The idea of multi-age students in a single classroom may trigger painful memories of grandparents' stories about walking uphill to school both ways. Still, the iconic setup is making a small comeback.

In 1931, NPR reported, there were 150,000 one-room schools all across the country. There are very few now, but one group is looking to change that.

Matt Candler founded 4.0 Schools, a New Orleans-based incubator that helps launch for-profit and nonprofit education ventures, including mSchool, which establishes small "pop-up classrooms" with online curricula in community centers. He wrote recently about the return of the micro-school, NPR wrote.

"I think there's such a massive demand for better options public and private," Candler told NPR. "I think it's very likely you'll see a NOLA-launched micro-school, if not a wave of them."

A number of other companies are trying to do the same thing, including Tiny School in Abilene, Texas, Brightworks in San Francisco, and Action Academy in Austin, Texas.

Reed NPR's full story.

Article by Daniel Kline, EducationWorld Contributing Editor