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education equity

Advocate VoicesCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedSchool Choice

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

Gwen Samuel
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. 

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Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceReading ScholarshipSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews Central Florida Urban League leader Glen Gilzean

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill speaks with president and CEO of the Central Florida Urban League about the work the organization is doing to empower the Black community through what Gilzean refers to as the three E’s – education, employment and entrepreneurship.

Gilzean, a former Pinellas County School Board member, has witnessed the devastating impacts of generational poverty. Both he and Tuthill believe giving parents flexibility and control over their education funding is critical to breaking that cycle.

The two discuss the Urban League’s plan to facilitate small learning pods known as micro-schools for the families it serves in the central Florida community and the potential for Senate Bill 48 to expand small learning environments to more families who presently can’t afford to leverage them, as well as the bill’s potential to drive creative, economic and entrepreneurial opportunity in the Black community.

“The bill does a lot of great things, but specifically for low-income Black folks, I think it will improve educational outcomes, the opportunity to employ individuals, and get people in the mindset of ‘I can do this, too; let me create a pod,’ so they can generate their own resources for the community.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       Gilzean’s background as a school board member and advocacy coordinator for Step Up For Students

·       How the Urban League collaborated with Orange County Schools to facilitate the Reading Scholarship, an education savings account for public school students struggling with reading

·       The Urban League’s plan to create micro-schools and school models to better serve students in juvenile detention

·       How micro-schools can drive community development and be an economic engine to counteract generational poverty

LINKS MENTIONED

Micro-schools could be answer for low-income Black students

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Commentary and OpinionDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Florida’s other ‘U’

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

The chart at the top of this post shows Florida private school attendance by family income expressed as a percentage of the poverty rate.

Poverty rates vary by household size, but for a four-person household at or below 185% of poverty, that approximately equals an average of below $49,000; the top category is at or above $156,000 per year.

The average family income for students receiving a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship is $32,835. There were just over 100,000 scholarships administered during the 2018-19 school year. It’s clear that without these scholarships, very few low-income families would be able to send their children to private schools.

Note, moreover, that Florida private schools have more low-income students than students from well-to-do families. Only about 10% of private school students nationwide qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. But in Florida, 28% of private school students come from the lowest income category. Coupled with clear evidence of academic progress for low-income Florida students overall (see the chart below), this represents nothing less than a triumph of public policy.

Our thoughts now should turn to the families in the middle of the U-shaped chart.

These families pay their taxes like everyone else, and we can safely infer from the distribution of the chart that their ability to pay school taxes and private school tuition is limited. Florida’s choice policies should include an advantage for the poor, but that advantage should take the form of a higher subsidy rather than an exclusion based upon family income.

The first generation of choice programs focused upon a finite number of empty seats at preexisting private schools. Choice supporters knew that the number of schools and seats would increase with demand, but the rate at which the sector could expand was unknown. A means test, therefore, gave low-income kids first shot at preexisting school seats.

Today, we live in a world in which the definition of a school is evolving and where a large percentage of American families are organizing themselves spontaneously into pandemic pods. An education savings account program permits an a la carte multi-provider approach to education.

Florida has a great need to lure back a great number of former teachers into education, if not necessarily back into school districts. In other words, Florida needs broader, more expansive, and more inclusive private choice policies.

Hopefully, 10 years from now, the chart will look like a “u” rather than a “U.”

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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedJack CoonsSchool Choice

Equality, equity and reality

John E. Coons
John E. Coons

“I am equal and whole.”

A.C. Swinburne, Hertha

“There is but one law for all … the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice … equity …”

Edmund Burke, Impeachment of Warren Hastings

To my mind, it is sad that many admirable political writers seem to overlook the utility in this distinction, thereby turning the words into an occasion for media conflict instead of clarity of expression in our hope for the welfare of the human individual and the civic order.

The more conservative among them tend to regard “equality” as the only proper term for describing not only what is a crucial fact of human nature but also for the moral and political implications that follow from that reality.

The more “progressive” voices seem to see and embrace this distinction between fact and act, using “equity” as the civic entailment of the datum.

The moral and economic implications that these “progressives” then draw from this distinction are seldom my own, but their vocabulary seems the more lucid in describing the political issues at stake. I am envious of their corner on this weapon of ethical thought.

For a very long time in the last century, I tried my best to grasp a clear and distinct meaning for our revolutionary gospel of 1776 retrieved from the Middle Ages – the concept that “all men are created equal.” In 1999, happy after collaboration with my then student (ever since professor) Patrick Brennan, that hope became our book, “By Nature Equal: the Anatomy of a Western Insight” (Princeton, 1999).

There is, we said, a need for a convincing recognition and description of a factual equality of every ungifted, inexperienced, uneducated human being with the likes of Lincoln, Einstein and Mother Theresa.

No such message was evident in that recent burst of political literature (not yet defunct) that, for me, was a dangerous intellectual mess but which purported to speak for our human equality. I refer to that slice of the academy that sees equality as an attribute of the three races when taken separately as a whole. Seen thus as clusters, each population, we are told, had the same share of the dull and the brilliant.

