Demographic Research

Coronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchFeaturedNewsPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

Survey of scholarship schools shows few have received federal COVID-19 relief

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

More than three months after the CARES Act appropriated billions of dollars to aid the education of low-income students in public and private schools, most eligible private schools in Florida have yet to see financial relief according to a recent survey of participating private schools conducted by Step Up for Students, which hosts this blog.

The nation’s largest state-approved nonprofit scholarship funding organization helps administer five scholarship programs in Florida, including two that are income-based programs, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship, as well as the Gardiner Scholarship for students with unique abilities.

The Step Up survey asked more than 1,000 schools that participate in Florida’ scholarship programs questions about the Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), declining enrollment, and distance learning. Participants returned 662 completed surveys and 140 partial surveys.

Of 683 schools that provided responses regarding ESSER funding, 61%, or 415 schools, reported they qualified for the funding. But of those schools, nearly three-quarters – 74% – said they have not received any emergency funds.

Congress made available $13.2 billion to help stabilize K-12 education funding this summer amidst a global pandemic and rising unemployment. The U.S. Department of Education subsequently was sued over its directive on how to calculate the share provided to private schools. Though the U.S. Department of Education declined to appeal, it noted that local education agencies still were required to share the funds based on the enrollment of low-income students attending private schools.

Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents reported enrollment declines. “Unable to afford tuition” was cited in 63.7% of cases as to why parents no longer were enrolling their child. Forty-five percent of schools (298) expressed concern about losing new students because of the Family Empowerment Scholarship’s prior-year public school attendance requirement.

Additionally, the survey found that 54% of private schools worried that declining enrollment would impact their viability.

Though troubling, these findings nevertheless are more positive than those reported earlier in the pandemic. In April, 73% of private schools reported declining enrollments.

Overall, private school enrollment among lower-income students remains steady. For 2020-21, approximately 130,000 students are utilizing income-based scholarships, up slightly from last year, although these are preliminary enrollment figures.

The Florida Department of Education is expected to release its first-quarter enrollment reports either this month or in November.

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Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Another poll shows American families want more school choice

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A new survey of likely voters in five key swing states commissioned by the Manhattan Institute found that respondents, especially nonwhite Americans, tend to favor expanded school choice options.

The poll surveyed about 5,000 likely voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina between late August and Early September and found that between two-thirds and three-quarters of voters in those states support publicly funded K-12 school choice.

Key findings:

·       Between 51% and 62% of respondents said they support state-funded charter schools as an alternative to district-managed public schools.

·       Support for publicly funded school choice programs was higher among Black respondents in every state except North Carolina.

·       Only about one-fifth of voters surveyed said they believed giving parents more choice in their children’s education would lower educational quality.

To read more, click here.

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Commentary and OpinionDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyFeaturedTechnology and Innovation

Re-engineering the K-12 capsule for a difficult future

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

Back in 2015, I did a study on age-dependency ratios and the takeaway was simple: The status-quo is not an option.

The ratio, created by demographers, is based upon the fact that at any given point in time, society has people both too young and too old to be working and paying taxes. As a society, we invest funds in the hope of educating our youth, and we invest public funds to look after the health and retirement needs of the elderly. Members of the working-age population are the ones paying for most of this at any given time.

Lots of working-age people and relatively few young/old, easy. Lots of old/young and few working age people, difficult. Life is getting more difficult by the day, and COVID-19 kicked off an already sure-to-be-challenging decade with additional difficulties. The need for innovation has only increased.

America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries enjoyed the benefit of having a large Baby Boom generation with members in their prime working years. This created strong economic growth that financed increased youth education and elderly benefits simultaneously.

These days, however, with approximately 10,000 Boomers reaching the age of 65 per day, we soon will reach the point where half the generation will be that age, and by 2030, all surviving Baby Boomers will be 65 or older. This is going to get interesting, especially in retirement destination states like Arizona and Florida.

The math on age-dependency ratios is straightforward: Add your under-18 population to your 65-and-older population and then divide by your 18- to 64-year-old population. If you think of this in terms of how many people are riding in society’s cart and how many are pushing it, Florida’s age-dependency ratio in 2010 was 63 riding in the cart for every 100 pushing it. Census Bureau projections for 2030 have the number riding in the cart to 89.

The Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, foreseeing less migration to Florida and lower birth rates, has projected the age-dependency ratio will “only” move to 78 by 2030. Either way, the cart is going to get a lot harder to push.

So, the current decade always was going to be challenging, even before the appearance of the COVID-19 global pandemic. It’s hard to say just how much worse the pandemic has made things, but the long-term damage could be considerable.

