TOP TASKS

“We need to be solutions oriented–this is the biggest domestic policy failure of our lifetimes,” 50CAN President Derrell Bradford testified at the US Capitol last week.

Derrell shared with the committee examples of proof points to get kids back on track, including Michael Bloomberg’s SummerBoost, Gov. Doug Ducey’s AZ OnTrack, New Jersey and Louisiana tutoring legislation and Gov. Brad Little giving funds directly to families. But he also was unflinching in his diagnosis of how we got to this point, calling out both union obstructionism and a misuse of federal funding. “Sadly, what’s been proven is that if you give American school districts $190 billion in a black box with no accountability, they’ll spend the money on themselves,” Derrell testified.

He appeared as one of four witnesses in a hearing that lasted more than two hours. We created a six minute version that captures six key moments, featuring Derrell alongside the American Enterprise Institute’s Nat Malkus and North Carolina Superintendent Catherine Truitt.

Yahoo News reports more: “A House hearing on Wednesday afternoon, titled ‘Generational Learning Loss: How Pandemic School Closures Hurt Students,’ laid bare the lingering bitterness and division over the decision to shutter schools in March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic arrived in full force in the United States,” writes Senior White House Correspondent Alexander Nazaryan. “Most remarkable of all, the hearing saw some Democrats defend school closures despite the fact that the practice proved not only damaging, but politically toxic.”

Additional coverage of the hearing can be found at the Deseret News and the National Review.

Key Resources

The National School Choice Awareness Foundation published a 50-state guide to microschooling.

A new presentation from the Wallace Foundation explores how states responded to the call for more summer learning opportunities, finding that the majority of states developed new summer learning and enrichment initiatives since the start of the pandemic.

Brookings Institute adds to the growing body of research showing that Black students benefit from having a Black teacher, with a new twist: white teachers with Black colleagues also saw more success with their Black students.

A Mathematica study of three summer programs finds that participating students did significantly better than non-attending peers.

UNESCO calls for governments to institute regulations on the use of technology in education including restricting smart phone use in classrooms to reduce disruptions to learning.

yes. every kid. shines a light on states that allow all students–including homeschooled students–to access public school courses and extracurriculars, along with strong examples of legislative language.

A study from Urban Institute finds that accountability provisions under ESSA are being pushed to the limit as more states designate schools for improvement activities through the “Comprehensive Support and Improvement” category.