What these gurus are plainly saying is that we classic and superior geniuses are to be found in similar proportions among Blacks, whites and Asians (thus the same proportion of dodos). And this was the equality of mankind.

It is my happy impression that view of equality as a declaration of one’s own superiority is in decline. By now, many of these savants may be entering that same stage of human deficiency that they have attached to their intellectual inferiors. It should be a comforting possibility to these now fading savants that some of us think them still “equal.”

In the end, of course, each human must be so in order to merit equitable treatment according to his or her distinctive individual needs, deserts and prospects. Here we encounter the ideal structure of human law viewed as the response to the universal entitlement to equity in treatment.

Each of us has peculiar circumstances and deserts, and the law is to be rationally ordered to sustain, reward or punish accordingly. Equality demands it; equality delivers it.

Brennan and I concluded that there is no factual equality among humans save in that one concept seen by the Founders as “created equal;” this is intelligible as the claim that we humans, however clever, are in our freedom and power either to seek or ignore the good, embody the same (equal) “right” and “power” to perfect ourselves in some ultimate way that is beyond our grasp in its entirety but ours to embrace in faith.

This very American conception of reality might best be kept distinct from, though necessary to, the concept of social and legal equity and rights. But is this even relevant to schooling and the curriculum? To me, it seems to be the first and fundamental question for the human mind—however one answers it.

And it is an inequity to deprive the equal human child of its challenge.

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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Attendance zone boundaries: Barriers to educational opportunity

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: Jude Schwalbach, a research associate in the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, wrote this commentary expressly for redefinED.

For a century, public schools have been billed as the center of a community, with Friday night football games, clubs, theater, and arts activities. But not all students have access to these “community” schools.

Within school districts, most public schools have attendance zones determined by district officials. These “lines within districts,” as author Tim DeRoche describes them, mean all families that reside within the geographic boundaries of the attendance zone are assigned to the public school in that zone. These zones, however, often divide communities by race, socio-economic divisions, and social capital.

In his book, A Fine Line, DeRoche illustrates how much school zones can affect the make-up of a school’s community. For instance, students attending Mount Washington in Los Angeles during 2019 lived in a zip code with a median home value of $847,522. Mount Washington Elementary is ranked a B+ school on Niche.com – a school rating website – with nearly 68% and 75% of students meeting or exceeding state standards in math and reading, respectively.

Meanwhile, just a little more than a mile away, Aldama Elementary School’s student body lives in a zip code where the typical home value is $47,000 less than in Mt. Washington’s zip code. Niche ranked the school a C school, with only 33% of students meeting or exceeding state standards in both math and reading.

At the same time, each school’s number of eligible students for the Free Lunch and Reduced-Price Lunch Programs — historical poverty proxies—illustrate a marked difference in student body. More than 70% of Aldama Elementary students — nearly seven times the number of eligible students at Mt. Washington — are eligible for the Free and Reduced-Price Lunch program.

Depending on which side of the boundary line a student lives on, she will be assigned to either Mount Washington or Aldama — likely having a significant impact on the educational opportunities available to her.

Even though students who attend Aldama and Mount Washington are in the same school district, paying the same property taxes to support all public schools within the district, government officials draw lines around which “public” schools they may attend. This hardly seems fair.

The school zone boundaries sharply divide families that live literally next door to each other. Which side of the street a family lives on can determine the educational opportunities fostered by their “free” public school.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon is all too common; families in cities across America, such as New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Chicago, to name a few, find themselves in similar situations.

For example, in 2019 the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee reported that enrollment in a high-performing public school and greater educational opportunities is often associated with purchasing a more expensive home.

The committee’s report found that “The average U.S. zip code associated with the highest quality (A+) public elementary school has a 4-fold ($486,104) higher median home price than the average neighborhood associated with the lowest quality (D or less) public elementary schools ($122,061).”

At the same time, the gerrymandered nature of school zones means that in many cases some children assigned to a poorly performing school actually live closer to a higher performing school.

For instance, children living between San Adreas Ave and Oneonta Dr. in Los Angeles are closer to the high-performing Mt. Washington Elementary — just a 15-minute walk — but are assigned to the lower-performing and more distant Aldama Elementary.

“No matter the goal, an attendance zone always creates sharp inequalities of opportunity for families who live in the same neighborhood. Some children will be allowed to enroll in the best public schools, and their playmates across the street will be excluded because of where they live,” writes DeRoche.

School zones can divide communities, shepherding children from different social and economic backgrounds into different schools. Such divisions are antithetical to the free and voluntary collaboration essential to American institutions.

Instead of assigning students to schools based on attendance zone boundaries, school districts should stop drawing attendance zone boundaries and instead adopt open enrollment policies, which would allow students to enroll in any school within their school district. Open enrollment, Heritage’s Lindsey Burke and Jonathan Butcher write, “effectively separates housing from schooling.”

However, Burke and Butcher note that even though 47 states in addition to the District of Columbia already allow some type of open enrollment policy, many school districts choose to not participate.

