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4 states, including Florida, supporting private schools with COVID-19 relief lead the way on education choice

Special to redefinED August 24, 2020

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Jude Schwalbach, a research assistant at The Heritage Foundation, first published on The Daily Signal.

When COVID-19 brought the school year to an abrupt halt early this year, few anticipated that the global pandemic would be the impetus for private school choice reforms across the nation.

As is the case with so many other sectors, many private schools struggled after losing tuition and other funding resources due to the strains of COVID-19.

In fact, the Cato Institute reported that as of this month, 115 private schools had announced permanent closures.

That means that more than 15,400 children lost their schools. The estimated transfer cost of these students to public schools is more than $278.3 million.

Recognizing what the loss of education options would mean for families, policymakers in six states proposed emergency private school scholarships in response to the crisis. Four of those states—Florida, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and South Carolina—used emergency federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to expand private school choice options.

The CARES Act, signed into law by Donald Trump in June, authorized $3 billion for the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, or GEER, a flexible grant that governors can use for education-related programs.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, used a portion of his state’s GEER funds to craft “Stay in School” scholarships, providing $10 million to cover tuition at Oklahoma’s 150 private schools for children from low-income families whose incomes have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. More than 1,500 Oklahoma children could receive a scholarship worth $6,500 each.

That covers all or most of the average annual cost of private school tuition in Oklahoma, which is about $5,000 for elementary students and about $7,000 for secondary students. The scholarship amount, however, is still less than the average per-pupil amount, $8,778, spent annually by Oklahoma public schools.

Oklahoma students also will have access to the $8 million Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet education savings account-style funding, which is funded by GEER and will provide more than 5,000 children living in poverty with $1,500 grants to “purchase curriculum content, tutoring services and/or technology.”

In the era of pandemic pods, this is critical policy.

Likewise, South Carolina used its GEER funds to create a private school scholarship program for children from low- and middle-income families. Children living at or below 300% of the federal poverty line could be awarded a scholarship of about $6,500.

Other states used these funds to bolster existing private school choice programs such as tax credit scholarships.

New Hampshire under Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, boosted funding for the state’s tax credit scholarship by $1.5 million. The state’s tax credit scholarship allows individuals and businesses to receive tax credits for donating to nonprofits that fund private school scholarships.

Since 2015, New Hampshire’s tax credit scholarship has allocated $3.8 million to help 1,377 children attend private schools of their choice. The additional emergency funds will help 800 children receive scholarships valued at $1,875 each. That amount covers more than 22% of the average cost of tuition at a private elementary school in the state.

Like New Hampshire, Florida used $30 million of its GEER funds to stabilize its tax credit scholarship. At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, also put $15 million toward the Private School Stabilization Grant Fund. Private schools are eligible for this grant if they were hard hit by the pandemic and if more than 50% of the student body uses school choice scholarships.

Never missing a beat, special interest groups have alleged that efforts in those states to use GEER funds to support families accessing education options of choice will hurt public schools. Yet, public schools in Florida, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and South Carolina received a combined $1.1 billion from the CARES Act. Of that, the total governors’ discretionary funds accessible to children enrolled in private schools in the respective states totaled $96.5 million.

Taxpayers and state policymakers are right to balk at the new federal education funding. The $13.5 billion CARES Act, along with the $3 billion in GEER funding, is significant new federal spending, representing more than 25% of what the federal government spends yearly on K-12 education through the Department of Education’s discretionary budget.

But as The Heritage Foundation’s Jonathan Butcher wrote: “If the funds already are appropriated for education, as it is with CARES spending, then there is no more effective purpose than to give every child a chance at the American dream with more learning options.”

Moving forward, state policymakers should make sure that the emergency private school scholarships become permanent, funding them through changes to state policy. Rethinking how education funding is delivered, through more nimble models such as education savings accounts, should remain a permanent feature of the education policy landscape.

Moves in these states are steps in the right direction.

August 24, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice Tax Credit Scholarships

COVID-19 has made it undeniable: We need school choice

Special to redefinED August 14, 2020

Special to redefinED

This commentary from Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, first published on the RealClear Policy blog.

