Linda McMahon visits Long Island 'microschool' touting itself as public education alternative

Before leading a well-publicized event at Massapequa High School, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Friday quietly visited a learning space on the opposite end of the spectrum: a private "microschool" in East Northport whose founder has decried a "toxic environment" in traditional schools.

McMahon did not name The School House, a pre-K through sixth-grade facility with a 140-student capacity, during her Massapequa news conference, but she said it exemplified "how education really needs to be."

"Education works best when it’s closest to the child, because who better than local teachers, local superintendents [and] parental involvement?" McMahon said from the gymnasium of a nearly 1,500-student public school. "What is better than that combination to make sure that education is succeeding?"

Savannah Newhouse, an Education Department spokesperson, later confirmed McMahon's early Friday visit to The School House in Suffolk County.

"As Secretary of Education, she visits a variety of schools to gather perspectives from teachers, students, and parents about how we can best prepare children with an education that sets them up for success," Newhouse wrote in an email.

She did not respond to a question asking why the secretary chose to visit a microschool, a term for small, tuition-based schools that offer an alternative to parents unsatisfied with the public school system.

Since the pandemic, such schools have grown in popularity, but their impacts on student academic achievement are "yet to be rigorously evaluated," said researchers at Rand, a research nonprofit headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

The School House was founded  in 2019 as a nonprofit by Mimosa Jones Tunney and her husband, John J. Tunney III, co-founder of the Besito Restaurant Group and owner of The Shed, Long Island's all-day brunch chain.

The School House educators have been using "The American Emergent Curriculum," a 6,000-page document, according to its website. Jones Tunney is the copyright holder of the curriculum samples posted on the site.

Jones Tunney did not respond to a request for comment Friday. She worked in Hollywood and graduated from American University, studying public policy, according to her bio on her school's website. She has also worked as a political speechwriter, according to published accounts.

The school started as an elementary school but has expanded. The Middle School House is slated to open in September, according to the website. The Little House is an early education program for children 18 months through 3 years old.

The School House has an annual waitlist, according to its website, and described itself as a "working family school" that has "zero mental health issues." Annual full-time tuition for "K-8th" grades is $18,445, the website states on a page seeking seventh- and eighth-grade applicants for the new Middle School House, but Jones Tunney has sometimes provided lower amounts in other online posts.

Jones Tunney also offers a homeschooling program that charges $2,800 a year for the first child, providing the American Emergent Curriculum lessons, other materials and live support.

"The system is broken, and there's no reinventing the public school system," Jones Tunney said in an interview promoted on her website that aired on Real America's Voice, a conservative television channel. "We need an entirely new version of school in the United States."

In the same interview, Jones Tunney referred to a "toxic environment" in traditional schools. In other interviews on the channel, also posted to her site, she's called on McMahon and President Donald Trump to promote her pedagogical approach.

Appearing last year on the "Educator Forever" podcast, Jones Tunney said: "You can start your own school, and you could use the best curriculum to do it, and you could have community support, and you don't need to be afraid of doing it anymore."

The School House collected $522,024 in tuition revenue in 2022, the lowest in four years reported through public records reviewed by Newsday. Officially known as American Emergent Curriculum Inc., the school reported approximately $1.3 million in tuition in 2021, $737,629 in 2020 and $683,019 in 2019, tax returns show.

Each year, the nonprofit has reported a far higher amount of expenses than revenue, not counting donations, the records show.

Campaign finance records indicate that neither John J. Tunney III nor Mimosa Jones Tunney — who is not registered with a political party, according to voter registration records — are major political donors. 

A onetime contributor to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Jones Tunney, using her maiden name, in 2023 donated a total of $200 to WinRed, the Republican National Committee's fundraising platform, according to federal campaign finance records.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, joined McMahon on her visit to The School House, according to his spokesman Chris Boyle. Boyle did not respond to a question on the county executive’s role in that visit.

In one of her Real America's Voice interviews, Jones Tunney called on Trump and McMahon to feature her curriculum in their reenvisioning of the federal Education Department and its headquarters.

"I want to create a glass School House so people across the country ... can see what the best school in the world looks like," she said. "You put it in that building with glass walls, put a research center, use at least a quarter of that building to show what can happen if we put children first in this country."

With Darwin Yanes