.
Just quick housekeeping.
You'll see Kelly and Ialternating as host.
We're going to dig into a lotof like learning science type
things.
Let's talk about math, let'stalk about writing, let's talk
about policies, talk about allof it.
So we already have a ton ofreally, really great episodes
coming, uh, coming your way andwe're super, super excited about
(50:24):
them and we hope that you'llparticipate in this community
and let us know.
If there's a guest we shouldinterview or a topic that we
should tackle, like, let us knowwe're here.
So with that we'll wrap this up.
So thanks for joining useveryone and thanks, kelly.
We'll see you next episode.
The Kindled podcast, is broughtto you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing micro school
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
(50:46):
podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn and
if you'd like more informationabout starting a micro school.
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