An implicit assumption of the age-dependency ratio is that your working age population is, well, working. If not, you can effectively move them from pushing the cart to riding in it. The world of 2030 and beyond will not easily grant a “do over” to 20-somethings who missed their literacy acquisition window during a pandemic.

Despite the scale of the unfolding challenge, Americans are delightfully inventive and capable of rising to challenges. North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, for instance, recently described a bold new initiative to deliver digital learning and custodial care to students in his city:

On Monday, in partnership with Clark County, the city of North Las Vegas launched the Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy, which is providing badly needed education options and support in our city. Children who otherwise likely would be given a jar of peanut butter and told not to answer the door while their parents work and CCSD remains virtual instead are attending in-person homeschool co-op learning sessions, receiving live tutoring and participating in enriching, fun activities in a safe, socially distant environment at a cost of just $2 per day.

This in-person learning will support proven online home-school curricula that allow children to progress at their own pace while still meeting — and in many cases exceeding — Nevada Academic Content Standards.

It is unclear just how many American children have functionally been given a jar of peanut butter and unsupervised remote learning during 2020. Too many, one suspects, and the implications of this will only begin to become clear over the course of many years.

Is the North Las Vegas model a solution? We won’t know until we try it, but I’m willing to go all in that it beats the peanut butter method. Bravo to Mayor Lee for stepping up to the plate with an innovative solution. We will need much more of this sort of can-do spirit during the decade ahead.

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

New poll: Support for school choice continues to grow

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A survey of 2,020 registered voters conducted by RealClear Opinion Research indicates support for school choice is surging as families become increasingly frustrated with district schools’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since April, overall support for the concept of school choice among families with children in public schools has jumped 10 percentage points, from 67% to 77% according to poll results released today.

That support is relatively even across political lines, with 76% of Republicans, 73% of Independents and 72% of Democrats responding affirmatively that they would support giving parents a portion of the $15,424 per student the average American taxpayer spends on K-12 public education for home, virtual or private education if public schools do not reopen for in-person classes.

Additionally, 78% of public school parents and 79% of non-public school parents said they would support the governor of their state putting federal funding for the purchase of education technology and materials, private school tuition and home education directly in the hands of families and allowing them to choose how to use those funds to support their child’s education.

Support for this effort also was evenly distributed among party lines, with 68% of Republicans, 68% of Independents, and 66% of Democrats agreeing.

“The inflexibility of our K-12 system is on full display, leaving families to scramble as the special interests that have controlled our public education system for generations continue to oppose giving families and students greater educational choice,” said John Schilling, president of the American Federation for Children. “It could not be more clear that families are desperate for other options and will support governors and other policymakers as they pursue policies that let them control their child’s education funding.”

The RealClear poll was conducted Aug. 19-21 and carries a margin of error of +/1 2.4%.

More school choice polling can be found here.

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ResearchFeaturedNews

Florida Council of 100 releases study showing “rigor gap” in Florida classrooms

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A detailed study released today by the Florida Council of 100 in cooperation with the Florida Department of Education includes data indicating the state can do more to align efforts on student growth by helping students and families in real time.

Coming on the heels of last year’s dismal National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, the study shows a substantial “rigor gap” between the grades Florida high school students receive and their mastery of content required to pass end-of-course exams in Algebra I and Grade 10 English Language Arts.

Among the findings:

·       Seventy-two percent of English 2 students and 55% of Algebra I students who did not pass the corresponding end-of-course exam received a course grade of C or higher.

·       Thirty-seven percent of 10th-grade English students and 12% of Algebra I students who did not pass the corresponding end-of-course exam received a course grade of B or higher.

While the study, which relied on three years of data from the Florida Department of Education, does not include student data from the COVID–19 pandemic, the researchers hypothesize that the pandemic has increased the identified rigor gap due in part to more lenient grading practices and issues related to delivering high-quality distance learning.  

“Our analysis concludes that if teachers, leaders, and administrators hold students accountable throughout the school year for the standards they’ll be evaluated on at the end of the year, their grades and test scores will be closely aligned,” said Chris Corr, Council of 100 chairperson. “The rigor gap we see instead indicates the contrary, the result being that students are less prepared for success at the postsecondary level or in the workplace.”

Corr noted that while the responsibility for closing the rigor gap falls upon the system as a whole, he referenced a 2010 study that indicated students tend to study 50% less when they expect teachers to award relatively higher grades, leaving them surprised by less favorable end-of-course exam scores.

Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran warned in comments included in a Council of 100 news release about the study that “we can love someone into mediocrity,” and observed that challenges brought about by the pandemic have made it more important than ever to deliver a quality education driven by high expectations.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated gaps in student achievement, so it is imperative that all students, especially low-income students, students with special needs, English Language Learners, and other struggling students are given the supports and honest learning feedback to achieve their individualized educational dreams,” Corcoran wrote.