For instance, Alaska only requires that school districts provide open enrollment to students in persistently dangerous schools. By contrast, families in Florida can enroll their children in any school operating in the state’s 67 districts that is not at full capacity.

Expanding open enrollment to benefit all children would mean all children within a district have equal opportunities to attend public schools that are the right fit for them. 

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Advocate VoicesCommentary and OpinionCommunity LeadersCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedMicroschoolsParent EmpowermentParent VoicesSchool ChoiceVoices for Education Choice

Micro-schools could be answer for low-income Black students

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

Glenton Gilzean speaking in September on a podcast about his early entrepreneurial experiences. Listen to the full interview at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3417597471621950.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Glenton Gilzean Jr., president and CEO of the Central Florida Urban League and former Pinellas County School Board member and Florida A&M trustee, appeared earlier today in the Orlando Sentinel.

 When I became president and CEO of the Central Florida Urban League, it was clear that our community faced some incredible challenges. Yet, I always believed that the path forward began with education.

Generational poverty stems from a vicious cycle that we’re all too familiar with. While our organization has helped upskill thousands to compete for high-paying, high-skilled jobs, this is a Band-Aid solution. If our goal is to end this cycle, our fight must begin with children.

For generations, children in low-income Black communities have endured a sub-par education model and these underperforming schools not only hurt our children, but our entire community.

According to the Orlando Economic Partnership, the average net worth for Black adults in Central Florida is less than $18,000 annually, compared to more than $215,000 for white adults. This overt discrepancy is a direct result of a failing education system. Without innovation, these failures will continue to compound as parents are forced to choose between feeding their families and supplementing their children’s education.

With a lack of support both at home and in school, the interest of our children to engage in their learning wanes. While I believe that every child is born with a thirst for knowledge, those in our community are born into a drought with no end in sight.

We can change this. Imagine a school with only a handful of students, learning in a safe and welcoming environment. With such small numbers, their teacher can work with each student, developing and following a personalized learning plan.

Aptly called micro-schools, this is the reality for those with means. But if the state passes a new education choice bill, this can become a reality for those in underserved communities too. Simply put: the low-income Black children who need them the most.

Senate Bill 48, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr. (R-Hialeah Gardens), combines five education scholarship programs into two. The bill also extends the use of education savings accounts (ESAs), currently only available to the Gardiner Scholarship for special-needs students and the Reading Scholarship, to the newly merged income-based scholarships.

These accounts could be used to cover private-school tuition, technology, tutoring, curriculum and other approved items. Families would have the flexibility to spend their education dollars, providing them access to the learning environment that best fits their children’s needs.

This bill puts us on the cusp of providing these youth with a high-quality learning environment that will begin to close both the historical achievement gap, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the growing COVID-19 learning gap.

The past year has demonstrated that, now more than ever, families require educational options. Most children have regressed, struggling to maintain even the most basic curriculum. Throwing these students back into an unsuccessful system will further exacerbate their situation.

While the benefits for our youth are clear, micro-schools also provide economic opportunities. If parents have the freedom to spend their children’s education dollars through ESAs, they will demand providers that meet their needs. Entrepreneurs will invest in our communities and this cannot be understated.

As a result of the pandemic, over 40% of Black-owned businesses have closed, while the Black unemployment rate is hovering around 10%, four points higher than the state average. Networks of micro-schools would not only our lift up our children, but their families too.

My organization knows first-hand the success of ESAs. The Urban League partnered with several Orange County Public Schools to register more than 700 students to receive supplemental tutoring funded by the Florida Reading Scholarship. This was a blessing for parents who were unable to afford tutoring for their children.

We now have the opportunity to take ESAs to the next level and positively impact not hundreds, but thousands of children. I pray that our elected representatives listen to their constituents. Please fund students over systems, put money in the hands of parents who know what’s best for their children, and bring micro-schools to communities that desperately need them.

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Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Choice is empowering, not racist

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This morning’s post is a response from Step Up For Students’ manager of external affairs Keith Jacobs to a letter to the editor published last week in the Florida Times Union.

Keith Jacobs

The Feb. 14 letter to the editor, “Public schools need to be fully funded,” represents how education choice opponents put antiquated ideologies ahead of the needs of the families they pretend to support. It used buzzwords such as “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” meant to indict education choice. That is historically inaccurate.

Yes, systemic racism has plagued our nation, but not for the reasons the letter communicates. Systemic racism is interwoven into the fabric of public education because it was a linchpin in establishing it over 400 years ago, when only white males were permitted to attend.

“Separate but Equal” denied Blacks and other minorities access to the same educational access and resources their white counterparts had. Even after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board, systemic racism persists today when low-income students of color are denied access to public schools based on their ZIP code and socioeconomic status.

Providing Black families the opportunity to exercise education choice means giving them the chance to opt out of a system that historically has worked against them. Perhaps that’s why surveys repeatedly have shown majority support for education choice among Black parents, usually at higher rates than the general public. Perhaps they know what’s best for their children.

As a Black man, education choice provided me the opportunity to attend the best schools that had seemed unattainable without the financial resources, and become a first-generation college graduate.

Instead of funding systems, we need to fund students, and give their families the choice of how best to educate them.

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