From Fred Wilson, VC.
Homeschooling is a fringe market right now. But education is not.
Outschool can exist with excellent unit economics for the students, teachers, and company because there is a market of almost 2.5mm students in the US who need to learn things like Algebra, European History, Biology, etc, and will pay to do so.
But of course, there are over 50mm K12 students in the US and many more around the world who need to learn these subjects as well and often don’t learn them very well in the legacy schooling model.
When our kids were in school and struggled with a class/teacher/subject, we would get them a tutor to come to our home in the evenings. That is a 1%er solution and is not affordable for most families.
But the Outschool model, because of the scale it has reached in the homeschooling market, is driving down the cost of learning these subjects and can and does replace the high cost tutorial market for a number of families already. As its scale increases and economies kick in, it can reach more students and families desperate to master challenging material.
This isn’t quite Community Schools, but it wouldn’t take too much imagination to envision Outschooling being an intermediate step towards Community Schools.
Having affordable tools that parents, children, teachers, and public school enablers/ organizers can deploy in Community School environments is a big part of a possible future, where the “school” evolves into something that re-engages parents in the education of their children.
As Fred notes, community schools might not be for the 1% ers…but they might well be for everybody else, as Kris notes in earlier posts discussing the school situation for her grandchild where the grandparents, parents, and others in an extended family take on more involvement in making the school “work”.
Tools that allow for efficiency and for foundations that can add learning “capabilities” are needed because most parents are employed, and their days are pre committed.
But in the right context, the home can become a learning center, where the family can be together to support learning. Grandparents and older Aunts Uncles might well be retired, and have the time and the energy to also contribute And sometimes a community center/school can be a sort of “extended home” environment.