A new Gallup poll that surveyed parents with school-aged kids has startling results, much more because of how opinions are split than the opinions themselves.

Given the COVID-19 threat, 36% of parents want their children to receive fully in-person education, 36% want an in-person/distance hybrid, and 28% want all distance. Each mode was preferred by essentially one-third of parents, neatly capturing a now undeniable reality: Families need school choice.

The basic problem is that diverse people have different needs, but a school district is unitary. This is always trouble — diverse people are stuck with one dress code, history curriculum, etc. — but COVID-19 makes the stakes far higher and more immediate than usual. You might be willing to engage in a protracted school board battle to improve curricula, but COVID-19 could put your child’s life, or basic education, in potentially huge danger right now.

In many places, the public schools have taken the side of maximum COVID caution. The school districts in Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere will, at least to start the year, only offer distance education.

That may be fine for kids who learn better at home, have medical conditions that make them high-risk, or who live with elderly relatives. But it is a huge hit to children with poor internet connectivity, learning disabilities, or those who simply thrive in a physical classroom.

It appears that a spontaneous, nationwide eruption of parent-driven, in-person education is the response to such closings. The “pod” phenomenon is perhaps the most buzzy sign of this, generating both fascinated and skeptical coverage in major media outlets. Basically, parents are pooling their money to hire teachers and create closed learning communities for their kids.

We may also be seeing more families moving to traditional private schools, with reports of privates receiving increased interest, and sometimes definite enrollment boosts, around the country. There is no systematic data to confirm a national movement, but the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom has been tracking private school closures connected to COVID-19 since March and has only recorded eight since July 14. This low number may well reflect new enrollments in private schools.

Of course, affording a private alternative can be difficult for lower-income families, and many people worry that the move to private schooling will fuel greater inequality.

Thankfully, there is a solution, and it is straightforward: Instead of education funding going directly to public schools, let it follow children, whether to a pod, private school, charter school, or traditional public. With public school spending exceeding $15,000 per student, most privates, which charge roughly $12,000 on average, would be in anyone’s reach, while families pooling 10 kids could offer $150,000 to a pod teacher.

The Trump administration has been pushing choice, and certainly any federal aid should follow kids. But constitutional authority over education lies with the states, and it is from them that choice should come. Indeed, more than half-a-million children already attend private schools through voucher, tax credit, and education savings account programs in 29 states and Washington, D.C. But that is far below the number who need choice — states that already have it should expand it, and those without it should enact it.

But expanding funding may not be enough to supply the COVID choice people need. In some places, including much of California, public authorities are forbidding many private institutions from teaching in-person. Such prohibitions must be lifted.

These actions may be intended to protect public schools’ pocketbooks. For instance, the chief health official in Montgomery County, Maryland, has said no private school can open until at least October 1, a date right after the enrollment “count day” that determines how much state and federal funding public schools get.

Of course, health concerns may be the only driver of such decisions. But school-aged children appear to face very low levels of COVID danger. According to CDC data, Americans ages 5 to 17 account for fewer than 0.1% of all COVID-19 deaths, and since tracking began, it has accounted for less than 1% of all deaths in the 5-to-14 age group. While increasing safety measures is important, kids appear to face greater dangers than COVID-19.

What about teachers and administrators? Adults are at greater risk than children, but private schools will do many things to protect them, including mandatory mask wearing, face shields, social distancing, improved air filtration, and more. And teachers unwilling or unable to work in-person could choose jobs in online-only schools.

The simple fact is all communities, families, and children are different, and they need educational options reflective of that diversity.

August 14, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Dan Lips Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured School Choice

Reducing outside-of-school learning inequality when schools are closed

Special to redefinED August 12, 2020

Special to redefinED

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Aug. 6 held a public hearing on “Challenges to Safely Reopening American Schools,” featuring former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; Broward County (Florida) Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie; and Angela Skillings, a second-grade teacher in the Hayden-Winkelman Unified School District in Arizona. You can see their prepared testimony here, here, here and here. redefinED guest blogger Dan Lips, a visiting fellow with the Foundation for Research and Equal Opportunity, also participated. The following is Lips’ condensed spoken testimony.

