Kerry McDonald is a Senior Fellow at FEE, where she leads the Education Entrepreneurship Lab and hosts the LiberatED podcast. She is the bestselling author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019), and author of the forthcoming book Joyful Learning: How To Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling (Hachette/PublicAffairs, 2025). In addition to her role at FEE, Kerry 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 and The 74.
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
All Articles
Homeschooling Families Shouldn’t Fear School Choice Policies
By Kerry McDonald
Beware of Federal Education Policies—Even If You Like Them
By Kerry McDonald
Homeschoolers Thrive in MIT Summer Internship Program
By Kerry McDonald
The Real ADHD Issue Lies with Schooling, Not with Students
By Kerry McDonald
From Teachers to Business Owners: Educators Launching Microschools Learn the Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship
By Kerry McDonald
4 Reasons Why Today’s New Private Schools Are Different
By Kerry McDonald
Boys Are Falling Behind, But New School Models Can Help
By Kerry McDonald
Announcing the Winners of FEE’s Enterprising Founder Award!
By Kerry McDonald
Why Church-Based Homeschool Learning Centers Are Gaining Popularity in Massachusetts
By Kerry McDonald
How Dual Enrollment Helps Students to Hack High School
By Kerry McDonald
What Would Really Happen If the US Department of Education Went Away?
By Kerry McDonald
How Regulations Constrain Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation
By Kerry McDonald
Why Diverse, Decentralized Schooling Models Are Gaining Momentum
By Kerry McDonald
How Microschools Are Providing Meaningful Careers for Teachers
By Kerry McDonald
A 12-Year-Old Boy’s Ice Cream Stand Gets Shut Down, But His Entrepreneurial Spirit Persists
By Kerry McDonald
This Back-to-School Season, Look for Creative Schooling Options
By Kerry McDonald
Chronic Absenteeism Is a Problem, but Most Proposed Solutions Miss the Point
By Kerry McDonald
Meet the Education Entrepreneurs behind Maine’s Growing Microschools
By Kerry McDonald
What Do ‘Good Schools’ Look Like? It Depends on What Parents Want
By Kerry McDonald
Whole Foods Market Co-Founder John Mackey on Entrepreneurship, Education, and Capitalism
By Kerry McDonald
No, We Don’t Need Federal Homeschooling Standards
By Kerry McDonald
Montana’s Microschool Founders Are Offering Families Creative, Learner-Centered Education Options
By Kerry McDonald
School Choice Advocate Corey DeAngelis on ‘The Parent Revolution’
By Kerry McDonald
How ‘The Learning Lounge’ Is Bringing Educational Entrepreneurship to Arkansas
By Kerry McDonald
The Microschool Movement Is Taking Off in Tennessee
By Kerry McDonald
A Robust Education Marketplace Means Some Schools Will Fail
By Kerry McDonald
Schools With “Radical Politics” Must Be Tolerated in a Free Society
By Kerry McDonald
Why Doesn’t Every Office Building Have A Microschool?
By Kerry McDonald
10 Education Entrepreneurs Offer Advice To New Founders in 2024
By Kerry McDonald
Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Education For the Better—If We Let It
By Kerry McDonald
Utah’s Emerging Education Ecosystem Is Diverse And Accessible
By Kerry McDonald
To Combat Chronic Absenteeism, Look To Schools That Are More Successful At Engaging Learners
By Kerry McDonald
Why Is There A Dyslexia Epidemic?
By Kerry McDonald
If Your Kids Aren’t Happy at School, Find Them Another One
By Kerry McDonald
In Los Angeles, a Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education
By Kerry McDonald
As Education Decentralizes, Those Who Like Control Are Nervous
By Kerry McDonald
Former Public School Teachers Find Happiness In Entrepreneurship
By Kerry McDonald
No, John Oliver, Homeschooling Doesn’t Need More Regulation
By Kerry McDonald
What the Back-to-School Adderall Shortage Really Tells Us
By Kerry McDonald
Compulsory Schooling Laws Have Got To Go
By Kerry McDonald
To The Mom Who Doesn’t Want to Send Her Kids to School
By Kerry McDonald
In This Business-Friendly State, Why Is It So Hard To Start A Private School?
By Kerry McDonald
On His Birthday, Milton Friedman Would Be Happy
By Kerry McDonald
It’s the Year of Universal School Choice, but Barriers Remain
By Kerry McDonald
The Solution to Pandemic Learning Loss Is Less Schooling, Not More
By Kerry McDonald
Gallup Poll Reveals Americans’ Plummeting Confidence in Public Schools
By Kerry McDonald
Homeschooling Remains A Popular Option, While Defying Stereotypes
By Kerry McDonald
A Rural, Waldorf Microschool Gets Shut Down By State Regulators
By Kerry McDonald
Loosening Youth Employment Regulations Empowers Teens
By Kerry McDonald
Celebrating a Milestone For Homeschooling Freedoms
By Kerry McDonald
Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation Across the US: A Case Study
By Kerry McDonald
New Research Reveals The Breadth And Impact Of The Microschooling Movement
By Kerry McDonald
In a World Full of Robots, Humans Wanted
By Kerry McDonald
Two ‘Mompreneurs’ Created a Forest School That Reaches Thousands
By Kerry McDonald
Entrepreneurial Teachers Create New Education Options For Rural Families
By Kerry McDonald
Why Youth Social Media Bans Are a Bad Idea
By Kerry McDonald
How Entrepreneurs Are Expanding Education Options For Families in Texas
By Kerry McDonald
More Than One Million Students Left District Schools. How Do We Know They’re Learning?
By Kerry McDonald
New York City’s Not-So-Secret World of Low-Cost Private Schools
By Kerry McDonald
Why Can’t This Retired US Navy Officer and Engineer Open a Private School in Nevada?
By Kerry McDonald
How a Former Football Star Is Trying to Break the School-To-Prison Pipeline
By Kerry McDonald
Microschools Are Proving to Be a Winning Option in Las Vegas
By Kerry McDonald
More School Districts Ban ChatGPT. Here’s Why That’s A Bad Idea
By Kerry McDonald
The (Further) Case for the Free Market in Education
By Kerry McDonald
In West Virginia, Microschools Come With Hope
By Kerry McDonald
Advice From 13 Successful Education Entrepreneurs on How to Take the Plunge Into Non-Traditional Schooling
By Kerry McDonald