Coronavirus / COVID-19

Poll shows support for school choice at record high a year into COVID-19 pandemic

Patrick R. Gibbons April 8, 2021

According to a new poll conducted by Real Clear Opinion Research and sponsored by the American Federation for Children, 71% of American voters now support school choice, up from 64% a year ago.

This is the highest recorded support for school choice since the Federation began polling with sample sizes of more than 800 registered voters.

Researchers asked respondents:

School choice gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their child’s needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?

According to the poll, which received responses from 2,009 registered voters, 66% of Black participants and 68% of Hispanic participants said yes. Opinion among Black voters remained steady over last year’s results, but Hispanics saw a 4-point gain while support among white voters increased from 67% to 73% this year.

Democrats were less likely to support school choice than Republicans, but support was still strong, with 69% supporting the concept of school choice compared to 75% of Republicans.

This year’s poll also asked voters if they would support giving public funds to pay for private school, home school or virtual school if public schools did not open full time.

Researchers found 65% of voters supported the idea. Support was strongest among Asian voters at 69%, with 63% of Black voters and 60% of Hispanic voters agreeing.

April 8, 2021 0 comment

Advocate Voices Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured School Choice

A Black parent’s perspective: The dangers of not keeping children first and foremost during COVID-19 recovery

Gwen Samuel April 6, 2021

Gwen Samuel

Amid the hype of VIP school visits, parents, mostly those who are Black, brown and/or poor, must realize there is no Superman coming to save them.

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” — Nelson Mandela

As a mom and education activist, I reflected upon Women’s History Month in March as a time to honor ourselves and the many diverse women, past and present, who have shattered and continue to shatter that infamous glass ceiling of gender norms. One such honor is the election of Kamala Harris, the 49th vice president of the United States. Harris made history as the first woman, and woman of color, to hold this office.

Adding to the whirlwind of March experiences and emotions, those of us from Connecticut and Pennsylvania had the distinct pleasure of celebrating First Lady Biden’s inaugural visit to our respective states.

Finally, our Congressional lawmakers confirmed the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, from our great state of Connecticut—the first Latino to serve in that role.

Lots of firsts. Lots of excitement.

It is easy to get caught up in the hype, but once the applause subsides and the presidential motorcades drive off to their next events, parents, mostly Black, brown and/or poor, once again realize there is no Superman coming to save them.

Once again, Black and brown students and those with special educational needs and those from poorly resourced communities understand that despite a deadly pandemic, we face the constant reminder of the dangers of returning to “business as usual,” especially with more than $122 billion from the Biden administration American Rescue Plan about to pour into school districts across this country.

There has been a lot of focus on dollar amounts and making sure schools receive additional funds to address pandemic-related learning loss and other issues. Sadly, there has been very little conversation about fiscal and personal accountability.

Where are the meaningful recommendations with a laser-focus on student-centered approaches that will ensure that millions of America’s students get the customized educational support they need to get back on track academically and in life, along with the resources that need to stay in place to ensure children stay on track beyond the pandemic?

As parents, especially Black parents, and education activists, we do not get the luxury of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. We must follow the money and demand that the COVID-19 education rescue and recovery funding efforts center around the academic and life needs of all children, not the ideological and ego needs of adults in public education.

Regardless of ZIP code or income level, we must continue to learn and understand how the Biden administration plans to embrace various schooling opportunities to help children get back on track academically following a year of mass school closures across this country due to the unpredictable and unprecedented pandemic.

Reflecting on this, I want to raise two major red flags: the dangers of normalizing failure under this new administration by trying to apply pre-pandemic “one size fits all children” educational solutions; and not centering on children’s academic and life needs in public education during pandemic education rescue and recovery efforts

I define normalizing failure as doing the same “one size fits all children” strategies in public education spaces and expecting different results, especially for marginalized populations.

Our current and pre-pandemic public education system leaves entirely too many children behind. Why not just do the right thing and center children in public education, pivot accordingly, and embrace best practices that give more children access to customized learning experiences: charter schools, magnets, expanded vocational opportunities like the Christo Rey model, and expansion of education savings accounts? How about ensuring that every traditional public school child has access to massive tutoring support?