As we have heard today, communities across the country are facing a difficult decision about how to begin the school year during the pandemic. The prospect of any child, teacher, or school employee contracting COVID-19 and facing the possibility of death or serious illness should weigh heavily on all policymakers involved with decisions affecting schools’ plans.

But it is critical that policymakers also recognize the serious risks associated with prolonged school closures, particularly for disadvantaged children.

Researchers studying the educational effects of school closures warn that time out of school results in months of lost learning, and that the learning losses are most acute for low-income students.

The bottom line is that prolonged school closures will create a large achievement gap for a generation of American children. Beyond these educational effects, prolonged school closures create significant risks for children’s health and welfare.

There is alarming evidence, which I describe in my written testimony, that prolonged school closures since the spring have endangered child welfare. Closures also have significant negative economic effects for parents. Many parents have been forced to choose between their jobs and their child’s care, and this challenge is most difficult for single parents.

The good news is that it is possible for schools to reopen.

Health experts — including the American Academy of Pediatrics — have issued guidelines for safely reopening schools with certain precautions, such as physical distancing, utilizing outdoor space, cohort classes to minimize crossover among children and adults, and face coverings for students (particularly older students).

And we are seeing many school districts choose to reopen across the country with in-person instruction or hybrid learning options.

According to a new analysis from the Center for Reinventing Public Education, 41 percent of rural districts and 28 percent of suburban districts plan to provide in-person instruction this fall. But most the nation’s largest school districts are not reopening with in-person instruction.

Seventy-one of the nation’s 120 largest school districts are beginning the school year with remote instruction and no in-person learning, based on FREOPP’s review. Altogether, these closed school districts serve more than 7 million children — including 1.4 million children living in poverty.

It is important to recognize that children from low-income families have fewer resources to learn outside of school than their peers. According to one estimate, rich families spend more than $9,000 out of pocket on their children’s educational and enrichment outside of school, while the poorest families spent just $1,400.

Today, families with financial means are working to create better options than remote learning — including homeschooling and setting up “pandemic learning pods” by forming coops with other parents and hiring teachers or tutors. But children from lower-income families have few options. Policymakers must address this inequality.

For example, states should use existing CARES Act funds to provide aid directly to parents in the form of education savings accounts or scholarships to support their children’s outside of school learning needs. Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are already doing this. Other states should follow their lead.

As Congress considers future aid packages for K-12 education, you should provide aid directly to parents to help disadvantaged children learn when their school is closed. There is precedent for providing emergency education relief in this manner.

After Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005, many children were displaced and had nowhere to go to school. Congress provided more than $1 billion in aid that followed affected children to a school of their parents’ choice, allowing them to continue their education.

If millions of children are unable to attend school this year, Congress should focus much of its aid in a similar manner — providing direct assistance to help children continue learning while schools are closed. In my written testimony, I discuss these and other recommendations for how school systems can prioritize and address the needs of disadvantaged children during the pandemic.

Since 1965, Congress has rightly focused federal education aid on promoting equal opportunity for at-risk children. In 2020, this will require focusing aid to support disadvantaged kids who can’t go to school.

The Foundation for Research and Equal Opportunity will host an executive briefing on its recommendations for reopening and continuing American education during the pandemic on Thursday. Visit https://freopp.org/ for details.

August 12, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Education Equity Family Empowerment Scholarship Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Gardiner Scholarship McKay Scholarship Parent Empowerment Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice

Jeff Driskel: Education choice reduces inequality

Special to redefinED August 6, 2020

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary appeared earlier today in the Gainesville Sun.

As the nation grapples with racial inequality, many Americans are seeking ways they can make a positive difference. As a professional athlete, I know the importance of having a level playing field. The rules must apply equally so everyone has an opportunity to succeed.

