by Michael Strong
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:
School connectedness was the only specific connectedness domain related to fewer suicide attempts. School connectedness is critical to healthy adolescent development and has been linked to health risk and health-promoting behaviors, including reduced substance use, increased physical activity, and more productive coping.
In light of this obvious importance, one would expect a major public health initiative related to school connectedness.
Indeed, such initiatives exist. In a brief by EdResearch for Action titled “Strengthening School Connectedness to Increase School Success,” the advice seems both banal and strangely bureaucratic:
Students feel more connected to school when teachers use explicit strategies to show that they care about them, know them as individuals, and are willing to respond to their distinct needs.
Teachers need to be told to “use explicit strategies to show that they care about them.” How many moms need to be told to “use explicit strategies to show that they care”?
Under “Practices to Avoid,” the aforementioned brief has the good sense to note that caring cannot be mandated:
School connectedness can’t be mandated or coerced.
If so, perhaps we should allow families to choose learning environments where children DO feel connected? But no, in the literature on “school connectedness,” which is entirely focused on public school interventions, I never see any awareness that school choice, including homeschooling and microschools, might just address the entire issue.
Consider the single-item question from the school connectedness literature: “Do you feel like you belong at this school?” In a homeschooling environment, the answer is almost always going to be “Yes.” And in a chosen learning pod or microschool, the answer is almost always going to be “Yes.” We are not yet at the stage where we have good data on “school connectedness” in homeschooling and microschooling environments, but we do consistently see greater parental and student satisfaction with private schools over public schools.
It turns out, smaller schools are MUCH safer than larger schools. In an article on “How Smaller Schools Prevent Violence,” we find:
…large schools (those with more than 1,000 students) are eight times more likely to report a serious violent incident than small schools (those with fewer than 300 students).
This should surprise no one. Several broad literature reviews support a wide range of beneficial outcomes in smaller schools (see here and here).
Typically the research on “small schools” specifies schools under 300–500. Thus the current crop of microschools are MUCH smaller than that, with the largest definition of microschool usually being 100 students, and most are much smaller than that. Homeschooling, of course, provides an even more high-touch environment.
Finally, choice makes all the difference in the world. If a child is being bullied at a small school, if that school has been chosen, they can leave and find another, safer option.
Personally, I’m willing to bet that students enrolled at smaller, chosen schools will have better mental health, including a lower probability of suicide, than is the case with students at large public schools.
I’ve proposed this as a prediction to Michigan State University education professor and school choice opponent Joshua Cowen:
Universal vouchers initially marketed on “reading/math scores, indoctrination, failing schools not finding data moved on to “non cognitive” issues.Don’t share your prediction these issues for marginalized groups will generalize universally.Goal is private access to public funds.
— Sam (@keyhusted) February 21, 2024
He then blocked me.
I also offered this as a prediction to Justin Baeder, an education consultant who also argues against school choice:
He then blocked me.
Sometimes they first argue that it would be impossible to determine whether microschooling and homeschooling would be better or not due to selection effects. I then counter that proposal by suggesting that we measure psychological safety and emotional engagement directly in different environments via technology (one option is Immersion Neuro, which measures heart rate variability). Once they realize they can’t escape the bet by claiming that it is impossible to tell due to selection effects, they block me.
Dr. Joshua Cowen and Dr. Justin Baeder, I’d be happy to bet either of you the following:
As we are able to gather adequate data on school connectedness in homeschool and microschool environments (chosen schools with fewer than 100 students), those students will experience higher levels of school connectedness than do students at public schools with more than 1,000 students enrolled.
Why do you think they are unwilling to bet on homeschooling and microschooling? Do they know they would lose? Do they know that children are less safe in large public schools than in homeschooling and microschooling environments?
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Michael Strong is an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at FEE and founder and CEO of The Socratic Experience, a virtual school for entrepreneurial, creative, and intellectual students.