Do you notice a common theme here? All these recommendations have the child as the focal point for the strategy.

It took a pandemic for us to realize just how many students have been left behind by normalized failure; parents were not asking for more because they had become accustomed to less. The virus disrupted the K-12 landscape in ways that allowed families to see behind the curtain—and to ask more questions.

Why isn’t my school offering what my child needs? How are we supposed to get the special needs services we depend on if the school will not open? Why can’t we have a hybrid model going forward? What happens if a bunch of parents got together and formed our own school?

Failing children is still an option, even though it should never be, but it is not the only option, and families now know they do not have to accept it. That is life changing.

My sentiments regarding the dangers of not centering children in public education were validated as I listened to Kentucky and California high school students on a March 22 panel I participated in from the National Association of State Boards of Education legislative conference that featured Secretary Cardona and Congressman Bobby Scott of the House Education & Labor Committee.

This very enlightening panel was titled, “Voices from the Field: Perspectives from Teachers, Students, and Families on Education in the Pandemic.” It highlighted a very important “Coping with Covid19” student-to-student survey from the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team of Lexington, Kentucky.

The goals of our NASBE session were straightforward, and every taxpayer and parent should take note:

· Demystifying educational systems by fostering an understanding of practice vs. policy gaps, better known now as pandemic practice and policy gulfs, that existed prior to the pandemic that were exacerbated or ameliorated by the new context or specific local/state actions

· Putting a face to the educational justice fight by sharing and highlighting on the ground, lived experiences of diverse teachers, families, and students amidst this unpredictable and unprecedented pandemic to emphasize how vital diverse voices from the field are to designing and implementing local, state, and federal policy

· Offering concrete next steps to all local and state board of education members to ensure all students are the center of public education regardless of race, ZIP code or income level.

As a parent, I feel compelled to highlight current policy recommendations that need immediate course correction before billions of dollars pour into school districts across the country for COVID-19 education recovery efforts that do not actually meet students’ individualized academic needs. We can no longer:

· Fail to recognize charter school students as public-school children, denying them fair access to educational supports and resources that traditional K-12 public school students routinely receive

· Fail to embrace the power of educational scholarships, leaving behind students who want to pursue non-traditional opportunities such as private school, hybrid schooling or micro schooling. More than 20 states have introduced education savings account bills. ESAs are the most popular and flexible form of school choice. We should be running toward them as a policy solution. West Virginia and Kentucky are prime examples of states that have embraced groundbreaking school choice programs in recent weeks.

· Fail to ensure every child in America has access to effective year-round tutoring and before- and after-school supports; this is critical and can be done in partnership with communities and faith leaders and not in lieu of traditional schooling or help in the classroom.

As I listened recently to First Lady Biden and Secretary Cardona, there was a temptation to think coming out of this pandemic will be easy. We just need to spend more money, and things will eventually get back to the way they used to be.

That’s simply not true.

Making quality education available and accessible to all—especially to Black and brown students—has never been easy work. It’s even harder now. Instead of just focusing on funding and metrics and talking points, we need to take a bigger-picture approach and address the fundamental flaws that have long plagued our traditional public school system and have created generational disparities based on race and income.

The one-size-fits-all approach we used to take wasn’t working before the pandemic, and it sure as heck won’t work now. Let’s make some major policy changes so families can finally have access to the opportunities they’ve long searched out but often couldn’t reach.

April 6, 2021 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship News Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice

Federal stimulus will extend educational enrichment for scholarship families

Lisa Buie April 6, 2021

Lisa Buie

Ayana Standifer’s father, Derrick Standifer, plans to use his federal stimulus check to provide additional educational enrichment for the 6-year-old and her 4-year-old brother, Derrick Jr.

Ayana Standifer is the kind of kid teachers often describe as bright.

At age 3, when her classmates were learning the alphabet, Ayana could read. When they were counting to 10, she was adding single-digit numbers. Now 6, she spends her evenings – after she’s finished her homework – perfecting her chess strategy.

