--- title: Are “Micro-Schools” the Future of Education? description: Personalized education in a micro-school, medical overkill, bacteria to fight climate change, a drone from the Roomba designer and more. canonical: https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-05T16:01:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:04:09.972Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Are "Micro-Schools" the Future of Education? og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Are "Micro-Schools" the Future of Education? twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Are "Micro-Schools" the Future of Education? by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 5, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 5, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Are personalized “micro-schools” the future of education?**](http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/05/04/403577703/a-for-profit-school-startup-where-kids-are-beta-testers) By Anya Kamenetz at NPR **2\.** [**Millions of Americans get tests, drugs, and operations that won’t make them better.**](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande) By Atul Gawande in the New Yorker **3\.** [**Can bacteria help us fight the ravages of climate change?**](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2015/04/30/turning-to-bacteria-to-fight-the-effects-of-climate-change/) By Esther Ngumbi in Scientific American **4\.** [**Here’s a drone you can fly with your phone, from the designer of the Roomba.**](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045808/fund-this/the-roombas-inventor-launches-what-might-be-the-easiest-to-use-drone-yet) By Jessica Leber in Fast Co.Exist **5\.** [**What’s killing the growth of mobile banking?**](http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/why-has-mobile-banking-growth-stalled-blame-hackers-n351851) By Herb Weisbaum in NBC News  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/"},"headline":"Are \"Micro-Schools\" the Future of Education?","datePublished":"2015-05-05T16:01:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:04:09.972Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/","keywords":["Innovation","medicine","climate change","Education","hospitals","Hacking","Drought","Drone","Surgery","Bacteria"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3846910/micro-schools-future-of-education/","name":"Are \"Micro-Schools\" the Future of Education?"}}]}] ```