[MUSIC] You're listening to Community Crafted Education, where we explore alternatives to conventional K-12 education and their potential impacts on society and culture. I'm Eric Waren, Director of the National Hybrid Schools Project. On this episode, we're joined by Aaron Valdez from the University of Austin. We'll talk about UATX as a startup about how colleges may start looking at graduates of hybrid and micro schools, and about the effects of these graduates on polarization in higher education. [MUSIC] Welcome to the Community Crafted Education podcast. We're here with Aaron Valdez from the University of Austin. Aaron, thanks for giving us some of your time today. >> Thank you, I'm delighted to be here. >> Yeah, could you, could you, let's start by just, could you tell us a little bit about the University of Austin and your role there? >> I'd be delighted to. So, University of Austin is a new university that is based at Austin, Texas. We welcome our first class of students in September. So, that'll be the class of 2028. We are a non-sectarian, private liberal arts university. We seek the truth. That's sort of our first calling is to fearlessly pursue the truth. That's in our DNA. We've seen what's going on in higher education as an opportunity to create something different and better. So, the best way to criticize is to create, if you will, our founders conceptualize the University of 2021. So, very wise Jolande Sale, our president, Paano, came together and saw this opportunity and formed this idea and here we are. That's great. So, you know, the University of Austin emphasizes, like you said, kind of a return to first principles intellectual freedom. How do you see the rise of all these hybrid schools and micro schools reflecting something similar at the K-12 level? >> I mean, they're very much of the same spirit. So, a couple of things that come to mind with that is there is a kind of independent thought and desire to return to essentials. In a way, it's a kind of radicalism and I don't mean that in a negative way. Radicalism comes from a Latin word, "rottox," which makes root. And so, in a sense, it's trying to return to the roots and think to get to the essential. And I see University of Austin is trying to get back to the roots of what university is. Hybrid, micro schools, community, crafty schools. They all kind of have that in their DNA as well as to get back to what's most important, which is students and learning. >> Yeah, yeah. So, you know, higher ed often, I mean, part of the reason for the University of Austin existing is that higher ed grapples with this political polarization, right? So, conventional K-12 schools, sometimes suffer from that too, but they kind of offer themselves, you know, publicly as sort of comprehensive, neutral institutions that are open to everybody. So, you know, we could argue about whether they're ever really neutral, right? But community craft in schools often tend not to do that, right? They emerge as kind of these high identity schools. So, they're not neutral, we're classical, or we're Christian in some form, or, you know, maybe we're going to promote this 16-19 project, or we're going to do nature as our focus, whatever it is, right? They're not offering themselves as neutral arbiters of education. They have a point of view, right? So, you could argue that, you know, as the polarization and higher ed could get worse, as these kids kind of grow up and graduate and show up into institutions of higher ed. So, do you think that'll be the case? Or do you think these schools will kind of offer insights for reducing those kinds of tensions? Well, first of all, I think to say this, but I don't know what worse would look like. I think it's gotten pretty bad with the current system we have. So, whatever we're doing is leading to polarization. I'll just say that. And so, the second piece of that is that there's a whole body of research out there by our, you know, our mutual friend Patrick Wolf among others has kind of led this effort to University of Arkansas on the question of sort of, what are the civic outcomes and attitudes of students who attend private schools? Obviously, micro school, type, or community crafted, they are, they're a form of private schooling, right? They're different in some fundamental ways, but they are private. And so, given, given the sort of, in my opinion, overwhelming evidence that these students emerged now when they were sort of acknowledged, the political system and politics in general, but also strong support for norms, so the democratic norms, if you will. So, society, I think, I don't think it's going to be a risk to higher education. In fact, I think it's part of the remedy. We're going to see these students come in and hopefully have a very positive impact on the culture of these places. Yeah, it seems to me like just going to one of these schools, you're going to be in some kind of very small minority, like in just in your life in general, right? So, you almost have to learn how to deal with other people because most people don't go to a school like yours, right? Well, I can make it personal in a way. I was homeschooled in the '80s and '90s, first in Florida and then in Texas. So, it was not normal. It was very abnormal. In fact, first few years, it was quasi-illegal. So, having experience or the outsider