Among the tactics for implementing those supports, Corcoran said, are the “record investments” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made in teacher compensation, aligning education to curriculum tied to Florida’s new B.E.S.T. standards, and ensuring that parents have increasingly robust learning options from which to choose.

For more details, a question-and-answer document on the study can be accessed here. 

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AnalysisBlog GuestCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation ResearchFeaturedParental ChoicePatrick J. WolfPrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Choosing the right path: evidence that Milwaukee’s school choice program excels beyond academics

Patrick J. Wolf
Patrick J. Wolf

One of the largest and oldest Lutheran high schools in the nation, Milwaukee Lutheran High School participates in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, allowing families who meet the household income requirements to attend at no charge or for significantly reduced tuition.

America’s oldest urban private school choice program has the vital effects of steering young adults away from both crime and out-of-wedlock births, thus laying a strong foundation for them to live more successful lives.

What predicts future life success for young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds? Two vital factors are avoiding a criminal record (see here and here) and an out-of-wedlock birth.

That reality might be one reason why private schools often describe their mission as educating the “whole child,” mind, body and soul. Education should shape the character of students in positive ways. Strong character traits, such as conscientiousness and self-restraint, are especially important for youth growing up in challenged family circumstances. They rarely get second chances.

Given that avoiding a criminal record and refraining from causing a non-marital birth are keys to life success, and private schools may have advantages over public schools in promoting the character traits of their charges, it is shocking that almost no research has been conducted on the effects of private school choice programs on rates of crime and out-of-wedlock births.

Corey A. DeAngelis, director of school choice at the Reason Foundation, and I have set out to fill that gaping hole in our understanding of the potential long-term, life-changing effects of school choice.

Our first foray examined the medium-term effects of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) on the likelihood of a person being charged with a crime by age 22-25. The MPCP is restricted to low-income families in Milwaukee. We matched more than 1,000 eighth- and ninth-grade students in the MPCP in 2006 with Milwaukee public schools (MPS) students in the same grade, with the same race, gender, English Language Learner status, and similar initial achievement test scores.

Importantly, we also matched the MPCP students with peers from their own neighborhood. Family values and behavioral expectations tend to be similar in urban neighborhoods, so matching students based on where they lived likely helped us control for vital unmeasured factors.

We then searched the public database of all criminal records for the state of Wisconsin as of fall 2015. The searchers were not aware if a given student was in the MPCP group or the MPS group when they looked to see if that study participant had committed a crime in the state. We found that MPCP students who remained in their private school of choice throughout their high school years were significantly less likely to have committed a crime during young adulthood, compared to their matched peers in MPS.

When MPCP students who switched from their private high school to a public school were included in the analysis, however, the effect of the MPCP on reducing crime became less clear. We concluded that students may need a steady “dose” of the character education treatment of private schooling for it to change their life trajectory.

Our initial study was published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science Quarterly.

This year, we returned to the question with more and better data. We also employed more conservative analytic methods, to be even more confident that the selectivity of MPCP students was not biasing our results. In a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Private Enterprise, we revisited the same set of MPCP and matched MPS students three years later, when they were 25-28 years old. The additional three years gave the MPCP students more time to distinguish themselves from their MPS peers regarding avoiding criminal behavior.

We also found data on paternity suits in Wisconsin and added that key outcome variable to our study. Finally, we did not separate out students who stayed in the MPCP for their entire high school career from those who switched back to MPS. Thus, we conservatively tested to see if experiencing the private school choice program for any length of time from eighth to twelfth grade affected crime outcomes or non-marital birth rates. In these three ways, our recent study improved upon our original one.

We found that participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program reduced the likelihood of a young adult having a drug conviction by 53%. The MPCP also decreased the chances of a person having a conviction for a property damage crime by an astounding 86%. MPCP alums were 38% less likely than their matched MPS peers to have been named in a paternity suit by age 25-28.

The positive effects of the private school choice program on reducing criminality were larger for males, who commit most crimes, and for participants with lower initial achievement test scores. The benefit of the MPCP in reducing the likelihood of causing a non-marital birth was similar for both males and females, since it takes two to tango.

Our research was not designed to reveal what the private schools in the MPCP did to generate these reductions in crime and out-of-wedlock births. Religion, re-enforcing parental values, and the influence of better-behaved peers all may have played a role. Future research should continue to study those questions.

For now, we can say that America’s oldest urban private school choice program had the vital effects of steering young adults away from both crime and out-of-wedlock births, thus laying a strong foundation for them to live more successful lives.