Ayana also can solve algebra problems, multiply two- and three-digit numbers and outsmart a Rubik’s Cube.

Her father, Derrick Standifer, transferred her from her district school in Tallahassee after one year and enrolled her in Brownsville Preparatory Institute for first grade “because she wasn’t being challenged.” A Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, made it possible for Ayana to attend a school that delivers the advanced instruction she craves.

“They assign students by ability, not by grade,” said Standifer, who is pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership at Florida A&M University. “She is in classes with 10-year-olds.”

Ayana’s 4-year-old brother, Derrick Jr., also performs beyond his age and grade level, which is why Standifer, a single dad, is eagerly awaiting his federal stimulus check. He plans to follow the growing number of parents who are looking for ways to expand their children’s education beyond the traditional classroom.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that upper-income Americans – those in the upper 20% – have been spending money on out-of-school enrichment programs for their children for decades. Such spending climbed steadily between 1972 and 2006, topping out at $8,872 per year. Meanwhile, similar spending among those in the lowest 20% stayed relatively flat, with the highest amount totaling $1,315 per year.

This year, thanks to the American Rescue Plan, parents whose incomes qualify them are getting an unprecedented amount of unrestricted money for children in the form of direct payments of $1,400 per child and a child tax credit that is refundable.

Standifer is among a number of school choice scholarship parents who plan to take advantage of the payments to help give their kids an educational boost, which is especially important for children who need to make up learning losses that happened during the pandemic.

“I want to get them a computer,” he said, adding that the one they use now is outdated. He also wants to invest in some subscription-based science kits for both children and graphic arts materials for Ayana, who shows a talent for it.

Other items on Standifer’s educational wish list include a pet guinea pig to teach responsibility (and more science) and some academic room décor such as a hanging solar system to teach astronomy to his daughter, who has talked about becoming an astronaut when she grows up. She also needs books for accelerated readers because a test she took in kindergarten placed her at a third grade reading level.

Books and an updated laptop computer are also on the shopping list of Karen Thomas of Jacksonville, whose 9-year-old daughter, Alayshia, attends Christ the King Catholic School in Jacksonville on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

“Hers has a virus on it, and it’s not going to be repairable,” said Thomas, who also plans to devote some of her stimulus money toward paying the part of Alaysha’s tuition that the scholarship doesn’t cover. Thomas, who works for a nonprofit that helps homeless people, said the scholarship helped her keep Alayshia at Christ the King during the pandemic when she was out of work for six months.

“I don’t know what we would have done without the scholarship,” she said.

Thomas, who adopted Alayshia through the foster care system, recently learned that her daughter has been losing hearing in both ears, which caused her to fall behind in reading. Thomas wants to make sure Alayshia, now outfitted with hearing aids, gets the extra help she needs to catch up. That help might come in the form of a part-time tutor.

“She had a tutor through the foster care system, but that ended a year ago,” said Thomas, who struggled to cover the cost after she lost her job. She envisions the stimulus as a way to keep the family above water and Alayshia on track educationally.

Joe Peters, who all but lost his livelihood last year when the pandemic decimated his event planning and management business, was able to avoid having to remove his three school-aged kids from their beloved San Jose Catholic School in Jacksonville thanks to the income-based Family Empowerment Scholarship program. But the stimulus money will offer a much-needed boost.

In addition to school supplies, Peters plans to create an inviting workspace for each child to study and do homework. That’s important in a family with four kids, including a 2-year-old, where the two boys and two girls must share bedrooms, he said.

“We want them to have a say in personalizing their space,” he said.

April 6, 2021 0 comment

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

Commentary: We must ensure communities can keep the innovations that kids need

Special to redefinED March 26, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This opinion piece from Steven Hodas, senior strategic lead for citiesRISE, and Travis Pillow, editorial director at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, suggests it would be a mistake to ignore the hundreds of community-based innovations in teaching, learning, childcare and health and wellness that have sprung up nationwide during the pandemic even as schools return to “normal.”

