Peter Green learned that New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu awarded $6 million to a for-profit organization called Prenda, to establish microschools in the Granite State. It’s not as if Prenda has a track record of success.

He writes:

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu just gave Prenda a whopping $6 million cut of the granite state’s pandemic school relief. It’s a relatively small slice (the full pile of money is $156 million), but it’s notably a larger per-pupil amount than the state gives in normal “adequate aid.” So who is Prenda, and what is the money for, exactly?

Prenda is a company riding the new microschools wave. Microschools are the next evolutionary strep in homeschooling. Says the Micro Schools Network website, “Imagine the old one-room schoolhouse. Now bring it into the modern era.” Or imagine you’re homeschooling, and a couple of neighbors ask if you’d take on their children as well. Or to look at it another way, imagine back to the beginning of a public system, only this time, your system would only include the students and families you wanted to include.

Microschools like to emphasize their modern awesomeness. From the Micro Schools Network site: While no two micro schools are identical, most share several common traits: a small student population, an innovative curriculum, place-based and experiential learning, the use of cutting-edge technology, and an emphasis on mastering or understanding material. The education that micro schools provide is highly personalized.”

The microschools movement seems marked by a lot of educational amateur columbussing–the breathless announcement of “discoveries” plenty of people already knew. Again, from the network’s website:

Teachers typically guide students’ curiosity rather than lecture at them. Instead of utilizing a fixed curriculum, they integrate subjects that students are passionate about into daily lesson plans and account for each student’s unique strengths, learning style, and existing knowledge.

Because nobody who works professionally in education ever thought of any of those things. Or you can check out a video from Prenda founder/CEO Kelly Smith in which he may tell you ecitedly about how cool it was running his own microschool and seeing students become lively and excited about something they had learned. The microschool movement seems to be very much excited about its discovery of the wheel….

Needless to say, Prenda CEO Kelly Smith is not an educator.

Prenda has said it wants to be the Uber of education, but that really only makes sense if Uber were a service where the state paid the company and then you drove (or “guided”) yourself to your destination. Prenda does exist in a grey area that allows it to escape virtually all oversight. In Arizona, they don’t need a charter, don’t have to get their curriculum approved, and are not subject to any kind of oversight or audits.

There’s no explanation out there of why Sununu decided to spend $6 million on Prenda of all things. Their administration claimed that the microschools “are particularly helpful to students who have experienced learning loss and will thrive with more individualized attention,” but when the individual attention comes from a guide with no educational training (but lots of caring) and a computer program, it’s unclear how helpful it will be. Last fall they had 400 pods of roughly ten each in action; there’s virtually no information about how well these things actually work.

And yet, New Hampshire is handing over a sweet $6 mill in federal dollars. Said Rep Mel Myler (D), member of the House Committee on Education:

Chris Sununu’s decision to use federal funds to advance his anti-public school agenda and help a shady for-profit organization, rather than providing public schools the resources they need to prepare for the next phase of the pandemic, could have serious consequences for our teachers and students.

Good luck to the children of New Hampshire.

And good luck to New Hampshire’s taxpayers, who usually expect recipients of public dollars to have some accountability.

Open the link to see who’s funding this latest “innnovation.”