That’s why I support education choice. Education can be one of the great equalizers in society, and equalizing opportunities is fundamental to finding the learning environment that works best for each child.

I was fortunate to live in an area with many excellent public schools. I graduated from Oviedo’s Hagerty High School, which over the last nine years has received an A grade from the state for its academic performance.

But what about students who don’t have access to quality schools because of where they live? Or even those assigned to “good” schools who nevertheless aren’t succeeding for whatever reason and need something different? Where do they go?

This disparity in opportunity disproportionately impacts Black and Hispanic students, as evidenced by the achievement gap with their white classmates in national test scores, graduation rates, college enrollment and degrees attained. In the game of life, they’re starting inside their own 5-yard line, and having to advance against a fearsome defense – the systemic disadvantages many of our children face.

I’m a quarterback, so I naturally believe in being aggressive and going on the offensive. On the field, you need as many options as possible to succeed in any situation. Similarly, education choice attacks inequality by providing parents with multiple ways to find the setting that best meets their children’s needs.

For 20 years, Florida has been a national leader in expanding education opportunities. Forty-eight percent of Florida’s 3.4 million Pre-K to grade 12 students attend something other than zoned neighborhood schools. That’s up from 10% a generation ago. They include over 309,000 students who choose to attend a charter school.

Over 120,000 lower-income students – two-thirds of whom are Black or Hispanic — attend a private school of their choice on the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or the Family Empowerment Scholarship. Special needs students can receive either the McKay Scholarship (more than 30,000) or the Gardiner Scholarship (nearly 14,000) to attend a school of their choice or to help pay for homeschooling expenses. Another 11,000 students receive virtual instruction full time.

As choice has grown in Florida, the state has seen its academic performance improve. It currently ranks third in the nation in the percentage of graduating seniors who’ve passed Advanced Placement exams; fourth in K-12 achievement as ranked by Education Week; and No. 1, No. 1, No. 3 and No. 8 on the four core tests of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, when adjusted for demographics. All represent progress from a generation ago.

A 2019 study by the Urban Institute found that the low-income students who received the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship were up to 20% more likely than public school students to earn bachelor’s degrees. But choice doesn’t benefit only those who attend private schools. A study released earlier this year by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that in areas where students had more access to private-school choice, students in public schools — especially low-income ones — had higher standardized test scores, lower absenteeism and fewer suspensions.

It’s not a matter of public vs. private, brick-and-mortar vs. online. It’s all of those, and more. Every child deserves the best opportunity to learn, whatever form it takes. That’s the most basic step in righting wrongs in society.

Jeff Driskel, a 2011 graduate of Hagerty High School in Oviedo, played quarterback for the University of Florida for four years before finishing his college eligibility at Louisiana Tech. In 2016 he was drafted by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and currently plays for the Denver Broncos.

August 6, 2020 1 comment

Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured Homeschooling Microschools News School Choice Technology and Innovation Virtual Education

The rise of altschool and other micro-schools

Special to redefinED July 28, 2020

Special to redefinED

Acton Academy opened in 2009 with 12 students, teaching content through online game-based tools, Socratic discussion and face-to-face projects the school calls “quests.” Today, Acton offers kits to entrepreneurs and parents interested in opening their own schools following its model.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Michael B. Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, is included in the Summer 2020 edition of Education Next.

From San Francisco to Austin, Texas, to New York, new forms of schooling termed micro-schools are popping up.

As of yet, there is no common definition that covers all these schools, which vary not only by size and cost but also in their education philosophies and operating models. Think one-room schoolhouse meets blended learning and home schooling meets private schooling.

As Matt Candler, founder of 4.0 Schools, writes:

“What makes a modern micro-school different from a 19th century, one-room schoolhouse is that old-school schools only had a few ways to teach — certainly no software, no tutors, and probably less structure around student to student learning. In a modern micro-school, there are ways to get good data from each of these venues. And the great micro-school of the future will lean on well-designed software to help adults evaluate where each kid is learning.”