For nearly a year, schools’ unpredictability has created stress and suffering for kids and families, especially in Black and brown communities where jobs and lives are also most at risk from the virus.

We’ve seen record learning loss, disengagement, depression, and signs of great stress in families.

But just as many schools struggle to serve their families, creative grass-roots responses have risen to fill institutional gaps. Policymakers are understandably eager to return to normal as soon as possible. But it would be a mistake to pave over the hundreds of community-based innovations in teaching, learning, childcare, and health and wellness that have sprung up around the country.

The media has highlighted stories of privileged families spending thousands to create personalized learning “pods.” Less well-known is the growth of public pods, also known as learning centers or hubs, set up by community-based organizations, self–organized mutual aid groups, and freelance volunteers.

Pods share an ethos of mutualism with community-based tutoring, homework help, and counseling and mentoring programs. They enable community members to better help one another. And they provide an unprecedented natural laboratory for districts to work with families to codesign the services they need.

While much of this work is happening at organizations outside the traditional fabric of public education, a growing number of school systems have taken notice and begun to shift how they work. We are now collaborating with six of them.

The existential threat of enrollment loss, the unique flexibility of unrestricted federal relief funding, and a painful year of reflection on the subjugation of Black and brown families have led school districts to collaborate in power-sharing partnerships with families, volunteer groups, and community-based organizations.

Already, we are seeing the potential for more flexible, innovative roles for district staff, new talent pipelines into and alongside certificated teaching, revamped pathways between the K–12, higher education, and workforce sectors, and a leveraging of districts’ substantial financial resources to support organizations in their communities.

Indianapolis was one of the first communities where partnerships between the school system and local nonprofits spawned new supports for students learning remotely. The Mind Trust understood that churches and neighborhood groups had deep wells of trust in communities and worked with them to stand up small learning environments before school started last fall.

Leaders at The Mind Trust and Indianapolis Public Schools are now planning for these hubs to become a durable feature of student support, one that persists long after district buildings have reopened.

In North Carolina, Edgecombe County Public Schools opened learning hubs that provide in-person learning and social opportunities to students in the district who have chosen to continue learning remotely. The district is working with principals to design a “spoke-and-hub” approach to schooling that offers more community-based learning projects and uses flexible scheduling to make schooling more compatible with students’ jobs or internships.

Many leaders with whom we speak hope that the structures and services they are building now will persist and fundamentally redefine how they show up for their communities.

Though many kids will do better in regular in-person school, some are thriving with new kinds of adult support and the freedom to pursue ideas that light them up. Long after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, learning pods and arrangements that let schools resume online learning whenever necessary—knowing students can still receive in-person support if they need it—can hedge against possible future disease outbreaks and climate-caused shutdowns.

This is an exciting moment, but experience tells us that the old familiar ways will likely reassert themselves once schools feel out of mortal danger. Innovations will be discarded or wither away, depriving families, communities, and schools themselves of benefits being proven on the ground right now.

The innovations are at risk simply because the old arrangements—kids attending in-person school in large groups, teachers providing all instruction, community assets sidelined—are familiar and serve the interests of the best-organized interest groups. Parents who will want a return to full-time in-person instruction after the pandemic are in the majority. Teachers unions will also want a complete return to the status quo to protect their collective bargaining agreements.

Even well-intentioned relief efforts backed by new federal COVID funding could turn out to be palliatives that relieve strain on the status quo of schooling rather than catalysts to maintain a more diverse array of public support for learning.

For example, some plans for a “national tutoring corps” would require that tutoring be delivered in school buildings during school hours(link is external), often by district employees. This would crowd out grassroots homework-help programs that meet families where they are, at far lower cost and with far more community, parent, and student agency.

To avert the inevitable rush to put things back just as they were before the pandemic, governments and foundations should be building evidence about which innovations—online instructional programs, tutoring programs, pods, and other student support environments—are effective, for which kids and under which conditions.

The window of opportunity to learn from these new arrangements and produce durable changes will likely close in a matter of months.

