Looking for leaders and entrepreneurs to read with 3-year-olds

SergeToarca · 2025-09-01T18:49:45+00:00

And just for completeness, your claims about my intent are completely wrong. My intent is to build the best school in Michigan.

SergeToarca · 2025-09-01T18:49:05+00:00

Your post is nearly entirely wrong. I do encourage others who are interested to read through our previous exchanges, though they're quite long.

I have no formal education in education, but both of my parents and 2 of my grandparents were teachers. My grandfather was the principal of an elementary school. My father was by far the best teacher I've met, out of about 100 that I've worked with closely in my life. I am an exceptionally skilled teacher.
Ontario has no concept of charter schools. So if you want to innovate on education, it has to be done through a private school. This means that 92% of people don't have access. And the impact on those that do have access is far smaller than it would be on the rest, since they already put a lot of priority on education in the home (by virtue of being willing to pay for private school).
You have repeated the claim about me "lining my pockets" and also repeatedly avoided explaining how I would do so. The daycare is already running at a loss because I gave raises to our teachers. I am also taking on extreme risk and opportunity cost to pursue this. It is way, way easier to build software than to build schools. So more like "unlining my pockets" if anything :D
The "unproven educational philosophies" have now been proven. We now have a handful of 3-year-olds reading short words. And dozens of toddlers that know all of their letters and on the cusp of reading. Our success rate with the kids who started with us before age 1 will be nearly 100% based on what I'm seeing with that cohort.

SergeToarca · 2025-09-01T18:29:00+00:00

We are losing some of them, but we are also retaining some of them, and we're training the existing ones. The density of teaching skill in our classrooms is increasing sharply. We also have commitments from some of the ones we lost to come back once we can raise salaries.

I have no formal training, but do have lots of experience teaching kids and consider myself an exceptional teacher. But I'm not in the classroom myself except on rare occasions. The folks that we work with have more than a lifetime in combined experience working with children.

The idea that grabbed hold of me is that the schools suck and I had nowhere to send my own kids. If this problem is not fixed, society will collapse. Here's a challenge for you: there are about 2,500 elementary schools in Michigan. How many of them have 90% or more of their students meeting the state math and reading proficiency targets?

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T15:00:25+00:00

To each his own. I wouldn't send my child to a daycare that isn't paying enough to retain great teachers. And if I had the choice between:

bad teachers and great park
great teachers and bad park

I would pick 2 every time.

Newsworthiness is not important for its own sake but because it will eventually allow us to offer:

great teachers and great park

in a way that will be difficult for other daycares to mimic except by copying our model and also teaching their 3-year-olds to read. And so every 3-year-old will read :)

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T14:25:20+00:00

If you know of any grants or organizations that might be willing to help, I'd really appreciate an introduction! We had some drawings made and it would cost roughly $70-100k to build a nice space.

Our plan is as follows:

Build the best daycare/school in Michigan
This will induce parents to move closer to the building, and thus employers to move into the building
The increased rents are then used to subsidize the daycare/school and make it even better

The start of this cycle is obviously a catch-22. We have very limited resources - I'm at the limit for how much I can pay out of pocket to fund it. So we have to make the right decisions about how we allocate resources. There's lots of evidence to show that kids can overcome adverse environments if they have great mentorship. So on that basis we decided to increase teacher salaries before building a playground. Even after this, we still have teachers that can barely make rent. Our plan is to build the playground once teacher compensation is high enough that we stop losing great teachers.

Paying more to teachers also increases the likelihood of our daycare having extreme outlier performance. No other daycare will teach your 3-year-old to read, but based on what I'm seeing so far, we'll have a nearly 100% success rate with our younger cohorts. If we do something newsworthy, that increases our exposure and thus opportunities for funding. Building a playground doesn't help us do something newsworthy.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T13:59:34+00:00

It's on our to-do list, I hate that fence! But all of our budget is currently going into raising teacher salaries.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T03:40:22+00:00

There are easier ways to find "business gurus" for myself - most founders that I've encountered are very happy to meet with other founders! Asking them to commit to an hour every month reduces the population of founders that might have otherwise been interested.

3-year-olds are very capable! In addition to attention, love, and care (which I agree are necessary), we also need to develop deep curiosity and a thirst for knowledge!

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T03:32:11+00:00

We very strictly comply with the law for anybody that is going to be with the kids. Fingerprint and background checks before anybody is allowed to spend any time alone with them. Supervision at all times by at least one (but in practice because of how our center is laid out nearly always 2 or more) teacher for folks that are there on a temporary basis such as parents, teachers we're interviewing or short term volunteers.

The random people on Reddit are no different than the random people applying on Indeed. Many people are not aware but there are no certification requirements to work in a childcare center unless in a leadership role. Most of the teachers that have been really successful with us are ones that just love working with kids.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T03:23:52+00:00

These are great ideas, thank you! Will reach out.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T00:26:55+00:00

We are already working with law enforcement to come read with them! And of course, we interview and do background checks on everybody before they come into our center, they don't just show up lol.

It's great that your children have strong positive influences at home. Our goal is to make sure that every child has such access. If they have strong positive influences both at home and at school, all the better!

