Like many education entrepreneurs, Ben Colas, founder of Forest City Academy in Cleveland, had several twists and turns in his journey. After studying finance in undergrad, Ben decided he wanted a career that felt like he was helping people. He joined Teach For America and taught in inner-city Cleveland for several years. But he often felt like he was banging his head against the wall because of the bureaucracy and the entrenched “it’s always been done” this way mindset. “I got pretty burnt out,” he admits.

He shifted gears and joined Stand Together, a philanthropic community working to transform K‑12 education, among other issues. “That was a time of seeing really innovative models and just people in organizations rethinking when, where, and how learning happens, thinking different about it,” he recalls. “It really opened my eyes.”

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Mikala Schreeder was working as a software developer in Silicon Valley and wanted to get involved in the local community. “I started tutoring, and I was invited by a school to build out their computer science program,” she recalls. That experience changed the way she thought about education.

As she designed the program, she started by looking into ways to get high school students excited about coding and technology engineering. “It was incredible to learn all about designing projects and hands-on experiences for students,” she says. Many of them went on to study computer science engineering in college and do internships at places like Facebook and Google. “From there, I started thinking, ‘Well, what could the rest of the school day look like if we’d apply some of the lessons that we learned in building this computer science and engineering program?’”

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In most areas of life, when something isn’t working, we look for a better option. In K–12 education, though, children are assigned to public schools based on where they live—and if that school isn’t a good fit, the child is generally seen as the problem. School choice is changing that by expanding access to alternative learning environments. But educational freedom changes lives only if parents and teachers know what options exist, which is why Cato’s Friday Feature highlights the schools, policies, and organizations bringing those choices within reach.

The rapid expansion of school choice policies, such as vouchers, education savings accounts, and tax credit programs, has given families across the income spectrum increased access to learning options. But it has also highlighted an important fact: tuition funding is only one piece of the puzzle. Families will only use school choice scholarships if they have a good place to use them. 

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In most areas of life, when something isn’t working, we look for a better option. In K–12 education, though, children are assigned to public schools based on where they live—and if that school isn’t a good fit, the child is generally seen as the problem. School choice is changing that by expanding access to alternative learning environments. But educational freedom changes lives only if parents and teachers know what options exist, which is why Cato’s Friday Feature highlights the schools, policies, and organizations bringing those choices within reach.

Emily Harber Williams began her career in education in 2001, serving as a coach and teacher at a small private school before becoming a special education teacher in the public school system. Working with students with special needs became incredibly important to her. “All my life, I’ve been one of those social justice kind of people,” she explains. “So working with a special population became dear to my heart.”

While she loved her work, it was very time-consuming. One weekend, Emily and her husband, a teacher and coach, were working at home when their fourth-grade son said something that was like a knife to her heart. “I get that y’all gotta do work,” he said. “But I mean, when are y’all gonna spend a little time with us? It’s the weekend.” 

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It feels like we’re going back to the future today. Two years ago, I profiled Log Cabin Schoolhouse, which was created by Jennifer Wolverton, a homeschooling mom with an engineering background. Despite the old-fashioned name, Log Cabin embraced the latest technology, including AI, “smashing” it (as she put it) with classical education.

Jennifer has tossed any semblance of being old-fashioned aside and leaped fully into the future with her latest undertaking: MARS Microschool, a hands-on, AI-focused high school. 

As MARS begins its third year of existence, it’s undergoing major changes. For starters, it has a new location: a classroom Jennifer rents in the Space Camp Operations Building at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. (Jennifer stresses that MARS is simply renting space and is not affiliated with the center.) 

Although MARS isn’t affiliated with the center, Jennifer is excited because it will serve as an extension of the classroom. “We’ll have access to space for flying drones, hopefully including some of their FPV drones, a real lab with running water and safety infrastructure for chemistry, and the ability to request spaces throughout the plaza depending on what we’re working on that week,” she explains. The classroom is well equipped with technology, and students can go to the Space Camp cafeteria for lunch and hang out in the outdoor areas during downtime. She’s hoping they’ll be able to use the stage for their end-of-hackathon presentations. 

“I’m also excited about all the things we can’t predict yet—the mentors, partners, grants, speakers, equipment, and opportunities that may come simply because people can see what our students are building and doing there,” she adds. “But maybe the coolest part to me is that no matter where these kids go in life, when someone asks where they went to high school, they’ll have an easy answer that people everywhere will recognize: ‘I went to MARS in Huntsville for high school, and our campus was at Space Camp.’ That’s a pretty incredible way to experience high school.”

