The best and worst of education reform in 2023

Every week in the Education Gadfly, we flag a handful of news items for our “Cheers and Jeers” section. Here are the ten most fantastic or horrendous developments of the year that was, presented in chronological order.

Best

• Iowa enacted a law that’ll permit all Iowa families to pay for private school tuition with taxpayer funds. —Des Moines Register


• Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is requiring districts to adopt curriculum aligned with the science of reading, and banning those that include the “three cueing” method, including Ohio State’s Reading Recovery. —Cleveland.com


• The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously approved additional instructional days to the school calendar in the face of union opposition. —The 74


• “[Wisconsin] Democratic Governor Tony Evers signed legislation...boosting state aid to independent charter and private voucher schools.” —Wisconsin Examiner


• “Teachers college to ‘dissolve’ Lucy Calkins’s Reading and Writing Project.” —Education Week


• A new study finds that KIPP middle and high school students have college completion rates that are almost twice as high as students who applied but didn’t make the lottery. —The 74


• In an upset, three reformist candidates unseated union-backed school board members in Denver. —Chalkbeat


• An alliance of parents, teachers, and policymakers have rallied in an effort to restore algebra in San Francisco. —Wall Street Journal Editorial Board


• The suicide rate among children and teens fell for the first time since the pandemic. —Education Week

Worst

• School districts across the nation continue to grapple with student chronic absenteeism, more than a year after the return to in-person learning. —Wall Street Journal


• Just one in ten students are receiving the type of high-dosage tutoring that is effective in reversing learning loss. —The 74


• A young refugee escaped war-torn Ukraine only to become a victim of classroom misbehavior in the San Francisco middle school she now attends. —San Francisco Chronicle


• Understaffed schools are experimenting with four-day weeks to attract more teachers, but the loss of instructional time will hurt students. —Washington Post


• New York state’s “compromise” on lifting its charter school cap means just 14 new schools for New York City, and only in neighborhoods with low charter market share. —Wall Street Journal


• Michigan is eliminating its A–F grading system for ranking public schools, after already cancelling its reading retention policy—signs that ed reform in the Great Lake State has collapsed. —Detroit Free Press


• Students made less progress in reading and math last school year than their counterparts did in 2019, meaning learning loss is getting worse, not better. —The 74


• Unable to assign tardies, zeroes, or consequences, teachers cannot hold students accountable, and it’s harming student learning and educator morale. —Jessica Grose, New York Times


• The Chicago Teachers Union plays a starring role in the Windy City’s descent into high crime, failing schools, and shuttered businesses. —George Will, Washington Post


• Illinois abandoned a school choice initiative serving almost 10,000 low-income students. —Chalkbeat