People must get organized. Families that have come to rely on COVID-era innovations need to start urging school boards and municipal governments to continue them. Nonprofit groups that sponsor innovations must organize now to press state legislators to eliminate strings on public funds and other regulations (seat time and class size requirements, closed-shop arrangements that prevent community-based workers from becoming teachers).

Rather than using this unprecedented funding to double down on the very systems and practices that have failed our communities for decades, state and local advocacy groups should ensure that states and school districts invest stimulus funds in lasting changes that will preserve new educational arrangements that worked for families during the crisis and hold open the space of community-based agency and innovation.

Now is the time not only to invest in helping students recover from the pandemic, but to build an anti-fragile education system that is less brittle, less monolithic, more family-centric and more capable of meeting students’ individual needs—now and in the future.

March 26, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Education Polling Featured Homeschooling Parental Choice School Choice

U.S. Census Bureau survey finds surge in homeschooling

Matthew Ladner March 22, 2021

Matthew Ladner

“It wouldn’t surprise me if, five to 10 years from now, everyone looks at this and thinks, ‘That grew a whole lot faster than I thought it could. There is a slice of the market that is not being served by public education. They’re saying, ‘The public schools don’t work, [and] I can’t get into the charter schools.’”

— Andy Calkins, deputy director of Next Generation Learning Challenges, in an Education Next article on micro-schools, 2017

Homeschooling began as a counter-cultural practice on the anti-establishment left, was then adopted by conservatives, and in recent years has become a more mainstream practice including about 3.3% of American students.

The U.S. Census Bureau earlier today released the results of a parent survey about homeschooling that asked parents to distinguish between distance learning while enrolled in a school and actual homeschooling. Results indicate a very large increase in reported homeschooling – a rise from 5.4% in spring 2020 to 11.1% in fall 2020.

Here is the breakdown in homeschooling by state.

So, a few things to note.

Despite the fact that the Census Bureau asked respondents to distinguish between distance learning and homeschooling, it seems entirely possible that more than a few respondents confused such distinctions. If 13% of students in my home state of Arizona are homeschooling, only a few of them have complied with a legal requirement to register with their county superintendent.

The distinctions between participating in a pandemic pod that has enrolled students through a public distance learning program and homeschooling may have eluded some respondents. Or perhaps “homeschooling” is a popular response for people who have decided to delay kindergarten enrollment. Or perhaps Arizonans get even less mindful than usual about regulations during a pandemic.

These numbers deserve more investigation, but the Census Bureau may have provided a partial explanation for the thousands of students who have “gone missing” during the pandemic.

With those caveats in mind, well, wow.

The 16.1% figure for Black students in particular is striking. Out in the bubbling primordial soup of pre-pandemic homeschooling innovators combined a DIY ethos with experiments with co-operative education. Upper-middle class American parents spent decades spending an increasing amount on enrichment activities for students.

Silicon Valley families discovered that education was way cooler if you combined homeschool co-ops with more enrichment education. A growing number of Valley residents discovered the educational opportunity cost of having a child in a school modeled after a 19^th century factory to be far too high for the cool kids.

When the pandemic struck, a quick rebrand of homeschool co-op into “pandemic pods” went viral. COVID-19 accelerated a number of pre-existing trends and homeschooling appears to be one of them.

What happens next? No one can be sure.

The structural problems of American public schooling have not gone anywhere. The nation’s fiscal time bomb has been ticking away during the pandemic. Almost all Americans have experimented with new forms of education. Pathways for disadvantaged students to participate in this form of learning would be a most welcome development.

Apparently, a large percentage of Americans have decided that if you want education done right, you do it yourself.

March 22, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Legislation Education Savings Accounts Education Spending Featured Parental Choice School Choice

Commentary: Why education savings accounts are the great equalizer for school children

Special to redefinED February 9, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: In this opinion piece, Shaka Mitchell, Tennessee state director of American Federation for Children, and Justin Owen, president and CEO of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, explain how the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision to take up an education savings account case would create a win for both parents and school systems. The piece appeared recently in The Tennessean.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Supreme Court accepted the widely publicized Education Savings Accounts—or ESA—case.

