Five Trends Reshaping K–12 Education …
and What They Mean for Small School Founders and Followers
By Stuart Grauer, Ed.D.

For those of us who have been founding and leading small schools for decades, it’s been remarkable and heartening to watch the rest of the nation start catching up. The new microschool movement, the surge in homeschooling, and the reawakening of family-centered learning — these trends that once felt like outliers are now reshaping the mainstream just as The Grauer School has been shaping conceptions of education for several decades now.

Kerry McDonald recently summarized this evolution beautifully in The 74, identifying five trends transforming American education since the pandemic. I shared a bill with Kerry up in Portland one year as keynote speakers at the annual Alternative Education Resource Organization conference and I have followed her work since.  

As someone who has lived these transformations from the inside — through small-school founding, teaching, and mentoring new leaders — I see Kerry’s work as both confirmation and call to action. Here’s what Kerry’s trends mean through the eyes of small-school leadership.

1. The Growth of Homeschooling and Small Schooling

What once existed at the margins has become a national movement. Before COVID-19, small schools were the quiet experiments of a few brave founders and parents. Now, they’ve become magnets for families seeking belonging, engagement, and authenticity.

I have been writing about small schools in this column for a million years (at last count) and I don’t know if I have defined a small school enough:  Small and micro schools are communities of less than around 225 students; with mixed-age student learning groups; using place-based learning and school design; using PBL, mastery and competency frameworks for flexibility and innovation. Note this definition includes both size and other defining attributes--both. NAIS’s research arm, DASL, notes that in schools of less than 100, there are other small school attributes, mainly, everyone on the shop floor, no middle management.

At The Grauer School, we’ve long seen that small environments create big learning and mentoring. Kerry notes that many of today’s new small/micro school parents aren’t “escaping” conventional schools — they’re opting out from the start. That’s a seismic shift, Kerry wisely points out. It means we’re no longer seen as alternatives; we’re prototypes for what schooling can be when it starts with human connection. It is not a reaction to the public system, which we admire, support, and can’t replace. It is simply a choice.

2. Flexible Work Is Inspiring Flexible Schooling

The pandemic made flexibility the new normal. Parents working remotely no longer accept rigid systems for their kids. This is what small schools have practiced all along: adaptability, responsiveness, and a more individualized pacing.

Small-school leaders can seize this moment. The lesson? Flexibility isn’t chaos — it’s alignment with real life. The same trust and autonomy that remote workers now demand are the values that help students flourish in smaller learning communities.

3. Expansion of School Choice Policies

School choice has become a catalyst for innovation. Kerry highlights how founders are migrating to states where policies allow funding to follow students. Yet, even in states without those frameworks, small-school leaders continue to create access through scholarships, philanthropy, and community partnerships. The term “micro” is helpful here because the fact is, these new start-ups are not charging traditional, high tuition amounts. Of course, we can’t say what they’ll charge once they have to sustain, but it will surely be more.

What’s new is the entrepreneurial mindset behind school founding. Today’s small-school leaders are not waiting for permission — they’re designing inclusive, mission-driven models that make learning personal and local again. They are open to the creativity of students, who have a hand in a more democratic school direction.

4. The Advent of AI and New Technologies

Artificial intelligence is transforming how students engage with knowledge. Some see AI as a threat to traditional schooling; I see it as validation of learner-centered education. Tools like ChatGPT, when used wisely, can extend the mentor-learner relationship by empowering the curiosity of both — not replacing it.

But McDonald’s insight is critical: most education tech still follows a “bad jig” — a factory model disguised as innovation. Small school franchise can be cookie cutter and suffer from the illusion that they don’t need great teachers. Creative small schools can offer the corrective. We can pair AI’s potential with the soul of learning — creativity, empathy, curiosity, individuality — values that machines alone can’t teach. And we can learn together.

5. Openness to New Institutions

Kerry reports that public trust in large systems is declining, while trust in small, mission-driven institutions is rising. Gallup data confirm what many of us have known intuitively: people believe in small enterprises because they can see the faces, the values, and the accountability.

For small-school founders and followers, this is the moment to build credibility as in emerging places where education, community, and nature converge. These aren’t replacements for public schools; they are reminders of what education looks like when it’s rooted in relationship, place, and purpose. For some teachers, they are reminders of why we went into this work. The trick is to get out of the old presumptions: you come to school, you sit in rows, you do what the teacher says. We question all that. Every day!

A Broader Movement and A Deeper Calling

When I first began writing about small schools decades ago, the phrase “microschool” didn’t exist. We talked about human-scale learning, expeditionary education, and community connection. Now, all that language has reached the mainstream.

Kerry’s five trends aren’t simply forecasts — they are validation. They affirm what small-school leaders, families, and educators have practiced for years: that education flourishes when it’s personal, purposeful, and connected to the natural and human world.

As we move through this next decade, we don’t just need more schools — we need right-sized ones. We need schools where trust outweighs compliance, and where learning is designed not by systems, but by relationships.

That’s not a trend. It’s a restoration, and I am grateful for it every day.

---

COMMENT! Click on the "Comments" drop-down box below to share a comment.

SHARE! Click on the social media icons below or copy the link to share this column.