Several factors are driving their emergence. Micro-schools are gaining traction among families who are dissatisfied with the quality of public schooling options and cannot afford or do not want to pay for a traditional private-school education. These families want an option other than home schooling that will personalize instruction for their child’s needs. A school in which students attend a couple days a week or a small school with like-minded parents can fit the bill.

Some trace the micro-school’s origins to the United Kingdom, where over the past decade people began applying the term micro-schools to small independent and privately funded schools that met at most two days a week. As in the United States, the impetus for their formation was dissatisfaction with local schooling options. Although home-schooling families have for some time created cooperatives to gain some flexibility for the adults and socialization for the children, the micro-schooling phenomenon is more formal.

One of the early U.S. micro-schools, QuantumCamp, was founded in the winter of 2009 in Berkeley, California, out of a dare that one couldn’t teach quantum physics in a simple way. The result was the development of a course that would be accessible to children as young as 12.

The school now offers a complete hands-on math and science curriculum for students in first through eighth grades and serves about 150 home schoolers during the school year; double that number attend the summer program. Tuition ranges from $600 to $2,400 depending on the program and enrollment period.

In 2013, QuantumCamp introduced language arts courses. Each academic class meets once a week for an activity-based exploration of big ideas and then offers out-of-class content that includes videos, readings, problem sets, podcasts, and other activities to enable students to continue exploring concepts at their own pace.

At roughly the same time as QuantumCamp’s founding, in Austin, Texas, Jeff Sandefer, founder of the nationally acclaimed Acton School of Business and his wife, Laura, who has a master’s degree in education, launched Acton Academy. In creating the five-day-a-week, all-day school, the couple sought to ensure that their own children wouldn’t be “talked at all day long” in a traditional classroom. The Acton Academy’s mission is “to inspire each child and parent who enters [its] doors to find a calling that will change the world.” The school promises that students will embark on a “hero’s journey” to discover the unique contributions that they can make toward living a life of meaning and purpose.

With tuition of $9,515 per year, Acton Academy initially enrolled 12 students and has since 2009 grown to serve 75 students in grades 1 to 9. The school has learning guides—they aren’t called teachers—whose role is to push students to own their learning. The model enables the academy to have far fewer on-site adults per student than a traditional independent school and to operate at a cost of roughly $4,000 per student per year.

Acton compresses students’ core learning into a two-and-a-half-hour personalized-learning period each day during which students learn mostly online. This affords time for three two-hour project-based learning blocks each week, a Socratic seminar each day, game play on Fridays, ample art and physical education offerings, and many social experiences.

The Socratic discussions teach students to talk, listen, and challenge ideas in a face-to-face circle of peers and guides. The projects require the students to work in teams to apply the knowledge they have learned. They also foster a ‘‘need to know’’ mind-set to motivate the online learning and provide a public, portfolio-based means for students to demonstrate achievement.

Early results appear impressive, as the first group of students gained 2.5 grade levels of learning in their first 10 months. Now the school is spreading. There are currently eight Acton Academies operating—seven of them in the United States. Twenty-five are slated to be open by 2015. The Sandefers are not operating them, however; they provide communities that want to open an Acton clone a do-it-yourself kit plus limited consulting and access to wiki discussion groups. They are developing a game-based learning tool to help prepare Acton Academy owners and the learning guides in the schools. Tuition at the academies ranges from $4,000 per year to $9,900.

Inspired in part by micro-schools like Acton Academy that use his software, the prince of online and personalized learning himself, Sal Khan, launched his own micro-school in the fall of 2014 in Mountain View, California. The Khan Lab School, which charges $22,000, opened with roughly 35 students and intends “to research blended learning and education innovation by creating a working model of Khan Academy’s philosophy of learning in a physical school environment and sharing the learnings garnered with schools and networks around the world.”

As Isabella, an 11-year-old student who previously attended a nearby public school, said, “Here it’s different from my old school because you’re doing your own playlist and you have more projects.”

Mandeep Dhillon, a parent with two children enrolled at Khan Lab School, amplified the differences.

