Jonathan Butcher

Education in a time of pandemic: Not making the grade

Special to redefinED January 5, 2021

Special to redefinED

This commentary from redefinED guest blogger Jonathan Butcher, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, and center director Lindsey Burke, first appeared on Tribune News Service.

When it comes to her daughter Emerson’s education, Sarrin Warfield says, she’s “in it to win it.”

When Emerson’s assigned school in South Carolina announced plans for virtual learning this fall, Sarrin says she asked herself, “What if we just made this in my backyard and made a school?” After talking with friends who have children the same age as Emerson, Sarrin said, “Let’s do it. Instead of it being a crazy idea, let’s own this process and be really intentional about doing this and make it happen.”

Sarrin is one of the thousands of parents around the country who formed learning pods when assigned schools closed. By meeting in small groups with friends’ and neighbors’ children, these pod families could try to keep at least one of part of their child’s life from being upended because of COVID-19.

The time-honored practice of school assignment did little to help the Warfields — or thousands of other students around the U.S. during the COVID spring … and then COVID summer and fall. In the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, officials in some of the largest districts in the country reported significant enrollment changes from the previous school year, especially among younger students.

Officials in Mesa, Arizona, reported a 17% decrease in kindergarten enrollment after the first two weeks. In Los Angeles, Superintendent Austin Beutner reported a 3.4% decrease in enrollment, but said another 4% of students couldn’t be found, making the change closer to 7%. Figures are similar in Broward County, Florida, and Houston. In large school districts, these percentages amount to over 10,000 children per district.

Some of these changes can be attributed to learning pods. But officials in large cities and even those representing entire states simply reported having no contact with many students.

Under normal circumstances, if thousands of children who were once in school suddenly were nowhere to be found, this would be an issue of national concern. Hearings would be held, and officials would demand to know what is happening with schools around the country. Loud calls for change would be heard.

But life during the pandemic is anything but normal.

Likewise, if more students around the country were failing — say, twice the figure from last year — this would also be worrisome, right? From Los Angeles to Houston to Chicago to Fairfax, Virginia, school officials and researchers are now reporting that the proportion of students earning D’s and F’s in the first semester has increased, doubling in some cases, in comparison to the last school year.

Yet across the U.S., many school districts, especially those in large metro areas, remain closed to in-person learning for some if not all grades and may not reopen at the start of 2021.

According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of parents in lower-income brackets report being “very” or “somewhat” concerned this fall that their children are “falling behind in school as a result of the disruptions caused by the pandemic.” With thousands of students not in class, even virtually, and falling grades among those who are attending, who can blame them?

For taxpayers and policymakers looking for lessons in the pandemic, the utter failure of school assignment systems to provide quality-learning options to all students, especially the most vulnerable, is clear.

The quality and consistency of the education a child received during the pandemic has been dependent on the attendance boundary in which that child’s family lives. At the same time, so many of the issues plaguing education during the pandemic — and for that matter, the entire century leading up to the pandemic — are rooted in policies that fund school systems, rather than individual students.

Allowing dollars to follow children directly to any public or private school of choice is a critical emergency policy reform that states should pursue. Such a policy change is overdue.

Since it’s anyone’s guess how soon life will get back to normal, we can’t wait any longer for the system to fix itself.

January 5, 2021 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Legislation Featured Jonathan Butcher Microschools Parental Choice School Choice

Regulations found across U.S. may limit availability of learning pods, reduce parental choice

Jonathan Butcher November 10, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Sarrin Warfield received a “flurry” of information from her local district school over the summer on whether her child’s classes would be in-person or online. She was concerned about her daughter, Emerson, “sitting in front of a computer from 7:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., which we’ve really been intentional to not have that be her life,” Warfield said.

Warfield chose to create a learning pod with a group of friends in South Carolina. Instead of seeing a learning pod as a “crazy idea,” Warfield said, she and her friends poured their nervous energy over school re-openings into being “really intentional about doing this and making it happen.”