That’s a big deal.

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Charter SchoolsCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation ResearchEducation SpendingFeaturedNewsSchool Choice

Trio of education surveys shed light on school trends

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

As schools continue to wrestle with reopening plans and what seems like the shortest summer break on record comes to an end, researchers have continued to churn out reports and surveys related not only to COVID-19 but to charter schools and per-pupil spending as well.

EdChoice, a school choice advocacy and research organization based in Indianapolis, released a survey on parent opinions regarding education during the pandemic.

According to the researchers, nearly 60% of parents with a child at risk for coronavirus complications said they would seek remote learning options compared to 39% of parents with a child not at risk. Additionally, Black parents were more likely to be seeking remote learning options than white parents, a finding in line with a previous survey conducted by Education Next that showed Black parents found greater satisfaction with remote learning than white parents.

A study by Ian Kingsbury from Johns Hopkins University and Robert Maranto from the University of Arkansas examined the impact of charter school regulations, finding that some regulations produce negative effects. Instead of protecting consumers, Kingsbury and Maranto concluded, bad regulations sometimes simply protect insiders.

According to the researchers, states with a high number of regulations like Texas, Ohio and Indiana saw Black- and Hispanic-run charter school applicants denied at far higher rates than white or Asian charter applicants.

“As states like California and Pennsylvania mull strengthening their charter regulatory regimes, they’d do well to take heed to ensure that people of color are stewards and not subjects of the charter schooling movement,” the researchers wrote. An Education Next article gives a good summary of the study.

Finally, a study by C. Kirabo Jackson and Cora Wigger from Northwestern University and Heyu Xiong from Case Western Reserve University, summarized in Education Next, found the Great Recession negatively impacted student achievement and college attendance. The researchers argue that a decline in education budgets because of the recession may have caused these declines.

The researchers also found that budget cuts impacted Black students more than white students and may lead to a widening of achievement gaps. They note, however, that “A particular concern is that it is changes in families’ economic circumstances due to the recession, not reductions in school spending, that account for the decline in outcomes.” Indeed, the college attendance rate began declining in 2006, years before budget cuts to per-pupil spending.

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation PollingFeaturedNews

Survey: What American families experienced when COVID-19 closed schools

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

A new Education Next survey reveals 71% of parents perceived their children learned less during the pandemic than they would have had they remained in brick-and-mortar schools.

COVID-19 upended and changed the lives of millions of Americans this spring, forcing the nation’s schools to close and requiring a shift from in-person to virtual learning. In retrospect, what do parents think about the quality of instruction their children received?

Education Next surveyed them to find out. The results, released earlier this week, paint an interesting picture.

Among the 1,249 parents of 2,147 children surveyed, 71% said they thought their children learned less at home than they would have had they been in school. But surprisingly, 72% said they were satisfied with the attempt.

Black and Hispanic parents reported higher satisfaction with remote learning (30% and 32%, respectively), than white parents (26%). Charter school and private school parents (45% and 39%, respectively), reported higher satisfaction than parents whose children attended a public district school (29%).

According to their parents, larger shares of the children of white respondents and children in higher income households learned less than they would have if schools had remained open than children of Black and Hispanic students and those in lower-income households.

Not all schools prioritized learning new content according to the survey. Overall, 74% of parents said their child’s school introduced new content, while 24% said the school focused on reviewing content students had already learned.

A large gap in perception persisted between high- and low-income families. Among low-income families, 33% reported that schools reviewed content students had already learned, compared to 19% of high-income parents.

Parents overall reported that one-on-one meetings between students and teachers occurred rarely, with only 38% saying such meetings occurred at least once a week. About 40% said one-on-one meetings never occurred.

Parents reported that class-wide meetings occurred more frequently, with 69% reporting class-wide virtual meetings with teachers occurred at least once a week.

Black parents reported their children spent more time per day (4.3 hours) on schoolwork than white parents (3.1 hours). Black parents also said their students suffered less learning loss than the parents of white students.

The survey also included a sample of 490 K-12 teachers who work in schools that closed during the pandemic. Teachers’ responses generally mirrored how parents described their children’s experiences with several exceptions.

Thirty-six percent of teachers said they met individually with students multiple times a week, compared with 19% of parents. Teachers also reported providing grades or feedback more often than parents. Meanwhile, teachers reported providing fewer required assignments than parents said their children received.

Parents and teachers generally agreed on how much students learned during distance learning, with teachers more likely than parents to say children learned less than they would have if schools had remained open.

The survey was conducted from May 14 to May 20 by the polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs via its KnowledgePanel. Respondents could elect to complete the survey in English or Spanish.

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