“After a while, we realized public, private school didn’t matter. Kids were being programmed in chunks,” he said. “I hate the term home schooling because it’s based on location. It’s not really about having them at home. What we’re trying to do is build an independent path. It’s not about the schooling, it’s about experiences.”

As these small schools proliferate, their impact on the wider world of schooling—public and private—is potentially large, but still anything but certain.

July 28, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured School Choice Technology and Innovation

Pandemic offers opportunity to extend learning time

Special to redefinED July 21, 2020

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Nick Sheltrown, chief learning officer of National Heritage Academies, a network of more than 80 charter schools serving more than 59,000 students in nine states, first appeared on Education Next.

The disruptive influence of pandemic-related school closures on student learning may serve as a catalyst for much-needed shifts in how we think about how much time we devote to learning. Decades from now, we may look back at this period as we do with the launching of Sputnik in 1957, as an event that spurred innovation in new and productive directions. The reason for this optimism lies in the lessons we are uncovering around instructional time.

In the early 1960s, psychologist John B. Carroll was studying second language acquisition when he noticed that subjects in his study were all able to master the language content, but the time they each needed to do so varied greatly. This experience led Carroll to develop a model of learning that featured the importance of time as the key variable. In Carroll’s formulation, student learning is a function of time spent learning divided by the time needed for learning.

Carroll also identified other factors like student aptitude, background knowledge, and quality of instruction as influential in the amount of time needed for learning. This may not seem revolutionary now, but Carroll’s articulation of the relationship between time and learning was highly influential.

What does this have to do with the Covid-19 pandemic and American education?

The fundamental problem Covid-19 has introduced a dramatic loss in the quantity and quality of instructional time across the American educational landscape. With students and teachers physically separated and schools scrambling to design and deliver remote learning to students, policymakers and parents alike are concerned with the potential learning gap that the Covid-19 closures cause, particularly for at-risk learners. It is unlikely that the typical school will be able to match the quality of its face-to-face learning in remote delivery.

At the same time, the wide-scale closure of school buildings presents a unique opportunity for K-12 educators to undergo a quantum leap in the development and delivery of learning to students. Schools are being forced to innovate at scale. If schools learn how to deliver remote learning well as a response to this crisis, what is stopping them from doing so during the summers and snow days? Why not create a mastery-based learning plan for every student that includes learning throughout the calendar year—a true mix of in-school and remote learning? Instead of driving a loss in learning time, perhaps the lessons we are learning now can help unlock more time than ever before.

These aspirations may seem countercultural for American educators and families, but this mindset change is critical for U.S. education. Seventy years of achievement data have shown that there have never been enough learning hours in US school calendars to close achievement gaps for at-risk learners.

The real opportunity of this pandemic is to break the monopoly school buildings and school calendars have on our collective mental model of delivering learning experiences to children. The idea of seasonal, location-centric learning is not compatible with the needs of a 21st century economy. Nor is it compatible with the realities of achievement gaps or global competition, not to mention hurricanes, polar vortexes, and—of course—pandemics. If American educators, parents, and students see learning as a continuous activity that occurs throughout the year, at home and at school, and supported by both parents and educators, there is reason to believe that this difficult period will mark a positive inflection point in education in this country.

This is not to say that extending learning time through remote learning will be easy. Certainly not. Educators, parents, and students around the country can attest to the many challenges of remote learning, amid competing demands of remote work, remote caregiving, and for many, unemployment and financial strain. Pedagogical, safety, privacy, and technical challenges have slowed ambitious educators and parents looking to provide robust remote learning experiences to students. Challenges around access persist, with too many families living without broadband Internet or enough devices for their children to use.

Even so, it is still possible to serve students without digital access. Sending printed packets home, creating video-based lessons optimized for smartphones, answering questions over the phone for students, and taking advantage of low-tech, on demand tutoring services like Kapeesh are all better than the alternative of complete educational inactivity. The lessons we are learning about remote learning are not limited to digital spaces.