“We’ve all committed,” Warfield said, and “we’re in it to win it.”

But just as parents like Warfield embarked on this new initiative to continue their children’s education as local schools closed to in-person learning, state regulators began to issue warnings that certain requirements could apply to learning pods. In a new report for the State Policy Network, I explain that some state and even local officials may require families participating in parent-led learning pods to obtain in-home child care licenses or be subject to other child care-related rules such as zoning laws or specific adult-child ratios.

Learning pods are like micro-schools, but micro-school students usually attend private schools (though some micro-schools partner with traditional and charter public schools). Microschool operators such as Acton Academy, based in Texas, establish these small schools in different locations as private schools and charge tuition. Still, Prenda microschool founder Kelly Smith says microschools are “variations on a theme” from each other.

In terms of new regulations, then, the differences between micro-schools and pods and between one micro-school organization and another matter less than the overlapping features, which means new rules should be a concern for families involved with either innovative solution.

The new rules for pods vary from state to state, but regulations or threats of future rule enforcement can be found across the country.

In Maine, the Office of Child and Family services said families that want to form a learning pod to participate in public school e-learning activities may have to acquire a childcare license. If, for example, “instruction and supervision are compensated,” this will require a license if the children are enrolled in a public school.

State officials are not the only policymakers issuing rules.

In Broward County, Florida, district administrators say pods may be operating illegally if they have not been licensed as either a daycare or a private school. In Austin, Texas, city officials say anyone “hosting a pod [must] have a detailed health and safety plan,” including rules for handling everything from “outdoor time” and transportation to meals and snacks. Families hosting pods in their home must get permission from state officials.

Many childcare regulations have little to do with child safety. These rules limit the supply of center-based care and the creation of in-home care arrangements because caretakers find it difficult to obtain the necessary approvals. If these same rules are applied to learning pods, families should expect the same stifling effects.

As I explained in a September post for this blog, most state lawmakers are not in session now, which means legislative answers to state agency overreach may not arrive until next year. Lawmakers should prepare to consider proposals that align learning pods with existing homeschool and private school laws so that pod families do not bear heavier regulatory burdens than families that have made other education choices for their children.

Such support will be crucial because as the Wall Street Journal reported in October, teacher unions are looking for ways to undermine microschools, creating yet another challenge for families and entrepreneurs trying to help students succeed when district e-learning platforms fall short.

Warfield’s learning pod has been exactly what she and Emerson needed this fall. She reports: “Families giving themselves permission to do what is best for our families is the ultimate.”

As she and other pod and microschool families make education a priority, public officials should move regulations out of the way.

November 10, 2020 1 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Featured Jonathan Butcher

In staying closed, schools ignore low COVID-19 rates, needs of families

Jonathan Butcher October 22, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Editor’s note: This commentary from redefinED guest blogger Jonathan Butcher first appeared Oct. 21 on The Daily Signal.

At what would normally be the end of the first academic quarter for most K-12 schools, millions of students still have not set foot in a classroom.

Many haven’t done so since March.

Evidence continues to mount that COVID-19 affects children the least, and ad hoc school district e-learning platforms, hastily assembled in the spring, are driving families away from assigned schools.

Some of the largest school districts in the U.S. are still offering only online instruction, despite reports of losing contact with thousands of students from Philadelphia to Houston to Los Angeles, when districts went online earlier this year. According to reports, districts still have not been able to reach those students.

School officials have the unenviable task of balancing health and safety concerns with student learning; those leaders should be considering the research on the spread of COVID-19 and the needs of local families and children in making reopening decisions. Yet some district leaders are doing neither.

Parents have led protests in favor of reopening schools across the country, from San Diego to Baltimore and places in between.

Furthermore, at this point in the pandemic, research demonstrates that schools have not become so-called super-spreader sites – not even close.

