Start as a tiny school?

Matt Candler, CEO of the educational innovation program 4.0 Schools, is building a machine that builds schools. He calls it "The Tiny Schools Project", and oh, oh, oh is it exciting.

Candler suggests we think about restaurants.

Once upon a time, he writes, if you wanted to open a restaurant, well, you opened a restaurant! You raised gobs of money, hired a staff, picked a location, and jumped into it!

What a great way to fail. There are so many balls to juggle in starting a restaurant, many of which have nothing to do with food or ambiance — in fact, you can perfect the essentials, and still fail!

And so it goes with schools. Founding a regular-sized school involves juggling at least as many balls as a restaurant does. Candler cites a study which found that 86% of charter schools that fail do so because of reasons unrelated to academics.

Enter food trucks. 

Nowadays, if you want to start a restaurant, there's a straighter path: get a food truck.

The food truck revolution has created a middle space for starting a restaurant: something more complex than your kitchen, but something less complex than a bricks-and-mortar site.

There are even companies that will rent you the truck, and help you develop the nonessentials — and leave the creative cooking up to you.

What 4.0 Schools is doing is making a food truck model for new kinds of schools. This is the Tiny Schools Project. And it seems to be built on the Lean Startup framework (which I've lauded previously on this blog).

Our question, right now, is: what we should take from this? Should we join a cohort? Should we borrow loosely from their model? (In some ways, we've been planning a tiny school all along — starting with 1-2 small classes, and iterating/growing from there.)

Whatever we decide: how exciting! How wonderful to see the wonderful become the new normal.

If you're interested in starting with some brief articles about 4.0 Schools Tiny Schools, you might enjoy What if we tested schools the way chefs test new restaurants?, 4 ways to make Tiny Schools, and The Tiny Schools Project.

Massive thanks to reader Tom Huntington, who pointed me toward the Tiny Schools Project website!

Application video for a school entrepreneurship incubator

Oh, the wonders the 21st century affords! A couple days ago I became aware of blankschools.com: a support program for schooling entrepreneurs. 

From their front page:

Schools as they exist today aren't working for anyone — students, teachers or the world they live in. We need radically different school models — and to get there, we need a radically different approach to school model development.

And:

Designing and running a school focused on questioning the assumptions schooling is currently based on is hard work. You shouldn't have to do it alone. Join a cohort of school entrepreneurs who can help push your thinking and be a support network as you all work to design radically different school models.

I think I like these people.

I'll need to know more about how they work, of course, but their deadline for the 2015–16 cohort is today (!), so I figured I'd apply, and wait to find out whether or not I'm accepted to make my decision.

They asked for a 2-minute video, and what I gave them runs 6 minutes. Alas! To quote Pascal: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." My apologies, []schools folk!

If you've an interest in how we're making our schools, you'll find this interesting! 

And you might find the website of []schools quite interesting. (I do!)

Click the image to see the short video:

I threw the video together (obviously?) but I do have interest in improving my online speaking style. If you've any advice, do please shoot me a private e-mail with it!