The mistake often made in education policy circles is to focus on every input in learning—curriculum, technology, pedagogy—while holding instructional time constant at 180 days. But recall Carroll’s finding: learning is a function of time. If we want to improve student learning, we must increase the quality of learning time or the quantity of learning time.

Remote learning represents a clear opportunity to solve for the quantity portion of this problem. Schools and families will get better at remote learning because this pandemic is forcing us to do so. That is the necessity. The opportunity, however, is to capitalize on what we learn from this disruption and provide students extended learning time outside of the traditional school year.

July 21, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Course Choice Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured School Choice

Diversifying modes of instruction

Special to redefinED June 16, 2020

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This commentary from Bruce Hermie, director of school partnerships for the American Federation for Children, appeared earlier this month on the AFC blog.

Widespread school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have launched many school leaders into uncharted waters.

Educational strategies have been executed on digital or distance platforms and budgets that were set in January are now requiring reassessment and, in some cases, painful cuts that will have long term ramifications on school vitality and growth. Now, more than ever, it is imperative school leaders look to the future and give consideration of not only how to survive their immediate reality, but find the inspiration and courage to help their schools emerge stronger and more effective to meet the multi-faceted needs of their students, teachers, and communities.

It is said that fortune favors the bold. If there was ever an opportunity for school leadership to rethink their approach and redeploy resources to meet the challenges ahead, that time is now.

As each school is its own unique learning organization, the search for one magic panacea that will work for a flawless and safe path forward for every school is fool’s gold. School leaders who understand the nuances of their schools and communities will be best served assessing their own resources, finding what avenues for instruction and safety are possible, and pairing that to guidance being given by health professionals to set forward a plan that meets the needs of their students and faculties in a multi-pronged approach.

Most school leaders have come to the conclusion they must prepare for in-person, hybrid, and online learning scenarios. Instead of guessing at which of the three could occur, why not empower students/parents and teachers to choose the method of delivery which best fits their own realities?

A recent poll that appeared in USA Today found that one in five teachers reported they may not report back for the start of the school year. A separate poll indicated 60 percent of parents said they were willing to pursue at home learning options for their children as opposed to returning them to in-person classes when schools resume in the fall.

This information should serve as notice that options for mode of education are more necessary now than ever.

In schools where multiple classes per grade exist, why not embrace flexibility and give families and teachers the option? If schools were to designate one or two teachers to be the “online” teacher for their respective grades, families could then choose whether distance learning or in-person education best fits their needs and comfort level.

Teachers at risk from a health standpoint would also have the ability to continue to work and educate from the safety of their home while those who crave a return to in-person instruction can return to campus. One benefit of committing to such a model full time is it allows for professional development and evolution of distance learning strategies and competencies should the need to pivot to full-time online instruction for all students occur again.

Schools may find other unexpected benefits in diversifying the way they educate. In the short term, diversification will lend to a smaller number of in-person students on campus, making the adherence to CDC guidelines for safety more manageable. In the long-term, schools may see an increase in enrollment as families who seek this flexibility for a myriad of reasons including health, special interests outside of the academic realm that require flexible scheduling, and a simple desire by parents to be more deeply involved in the education of their children.

In a time filled with many stresses and an unknown future for many school leaders, the best thing to do is what always must be the priority for any educator: serving the children effectively, keeping them as safe as possible, and allowing them the room to grow into capable young women and men who have a positive impact on society.

Schools that find ways to do this effectively and have courage to move past the status quo will thrive while those who fail to be imaginative struggle to regain a lost normal.

June 16, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Common Ground Coronavirus / COVID-19 Course Choice Customization Education Choice Education Equity Featured School Choice Virtual Education

Future ready: the new version of school

Special to redefinED June 2, 2020

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This post from Tom Vander Ark, co-founder and CEO of Getting Smart and a partner in Learn Capital, was originally posted on Forbes and appeared May 24 n the Getting Smart blog.

School leaders have about 90 days to get future ready. For many, it will require four infrastructure decisions and four innovation decisions.

