Week 258

February 24, 2025

Jump to: Top Tasks | From the Field | Key Resources | Moments of Resilience

It is week 258 in our new reality and we are thinking about what it means to be an ed reformer right now.

The term “education reform movement” became a popular catch-all for the group of people dissatisfied with the U.S. education system who believed that it was possible to build something much better.

A Google Ngram search for “education reform movement” reveals two peaks from the past 40 years: 1989, driven forward by the push for standards and accountability, and a smaller one in 2016, when the battle over Race to the Top-era policies—everything from Common Core to teacher evaluations—was at full boil.

It’s clear that the fight for change in education has come in waves. The real question now is: What will it take to spark the next big surge?

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It starts by recognizing what doesn’t work: sounding like guardians of the status quo, more focused on preserving, protecting and pouring resources into the existing system than pioneering something new. We know that’s not what voters want. They’ve made it crystal clear—they don’t need more converts to complacency; they want people with the conviction to challenge the system and the courage to deliver real change.

A record-breaking 73% of Americans now say they’re dissatisfied with the quality of public education in America, according to Gallup. And in the battleground state of Virginia, voters backed “better reforms” over “more funding” by more than two to one.

If the public is demanding bold action, it’s a clear sign that education advocates need to step up. We have an incredible opportunity this year to raise the bar—not just in words, but in actions. That means setting clear, ambitious goals for state-level reforms that actually change the system and improve students’ lives for the better.

At its heart, education reform has always been about one simple promise: every kid deserves an equal shot at success. But making that promise real means both challenging the status quo and evolving with the times—because as the world changes, so do the needs of our kids.

One of the biggest game-changers in this new era is the science of reading. It’s not just another policy—it’s a proven strategy that helped states like Mississippi and Louisiana climb from the bottom of the NAEP rankings to the top third by making evidence-based reading instruction foundational to how their schools run and their teachers teach. And the momentum keeps building—it’s no surprise that the science of reading is still rising in Google’s Ngram chart, a sign that people across the country know this is a fight worth winning.

But that’s just one piece of the puzzle. If we’re serious about a whole new wave of reform, we need to ask a simple but powerful question: What educational opportunities do the wealthiest, most privileged families give their kids—and how do we make sure every child in America gets the same shot?

When you ask that question, the path forward becomes clear. We need bold champions to fight for a new generation of reforms to usher in an era of educational abundance—from expanding high-quality tutoring and opening new career pathways to reimagining summer learning and breaking down barriers to better school options and opportunities.

Every state’s journey will look different, but the goal should be the same: aiming high, learning from one another, cutting through the noise, and staying laser-focused on a better future. If we do that, we can build a true 50-state movement—one that finally delivers the education system every child in America deserves.

TOP TASKS

Champion a new era of equal opportunity for all

“Across every out of school activity, there are significant gaps in participation between low-, middle- and high-income parents–and these persist over time–from elementary school, through middle school, and into high school,” we wrote in The State of Educational Opportunity in America: A Survey of 20,000 Parents. It’s a key finding that we wanted to return to and help better visualize with the launch of our new Ed Opportunity Explorer. The new tool lets you dig deeper into the survey data across 40 different questions and 19 different demographic categories. So we decided to find out how educational opportunity varies by household income from families making less than $25,000 a year all the way up to those making over $1 million a year.

Our big conclusion? The future of educational opportunity is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.

Tutoring. We found that for families with annual household incomes below $25,000, only 22 percent of their children received tutoring in the past year. For middle class families in the $69,000-$100,000 income range, this number rises only modestly to 29 percent. But among those earning $500,000 to $1 million a year, 58 percent of their children received tutoring, and for those making $1 million or more, that number jumps to 72 percent. It is clear that for the wealthy in America, tutoring has become more than optional support; it’s a key element of how learning happens.

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Summer. Summer camps and programs, which make the most of America’s unusually long summer breaks, are also a key area for learning and growth. Unfortunately, only 33 percent of the children of families with incomes below $25,000 participated in summer programs in the past year. While the figure grows to 48 percent among those making $69,000 to $100,000, for families earning between $500,000 and $1 million, it leaps to 75 percent, and at the $1 million mark, it climbs to an incredible 88 percent.

Internships and Apprenticeships. Internships, apprenticeships and other work-based programs are another key element of learning. Yet just 14 percent of high school parents in the lowest income bracket reported their high schoolers were participating, with a small increase to 21 percent among families earning between $69,000 and $100,000. By contrast, among those with incomes of $500,000 to $1 million, that number jumps 57 percent and it reaches 69 percent for families in the million-dollar bracket. Through these programs, affluent students gain hands-on experience and practical insights that give them a leg-up as they chart their path into the world of work.