The latest figures from Brown University researchers found a confirmed case rate among students of 0.14% in a database of nearly 1,300 schools. As explained in The Wall Street Journal this week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers show hundreds more fatal cases of the flu among school-aged children than COVID-19.

Two studies profiled on NPR recently found “no consistent relationship between in-person schooling and the spread of coronavirus.”

Yet are these low numbers the result of keeping schools closed? Findings from international studies and the available evidence from K-12 private schools in the U.S. that are open to in-person learning suggest that’s not the case.

The Brown research includes data from private schools. In fact, the case rate for private schools operating in person is still only 0.15% – admittedly 0.15% – admittedly with a smaller sample size, but still an encouraging number. The case rates for staff in those schools stands at 0.4%.

Teachers unions in some areas are ignoring those facts.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, where officials are already charging families for the use of school buildings for in-person day care, the union is demanding that public schools stay closed to in-person learning until August 2021.

That announcement followed news from school officials of a phased-in reopening in the coming weeks, a plan that includes basic protocols about maintaining spacing between students and asking parents to keep a student home if he or she shows symptoms.

Despite statements by federal officials last summer about tying federal spending for schools to reopening plans, Washington will not have to withhold spending for schools to feel the effects of frustrated parents.

At the start of the school year, schools in Washington, D.C., were reporting a drop in enrollment of 13%. Houston is reporting 7% fewer students; Orlando, Florida, a decline of 5%; and in Nashville, Tennessee, enrollment is down nearly 5%.

Meanwhile, private school closures have slowed, and since the middle of the summer, homeschooling numbers have soared.

In Connecticut, homeschool advocates are reporting higher figures than ever before, and interest in homeschooling has “exploded,” according to Minnesota Public Radio. The Texas Homeschool Coalition reports a 400% increase in students compared with last year.

Similar news can be found around the country. Learning pods, where parents bring together small groups of children during the school day to learn, continue to spread, and with each passing day, pods become less of a fad and more of a permanent solution.

Local school leaders’ evaluations of the health evidence remain a mystery, and many officials have not met parent and student needs during the pandemic. Now, families are leaving, reminding everyone that we should make students the priority of policy solutions, not the system.

Federal and state policymakers have used the bully pulpit to implore schools to reopen, but the most effective persuasion will be the kind that assigned district schools like the least – namely, fewer students.

October 22, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Jonathan Butcher Parental Choice School Choice

With lawmakers not in session, bureaucrats should not regulate pods

Jonathan Butcher September 22, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Policymakers have a knack for finding private endeavors they presume still need fixing. The latest example? Learning pods.

With many schools closed to in-person instruction this fall, many parents have quickly adapted, developing the pods to continue their children’s education. Now policymakers are catching up with rules and regulations.

Learning pods are loosely defined as small groups of children who gather in a parent’s home for K-12 instruction. If this sounds like homeschooling, that’s because homeschool co-op arrangements like this have existed for decades, allowing parents to hire teachers or share their own subject matter expertise with groups of children who are not attending a public or private school full time.

In the pandemic, these pods are attracting families that had not considered educating their child at home before but are doing so now because of dissatisfaction with district online learning platforms. Parents have reason to be skeptical of district offerings this fall: District e-learning systems crashed or otherwise malfunctioned at the beginning of the new school year in Hartford, Houston, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, across North Carolina, and during a practice session for families in Seattle.

At a Detroit school, a teacher expecting 14 students to attend online only had one student login, and his headphones were not working.

Carrie Limpert-Bostrom, a Minnesota parent, said in an interview, “You are able to fit it [a pod] to your specific needs. In our case, we wanted somebody who could speak French and speak to our children.”

She says she does not blame her school district because information regarding the pandemic is changing all the time. But, she says, “I knew I wanted something as stable as possible for my child,” adding, “I’m taking control of my daughter’s education during this time.”

Yet in some states, the question of who, in reality, is in control is one for the bureaucrats.

