The US is experiencing a boom in microschools. What are they?

Microschools have experienced a boom in popularity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.   

The tiny schools, which have a median student body size of 16, have been described as a modern reinvention of the one-room school house, where children of varying ages receive personalized instruction from a teacher in the same room.   

Supporters view them as liberating. Skeptics, however, worry over their educational quality.  

It’s unclear how many microschools existed in the United States before 2020 or just how many more opened during the early days of the pandemic, given that most took the form of informal learning pods, according to National Microschooling Center CEO Dan Soifer.