School Types. What if every family in America had the freedom to choose any school option for their children, free from financial limitations? Among America’s wealthiest families what we see is a diverse set of school types with about of third of families (32%) choosing a traditional public school for their child, another third (38%) choosing a private school, and the last third spread out over a mix of public charter, public magnet, parochial school, microschool, virtual school and homeschooling. Yet the results also show that most Americans right now don’t have the same level of access to these options.

It is clear from these results that the children of the wealthy are living different educational lives, but it is reasonable to ask whether these advantages must be reserved for the elite or if they could, with some effort, become universal elements of a new era of education in America. That’s what our Believe in Better educational agenda is all about and the 51 policy goals of our state campaigns this year will move us closer to that vision of equal educational opportunity for all.

THE TASK OF THE WEEK IS

to kickstart the conversations about expanding educational opportunities for all students by leveraging the new Ed Opportunity Explorer.

Get ready for a world of significantly smaller student populations in some states

The number of high school graduates in the US “is set to fall 12% by 2041, but that masks large state variation, with several to fall by more than 30%. That itself masks wide variation at the local level, as some districts are projected to lose 50%+ of their students. Navigating this will be an unprecedented political & financial challenge,” John Arnold warned on X last week, reacting to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s latest data.

One source of the uneven nature of the changes? The relative popularity of states with families. The New York Times’ columnist David Brooks, responding to a study from Mark Perry at AEI, writes, “Americans are moving away from blue states with high energy costs, byzantine regulatory regimes and unfriendly business climates. They are moving to economically vibrant red states with lower costs, more conservative fiscal policies and more job opportunities.”

Some states, like California and Hawaii, are predicted to lose nearly a third of their high school student populations by 2041. In California, that would give elected leaders a tough choice. The state could claim back or redirect taxpayer dollars; that would mean a loss of at least $35 billion annually for the state’s education budget. Leaders could alternatively hold currently existing schools harmless, dramatically increasing per pupil spending. Or, perhaps, they could use this opportunity to reimagine how we fund equal educational opportunities by putting families at the center of the decisions.

THE TASK OF THE WEEK IS

to get informed on your state’s plans to tackle these changes over the next twenty years, whether your state is predicted for population gains or losses

FROM THE FIELD

With 2025 legislative sessions well underway, parent advocates across the 50CAN network are heading to capitols nationwide. In Colorado, Transform Education Now held a family advocacy day where parents met with elected leaders to discuss school quality, tutoring availability and choice-enabling transportation. In Atlanta, over thirty parents organized by GeorgiaCAN held conversations with legislators about charter schools, the team’s literacy work and a new bill–covered here by the Peach Tree Times–to limit student cell phone use in schools.

NewMexicoKidsCAN’s Amanda Aragon continues her work to make New Mexico parents aware of the state’s dismal performance on the 2024 NAEP. The latest episode of New Mexico Rising features the National Assessment Governing Board’s Danielle Gonzalez, where the two discuss the urgent steps needed for improvement.

“Delaware has a choice: Continue to ignore the crisis or do what dozens of other states have done — implement a fair, student-centered funding system that ensures that resources reach those who need them most,” writes DelawareKidsCAN’s Britney Mumford in a new op-ed.

Fox News interviewed Louisiana Superintendent Cade Brumley on the state’s recent NAEP performance, where he highlighted a set of reforms–including universal tutoring and school choice–advocated for by Louisiana Kids Matter.

Key Resources

Urban Institute examined the potential impact of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education on students with special needs.

EdWorkingPapers investigated economic segregation in schools, finding that affluent students are often isolated from less affluent peers in public schooling, primarily due to redlining and sorting across schools in a district.

Available To All reported on strict residential assignment policies in Missouri’s public schools, arguing that such practices limit access to educational opportunities for middle- and lower-income families.

Education Next interviewed journalist Emily Hanford about her podcast Sold a Story–the newest episode of which dropped this week–discussing its impact on reading instruction and the importance of evidence-based teaching methods.

FutureEd’s Liz Cohen, writing for The 74, highlighted the correlation between chronic absenteeism and lower NAEP scores, noting that students with higher absentee rates tend to have significantly lower academic performance.

Fordham Institute introduced a new method for assessing elementary and middle school quality by analyzing student GPA data, suggesting it as a valuable supplement to standardized test scores.

FutureEd analyzed the recent NAEP, revealing a significant gap between state assessments and national benchmarks.

Moment of Resilience

Students in Newport Beach, California prepared for a day of sailing as part of a three-day camp for autistic children through the nonprofit Spectrum Sailing. “These kids don’t get these kinds of victories. They’re not the kids with 100 trophies in their room or 50 camp shirts in their drawer because they’ve been to a million programs,” founder Scott Herman told the Los Angeles Times. “So the fact they can come here and be successful is huge for them.”

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