Thirty states fund students instead of systems. 750,000+ children learn in microschools, and over 70% of the people running them are licensed teachers — trained by institutions that have built almost nothing for the sector they left for. This is what universities have actually done.
All eight Michigan public universities that authorize charter schools are now coded. The six added in August 2026 — Oakland, Saginaw Valley State, Northern Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Ferris State and Lake Superior State — hold roughly 80 more academies between them. Not one has built a preparation program for the sector. Central Michigan's Charter School Leadership M.A. remains the only one in the scan.
The state was the strongest available test of a simple proposition: hold schools long enough and the education college will build for them. Eight institutions, thirty-one years, one program. Proximity is not the mechanism.
EdChoice's own survey data — the clearest statement of the problem anyone has published. Teachers were asked how prepared they felt to teach in each kind of school.
A 53-point fall between the school type preparation programs are built around and the fastest-growing one.
The two states now anchor the whole argument.
Florida — the most choice money in America (~1.4M students in some option). Programs built for the sector: none. UF's full undergraduate course list contains no choice-related course. But a second pathway opened in 2021 and is moving fast: four Florida institutions now sponsor charter schools — Tallahassee State, Miami Dade, Pasco-Hernando and the University of West Florida — every one of them from an office outside the college of education.
Michigan — all eight public universities that authorize charters are now coded, holding well over 200 schools between them, some since 1994. Across all eight education units: one program built for the sector, Central Michigan's Charter School Leadership M.A.
The first refinement: Michigan's engagement stops at the licensed boundary. Charter schools employ licensed teachers and licensed administrators — a Charter School Leadership degree maps cleanly onto existing credentials. Microschools, homeschool co-ops and ESA vendors do not. Even in the deepest university-charter state in the country, there is still nothing for the unlicensed slice of the sector — which is where the 750,000 microschool students actually are.
The second refinement, new this edition: completing Michigan was designed to test whether holding schools produces programs. It does not. The three institutions whose engagement reaches the education college reach it in every way except curriculum — Oakland houses its authorizing office inside the education school and still offers only generic building-level leadership degrees; Saginaw Valley State discounts existing degrees by 50–75% for academy staff without altering a single course; Northern Michigan uses its nine academies as practicum sites for conventional licensure, so the sector trains teachers for the system rather than the reverse. Proximity, subsidy and access were each present without producing a program. Whatever explains Central Michigan, it is not simply having the schools.
Coverage is uneven, and a state total read without its depth will mislead you. Two states have had a systematic pass; six carry a placeholder row. This table is the honest denominator for everything below it.
| State | Depth | Rows | What was covered |
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Click any row for the evidence and source. "Nothing found" is not the same as "nothing there" — always read it against the Checked column and against the coverage depth above.
| Institution | State | Category | Checked |
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Named honestly, including where the strongest organizations in the field stopped short. Offered as openings, not criticisms — most are the natural result of each organization doing its own job well.
Every organization measures its own side of the ledger, and measures it well. Nobody owns the seam — whether the workforce exists to staff what the policy enabled. Every gap on this list lives there.
Why have education colleges built so little? The evidence does not yet separate these. Click any row for detail.
| Explanation | Status |
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