In 2019, the state Legislature offered a lifeline to families in our worst-performing school districts. They passed the ESA program, which would allow parents to take a portion of the dollars we already spend on their child’s education and use those dollars to send their child to a school of their choice.

Almost immediately, the city of Nashville and Shelby County sued the state to stop parents from utilizing this important program.

While lower courts sided with these local governments, we are optimistic that the Supreme Court will reverse those lower courts and allow the program to launch this fall.

Even before COVID-19, many families struggled to access a quality education in these two school districts. Fast forward to the current school year where nearly 200,000 students lack access to school buildings and tens of thousands haven’t been able to access the admittedly second-class online environment.

If they weren’t fortunate enough to be zoned into a good school or one that was open for in-person instruction, they were out of luck. Unlike families with means, lower-income families can’t just pick up and move to a better school district, nor can they afford private school tuition to send their child to a school of their choice. They are completely stuck.

We must do better.

The ESA program would be the great equalizer for these families. Regardless of their ZIP code or how much money they make, parents in Memphis and Nashville would finally have options. They could get their children into the school that best serves their needs by simply allowing the money to follow them to the school of their choice.

Yet, local government leaders are more concerned about money than fixing their schools or even allowing those most in need to leave for better schools. They chose to stand at the schoolhouse door, this time to keep these families in the schools they have failed to improve decade after decade.

Despite their claims, research shows that these local governments would save money under the ESA program. When a child leaves with an ESA, the public school district no longer has the expense of educating that child, but the program would still let the district keep a portion of the funding.

A recent Beacon Center study — using data reported by the school districts themselves — found that Nashville would save $500 each time a student left with an ESA. Shelby County would save an even greater $2,000 per child.

When the program is fully up and running, that translates into an additional $21 million these two districts would save. Metro Nashville Public Schools could add 65 classroom teachers or pay its existing teachers $670 a year more as a result. Shelby County Schools, meanwhile, could hire an additional 310 teachers or give each of its current teachers a $2,900 raise.

Fortunately, courts in nearly a dozen other states and the United States Supreme Court have found programs like Tennessee’s to be constitutional.

The state Supreme Court can now affirm the legislature’s authority to extend this lifeline to families by ruling that the Tennessee ESA program is in fact constitutional. And if they do so, thousands of families in dire need of a better education will finally have the options they deserve.

February 9, 2021 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured Jonathan Butcher Parental Choice School Choice Unionism

Answering the bullies of public school policy

Jonathan Butcher February 5, 2021

Jonathan Butcher

If 2021 is to be different from 2020 for families of school-aged children, policymakers, parents and educators must have a conversation about bullying – not from fourth graders on the playground, but from the education special interest groups that are pushing parents around.

Examples abound in West Virginia, where families and community leaders celebrated National School Choice Week last year by doing the same thing they have been attempting for months: trying to create a public charter school in one of the last states in the nation without one.

In 2019, West Virginia lawmakers removed their state from the dwindling list of states that do not allow for the creation of public charter schools, leaving only five with this ignominious distinction.

Katie Switzer grew up attending traditional schools and intended to send her children to the same, but she already was aware of the possibility that assigned schools may not be a fit. Katie’s husband, whom doctors diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, had been picked on incessantly in school.

Katie was encouraged about the potential for public charter schools in West Virginia and the new learning opportunities available to them if their children faced struggles similar to those her husband encountered.

But Katie says she was “taken aback” last October when she attended an informational hearing on the lone charter school application. There was a “massive teacher union rally” at the event, and the union members took nearly all of the 50 allotted slots for members of the public who wanted to make comments.

“It was, frankly, bullying that happened at the public information session,” Katie says. “Hardly any of them talk about the kids and how it would affect the children.”

“I want my kids to be exposed to a place where people act like adults and don’t shut people down because they have different opinions,” she continues.

Katie’s experience with these union tactics isn’t unique, unfortunately. Despite sagging student grades and an estimated 3 million “at-risk” students who have not had any formal education during the pandemic, parents around the U.S. watched teacher unions hold protests in 2020 to keep schools closed to in-person learning. Unions still demand new taxpayer spending on schools on top of the billions in new federal spending Washington already approved last year.

