Greetings!

Your computer gets software updates. Your phone gets software updates. Even your car gets software updates now (thanks, Tesla).

Meanwhile, the education system is still running on code written 1840. Maybe it's time for an update.

This week, we compare open education to a modern educational Operating System (eOS). And Ela talks with the founder of Recess.gg – one of the most compelling "apps" in this new ecosystem – where kids design their own education. They disucss one of the biggest "bugs" in a system has tended to medicate for kids who don't conform to the outdated, one-size-fits-all operating system.

DEEP DIVE: What is Open Education?

Imagine you're on a game show. The host gestures dramatically and shouts, "It's time to choose your child's future!"

Behind Door #1: your local school district. Behind Door #2: curated private schools with hefty price tags. Behind Door #3: a dizzying, endless hallway of homeschool curricula—the ultimate freedom and the ultimate burden of choice.

For generations, this has been the game. Pick a door and hope you've chosen wisely.

But education isn't actually a game show where you have to swear loyalty to what's behind a single door.

Here's a better analogy: Think of education as an operating system.

The public school is like a corporate PC from the 1990s—pre-loaded with approved software (Windows 95), hard to customize, designed for institutional efficiency. Private schools are niche computer brands running proprietary versions of that same OS. And homeschooling has traditionally been like building your own computer from scratch—powerful, but only for dedicated hobbyists.

The reason you can't easily take the math program from the tech magnet school, the nature walks from the forest school, and the literature list from Classical education is the same reason you can't run an iPhone app on a Windows PC. They were built for different, incompatible platforms.

The solution isn't another door. The solution is a better operating system.

This is open education—the modern, flexible eOS designed for the user, not the institution. It's the platform that finally lets you run the "Montessori app" right next to the "Classical literature app" and "Beast Academy" simultaneously. They all work together because the underlying OS is built for flexibility.

Here's a real example from the Open Education book: A teenage girl was asked if she was homeschooled. She couldn't answer. She played volleyball on a club team, took science at public school, got core curriculum via virtual charter, participated in homeschool co-op weekly, had a math tutor, worked part-time, and unschooled on Fridays.

What would you call this? She didn't know either.

The current operating system was designed in the 1840s by Horace Mann. Age-based grades. Standardized curriculum. Bell schedules. It was brilliant social engineering for producing factory workers. The problem? While every other industry has undergone relentless reinvention, the basic architecture of school has remained frozen. A doctor from 1900 would be utterly lost in a modern hospital. A teacher from 1900 could walk into most classrooms today and know exactly what to do.

Then the internet happened. The pandemic happened. Public school enrollment dropped by 1.2 million students and homeschooling grew by 1 million as parents had the same realization: Wait, I can do this?

We're living through the "iOS moment" for education. The era of being locked into a single, rigid system is over.

You have permission to take what works, leave what doesn't, and build something better.

Read the full piece: Why education is an operating system

Explore the Open Education hub

PODCAST HIGHLIGHT: The School-to-Prescription Pipeline

Ben Somers was 11 when his teacher—frustrated that he was a foot tapper and wiggler—sent him to a psychiatrist. He was put on 70mg of Concerta, a pretty hefty dose of amphetamines for a kid who weighed about 100 pounds.

The medication wasn't prescribed to help Ben learn better. It was prescribed to make him easier to manage.

And he wasn't alone. That year, 25% of all the boys in his town were on some kind of ADHD medication.

Ben dropped out of high school, worked his way into education technology, and now runs a platform called Recess that's trying to solve the problems he experienced firsthand—including one surprising discovery from his time at Synthesis School (the SpaceX school).

They spent $10 million a year developing educational games. You know what predicted retention and performance better than all of it? Whether the kid had a friend in their class. Not teacher credentials. Not curriculum quality. Not the games.

Friends matter more than anything. And friendship is free.

Listen to the full episode

THOUGHTS OF THE WEEK

The Lawnmower Fallacy Isaac's mom always told him, "You boys should take a small engine repair class." He never did. He still doesn't know how to fix his lawnmower. Here he is today: doing work he loves, hiring someone when the mower breaks. Some parents are the same way about degrees—entrepreneurs thriving and happy, yet parents still disappointed they didn't get the credential. Once we lock onto an idea of what success should look like for our kids, it's surprisingly hard to let go. Watch →

You're Not Making the Sandwich A guy tried to make a chicken sandwich completely from scratch—growing the wheat for the bun, raising the chickens, harvesting salt from the ocean. Six months and $1,500 later, he had a mediocre sandwich. Most parents think homeschooling means becoming that guy. Ben Somers has a different take: you're not supposed to be the teacher of everything. You're the education designer. You curate the right mix of resources, experiences, and relationships. When you make it easier to be involved, parents actually want to design—they just don't want to grow the wheat. Listen →

High-Status Homeschooling In San Francisco, homeschooling is now high-status. Why? Ben gives two reasons. First, it signals you're dissatisfied with conventional education—which means you have high standards. Second, it means you've organized your life so you can solve childcare and instruction yourself in an expensive city. High standards plus life control equals status. Of course this feels a bit elitist. But the reason homeschooling is easier now isn't just resources—it's realizing you don't have to do everything yourself. Watch →

372 Pokemon vs 50 States Your kid can't memorize 50 state capitals but can rattle off all 372 Pokemon, their moves, and which leagues they're from? That's not a problem—it's signal. Hidden in their video game choices are preferences about what kinds of problems they like to solve and what topics interest them. Ben's advice: "Go hang out with your kids and play video games for an hour. You'll come back thinking they're very passionate." Don't look at games as trivial. Look at them as signal. Watch →

