What is the Education Entrepreneurship Lab?
The FEE Education Entrepreneurship Lab (“the Lab”) encourages the creation and growth of innovative, market-based, entrepreneur-driven education models that offer families more choices beyond standard schooling.
Why a Lab?
Because innovation thrives on experimentation and free inquiry.
As new schools and learning models emerge across the US, and school choice policies make these options more accessible to more families, FEE’s Education Entrepreneurship Lab addresses both the demand for educational freedom and the supply of high-quality options. We provide resources, inspiration, and support to parents, teachers, and learners looking to find—or build—creative schooling options in their communities.
What sets us apart is our unique blend of unwavering commitment to free society principles, FEE’s eight decades of expertise in promoting free-market ideas, and a proven track record of success in education innovation.
What does the Lab do?
The Lab’s mission is to offer information and inspiration to families and founders who are looking for or launching new schools and educational spaces. It features fresh articles and comprehensive resources for current and aspiring education entrepreneurs, as well as for parents, teachers, and students. The Lab features Kerry McDonald’s popular LiberatED podcast and weekly e-newsletter, an Entrepreneur-In-Residence program, the Enterprising Founder Award program, the Cole Summers Fellowship, public webinars and related events, and a variety of other initiatives.
We’re not just championing an assortment of innovative, decentralized educational models —we’re cultivating a generation of leaders who can implement freedom-oriented solutions in education.
“American education is undergoing an exciting transformation toward more market-based, entrepreneur-driven, choice-enabled schooling models, and the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is very much at the forefront of this movement.”
~ Kerry McDonald, FEE Senior Fellow and Leader of the Lab
About FEE
The Lab is a project of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), a pioneering force in the liberty movement since 1946.
FEE’s mission is to inspire, educate, and connect future leaders with the economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society. These principles include: individual liberty, free-market economics, entrepreneurship, private property, high moral character, and limited government.
People
Kerry McDonald
Kerry McDonald is a Senior Fellow at FEE, where she leads the Education Entrepreneurship Lab and hosts the LiberatED podcast. She is also the Velinda Jonson Family Education Fellow at State Policy Network, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a regular contributor at Forbes.com and The 74. Kerry is the bestselling author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019), and the author of the forthcoming book, Joyful Learning: How To Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling (Hachette/PublicAffairs, 2025).
Kerry’s research interests include homeschooling and schooling alternatives, self-directed learning, education entrepreneurship, parent empowerment, school choice, and family and child policy. Her articles have appeared at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Newsweek, NPR, Education Next, Reason Magazine, Washington Examiner, City Journal, Entrepreneur, and the Journal of School Choice, among others. She has a master’s degree in education policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Bowdoin College.
Kerry lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children.
You can sign up for her weekly email newsletter here.
By Kerry McDonald
From Apprenticeships to Microcredentials, Why Alternatives to College Are Gaining Popularity
Homeschooling Families Shouldn’t Fear School Choice Policies
Beware of Federal Education Policies—Even If You Like Them
Homeschoolers Thrive in MIT Summer Internship Program
Nasiyah Isra-Ul
Nasiyah Isra-Ul is a LiberatED Education Associate at FEE. She is a passionate educator, author, public speaker, and policy professional working at the intersection of education reform and disability justice. Homeschooled K–12, Nasiyah earned her undergraduate degree from Liberty University.
As a teen, she founded Homeschool EmpowerED Inc., a nonprofit empowering homeschooling families with digital resources and community learning opportunities.
Nasiyah has served as a fellow and advisor for various organizations and is an avid coach and community leader. Passionate about digital storytelling, Nasiyah creates content on education reform, entrepreneurship, and her lived experience as a multiply-disabled policy professional. Nasiyah also aspires to become an ordained rabbi and continue to grow as a Jewish leader, remaining true to her commitment to building inclusive and empowering learning spaces in her community and beyond. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing poetry, songwriting, multicultural cooking, travel, and spending time with her family and her leopard gecko.
By Nasiyah Isra-ul
An Inside Look at Back-to-School Season in Unconventional Learning Spaces
Empowered Learning: How Homeschooling Through High School Helped Me Thrive
How This Fourth-Generation Educator Is Continuing the Family Legacy with Her Own Microschool
Why One Teacher Created A School to Prioritize Parents and Learners
Education Entrepreneurship Lab Initiatives
LiberatED
Senior Education Fellow Kerry McDonald started LiberatED to explore the diversity and abundance of free-market education solutions and to spotlight the everyday entrepreneurs who are creating them.
Entrepreneur-In-Residence Program
Entrepreneurs-In-Residence at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab play a pivotal role in promoting education entrepreneurship and innovation. These thought leaders are practitioners who are currently running their own innovative schools or related learning models.
Cole Summers Fellowship
The Cole Summers Fellowship nurtures talented teenagers from unconventional educational backgrounds, including homeschooling, microschooling, virtual schooling, and apprenticeships.
Founder Award
The Founder Award recognizes everyday education entrepreneurs across the U.S. who have launched creative schooling options in their communities. These options could include microschools and low-cost private schools, learning pods, hybrid homeschools and various types of homeschooling collaboratives, as well as virtual schools and related K-12 learning models.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I submit an article to the Lab for publication?
See the Lab’s submission guidelines here.
Who do I contact about media inquiries?
See the contact page here.
How do I apply for the programs or fellowships?
See the individual pages for more information.