In Pennsylvania, state officials issued regulations stating that families involved in pods with six or more children must “notify” a state agency. While the groups do not need to be licensed, pod families must have evacuation plans in case of an emergency, as first reported by Reason, as well as create their own “health and safety plans.”

South Carolina officials are requiring that pod families serving more than six children apply for a family childcare home license. According to Charleston media, “local zoning regulations could limit that number further.” These reports also say at-home visits will be required. By the end of August, Connecticut companies helping parents form pods area ware of the potential for regulations (with the state department of education having released guidance for at-home learning) and have already scheduled “inspections” for homes hosting pods in West Hartford and Ellington (located north of Hartford).

In Oregon, where lawmakers blocked virtual charter school enrollment at the beginning of the pandemic, officials said they may regulate pod families in the same way as childcare providers. Such restrictions would include requiring background checks, CPR training and safe sleep training.

Governors in Colorado and Massachusetts have announced waivers for traditional childcare regulations to allow the formation of pods, but these executive orders still limit the size of each pod. The Massachusetts waiver will help organizations offering after-school programs, but parents are prohibited from paying each other for either their time or the use of a home.

Many state legislators will not return to session until the beginning of next year. This fall, state agencies should not be allowed to apply restrictions on learning pods — including in-home visits. Governors should look for ways to waive regulations and licensure requirements that would limit parent attempts to provide an education for their children. Public and private school educators can determine ways of measuring student progress if students choose to return to schools, but policymakers should not regulate pods like daycare centers in the meantime.

Next year, state lawmakers can align state policies on homeschooling, private schools, and other private learning options such as education savings accounts or K-12 private school scholarships with pods and micro-schools so that parents can make informed choices about the best learning option for their child.

Until then, parents should be encouraged to customize their child’s learning experience while district plans remain in flux.

September 22, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Courts Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Jonathan Butcher Parental Choice School Choice Unionism

Union activities beg the question: How, specifically, is this going to make the education of children better?

Jonathan Butcher August 27, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

“A sharp distinction must always be made between the physical survival of particular schools and the survival of the educational quality in those schools.”

So writes American economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell in his latest book, Charter Schools and Their Enemies. If we measure analysis by its predictive abilities — anticipating problems that will recur when demonstrably successful ideas are ignored — Sowell’s book is nothing short of prophetic.

Consider: The American Federation of Teachers’ announced at the end of July that it would support a local chapter’s decision to go on strike “as a last resort” if schools opened with “unsafe school reopening plans.” These qualifying phrases seem to have been included for rhetorical purposes only.

Just days after the announcement, union members across the country, from Los Angeles to Baltimore, held protests, even though these and other large school districts are not opening in-person. (Florida’s constitution and state law prohibit teachers and other public employees from striking; however, the Florida Education Association recently won a lawsuit against the state over an order mandating the reopening of all public school campuses. The state has appealed.)

Last week, Detroit’s union (an affiliate of the AFT) voted in favor of a strike if policymakers changed the district’s current policy of offering classes online only.

Sowell predicted unions were capable of as much, writing, “Since teacher unions have millions of members and spend millions of dollars on political campaigns, they do not need logic or evidence to gain the support of elected officials who need campaign contributions to finance their re-election campaigns.”

Political action, not improved student learning, is behind union activity. The union chapters behind the “National Day of Resistance” on Aug. 3 that followed the AFT’s announcement posted an agenda that included calls for “police-free schools,” “canceling rents and mortgages,” and “providing direct cash assistance to those not able to work or who are unemployed,” along with a “massive infusion of federal money.”

Here, again, Sowell proved prescient. As he noted in his book, teacher unions embrace a slew of policies for which “there are usually no educational benefits to students.” Where does a child’s education fall on their list of priorities? As Sowell observes, “The plain and direct question that must be asked, again and again, is: ‘How, specifically, is this going to make the education of children better?’”