The 7-Way Split A teenage girl was asked whether she was homeschooled and couldn't answer. She played volleyball on a club team, took science at public school, got core curriculum via virtual charter, participated in homeschool co-op weekly, had a math tutor, worked part-time, and unschooled on Fridays. What would you call this? She didn't know either. But she knew she loved it. Traditional educational categories are becoming increasingly difficult to define—and that's a good thing. Read more →

TRENDS OF THE WEEK

The Soft Bigotry of Education Blather High school seniors just posted their worst reading scores since 2005. Half score below basic in math—meaning they can't read tables or apply percentages. The National Association of Secondary School Principals insists test scores are "only one lens for understanding success" and calls for more funding so students can "thrive." Rick Hess at AEI calls it blather: "Forget thriving—huge numbers of America's 17-year-olds aren't even learning to read or do math." Schools can't bomb the test and then decide tests don't matter.

The Post-Pandemic Tutoring Revolution After COVID, schools tried something desperate: actual tutoring. High-impact tutoring—at least three times a week, 30 minutes minimum, consistent tutor, no more than four students. And it worked. Liz Cohen spent 18 months visiting schools across seven states: "The average tutored student was above 98% of the students in the control class." One D.C. principal got a tutor for every student. Louisiana now serves 240,000 kids. We've known since the 1980s that tutored students perform two standard deviations better. We just weren't desperate enough to try it at scale until COVID forced our hand.

Why We Stopped Making Einsteins Erik Hoel's thesis: we mythologize genius as isolated—some kid alone in a room, brilliant thoughts from nowhere. But Max Talmud introduced Einstein to geometry at age 12. Bertrand Russell had tutors until 16. John von Neumann's governesses taught him languages. Darwin hired tutors at university. Name a genius, find a tutor. Hoel calls this "aristocratic tutoring"—not SAT-prep, but intellectuals spending real time engaging young minds. We stopped doing it. And we stopped making Einsteins. The internet gave us information access. But access isn't engagement. What's missing isn't information—it's the Max Talmuds.

Breakout School: When "Challenges" Become Superpowers Breakout School in Utah spends 80-90% of its time outside and is specifically designed for students with autism and ADHD. Students who hated traditional school are now thriving. As one observer describes it, these kids can "run over to a playground or run around the park and get their energy out and then come back and buckle down and do 15 more minutes of math." The founder, Dr. Dow Richardson, calls their challenges "their superpower." Students return to traditional high schools getting A's and B's because they found their love of learning in a program that fit who they were.

TOOLS OF THE WEEK

Building Genius

Brilliant – Self-paced, interactive STEM learning used by 10 million people. Hands-on problem-solving with instant feedback that builds intuition. From foundational math to quantum mechanics, AI, and Python. Ages 13-113 (advanced younger learners can absolutely use it). $25/month covers everything. Award-winning teachers from top institutions design the courses.

Recess – Platform where kids browse a marketplace of classes taught by YouTubers and professionals, request the ones that excite them, and parents approve or deny. When kids join a class, they meet others who like the same stuff. After class, Recess suggests those kids as friends and gives them Discord-style chat to stay connected. Built around the $10 million insight: friends matter more than curriculum.

Synthesis School – The SpaceX school model that taught Ben Somers about the power of friends in learning. Team simulation games for kids and digital math tutor.

Real-World Learning

Abeka Field Trip Ideas – Simple, low-cost field trips that beat a week of worksheets:

• Apple orchard or cider mill – Economics (price comparisons), botany (pollination), agriculture (harvesting)
• Nature hike – Ecosystems, plant identification, observation journaling
• Local theater or symphony – Literature, storytelling, plot structure, character development
• Career day visit – Interview a baker, contractor, or nurse; build communication skills
• Garden center or nursery – Plant species, photosynthesis, soil science, responsibility
• Fire station or police department – Civics, community roles, safety, public service

For Parents & Educators

Erik Hoel's Essay: Why We Stopped Making Einsteins – The aristocratic tutoring thesis. Required reading for any parent thinking about education design. Explains why information access alone doesn't produce genius—you need the Max Talmuds who hand you the right book at the right time and stick around to talk about it.

The Future of Tutoring by Liz Cohen – 18 months visiting schools across 7 states documenting the post-pandemic tutoring revolution. Shows what works at scale: high-dosage tutoring (3x/week minimum, consistent tutor, max 4 students) produces results so dramatic they're hard to believe until you see the data.

Open Education Book – The comprehensive case for education as a flexible operating system, not a rigid program. From the game show metaphor to the iOS moment to real examples of families building custom education stacks. Worth reading cover to cover.

Communities & Programs

The Forest School (Acton Academy) – Founded by Tyler Thigpen. Addresses "the epidemic of dependent learners"—students who've been trained to wait for adults to tell them what to do, what to learn, when to learn it. Focuses on building independent, self-directed learners.

OpenEd Marketplace – Browse hundreds of vetted learning resources, curricula, classes, and experiences. Think of it as the App Store for your new education OS—curated, reviewed, and designed to work together. For families in program states (AR, KS, IN, IA, MN, MT, NV, OR, UT).

PARTING THOUGHT

"I think there are only two or three reasons you work in education... Either you had a bad experience and you can imagine a version of yourself that's better than you are now, and you want to build the education that would have produced that version of yourself. Or you had a particularly good schooling experience and you want to bring that to more people."

— Ben Somers

What version of education would produce the best version of your child?