status and minority status, we're doing something very distinctive. Yeah, I can say there is a way in which it, you know, there's always this old complaint about homeschoolers, that being socialized. There's a way in which it actually socializes you more. You actually have to deal with people all the time more different than you and find ways to relate with them and find common ground with them because you don't have the same third grade teacher. You don't have the same coach, the same football team. And so, in some ways, you actually have to learn to be growing up a little bit faster. One of the compliments my parents always got when they took us out was how mature we were and how easily we talked with adults and how well we behaved, but basically in public, which is kind of funny, but it points to what you're talking about, which is you actually sort of find a way to integrate yourself into society possibly even better than if you had other things sort of take with rent. Yeah. That's great. So, let's talk about how that cash is out at the University of Austin then. What skills or qualities do you think that kids who come from these kinds of schools might bring to universities that are different from traditionally school students? So at the University of Austin, they have about a third student who's come from homeschool background, which probably includes micro schools. I don't want to be granular data, but that's my guess. And the private schools is a third and then public schools is out there. So just to kind of add a flavor for our student body that that's the background. So we absolutely do have experience with students from the homeschool, private school, micro school communities. And one thing that I can just say, I mean all the students are wonderful and brilliant and we love them all. One thing that I've noticed about students who have that background is they tend to be very motivated and sort of curious and entrepreneurial. And so they tend to be very self-efficacious, right? So they're going to be seeking out opportunities. They're going to be looking for the kind of people they need to connect to to move through their career here and then beyond. So that's just something that stands out. And they tend to have obviously an ability to make their arguments well, to speak well and to sort of. I don't know, it's beyond their years kind of a maturity that they have. Yeah, yeah. So Art, do you think universities and colleges are preparing for students coming from these kinds of backgrounds? I can tell you, you know, from my experience with the school that I've worked with, we would have kids who graduated 10 years ago. And it was like we were kind of a white knuckling it hoping that somebody would get admitted to college, right? But now, like it all seems to work, I think society has kind of accepted different looking graduates from high school. But that's been a change. And I wonder how much it has filtered through higher education emissions. Well, I can speak for our emissions team. I can't say some just occupational things from my damage. And then also in my prior work in higher education policy and K-12 policy. So one thing that I noticed, we hosted an event at my prior employer's school of policy foundation in 2022. It was on classical education. We brought in a bunch of higher education leaders, K-12 leaders across the country. And what I heard was, hey, look, they're. I'm using classical as an example. I think this is actually true on the microscope models. But this is one that we saw already kind of tripling through the system. Higher education is. is facing the demographic flip. It's been coming, they've known about it. It's here. And so colleges are closing. There are a lot of small liberal arts colleges that are closing. It's a fresh time, right? So some of these institutions have realized there's this whole world, (laughs) classically educated students, soon term microscopes and homeschools, that might be interested in that real liberal arts education, I don't know, it's just a thought. So they tend to be, in some cases, the smart ones. They'll just say this might, my personal opinion here, are saying, "Hey, let's develop an honors college. "Let's create an honors college. "We specifically attracted to these students "that kind of doubles down on the core liberal arts curriculum, "if you will, but does it in a very rigorous way. "It also very sequenced way. "It's more reminiscent of the way, "let's say liberal education was a hundred years ago." So they're seeing this opportunity. And they're crafting programs to attract these students. One thing that higher education probably should be doing more of, in my opinion, given the dynamics in place, is they should be thinking more intentionally about partnerships with high schools. So we know that a lot of students are, sort of taking some classes part-time, even when I was homeschooled, I was taking classes at the community college. There was that sort of dual enrollment idea. Liberal arts colleges, especially the small ones, given whatever they state they're in, should be thinking about. So I'll just point out one thing. In Texas yesterday, into this morning, was a hearing on House Bill Three, which is an education savings account bill. One of the things that's gonna change in Texas is, that bill is very likely, that bill