As Sowell notes, such interest groups are “enduring institutions with enduring personnel” that “maintain a given set of policies and practices over time.” This was evident last year, when teacher-union members in West Virginia refused to work until state lawmakers stopped considering a proposal to create private learning opportunities for children with special needs. Unions in Kentucky did the same. Strikes are nothing new, but unlike previous year’s strikes in Oklahoma, Arizona, West Virginia and elsewhere, these 2019 job actions were not centered on pay and working conditions. These strikes were efforts to drive policy by force.

Re-opening schools is a local concern. State agencies and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control can offer useful information and guidance, but in the end, the decision on how public schools will operate — be it with virtual, hybrid, or in-person instruction — should be left to members of a community, including parents, educators, and health officials. In making these decisions, the question foremost in their minds should be Sowell’s: How will this make the education of our children better?

Parents and educators are not waiting for union demands to be met — nor should they. As some school districts such as Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, and more announce they will offer only virtual instruction to start the new school year, parents are enrolling their children elsewhere (Detroit private schools are reporting waiting lists), choosing to homeschool or organizing neighborhood “pandemic pods” alongside teachers.

Families and policymakers alike should tire of teacher unions’ attempts to maintain power when parents choose an option outside of a child’s assigned school. Union demonstrations garner headlines and try to browbeat school officials to give them what they want. But recent activities, with their laundry list of assorted policy demands, reveal these special interest groups to be more interested in political opportunism than providing the best possible education for students.

August 27, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured Jonathan Butcher Private School Scholarships School Choice Tax Credit Scholarships

Oklahoma homeless students benefit from private school scholarships

Jonathan Butcher August 13, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Positive Tomorrows, a private school in Oklahoma City, serves homeless students using a multi-pronged approach to address education and social service needs.

Susan Agel wants her students to gain experience. Silicon Valley internships and trips abroad would be nice, but for the students she serves, the needs are more basic.

Like riding in a car. Or going to a store — any store.

Agel’s school, Positive Tomorrows, is a private school serving homeless children in Oklahoma City. She says they enrolled one student who “had never been in a retail establishment. He had never seen his parents buy anything.” His only transportation was the occasional trip on a city bus.

“We’re a little different than most private schools,” Agel says, with a touch of understatement. One out of every five students at Positive Tomorrows is “couch homeless,” which means students sleep in motels, cars, on floors and do not have a home of their own, while another two-thirds live in homeless shelters.

“It’s these children who are living in deep poverty and are bouncing around [from] place to place and attend multiple schools in a school year,” Agel says. “They fall behind academically, they fall behind socially.”

Agel’s school specializes in providing wrap-around services for students and their families. She wants to help families out of homelessness and poverty and set them on their way to financial independence while students pursue academic independence.

“We help them find housing, make sure there is food and clothing and identify some goals that [parents] want to accomplish,” Agel explains — goals such as earning a GED or learning marketable skills.

“Once the families are stable and the kids are doing well in school, we will help them transition back into a public school,” Agel says.

Positive Tomorrows serves the “poorest in our community,” she says, and so her school “scholarships everybody for everything.” This nearly constant state of fundraising makes the uncertain economic times ushered in by the pandemic especially challenging.

“We turn away kids every year, and we don’t want to do that. We don’t like to do that,” Agel says.

Enter Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decision to use a portion of federal COVID relief spending for K-12 private school scholarships. Stitt set aside $10 million for these scholarships, while traditional schools received $161 million from the federal pandemic stimulus bill enacted in March. The governor’s office estimates that 1,500 students will have access to scholarships worth up to $6,500. Stitts set aside another $8 million for “digital wallet grants,” allowing 5,000 low-income families to use up to $1,500 for “curriculum content, tutoring services and/or technology.”

Gov. Stitt specifically recognized the need to help homeless students and the private schools that serve their families when he announced the scholarships.

Parents also are paying more attention to private schools this summer as traditional districts — such as Oklahoma City Public Schools — reopen exclusively online, while private schools such as Positive Tomorrows are preparing to open in-person. Given these decisions, national media have been quick to cite equity concerns, to which Positive Tomorrows and the new Oklahoma scholarships appear to answer.

