Betting on Homeschooling and Microschooling
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2024/12/...microschooling/
In Culture, Education, Featured, MomThink
December 27, 2024
Michael Strong


Betting on Homeschooling and Microschooling

I have spent the past thirty-five years creating small, highly-personalized schools where students flourish. I have, if you will, bet my life on the value of these schools—microschools before they became a thing. Over the course of that time, I’ve seen hundreds of children who were anxious, depressed—sometimes even suicidal—become happy and well within weeks or months of switching from a large, impersonal public school to a small learning environment which offered a closely-connected community.

Based on that experience, for the past decade I’ve been looking at research showing the various ways in which small, high-touch learning environments may be more beneficial for student mental health than are large, impersonal public schools.

In the meantime, most school choice debates have centered around test score outcomes. When parents choose schools, are test scores generally higher or lower? Choice advocates cite studies showing that choice results in higher scores, while choice opponents cite studies showing the opposite.

But having worked on the front lines for so long, I know that much graver issues are at stake. The statistics above are from a rigorous study showing that pediatric suicides are much higher during the school year than they are in the summer. This seasonal pattern of suicides stops at age 18, showing a distinct association with schooling. The obvious spike on Mondays is another signal that going to school is associated with dying by suicide.

While there are many variables associated with suicide, from a policy perspective one of the most relevant is the role of school connectedness. In a systematic meta-analysis of school connectedness and suicide, the following features of “school connectedness” include:

(1) social affiliations: positive school relationships, feeling cared about and/or respected by adults at school, perceiving availability to interact with adults at school; (2) school belonging: feeling part of the school, feeling safe in school, feeling happy at school; (3) attitude about school importance: caring about school, trying to do one’s best at school; and (4) supportive learning environment: clear and appropriate expectations, perceived fairness.

Based on this description, wouldn’t you expect that most microschools (and of course most homeschooling environments) provide much greater “school connectedness” than do large public schools?

Well, from the research literature, not surprisingly it turns out that school connectedness consistently reduces suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. While family connectedness and peer connectedness are also important for adolescent mental health, school connectedness is especially important. In a study on social connectedness and adolescent suicide risk, they find:-- excerpt, rest at link above --