or immersion of it is likely to pass this time, which is 30 plus years of the making. It's going to lead to proliferation, more education options for students, which is going to impact higher income more than it already has. One interesting thing about this bill is that higher education tuition is an allowable expense under the draft considered yesterday, into this morning. So one question I have to hire education leaders is why aren't you thinking about that? Why aren't you talking about that? Is this even in your strategic plan, do you understand how many high school students you could potentially bring to your campus and be your students? If you were good about outreach to homes, to leaders and others that are taking advantage of education savings accounts? So I think that's just one example of a shift towards something people have kind of taught, kind of emerging of the high school college experience. And I think we're gonna see more and more of that. As colleges struggle for enrollment, and it's more education options emerge for K-12 students. The other, on the other side of that, of course, you know this, high school is more expensive than K-8, right? So there's this inherent thing with private schools, they often struggle with an eighth grade drop off, right? And they'll blame themselves at something, you know? And actually it's just kind of inherent, because it's more expensive and the economies of scale come to place with some high school programs, right? Special sports. So, you know, one thought is, as colleges might think, more about the high school space, it offers high school students opportunities at a cheaper cost than maybe creating a whole new institution. But so, I'm just throwing that out there as an example. We're gonna see some really interesting changes at both sectors, I think, because of these, the changing policy lens capable to say. Yeah, there's a lot there, right? Like we do see a huge drop off in high school enrollments among these kinds of schools, for reasons that you said, it's more expensive, it's just more complicated, right? It's harder to staff, you know, a teaching staff, right? Yeah. And kids, or families want different things, well, it's actually a hinge point, right? Like at our school, we add a bunch of kids from eighth to ninth grade, and we lose a bunch of kids. They want different things, right? So most of these schools are not gonna have a football team, and so if that's appealing to you, you'll look in somewhere else. But they're also gonna be smaller, and maybe that is a big. But so this is an interesting point that high-red really shouldn't be kind of looking down a little bit with programs like this Texas ESA aspect stays in there. For things like classical schools, I mean, you know, classical education is probably one of the most developed sub-sectors here. Yeah. But a huge percentage of these hybrid and micro schools are classical schools, 'cause they've got the support from publishers and some colleges, right? Right. Yes. Yes, so that's exactly what I'm sort of pointing to it. And the opportunity is for colleges, maybe classical isn't there jam. Maybe they have a technical focus. Actually, and this is where I see a really big opportunity, and the other big trend we're seeing in higher education is this move towards vocational, we used to call vocational education opportunities. A lot of students now are choosing those. And so, and there are a lot of, most secondary institutions that are well set up to offer those kinds of classes to students. And again, because it's so expensive to create a CNC machine lab or whatever's needed for these kinds of high tech vocational opportunities, right? That's exactly why you'd want to partner with, say, a local community college or technical college. And so again, those institutions should be thinking a lot about this and how they are more strategic about recruitment. I would love to know how many homeschool students already enroll in local community colleges. I suspect it's a pretty high number. I don't know that they track it. But again, it's just, this is just one thing that's going to kind of push more in that already, sort of pretty robust market. Right. And for the same reason, a lot of these kids are doing dual enrollment, but they're looking for dual enrollment opportunities that are a match to the school that they're already attending. Exactly. And there's a wide array of colleges out there. So they might be well suited or well served by looking at high schools a little more than they have been. So what-- you didn't mention it this way, but it is kind of an interesting time to be starting a new university with the enrollment cliff. We're kind of at the peak of it right now. So I guess you all are betting on yourselves to be able to enroll students. So yeah, could you talk just a little bit about the idea of building something from the ground up and then what lessons could hybrid and micro school founders learn from your experience in creating these alternative educational institutions, especially in light of the fact that they're competing for fewer and fewer kids every year. Yeah. I think it kind of gets back to what we were talking about before. We're just like, look, there might be a lot of schools closing. One of the reasons schools are closing is because they lost their mission. So