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Seize the opportunities created by renewed support for education reform

“A renewed support for most education reform measures,” blares a headline from EducationNext’s 2022 Survey of Public Opinion, one of the sector’s most important public opinion polls that is now in its sixteenth year.

The new poll shows a sharp increase for four school choice policies over the past year. Support for charter schools was up four points to 45%, support for universal vouchers was up five points to 50%, support for homeschooling was up three points to 54% and support for tax-credit scholarships was up five points to 61%.

At the same time, the percentage of community members rating their local public school with an A or B grade continued to drop from 60% in 2019 to 58% in 2020 to 55% in 2021 to 52% in 2022.

For decades, there’s been an enormous gap between the public’s perception of their own schools vs. the school system at large but this educational truism is no longer true. While public opinion on national school quality remains at extremely low levels, people’s satisfaction with their own local schools has consistently declined over the pandemic period.

The poll results from Education Next are further reinforcement of the idea that the pandemic has created a window of opportunity for bigger changes in the way our education system functions so that it works better for all kids.

Bring more honesty and urgency to academic recovery programs

Writing for the Brookings Institution, researchers Dan Silver, Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff have a sobering take on the state of pandemic learning recovery.

Drawing upon the results of a survey of nearly 1,500 parents, they find that participation in learning recovery opportunities is low, despite the $190 billion of federal stimulus dollars meant to dramatically expand these programs.

Specifically, they found:

1. 1. Despite the historic federal stimulus, less than half of schools offered summer and tutoring programs.
   2. Parent interest in these programs is low–less than a quarter of parents expressed interest in summer school and just over a quarter expressed interest in tutoring.
   3. That low parent interest is driven by the often false perception that their own children are doing well, as indicated by report cards.
   4. Only about a third of struggling students are participating in summer learning and tutoring.
   5. Educators and policymakers need to do more to inform parents about their children’s learning loss and make recovery programs accessible and free of barriers to entry.

“We must provide learning recovery options that are feasible for parents and communicate their existence and importance to parents clearly,” the authors write. “Districts only have through 2024 to spend the biggest influx of federal education funds in history, and now is the time to ensure that children’s needs are met.”

Solving the information gap will require more candor than many districts have so far been able to muster. Parents have a right to know how their children are doing with communication from schools free of the feel-good language and grade inflation that obscures more than it enlightens. NewMexicoKidsCAN’s Executive Director Amanda Aragon shares one example of how this is playing out on the ground: “We haven’t tested for two years in New Mexico, meaning that parents haven’t received accurate information on their kids’ academic progress since 2019. That’s unacceptable – especially given that so many parents are being told through inflated grades that their children are doing well.”

Key Resources

Time Magazine is the latest outlet to deep dive into the science of reading revolution, with fascinating portraits of a reading crisis in Oakland, efforts in New York to move to a phonics-based model and the Mississippi Miracle.

Excel in Ed provides a state-by-state analysis of policies that support early literacy, including support for educators, clear information for parents and instruction.

The American Enterprise Institute’s Robert Pondiscio interviews Susie Miller Carello, who authorized half of New York’s charter schools that serve over 120,000 students.

A new report from Brookings finds that teacher diversity has a substantial impact on students who share the race of their instructors, with noticeable improvements in grades, attendance, self-management and even memory.

Doug Lemov, who we’ve interviewed previously in this newsletter, argues in Education Next that cellphones are impeding student achievement and should be banned from high schools.

According to Pew Research, Generation Z has dethroned Facebook as their primary social media app, with usage rates of TikTok and YouTube soaring. Black and Hispanic teens are more likely than white teens to say they are online “almost constantly.”

Urban Institute is out with a new report documenting their pilot project to connect HBCU undergrads with apprenticeships and internships as they pursue a degree.