This fall, many school districts and networks will find themselves running a distanced onsite program and a remote program simultaneously. There will also be an increased demand for full-time online learning and hybrid options.

The four new or updated elements of future-ready infrastructure include a blended core program, a distanced onsite strategy, an updated remote program and an online program.

Blend the core academic program

Many schools have spent five or 10 years blending digital tools and resources into their print-based curriculum and updating their instructional strategies. Some spent the last two months catching up.

Five years ago, our Implementation Guide 3.0 described blended learning as “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.”

A blended learning program is a learning management system (LMS) to manage content and assignments across different modes of learning (i.e., onsite and remote). Some districts put off a platform decision or allowed teachers to make their own decisions. But now is the time for schoolwide (if not districtwide) use of a common platform–the pandemic made it clear that education is officially a team sport and one where shared agility is mission-critical.

The second decision is defining a consistent approach to learning materials. That used to mean adopted textbooks but, in many cases, those can be replaced with high quality digital open educational resources and supplemented with teacher-developed content. The benefit of engaging asynchronous digital content became even more evident in the last two months.

A few platforms come loaded with content and embedded assessments that can provide a head start for running full-time online schools (discussed below). Some innovative schools like Purdue Polytechnic in Indianapolis, use one of these platforms for personalized knowledge and skill development, and supplement it with big integrated community-connected projects.

One thing this pandemic made clear is the benefit of collaboration (workflow and project management) and communication tools (texting and video conferencing) to keep you and your team and students connected.

You won’t find a suite of tools that does everything you want but options are improving. Canvas from Instructure and Schoology from Powerschool are popular platforms. Google Classroom and G Suite and Microsoft Classroom, 365, and Teams aren’t full-featured learning management systems but they are integrated collaboration and communication ecosystems –and they’re free.

Update your remote strategy

Because learners – small and large groups – may be moving back and forth between remote and onsite learning it will be important to link modes of learning.

Staff members may also need to work remotely periodically requiring temporary staffing strategies – teachers and leaders will need to be especially flexible next year.

Schools may need to update plans for take home mobile technology and strengthen broadband partnerships (discounts, mobile and community hotspots), to reach as close to every household as possible.

Build a social distanced onsite solution

Use a combination of place-shifting (i.e., extra spaces) and time-shifting (i.e., staggered schedules) to build a social distancing solution if that’s how you have to start school. The decision will depend on the number of buses you have and the number of cycles they make. The number of parents that choose to have their children stay home and participate in remote (or online) learning will also influence this strategy.

Some parents may also choose onsite learning but will avoid busing. In all cases, it will be important for school and district administrators to communicate with and survey parents/guardians frequently.

Start or partner with online school

With full and part-time enrollment, online schools are designed to support learning at home. Thousands of students transferred to online schools when school buildings closed and hundreds of thousands of students may follow over the next 18 months. As a result, school districts are scrambling to create online options to prevent further defections.

School districts that don’t have an online school, should start one or partner with one in their state. They can contract with a statewide provider, or license content from a statewide provider or assemble open content (like OpenEd from ACT), or use asynchronous content (like Edgenuity or Edmentum).

The new opportunity that someone will figure out in the next two years is combining the benefits of robust asynchronous content with project-based learning.

Every metropolitan area could use a cooperative online provider that provides online and hybrid (like two days a week onsite) options to families and a place for teachers that can’t teach in a school building–an online matching service for families looking for options and teachers needing alternative placement.

The four innovation opportunities are work that matters, skills for thriving, meeting learners where they are, and responsive options.

Note: 3,400 school districts have pledged to be Future Ready Schools and are probably making progress in these four areas.

Tom Vander Ark is author of “Better Together,” “Smart Parents,” “Smart Cities,” “Getting Smart” and “The Power of Place.” He is co-founder of Getting Smart and Learn Capital and serves on the boards of Education Board Partners, 4.0 Schools, Digital Learning Institute, Latinx Education Collaborative, Mastery Transcript Consortium and eduInnovation. Follow Tom on Twitter, @tvanderark.

June 2, 2020 0 comment