Early in my school-founding journey, I heard one piece of entrepreneurial advice that has stayed with me: people hire products and services to do a specific job. The Jobs-to-Be-Done framework teaches business owners to focus on the problem they solve for their customers, discovering the forces that influence consumers’ decisions to hire or fire a given solution. This has been on my mind as I have continued to refine my microschool’s offering, determining which needs I best serve and searching for the most sustainable ways to meet the demand.
The more I refine my own offering, the more I am convinced that we have hired conventional school to do too many jobs. Today, public schools are often expected to provide all of the following:
- Academic instruction across all subjects
- Preparation for standardized testing in all subjects
- Social-emotional learning, including coaching or therapies for challenging behaviors
- Creative arts, physical education, and music training
- Specialized support for learning differences
- Childcare, including before- and after-school care and food services
- Structure, supervision, and accountability (even for kids who do not want to be there)
- Preparation for college, careers, citizenship, and adult life
- An environment that supports children with vastly different temperaments, interests, behaviors, developmental needs, and abilities
I have seen firsthand that when I try to be the solution for too many different needs, I render my offering less effective, put strain on myself and my employees, and generally enjoy my work less. It is so tempting to say yes to every request right now while demand is high and options in my area are few. But as a fellow founder told me in my first year, because of our state’s universal school choice, it soon won’t be a desert.
The oasis that is forming, and that I feel so excited to be part of, is an ecosystem of specialized educational resources, rather than mere reconstructions of the one-stop shop we have pushed public school to be. I have heard many terms used to describe this customized education, including unbundled education, modular learning, eclectic homeschooling, and, simply, unschooling.
Although its momentum makes it feel new, the concept of an educational ecosystem actually predates the Internet. In 1971, Austrian philosopher and priest Ivan Illich expounded on the concept of decentralized education in his book Deschooling Society. Illich proposed one way of moving away from institutionalized education would be to form networks that would connect learners to resources, peers, skills, and mentors. He called these directories “learning webs,” and they are growing all over today.
Today’s educational ecosystem consists of online classes, library programming, homeschool co-ops, community makerspaces, summer camps, tutors, coding dojos, Mathnasiums, STEM labs, skillshare platforms, community and continuing education, worldschooling hubs, and microschools. A learning ecosystem opens up a world of possibilities to families who have generally been presented with the false trilemma of homeschooling, public school, or private school.
In a learning ecosystem, public school becomes one of many resources. For a season, this resource may be the best option for meeting your child’s needs and your family’s educational goals. It may provide childcare and academic instruction, which is then supplemented by some after-school music classes or weekly tutoring. Another family may use public school for half of the day, choosing to handle math or reading at home to meet a child’s learning needs. Yet another family may choose to have one high school student attend one or two electives at the local high school, while that child’s younger siblings attend a microschool three days a week. The underlying principle is that the parents own the responsibility for each of their children’s education without assuming they must personally provide all the teaching. They identify the needs and goals of each child in a given season and then use a variety of resources to meet them.
For parents seeking to customize their child’s education, and for potential edupreneurs, I would give one recommendation: consider the job to be done. When we view education as something that happens in an ecosystem rather than a single place, we can shift our focus from choosing an institution to considering the needs of the whole child—the jobs to be done. Families don’t have to search for the one school that is adopting every promising educational practice or has the ability to accommodate every particular learning need. Similarly, school founders can (and should) focus on the areas where they shine, creating offerings to meet very specific needs.
A starting point might be considering how you would fill the following needs, the jobs to be done when educating a whole child. Every child and family will prioritize these differently, and not every bucket needs a separate provider. Some resources will fill several at once.
- Foundational academics: Direct instruction and/or practice with the core academic skills of reading, writing, math, and other subjects based on a child’s learning goals or the family’s values.
- Relationships and belonging: Friendships, social opportunities, collaborative projects, mentorship, or participation in a community.
- Creativity and making: Arts and crafts, music, performing arts, design, building, experimentation, and hands-on projects.
- Interests and specialized learning: Technical skills, vocational training, advanced academics, and resources for exploring or pursuing interests.
- Physical development: Fitness, coordination, outdoor exploration, movement practices such as dance or yoga, and team or individual sports.
- Life skills and independence: Durable skills such as communication, problem-solving, and executive function; practical life skills and managing everyday tasks.
- Character, values, and contribution: Participating meaningfully in a community, developing a sense of purpose, practicing responsibility, or serving others.
- Future pathways: Career exploration, college preparation, certifications, apprenticeships, and other pathways aligned with a child’s goals.
This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list, and the point isn’t to check every box equally, nor must each box be checked in each season. The goal is to notice what your child needs, which resources already meet those needs, and where there may be gaps. Some of these needs may be met easily through your family’s rhythms, while others require outside support from resources in your ecosystem.
A thriving educational ecosystem depends on three things: providers who understand and clearly communicate what they do well, families who understand their children’s needs, and ways to help them find one another.
As I refine my own microschool, I’m learning to resist the temptation to be everything to everyone. The families I serve help me clarify my offering by showing me what job they hired my school to do. My goal isn’t to convince every family that we’re the right fit or to reshape my school around every request. It’s to understand what families need, be honest about what we offer, and help connect them with other resources when we aren’t the best fit.
I don’t believe that the future of education lies in building one perfect school. I’m excited to be part of a growing ecosystem of providers who bring unique and specialized offerings to all of us.