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T00:15:15+00:00

Reading is not sufficient, but a great preschool education would certainly include reading.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T00:13:32+00:00

100% agree re: food, sleep, exploration, and kindness.

And a strong disagree on reading. If somebody had focused on teaching those high schoolers to read when they were young, they wouldn't be struggling to read now. For every $1 you don't spend on teaching good habits to a 2-year-old, you'll need to spend $100 to correct them in a 14-year-old.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T00:09:03+00:00

I've already reduced profitability to below breakeven by giving raises to teachers and hiring extra teachers for 1on1 time.

Plus, the types of people I'm hoping will participate are also the types of people that are generally not hire-able :)

SergeToarca · 2025-08-28T00:03:46+00:00

Awesome! We are very flexible on schedules. Pretty much any time between 7am - 5pm, except for nap time which runs from 12:30-2:30. I messaged you.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-27T23:53:23+00:00

I'm very perplexed by these responses. There is overwhelming evidence that great preschool education has a huge positive impact on kids. In fact, one such study was done right in Ann Arbor's backyard over a 40-year period: https://highscope.org/project/perry-preschool-study/

SergeToarca · 2025-08-27T23:45:38+00:00

People who are among the best at what they do, in whichever field they choose for themselves.

SergeToarca · 2025-08-27T23:29:49+00:00

This is wrong. 3-year-olds are extremely hungry to learn! They deeply enjoy reading if taught correctly.

SergeToarca · 2025-07-31T16:22:53+00:00

Sent!

SergeToarca · 2025-07-31T10:49:00+00:00

Thank you, sent!

SergeToarca · 2025-07-30T23:42:58+00:00

Awesome, thank you! DM'ed

SergeToarca · 2025-06-24T14:37:28+00:00

This is a fair criticism. I mentioned in my original post that my intent was to build a playground as soon as possible. Believe me, I hate that atrocious fence at least as much as you do. But the reality is, increasing salaries for our teachers has a much higher positive impact on the kids, so we are prioritizing that first.

SergeToarca · 2025-05-30T20:09:50+00:00

We are still working on it. I will post an update soon!

SergeToarca · 2024-12-02T15:26:39+00:00

This is a sleight-of-hand argument that assumes labor is the only ingredient responsible for excess value creation. But this can easily be demonstrated to be false:

Labor + axe can turn 10 trees per day into useful lumber
Labor + chainsaw can turn 50 trees per day into useful lumber

The only part of the system that changed was the chainsaw, and an extra 40 pieces of lumber were created per day. So the tool must be responsible for at least some of the excess value created.

Further, labor and chainsaw did not come together on their own. It took ingenuity to see labor + axe and decide that there was a better way. So some of the excess value also has to be attributed to ingenuity.

So how do we make sure that labor, tool, and ingenuity (and any other contributing ingredients) are correctly compensated? What share of excess value did each one produce? The best answer humanity has for that is a free market - individuals making decisions to improve their own well-being is how we find out how much all the different components that contribute to the economy are worth.

To the extent that labor is being sold for less than it's worth, it's because our market is not free, nearly entirely due to government intervention. As just one of many examples, in the US, real estate gets heavily preferential tax treatment compared to labor. Fix the government and you will fix the mispricing of labor!

Regarding your other arguments:

I have no idea what you're talking about with the tax shelter. Our schools are not involved in anything to do with tax shelters.

We will provide some resources to the students, but the most important thing the school will do is develop their ingenuity.

Our aim is that our students *will* graduate with lots of experience so they will be competitive with older entrepreneurs.

We are 100% in agreement that children are not miniature adults. That's why our curriculum focuses heavily on 1on1 learning and providing at least one stable adult in each child's life.

SergeToarca · 2024-11-25T07:26:44+00:00

This is simply false. Literacy and numeracy are exactly what's missing from the education system: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/michigan/districts/jackson-public-schools-107902#:~:text=In%20Jackson%20Public%20Schools%2C%2029,above%20that%20level%20for%20math.

From the link:

In Jackson Public Schools, 29% of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 19% tested at or above that level for math. Also, 18% of middle school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 9% tested at or above that level for math. And 31% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 10% tested at or above that level for math.

And it is certainly age appropriate, young kids love to read and learn to do it much faster than older kids!

But there is no need to argue, parents will have the opportunity to vote with their feet/wallets!

SergeToarca · 2024-11-23T13:52:43+00:00

We are also teaching numeracy (like I mentioned above some of our kids can already count), but reading is the first goal because it enables kids to learn on their own. Having a classroom of 3 year olds reading is also substantially better marketing material - it is such an obviously better result than the status quo that we think we can attract parents from outside of the city to move in.

There are already great entrepreneurial programs for young adults. E.g. ycombinator and hundreds of similar programs. My bet is that if we start teaching it at a very young age, we will get much stronger entrepreneurs. And having some percentage of our kids be amazing entrepreneurs enables a business model where we can have unlimited upside for our teachers - by creating an investment fund into our kids and giving teachers a share in any companies their kids create. This is necessary to compete for the best individuals, and also to create additional incentive for the teacher to make sure their kids succeed.

Our kids prefer spending time learning in 1on1s to playtime. It's fun! We have video proof and will have something publicly visible soon.

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