TOP TASKS

Take note of the Los Angeles canary in the under-enrollment coal mine

Last April, in week 158 of this newsletter, we argued that education advocates had to “get ready for the coming baby bust in big cities.” Building upon data gathered by Brian Eschbacher, the former executive director of Denver Public Schools’ SchoolChoice system, we wrote that as a sharp decline in births accelerated by the pandemic “ripples through our education system in the coming years it will dramatically upend the enrollment assumptions upon which nearly everything in education is based.”

The first signs of that dramatic upending are here, and the harbingers come not only from the nation’s traditional public schools but also from the urban charter networks that were among the most promising solutions to closing achievement gaps over the past three decades. This new enrollment reality is bringing back old, zero-sum political fights over already-dwindling resources with the ESSER fiscal cliff visible on the horizon.

The epicenter of this dynamic, at least for now, is Los Angeles. LA School Report writes, “Charter schools now account for about 20% of the district’s enrollment, serving more than 150,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade in 275 schools. Enrollment in the schools peaked in 2021, when the city’s charters enrolled nearly 168,000 students. Since then admissions have declined by nearly 11%, although not as fast as district schools. L.A. Unified enrollment reached 639,337 in the 2015-2016 school year and fell to just 538,295 in 2023, a decline of nearly 16%.”

“The decades-old charter school sector in Los Angeles has never faced headwinds so stiff, operators say,” LA School Report continues. “Los Angeles, which has more kids in charter schools than any city in the country, this month banned charters from nearly half its school buildings, even as dropping enrollment emptied out classrooms across the city.”

Learn from Steve Hernández, ConnCAN’s new leader

Last month, 50CAN President Derrell Bradford announced the next executive director to lead ConnCAN into the next chapter, Steve Hernández. Last week, in a powerful testimony, Steve re-introduced himself to the legislature in his new role, and we’ve got the video for you.

We took some time this week to talk with Steve to learn more about his transition, the current funding challenges in Connecticut and why coalition-building is central to his strategy.

You’ve been inside the legislature and now you’re outside. How’s that feeling, Steve? What’s similar and different?

Steve Hernández: It has been nothing less than liberating being on “the other side of the velvet rope.” In the Connecticut statehouse, there’s literally a velvet rope that separates advocates and residents from the legislature. I thought about that rope a lot in my career and the ways in which it separates, sometimes in tangibly harmful ways, the people from the electeds, especially when decisions are made for them, without them.

Truthfully, I wasn’t anticipating the feeling of absolute freedom that I’ve experienced being on that rope’s other side. It’s the type of freedom that is so subtly pervasive when you don’t have it that when you do have it it’s almost shocking. Throughout my career, I’ve noticed in myself and in others, that authentic voice and authentic passion is the critical component of making change on behalf of your constituents and on behalf of children. In the position I’m now in, leading ConnCAN, I feel less fettered by the political winds and machinations of the day. Instead, I can speak to my true values and passion.

Coalitions have been a long-term part of your changemaking strategy throughout your career. What is the value you see in them and what advice do you have for early-career advocates looking to get in on building coalitions?

Steve Hernández: When you really put effort into the task of finding agreement about the things that bring us together and excite us, there’s an exercise there in understanding what really matters. What matters to you? What matters to each member of the coalition? It forces a clarity of vision and strategy.

So coalition building isn’t the goal, it’s the process by which you get to policy and where we see that, when it comes to the power of coalition, 1+1=3 on a daily basis.

Why can’t education advocates take their eyes off the ball right now in Connecticut?

Steve Hernández: The Governor’s plan is modeled on what leaders in industry and work-force have been telling him for a while, which is to put less money in K-12 and more in early childhood and higher education. The main message from industry is that their workers can’t find affordable childcare.

Our argument is that we need to keep building across the entire continuum, including in K-12. We’re seeing some early signs that the legislature is turning on this as a result of our advocacy, the coalitions we’re taking part of and especially parents on the ground. There’s tremendous community-driven energy on the ground, and I see that as a direct result of how we’re engaging with communities and building the grassroots.

As for the actual policy, the budget exercise in Connecticut is rooted in a time-stressed notion of scarcity. We are convinced that there’s only just enough to go around. That does a few things: it stifles innovation and it prevents people from thinking that every child is an asset.

Key Resources

With 1 in 7 students changing residences or neighborhoods every year, Fordham Institute uncovers another benefit to charter schools: residentially mobile charter school students are significantly less likely to change schools when they change addresses.

Education Next studies a promising proof point out of Dallas, where schools are using student surveys to evaluate teacher performance with surprising results.

The Center for American Progress looks at three emerging trends in standardized assessment, from through-year testing to performance-based assessments.

Urban Institute put a spotlight on the state of higher education debt. One finding: “more Black households have student loan debt than before the pandemic student loan payment pause, but they typically hold lower balances than before the pause.”

Black college-goers who enroll in an HBCU increase the probability of earning a bachelor’s degree by nearly 15 points, a new report from Brookings finds, amidst a number of other benefits.