for instance, let's just take a quite liberal sector, which were a part of, right? What's happening in that sector, and you can see this pattern over and over again, is they lost their focus on poor liberal arts. They lost their focus on pursuit of truth. They lost the will. This is key to defend that educational approach. And so when you lose the will to defend and stand up for it and make a case worth of value to your community and to others, it just starts to get to do a pretty sooner enrollment's following. Pretty soon you've got a layoff in tire environments, classics, right? Which is a part of liberal arts, right? Pretty soon, that is so eroded, you've got to make another case for existence, and then you start adding in pre-professional programs. And I can tell you, because I looked at the research and I know this for a fact, a lot of those pre-professional programs that get tacked on these small liberal arts institutions in their death rows, frankly, are terrible programs. They have terrible outcomes for students. They don't get employed. They do get employed. They have low earnings. They just have bad outcomes, right? And so what's that is symptom of? That's a symptom of loss of admission. And more important than that, the loss of the will to make a case for that mission. And so I think, you know, UETX coming into the sort of sector at this point and saying, hey, we actually know what our mission is. We're here for a reason. We have to be feel like this is important to defend and we're here to make that case. And hey, join us if you want to be a part of that, right? Actually, it's needed down more than ever. And I think you're seeing that, by the way, with institutions like I mentioned that are like trying to reclaim the mission, right? Or doubling down on it. And there are other new institutions that are starting up. State universities, even state legislatures have seen this where they are sort of starting schools of civic law, who are functioning in a way kind of like a liberal arts school within a school that have their own hiring abilities and things like that. So there's this counter trend going on in higher education. And I think UETX is not only for that, but I'm believing that ever. Yeah, that's great. I spoke with a guy recently who was interviewing for some position at a small liberal arts college. And it's near-- it was kind of geographically in between a much more well-known private college and then a state.
college that the kid to go to for free. And so one thing he asked the hiring committee was, why should someone go to this school rather than one of the other two that we're sitting in between? And he was met with kind of a deer and headlights look. So he didn't take the job, but I think that college might be in trouble long term anyway. And I think that's true of colleges, but I think this is why these hybrid and micro schools are opening up too, is because in K-12 we've got similar problems where you've kind of lost the thread, but people want, you know, it doesn't have to be class school, but they want something to fight for, right? Some something to care about, right? - It gets back to that high identity piece that you mentioned in the beginning. You don't start a school, if you don't have an idea of what it should be, which seems obvious on its face, except when you look at the rest of the educational landscape and say, okay, most schools actually think that their social service providers or therapists or something, but like education's somewhere down on the list and it shows. - That's right, that's right. So let's look about this from the other direction, right? So you are doing creative things in the teeth of a weird environment at the University of Austin, right? And I think schools could learn a lot from that. Are there any things that you think higher ed could learn from the hybrid and micro school space that would make them more interesting? - Yes, actually, it's part of what I'm trying to do here within my own center of the Center for Education and Public Service to Incubator. Thank you, Eric, for serving on our curriculum development committees. We deeply appreciate your contributions. This center essentially is setting itself up to create a talent pipeline for these schools, but before we're doing that, we're asking them what do you need, right? So in a sense, we're actually trying to create a feedback loop here within the center. Okay, what are these schools learning? What can we take on more from that? How can we better support? How can we create a ecosystem? So in a sense, the one way, we're gonna tell you how it is and you're just gonna go do whatever. That's not our approach or for just actually look. You are out there succeeding. You're out there building new institutions. There's some valuable lessons you can actually tell us, but maybe we can impart to others or you can impart to others, right? So in a sense, the center is trying to embody that. I think the key things that higher education can learn from this are really very simple. No view or no submission is. How many times does that need to be said over and over again? Clearly to find the mission, be unapologetic about it, and then bring the right people into execute on that mission. So everybody can have the open phrase, personnel is policy, that's true with institutions. So within the