A New Crop of School Models Expands Choice

Forty percent said they made use of online instruction, and 28 percent said they were enrolled in a brick-and-mortar school. Since predicting the future is a fool's errand, it is perhaps more helpful to identify the tailwinds that are pushing these alternative school models forward as well as the headwinds buffeting against their advancement. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, 3.1 million children were attending homeschool in the 2021–22 school year, up from 2.5 million in the spring of 2019. According to the Miami Herald, about 123,000 new students have enrolled in a Florida choice program for the 2023–24 school year. A recent EdChoice poll calculated a Net Promoter Score for teaching, asking the question made popular by marketing research, "How likely is it that you would recommend teaching to a friend or family member?" The Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the "detractors," who give a score of zero to six, from the "promoters," who give a score of nine or ten.