This year marked the fortieth anniversary of “A Nation at Risk,” the seminal report that did so much to reshape America’s modern education landscape. In the four decades since its publication, there have been unsung highs—like the rise in student achievement in the early aughts—and unwelcome lows, such as the post-Covid achievement crash that’s still with us. Indeed, nary a year has passed without both positive and negative developments, many of them traceable to the education-quake that NCLB triggered. This past year was no different. Here’s a roundup of some of the biggest ed headlines from 2023.
Sleepwalking through learning loss
The year’s leading story, once again, was the string of disappointing post-pandemic test results, but this time followed by an ominous sense of fatalistic complacency, as if there’s really nothing to be done about it and that’s OK. Notwithstanding historically low NAEP numbers in reading and math reported in June, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona made the dubious assertion that several states had returned to pre-pandemic levels. What’s more, when the PISA results dropped two weeks ago, Cardona—in a display of despicable schadenfreude—cheerily underscored the rise in America’s relative performance. Andy Rotherham rightly described it as a “profile in porridge.”
Flunking history and civics
The bad news in 2023 wasn’t limited to the three Rs. In May, history and civics scores fell, too, with the latter marking the first decline in the subject since the NAEP civics tests were first administered in 1998. This time, Cardona attributed the drop to the pursuit in GOP states of so called “book bans,” but that’s just a red herring. What’s more likely is the nation’s inattention to and low regard for these subjects. So long as schools don’t see inculcating good citizenship as central to their mission, it's hard to imagine young people having any interest, let alone investment, in building a more perfect Union.
Record-setting chronic absenteeism
One explanation progress has been so ploddingly slow is the high number of students (and in too many cases, teachers) who are simply missing from school. Since the pandemic, there has been a cultural shift in expectations: many students and parents now consider attendance to be optional rather than compulsory. Among the most egregious was Detroit, where seventy-seven percent(!) of students missed at least ten percent of the academic year. Other districts are shifting to four-day school weeks (and four-day weekends!) to combat the problem. Tutoring, summer school, and suchlike won’t matter much if kids and adults aren’t in class. Closing schools for reasons altogether unrelated to health and safety (more below) is further evidence that some have lost the plot.
Labor strife on the left coast
The Portland Association of Teachers injected new meaning into the term “No School November” when they shut down the state’s largest school district for eleven days last month. Back in April, Los Angeles teachers struck a deal after joining support staff in shuttering classrooms for three days. In May, Oakland educators walked off the job for seven days. It’s hard to argue with the need to improve teacher compensation, but doing so at the expense of children following Covid is the wrong way to go about it—especially when some local officials are assuaging unions with imaginary money.
A(nother) banner year for school choice
It wasn’t all bad in 2023 though. In January, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law a statewide ESA program with no income limits. The last few years have been historic ones for education freedom and parental options, with the nation’s lackluster response to Covid proving to be a boon. Ten states have now adopted universal or near-universal private-school choice programs. This is no small feat, as that number was exactly zero only three years ago. The fortunes of public school choice (i.e., charter schools) were decidedly more mixed. And yet, there are many reasons to remain bullish—not least the uptick in charter enrollment as traditional public schools continue to hemorrhage students.
Reading science comes into its own (finally)
Curriculum and pedagogy often take a backseat to policy prescriptions, but that hasn’t been the case for the last several years—especially when it comes to the science of reading. Since 2013, thirty-two states and D.C. have passed laws or implemented new policies around evidence-based reading instruction. This year, Georgia, Indiana, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin passed new reading legislation. The Hunt Institute’s Path Forward initiative—I serve on its national advisory board—has been doing yeoman’s work in supporting many of these states to improve literacy outcomes.
Don’t mess with Texas school reform
Governor Greg Abbott’s school voucher proposal fell short again this year, but the Lone Star State nevertheless remains in a class of its own when it comes to education reform. The state’s takeover of Houston demonstrates an intolerance for mediocrity that many other states have already resigned themselves to. Encouragingly, the small but vocal resistance there stands little chance against an intrepid and steadfast superintendent along with a community that is hungry for change. Texas is blazing new ground in other ways, too, raising the bar on academic expectations and opening the doors to advanced math for Black and Hispanic students.
Artificial intelligence everywhere
ChatGPT and AI took schools by storm in 2023. Days after its release at the tail end of last year, districts like New York City, Seattle, and Los Angeles were falling over themselves to ban it. Most have since come around, recognizing the potential upsides and the need to embrace its potential. AI is already serving in several teaching and learning roles. One teacher recently told me how it’s saving her time on grading, helping to score essays after being fed a writing rubric she designed. It’s early days, and there are plenty of reasons to proceed with caution, but anecdotes like this have me upbeat.
Through it all were evergreen concerns about implementation and execution, emerging debates like the one around the proper role, if any, of smartphones in schools—amplified by the throttling of student engagement post-pandemic—as well as re-emerging efforts to bring bipartisanship back to this neck of the woods. It probably won’t happen anytime soon, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
