Mike McShane

3 weeks 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.

1 month ago | 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.

2 months ago | 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.

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.

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.