“With the students we are serving, it’s highly important for them to be face-to-face in school,” Agel says. Most of the families in her school do not have internet access, nor do they have room to create temporary classrooms in homeless shelters.

Positive Tomorrows has a new facility built with the idea of expansion in mind — Oklahoma has some 26,000 homeless children, and Agel’s school enrolls 118 — so Agel hopes to use the extra space this fall to keep students in small groups.

As explained on redefinED, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster created similar K-12 private school scholarship options using federal COVID spending measures. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has also done so. Fiscal hawks (the few who still exist) should be concerned about current congressional debates for more pandemic spending since lawmakers toss around figures such as $3.5 trillion as though there is more to be found in between the cushions of the couch in the speaker’s office.

If more federal spending is coming, policymakers would do well to watch Oklahoma’s example. Such learning options should dominate educational equity discussions, turning the name of Agel’s school from an aspiration to a promise.

August 13, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Catholic Schools Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Jonathan Butcher News Private Schools School Choice

Private schools and the back-to-school calculation

Jonathan Butcher July 31, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Catholic high school enrollment in Columbus, Ohio, has increased 4% this summer as schools plan to open either fully or with in-person operations.

If summer 2020 was the season parents, students, and educators considered the cost of the pandemic, fall will be the time families seek value.

Even in April, just weeks after most school buildings in the U.S. closed and instruction moved online — with uneven results — more than two-thirds of parents in a Pew Research survey were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that their child was falling behind. This was a sign parents already were counting the cost of the interrupted school year. More recent surveys confirm parents remain concerned.

So, with some of the nation’s largest school districts, including Houston, Atlanta, Broward County, and Baltimore County to name a few offering online only instruction this fall, parents dissatisfied with their child’s experience are looking for alternatives. As with any learning option, choosing a virtual school is different from being forced to attend one.

The latest education response to the pandemic involves parents forming “learning pods” with their neighbors and hiring educators to instruct students in small numbers, but private schools may still find a place.

“We want to make sure we are providing value and what our parents are coming to us for,” says Michelle Brown, Chief Development Officer for Independence Mission Schools, a group of 15 Catholic schools in Philadelphia.

As explained on redefinED and by the Cato Institute, the pandemic threatened private schools in Florida and around the country. Approximately 100 independent schools already have closed nationwide according to Cato. Yet as the first day of the new school year approaches, and students across the U.S. are assigned to districts with only a virtual option, private schools may still survive.

In Columbus, Ohio, Catholic high school enrollment increased 4% this summer as the private schools plan to open either fully in-person or with hybrid in-person operations. Some Catholic schools in the area have waiting lists, while local news says there are 20% more incoming kindergarteners for Catholic schools in the coming school year “than there were eighth-grade graduates from middle schools last year.”

North Carolina school officials say there has been “an uptick in applications, calls, and emails” about the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, a K-12 private school scholarship option, while waiting lists are growing for some private schools, especially in the younger grades.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post said parents are leaving public schools in Washington, D.C., for private schools because they expect that “private schools will eventually be able to switch to in-person learning quicker than public schools.” The commitment to in-person classes has “fueled an uptick in enrollment inquiries from families who can afford to make the switch.”

The governors of South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Hampshire have created new K-12 private school scholarship options using federal spending that Washington allocated to their offices.

In Philadelphia, Brown and Independence staff have reviewed guidance from a wide range of health institutions and says Independence plans to open with a hybrid model. Her schools are surveying families now, though, to determine if parents are ready for more in-person instruction, especially for preschool and kindergarten students. She explains that some Independence students take public transportation or district buses to school, and with Philadelphia schools also using a hybrid model, student transportation will be limited.

“That will be a part of the survey,” Brown says, “how do they get their kids to school and what is the alternative.” It would not make sense to open fully in-person if not all students could attend right away, she explains.

