The Emerging Education Landscape: Trust, Choice, and How Families Are Driving Change

September 29, 2026
The Emerging Education Landscape: Trust, Choice, and How Families Are Driving Change

This webinar examined the growing “parent trust gap” — the widening distance between families and the institutions traditionally charged with educating and caring for their children. Moderated by Steven Guttentag, Ph.D., former CEO of EPS Learning and Reading Plus and co-founder of Connections Academy, the session brought together Tillie Elvrum of Elvrum Consulting and Parent Support for Online Learning, author Mickey Revenaugh of School’s Out: Why Families Are Choosing Unconventional Education, and Sophia Regalado, a junior at GOAL High School in Colorado — along with a pre-recorded research conversation featuring Angela Watson, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab. Together, they explored who is stepping outside traditional schooling, why, and what it means for the families, educators, and systems navigating this shift.

“Families will trust the systems that serve them when they have real voice and agency in shaping them.”
— Tillie Elvrum, Elvrum Consulting and Parent Support for Online Learning

What’s driving families to look elsewhere
Guttentag opened with a deceptively simple question: Nearly every family in this country has a free public school down the street, so why do some feel they need something different? Drawing on more than 40 years in education, he reflected that “the voice of caretakers has always been there; however, the resources and options have not,” framing the session’s central question: What happens now that more families finally have options to act on that voice? Revenaugh pointed to the pandemic as a hinge event, not because it created the desire for alternatives, but because it gave families a close-up view of their children as learners, revealing both what worked and what didn’t. Elvrum added that the pandemic accelerated something already underway, giving families permission to rethink the time, pace, and place of learning. Both named safety, school climate, and the needs of students with special needs as consistent, concrete drivers, with Elvrum noting that in her organization’s years of polling families, safety was consistently the number one reason cited.

A rapidly diversifying landscape of options
Revenaugh and Elvrum walked participants through the range of alternatives now available, from values-based and secular homeschooling to unschooling, roadschooling, and the rapidly growing microschool movement, now estimated at 100,000 microschools serving 1–1.5 million students nationwide. Homeschooling itself has grown roughly 30% since before the pandemic, from about 2 million to as many as 4 million students.

New data on who is homeschooling, and why
In a pre-recorded conversation with Revenaugh, Angela Watson shared findings from the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab that challenged several common assumptions. Homeschooling growth has continued well past the pandemic, though the rate has slowed, from roughly 5% annual growth in 2024–25 to 1.6% this year. She also found that today’s homeschooling population closely mirrors the broader population in race, ethnicity, geography, and political affiliation, undercutting long-standing stereotypes. Perhaps most notably, Watson introduced the concept of “switching and mixing,” families moving in and out of educational sectors, sometimes with different children in different settings simultaneously, as evidence that families aren’t necessarily rejecting public education, but curating it.

“We can see families who are homeschooling Jimmy and publicly schooling Timmy. If you had lost faith [in the public education system], you wouldn’t do that.”
— Angela Watson, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab

Access, diversity, and equity
The conversation turned candidly to who can actually act on these options, and who gets left behind. Elvrum described the rise of education savings accounts (ESAs) in states like Florida, Arizona, and West Virginia, which allow families to direct public education dollars toward tutoring, therapies, curricula, and other services. Revenaugh highlighted an emerging federal tax credit scholarship program, enacted as part of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that allows individuals to donate toward scholarships in states that opt in, with Colorado among the first to do so. Both panelists noted that families of means have always had options, from private school to tutors, and that the real question is whether these newer mechanisms genuinely expand opportunity for families without that flexibility.

The data on who is actually using these programs challenged a common critique: Revenaugh shared that in states like Arizona and Florida, the majority of families accessing ESA dollars had been enrolled in traditional public school within the past year, rather than families already in private school looking for a subsidy. She also noted that the greatest growth across homeschooling, microschooling, and ESA participation has come from families of color and families raising children with special needs, a shift she believes is already pushing traditional systems to ask hard questions about who they have historically served well, and who they haven’t.

“Education freedom without funding is fantasy for most families.”
— Mickey Revenaugh, author of School’s Out

Personalization, special needs, and a parent’s hardest decision
Elvrum shared her own family’s story: her son’s learning disability, the years of frustration trying to work within the traditional system, and the decision to enroll him in a virtual public school, which he attended for 10 years across three states. “I knew his needs weren’t being met,” she said. “But then I found something, and he was thriving.” Revenaugh noted that families of children with special needs are often among the most motivated to seek alternatives, since personalized environments can address sensory, attention, and processing needs that are difficult to accommodate in a traditional classroom of 25-plus students.

Accountability in a fast-moving field
Guttentag pressed both panelists on how these emerging models are evaluated, given that most state constitutions require accountability wherever public dollars are involved. Revenaugh described a range of state-level approaches, from standardized testing requirements to curriculum filing, and suggested the growth of unconventional education may ultimately help drive better, more modern measures of what students know. Elvrum added that policy consistently lags behind practice, and that state boards and legislatures are often still operating from assumptions about when and where learning happens that no longer reflect how many families actually live and learn.

How public education is responding
Despite the growth of alternatives, Revenaugh was clear that this isn’t a story of families abandoning public schools altogether. She pointed to early signs of traditional districts adapting, from bringing former teachers back to run district-supported microschools to expanding homeschool partnership programs that welcome students in for specific classes, sports, or activities.

“It’s kind of a perfect storm of reasons why these interests are aligning, and it makes me really optimistic on both sides of the ledger: traditional school systems being able to tap into the creativity and energy of families, and families being able to connect back to what is truly a pillar of every community when it comes down to it, the local public school system. Very few people want to walk away from that completely.”
— Mickey Revenaugh, author of School’s Out

A student’s perspective
The session’s most memorable moments came from Sophia Regalado, a junior at GOAL High School, who shared how moving from a traditional middle school to an online charter school changed her trajectory. She described GOAL’s teachers as mentors who helped her navigate serious health challenges without falling behind. Regalado also spoke about concurrent enrollment that has let her begin earning college credit while still in high school.

“My education reminds me that when life gets hard, that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your goals, and one little mistake doesn’t need to stay with you your whole life.”
— Sophia Regalado, GOAL High School

Preparing students for an uncertain future
Looking ahead, Revenaugh reflected that the students she met while researching her book shared common traits: self-direction, resilience, flexibility, and a genuine love of learning. As artificial intelligence reshapes the job market, she argued those qualities, not test scores, may matter most. Elvrum agreed, cautioning that technology is only a tool, and that nothing replaces the caring adults — whether parents, teachers, or mentors — who guide a child’s learning. Regalado closed the discussion with a reminder that resonated throughout the session: “Kids want to be heard, and not just seen.”

In a lightning round to close the session, each panelist completed the sentence, “Families will trust the systems that serve them when…” Guttentag’s answer captured the session’s spirit with a touch of levity:

“Families will trust the systems that serve them when they have as many choices for the most important decision a family makes, their children’s education, as they do brands of peanut butter at the grocery store.”
— Steven Guttentag, Moderator