by Kerry McDonald
“Happy New Year!
I hope that your 2024 ended peacefully and that you’re as eager as I am for what’s to come in 2025!
I am particularly excited about what I see happening in education this year, as individual parents, teachers, and learners enjoy more educational choices, fresh learning models emerge, and new technologies enhance educational experiences.
Here are my top 3 predictions for what we’ll see in K-12 education in 2025:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that parents want new—and different—learning options beyond their local assigned schools. Sweeping school choice policies that enable education dollars to follow students to whichever educational setting they desire have ballooned since 2020. We should see more of these policies passed or expanded in 2025, including in Texas, which would create the country’s largest private school choice program, with five million students eligible.
With this choice will come competition. This will be a good thing for parents, teachers, and learners, as schools will need to innovate and be more responsive to customer needs in order to attract and retain families and staff. We’ll see this dynamism clearly in the private sector, as schools that succeed in satisfying their customers will thrive and grow while those that fail to do so will close. But we will also see this dynamic in the public sector as well. Under-enrolled public schools will close—something that is already happening in choice-rich areas such as South Florida, where families are taking their education dollars elsewhere.
The momentum toward creating new schools is only beginning, as entrepreneurial parents and teachers build the supply of schools and learning spaces that today’s families demand. I hear this all the time in my podcast interviews, as founders explain why we are only at the very beginning of the rise of these new schools and spaces. Last week, I asked on my Facebook page who is planning to start a school in 2025 and was delighted to see so many responses. It’s going to be a great year for education entrepreneurship!
Artificial intelligence (AI) and tools such as ChatGPT will continue to shape education. While some may be concerned about these technological changes, I am not. As a techno-optimist, I think AI and its tools will enhance learning for all of us, making it more enjoyable and enriching to acquire and apply knowledge.
For example, I recently plugged FEE founder Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I, Pencil,” into the free Google AI tool Notebook LM, and clicked on the “audio overview” link. It quickly created a podcast-like conversation between two very believable AI bots all about “I, Pencil.” I highly recommend you give this a try! It is really amazing, and is one small snapshot of how AI technologies can make learning more engaging for the young and old alike! (A hat tip to FEE’s inaugural Entrepreneur-In-Residence Tobin Slaven for telling me about this Notebook tool.)
I am confident that 2025 will be a spectacular year for K-12 education, as choice, entrepreneurship, and technological innovation converge to transform US education for the better.”
Until next week,
Kerry
