Mike McShane

Director of National Research @EdChoice, high-five aficionado. All thoughts on here are my own. Just warning, some of those thoughts will be better than others.

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Articles

Applications Are Up: Tracking The Growth Of Private School Choice Programs

2 weeks ago | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

Across the country, private school choice programs are processing applications for next school year. Some application windows have closed and some remain open, but one fact is clear, private school choice is growing. Private school choice programs take several forms. Traditionally, states created voucher programs, which provide a state-funded scholarship for students to attend private school.
A New Flashpoint For School Choice Policy: Accreditation

3 weeks ago | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

Private schools have sought accreditation for more than a century. Organizations like the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and North Central Association of Colleges and Schools were founded in the late 19th century to both serve as a quality control mechanism for the growing number of schools across the country as well as a means to share new ideas and practices.
The New Frontier Of School Choice: Zoning

1 month ago | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

Florida has made itself the epicenter of private school choice in America. This year, more than 500,000 students will participate in one of the state’s private school choice programs. Given that there are around 1.2 millionstudents in the nation utilizing a school choice program total, Florida’s place is a prominent one. But lurking under the surface are local restrictions that make it much harder for new schools to open to serve the growing population of private school students.
New School Models Embrace Smaller Size

2 months ago | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

It is tough to understate just how central a role scale has played in education reform. Starting more than a century ago, reformers looked to scale up schools, inventing institutions like the comprehensive high school to centralize student populations and broaden the offerings available to them. In this century, movements towards statewide teacher evaluation systems or even nationwide educational standards were massive in scale. Scale has been a part of the school choice movement as well.
Outdated Fire Regulations Have Kept This School Stuck At Five Students

Feb 26, 2025 | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

Alison Rini is a career educator, having taught and served as an administrator in public, private, and charter schools. Frustrated by the post-pandemic malaise that affected students, teachers, and parents, she decided to take advantage of Florida’s new expansive school choice program to set up a small private school in an unused building in the center of a public housing complex in Sarasota, Florida. She called it Star Lab.
These Three Schools Are Preparing Teachers For Classical Education

Feb 5, 2025 | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

In 2024, Arcadia Education estimated that more than 675,000 students attended classical K-12 schools in America with enrollment growing at 4.8% per year. In a world where many school sectors are worried about contraction, this is a shockingly high rate of expansion. Classical education, according to the University of Dallas, “is a holistic approach to learning that seeks the flourishing of its students in mind, body, and soul.
How One School Reweaves Social Fabric To Advance Workforce Development

Jan 15, 2025 | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

In workforce development, there are buzzwords that pop up in nearly every conversation. Industry credentials. Or even better, stackable industry credentials. Soft Skills. Self-paced. Work-based learning. But what if the real buzzwords are healing and hope? In speaking with leaders from Oakmont Education, a school network educating more than 5,000 students across 18 campuses in Ohio and Iowa, it is clear that before students can get the what of workforce development, they need to cultivate the why.
Understanding The Results From Three School Choice Referenda

Nov 5, 2024 | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

Let’s talk about the election results that really matter: The outcome of the three school choice referenda in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska. Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Perhaps the story from yesterday is that all winning campaigns are alike; each losing campaign loses in its own way. ColoradoColorado voters were asked if they wanted to amend the state constitution to establish a right to school choice.
Why Do Parents Homeschool?

Sep 26, 2024 | forbes.com | Michael McShane |Mike McShane

According to research from Johns Hopkins University, approximately 5% of American school children are homeschooled. That is just a few points shy of the number of students who attend charter schools and a little more than half the number of those who attend private schools. While this is down from pandemic-era highs (where enrollment is thought to have peaked at 11% of American students), we are still near a doubling of the number of students who were homeschooled pre-pandemic.
Bernie Sanders Is Wrong About School Choice

Jun 27, 2024 | forbes.com | Mike McShane

In his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Senator Bernie Sanders has released a 20-page broadside against school choice. While that in and of itself is not exactly newsworthy (states generally administer school choice programs, not the federal government), it is a useful document to understand the evolving playbook of anti-school choice advocates. The playbook is changing because their arguments aren’t working.