Microsoft World Hybrid School, Community Crafted Education Community, look, you know who you are and because you put a stake in the ground, the right people come to you. You have to obviously, it's a seamless process as there are people that working towards that mission together can create more durable institutions, right? And I think that's what higher education could learn from the innovation going on in the casual sector. Yeah, no, that's great. So the idea for this whole podcast is that, you know, having more choices, like giving people what they want in terms of schooling, K12, and then in higher ed to, is there's value in that for its own sake, but we hope that there are some downstream positive effects on American culture and society, right? So can you think of anything that off the top of your head that would be, you know, kind of along those lines? So what good does America get out of having more schools like this and more colleges like yours? Well, I think it kind of gets back to what we were talking about with the idea of the plural, right? So within a free and thriving society, right? You don't want a forced conflict where you don't have to force conflict. You know, Kato keeps that famous battle around map of school or fights, essentially. This is a sort of very clear way of illustrating this, but look, when you've got compulsory education, which we do in this country, and then you not only add on a compulsory education that you have to attend a particular institution based on where you live, I can't think of a stronger recipe for conflict that that essentially. And so pluralism within the K-12 context can help diffuse that. Well, at the same time, and I bring up Patrick Wolf's research, again, not leading to increased polarization, but it has since decreased polarization. And so I think this is a key part of what we're seeing. So big picture, what I'd like to see for America 300, coming up in the two big, but America 300 with these movements of fully matured is something that looks a little bit more like 1776, something that looks more like a society that reads, they can read, reads things longer than a tweet, that can engage in conversation with their neighbors, respectfully. They can tackle huge societal problems in a way that is serious and not simply driven by the latest viral video. This is extremely optimistic. I know that. On the other hand, we've seen reddoze onsits happen. We've seen them happen before. They can happen again. And I think attacking these structural issues is just essential to actually achieving that. Yeah, no. I mean, we have time. 50 years is a while. So there's some time for this to look out. Right? OK, so I have one final question for you. Aaron, and that is what's the most interesting thing happening in high-red generally, or at the University of Austin, specifically right now, that people involved in these new school models would like to hear about? Yeah, so I actually think it's kind of along the lines of this sub-revival of liberal education. So within the state school environment, just sort of a separate effort that's more legislatively driven, or in the private sector, where you see lots of honors colleges thriving. What that should signal to a microscope hybrid school leaders is, hey, you're on the right track. You're doing the right thing. You're actually forcing changes at the high-red level. And that should be extremely encouraging. And I would say the other trend that should be encouraging is more students choosing a vocational track. This means students earlier on in their lives are discovering what their true talents are, what their true interests are, and saying, you know what, I don't need a four-year university education to pursue what I truly love, right? I want to go out and be a NASCAR technician, or something else that appeals and is interesting and very well compensated. That's a win. That should be a win for everybody. And we're seeing that happen. So there's these kind of two big things that are happening. So I think the biggest thing I would just say is, look, you're on the right track. You're forcing change other institutions. And that's true, again, back to the sort of optimistic thing. If you can do that, you can change the world. That's a perfect way to end. Thank you. Aaron Beldez from the University of Austin if people are interested in the university and your work, how can they learn more about that? Well, you can certainly reach out to me in my email address is
[email protected]. I love the Chappellanity. They have interested in our university, what we're trying to build here, the center, which is attempting to serve schools in the alternative market in Austin and beyond. Certainly, we'd love to chat with them. Hit you. Awesome. Thank you so much. This has been the Community Crafted Education Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Community Crafted Education, a podcast hosted by the National Hybrid Schools Project in Kenisaw State University's Michael J. Cole's College of Business. If you have any questions about the topics we discussed on today's show or want to learn more about what we do, please look up the National Hybrid Schools Project or reach out to us directly at coalscollege.com/hybrid. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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