Another change is that enrollment is now limited to grades 9–12, allowing Jennifer to tailor her content to older students. “I used the words ‘motivated high schoolers’ when I did all my marketing,” she says. And she’s excited by the “really cool group of kids” who will be attending. 

One incoming freshman illustrates what she means. Before he’d set foot in a MARS classroom, he told Jennifer there was a class he was excited to take. She explained there was a coding class he needed to complete first. He finished it in 30 days, then asked for more, which led him to earn his Entry-Level Python Programmer certification before the school year even started. 

MARS Microschool is built around flexibility. Students who are in at least 10th grade spend Mondays and Wednesdays on dual-enrollment coursework. Tuesday is reserved for virtual learning, including a chemistry class that uses ChemExplained, a curriculum designed for homeschoolers that can award students college credits. There’s also an online book club that includes books from a variety of perspectives and genres. 

Students come together in person on Thursdays at the Rocket Center campus. A retired principal, new to MARS this year, runs the Thursday sessions. This will help free up Jennifer to work on yet another project—building software for microschools that she’s piloting at MARS first. Fridays are optional and are built around a CyberPatriot cyber defense team that MARS helps support. 

Academically, students work through core subjects plus a rotating menu of extras that are mostly tech-based, including a Microsoft Excel certification, a game-design class using Unreal Engine, weekly drone flying, and coding.

Another extra this year will be ukuleles “because there’s nothing more adorable than a bunch of tech-bro teenagers with colorful ukuleles sitting in a circle playing,” Jennifer says. Elmarie Hyman, a friend who created a California homeschool resource center called Learn Beyond The Book, helped Jennifer connect with a “young and kind of cool” musician in Los Angeles who has written some movie scores. He’s going to meet online with the kids on Tuesdays for ukulele lessons.

To support the changes she’s made this year, Jennifer raised tuition from $2,000 to $7,000. When tuition was $2,000, Jennifer says people treated it like a club, not a school. With a new $7,000 price tag, which she says is still around half of what most private schools in the area charge, she finds people take it more seriously. The higher tuition also helps make MARS more sustainable. At the lower amount, she says it was essentially a hobby that she would have had to “quit at some point and close up.”

Jennifer is seeking accreditation this year so she can participate as a full-time private school under Alabama’s CHOOSE Act. Once approved, her families will have access to up to $7,000 for tuition through refundable tax credits in an education savings account. Without the accreditation, she can only be included as an education service provider for homeschoolers, who are limited to $2,000 per child with a cap of $4,000 per family. 

Today’s Friday Feature closes out our AI in Education week, which includes a series of blog posts (listed below) as well as an X space with several experts—Jennifer among them—who hold a variety of opinions on the topic. We hope you’ll check them all out!

Monday: “Kicking Off a Special ‘AI in Education’ Blog Series”

Tuesday: “AI in the Classroom: Why It Matters and Who Decides”

Wednesday: “AI Won’t Replace Great Teachers”

Thursday: “In the AI Era, School Choice Is Crucial”

Friday: “AI in Education: There Are No Solutions, Only Trade-Offs”

Everyone wants to know the “right” answer on AI in schools. Should it be banned? Required? Left up to teachers? Locked down with strict rules? The reality is that there isn’t one right answer. In this, as in much of life, economist Thomas Sowell’s brilliant insight rings true: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

When it comes to AI in education, different families have different preferences. And the effects of decisions made today may not be known for years. Given the diverse views among parents and the ever-changing nature of AI, it’s crucial that we embrace freedom rather than mandates.

As we continue our special “AI in Education” series, it’s time to consider the funding side. On Tuesday, my colleague Jennifer Huddleston examined why AI in the classroom matters and the importance of parents and teachers deciding how kids use it. Yesterday, she and Christopher Gardner looked at how teachers can benefit from AI. 

School choice is an important element that relates to both topics. It’s easy enough to say parents should decide how much their children interact with AI in school. But how realistic is that in practice? In our current system, parents are generally mandated to send their children to assigned public schools. If they want something different, they must pay twice for education—once in taxes and again in tuition or homeschooling costs. Similarly, as public schools have a near monopoly on education in most areas, that’s where the vast majority of teachers work.