Community Crafted Education

Gerard Robinson, Professor at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the School of Law at UVA, provides the keynote address at the 2026 National Hybrid Schools Conference: "Hybrid Schooling: Why it Matters to Families, Educators, and the State."

Coi Marie Morefield, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Beacon Center and Partner for Ecosystems at Education Reimagined, provides the opening keynote at the 2026 National Hybrid Schools Conference: "Here I Stand: A Radical Vision for a Learner-Centered Future."

Darren Lawson, Owner of Paradox Communication and longtime stage director and college dean, joins Eric to talk about visual and performing arts in community crafted schools.

Adam Foster (Associate Pastor) and Bethany Lee (Homeschool Academy Director) from Fellowship Church in Greenwood, Missouri, join Eric to talk about churches as sponsors and hosts of community-crafted schools.

James Shuls from Florida State University joins Eric to discuss common schooling and civics education.

David Hunt from the Aristotle Foundation joins Eric to talk about the status of and prospects for community crafted education in Canada.

Shoshana Weissmann from the Abundance Institute joins Eric to discuss barriers to startups that don't fit into existing categories.

Peter Gray, a psychology professor at Boston College, joins Eric to discuss self-directed and play-based learning.

Matthew Sanders, founder and CEO of Longbeard, joins Eric to talk about current and future developments in AI, and their implications for schooling.

Shiren Rattigan, founder of Colossal Academies, joins Eric to discuss education entrepreneurship as a means of building a legacy and wealth.

Catherine Pakaluk, Associate Professor of Economics at Catholic University of America and author of Hannah's Children, joins Eric to talk about families, population decline, and school choices.

Michael Ford, Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue, joins Eric to talk about civil discourse in a fractured school landscape, school boards, and viewpoint diversity.

Rebecca Winthrop, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, joins Eric to discuss the future of AI in schools and her book, The Disengaged Teen.

Pamela Hobart, Gifted and Talented Education Evangelist from GT School, joins Eric to talk about gifted students and their families, the nature of gifted and talented programs, and massively accelerating school.

Matt Lee, Assistant Professor with the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, joins Eric to talk about how families make school choices, and new methods and approaches for defining "success" in education. 

Michael Strong, founder of The Socratic Experience, joins Eric to talk about the state of student mental health in the U.S. and what impact the community-crafted education sector might have on it.

Cheryl Fields-Smith, Professor of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia, joins Eric to talk about black homeschoolers, the history of homeschooling, and her new book, Creating Educational Justice. 

Josh Herring, Professor of Classical Education and Humanities at Thales College, joins Eric to discuss classical education -- how it's defined, how it has grown over the years, and what the impacts of a new, larger set of classical schools might be.

David Marshall, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Foundation, Leadership, and Technology at Auburn University, joins Eric to talk about differences in preparing teachers for conventional public schools versus new, community crafted education models, core teaching principles that are essential for educators in any setting, and the role of conventional teacher preparation programs...

Sara Davis, Director of the Family Enterprise Center at Kennesaw State University, joins Eric to discuss parallels between founding a family business and launching a community-driven school, multi-generational success, and local community values.

Erin Davis Valdez, Executive Director of the Incubator for the Center for Education and Public Service (CEPS) at the University of Austin, joins Eric to talk about UATX as a startup, how colleges may start looking at graduates of hybrid and microschools, and polarization in higher education.

The school choice landscape has exploded in recent years. Microschools, Homeschools, Charter Schools, Hybrid Schools. The list goes on. This podcast will talk about the downstream effects of school choice and especially community crafted education models on society. To explore these developments, host Eric Wearne, Director of the National Hybrid Schools Project, will talk with people who are mostl...