Most families who are not ready to send their children back to brick-and-mortar schools will have virtual options available to them in the assigned system for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, teacher unions have consistently opposed and even tried to block schools from offering in-person instruction as a choice for parents who are ready for their children to go back to class.

Recently, Chicago’s teachers union—which, ironically, has a site dedicated to dealing with workplace bullying by administrators—called on members to refuse to go back to work at all.

This puts these special interest groups at odds with student needs and what some parents have decided is best for their children. A new survey finds that parents of 51% of students who “attend school as usual say they are ‘very satisfied’” with their child’s experience at this point in the pandemic, while parents of just 23% of students who are only attending school virtually said the same. Sixty percent of respondents said their child is learning less overall this year.

According to forthcoming Heritage Foundation research, public school enrollment numbers were lower at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year than in the year prior, and we should anticipate more student attendance changes before the end of the school year. Enrollment is down in New York City, Montana, Wisconsin, Missouri, North Carolina and elsewhere, while homeschooling and charter school figures were up at the beginning of the school year.

With this year’s National School Choice Week in hindsight, we should continue to celebrate the opportunities children have to succeed in school and in life when their parents can choose where and how students learn.

At the same time, we should ask officials in places without alternatives to assigned schools why 3 million students from disadvantaged backgrounds have simply disappeared.

While you have their attention, note that this disappearance coincided with union intimidation tactics aimed at parents and local officials.

As COVID-19 divides communities according to those with or without access to solutions for work, health and education, policymakers ought to give families more educational options—like charter schools and education savings accounts—that can help parents and communities more effectively handle the challenges of this time while keeping the bullies of public school policy at bay.

February 5, 2021 0 comment

Bipartisanship Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Featured News Parent Voices School Choice

Parental choice retention bill clears Senate Education Committee with bi-partisan support

Lisa Buie February 4, 2021

Lisa Buie

A bill that would allow parents to hold their children back a grade to make up for COVID-slide learning losses sailed through the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

S.B. 200, filed by state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach, would let parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade make the decision to have the child repeat a grade only during the 2021-22 school year. Current law allows district school principals to make retention decisions. The law prompted one parent to pay out of pocket for her son to a private kindergarten so that she and her husband could decide whether he was ready for first grade.

The bill follows through on an announcement that Gov. Ron DeSantis made last spring that parents would be allowed to hold their children back a grade in the fall if they had concerns about learning losses from online instruction.

DeSantis did not formalize his intentions with an executive order, and later guidance from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran recognized that while parents have a right to provide input, the final decision regarding student retention rests with school officials.

Berman filed her bill in response to parents’ concerns over the learning losses that occurred in March after the pandemic shuttered school campuses. Though all Florida district schools were required to open in August for full-time, in-person instruction, some families enrolled their children in online options that the districts could offer under an executive order from the DOE.

“We know that the COVID slide is real and troubling,” Berman told education committee members during the meeting. She cited data from Palm Beach County that showed the percentage of middle school F’s increased from 1.6 to 7.7% this past year.

Under the bill, parents with children enrolled in elementary and middle schools would have until June 30 to request from their district superintendent that their child repeat a grade next year. Superintendents would be required to approve all timely petitions and would have discretion over requests that are filed late.

Berman said she agreed to narrow the scope of the bill to exclude high schoolers ahead of Wednesday’s meeting after speaking with Corcoran, who expressed concerns about its effect on older students and athletes.

“One of the reasons why we amended the bill overall down to K-8 was so that we would not run into a lot of the issues that happened in high school with eligibility and things like parents wanting their child to attend prom,” Berman said in response to questions from Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, who asked if the bill could include provisions for retained students who were deemed ineligible to participate in activities as a result of their parents’ decision in 2021 to hold them back a year. Berman said she was open to considering it.

The bill cleared the committee by a 9-0 vote. Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, did not vote on the proposal.

The bill has two more committee hearings in the Senate. A companion bill is expected to be filed soon in the House by state Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton.

February 4, 2021 0 comment