Thus, serving families and students is the priority, which should not go unnoticed by parents during the COVID summer. Brown recognizes that “many of our students have siblings and that our families have the option to leave our school and go to a district school,” driving Independence to “provide consistency for families.”

Whether these stories are just isolated examples from Philadelphia, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and beyond, or indications of a private school resurgence remain to be seen. Should private school waiting lists grow, however, it will be difficult to argue that independent schools have a message that works: Add value.

July 31, 2020 1 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Legislation Featured Jonathan Butcher Parent Empowerment Private School Scholarships School Choice

South Carolina gives parents confidence about school this fall

Jonathan Butcher July 21, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced Monday that he will use $32 million in education relief funds for school choice grants.

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in months of uncertainty for families with children in K-12 schools, but South Carolina officials on Monday made one thing clear: The state’s families will have more options this academic year.

Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, announced creation of a private school scholarship program for students from low- and middle-income families. Children from families at or below 300% of the federal poverty line will be eligible for scholarships worth up to $6,500.

The scholarships come at an auspicious time because large districts in neighboring states are refusing to offer in-person learning—Atlanta to the south, Nashville to the west—while some school districts in-state have not announced their plans.

Parents wondering what another semester of on-again, off-again virtual delivery of lessons will mean for their students should brighten at the prospect of new choices.

There has been no shortage of questions before parents during the spring: Can I work with my children at home? Should I homeschool in the fall? Did my child learn anything this spring?

The answers vary by family, but surveys have demonstrated the responses to be “kind of,” “maybe,” and “ask again later,” in that order.

Surveys find more families are considering homeschooling in the wake of the coronavirus, but this option is a challenge for dual-income households or single working parents. Meanwhile, research estimates that students may have lost approximately 30% to 50% of any gains they made due to the interruption of the last school year.

McMaster is using part of federal K-12 spending from the CARES Act, legislation passed earlier this year that provided funds to states for health care, education, and other social and policy areas affected by the pandemic. The portion McMaster chose was a fund specifically under the directive of the governor’s office. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt made a similar move last week.

Bureaucracy and the potential for increased state dependency follows federal spending, so stimulus money should make any taxpayer or state policymaker blanch. But 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.

“Education is the most important thing we do in South Carolina, or anywhere else,” McMaster said. “We must find a way to give [children] the best education, understanding, the best preparation for the future that we possibly can.”

Should interest groups such as unions or school board and superintendent associations argue for more spending on traditional schools, policymakers can remind them that the federal government provided a much larger portion–$13.2 billion—to K-12 schools through state departments of education; just $3 billion was set aside for governors such as McMaster to use.

Meanwhile, the myths about federal spending on K-12 schools are resilient. Last week, “The View” co-host Joy Behar actually said that Washington has cut spending on schools in recent years.

This claim is so demonstrably false that it is nearly embarrassing to correct, but why not: After adjusting for inflation, total per-student spending stands at more than $15,400 today, the highest figure in American history and approximately double the amount spent per child in the 1970s. Yet teacher unions and other special interests are calling for “at least” another $250 billion in federal spending for schools.

Shortly after unions issued this demand, the Government Accountability Office released a report demonstrating that schools had spent a small fraction of the federal money already issued to them in March to deal with the pandemic.

News coverage of the report indicated that some school officials were waiting to see how much else they would receive from Congress before spending the already-approved money. These delays hardly make the need for new spending feel urgent.

Thus, it is all the more significant that McMaster decided to allow spending already appropriated and under his supervision to follow students. The governor said South Carolina needs to “give parents confidence” about education this fall.

The scholarships are “your tax money, coming back,” he said.

South Carolina’s scholarships will allow families to decide now where their child will learn in the fall, restoring confidence for parents over their student’s learning experience. Considering the ongoing speculation about schools, confidence is a good sentiment for state policymakers to spread around.

July 21, 2020 0 comment