The Education Gadfly Weekly

Way back when my parents were in high school, the Gershwin brothers (and Dubose Hayward) wrote Porgy and Bess, an American opera that became famous, popular, and controversial, as well as beautiful. Among its legendary songs—arias, really—is “Summertime and the Livin’ is Easy.” (For a particularly glorious rendition, listen to Ella Fitzgerald.)

The fish may be still be jumpin’—at least in places that haven’t been overfished—but there are wildfires burning in Canada, Phoenix is running out of water, the Supreme Court is about to give many people heartburn, China’s jets are zooming too close to ours, we’ve only just barely escaped a debt crisis, and a former president seems to be on the verge of multiple indictments.

On top of which, the kids are now about to finish school for the year—in some places already have—and parents face a different set of challenges even as their daughters and sons kick up their heels in blissful freedom.

Some of those challenges have been around forever, such as how to keep them occupied and out of trouble without completely disrupting parents’ lives and work. That’s a lot easier for families with means—summer camps of every flavor, vacation at the shore, maybe an enrichment program or two—but challenging nonetheless.

“Summer learning loss” has been around forever, too, always more acute for boys and girls who don’t (or can’t) burrow into summer reading lists or just read for fun. But for millions of kids today, it comes on top of “Covid learning loss” and months, if not years, of evaporated schooling.

Well-designed summer schools are a partial antidote, but they’re nearly always optional for students, and far too many parents have not bothered to enroll their young ‘uns. Some schools and districts have found them hard to staff, whether because burned-out teachers don’t want the extra work or because money’s tight. (The latter excuse is less credible while federal relief dollars still slosh.) Nor are “traditional” summer schools tightly matched to the catch-up needs of pandemic-inflicted learning loss—or, for that matter, the acceleration needs of high achievers.

Technology affords countless opportunities for summertime learning, skills development, and knowledge building—hundreds of platforms and programs await exploration—but it affords even more opportunities for playing around, wasting time—and being naughty—not to mention staying indoors and turning into plump and pallid couch potatoes. If the tech options aren’t structured and supervised—one more challenge for parents—we daren’t assume that they’ll move kids in positive directions.

“Going out to play” isn’t as simple as it once was, either, both because a lot of parents act like helicopters and because it’s not all that safe in a lot of places (not that schools have been secure bastions in recent years).

As they face possible risks and hazards in all directions, what are today’s parents to do with their kids during those long hot days and weeks of summertime? Putting on my grandpa hat, I naturally favor generation-skipping activities and expeditions of various kinds, but understand that’s not always possible—and certainly isn’t likely to fill the whole summer.

I also favor shortening those “whole summers,” not just by offering optional programs, but mostly by extending the school year itself, as a number of charter schools and a handful of districts have done. It’s good for everybody: Kids learn more, teachers get paid more, parents have less down-time to fill or fret over. As the “Prisoners of Time” commissioners pointed out back in 1994, the 180-day year has long been obsolete, yet we haven’t done much about it. Only North Carolina requires more than 180 days (just 185), and many jurisdictions settle for fewer or leave it entirely up to local decisions. This is a realm where policy changes could make a big difference.

Meanwhile, parents will, as always, cope as best they can, availing themselves of parks and playgrounds, of day camps and sleep-away options, as well as summer schools, neighbors and neighborhood activities, public pools and libraries, willing relatives and friends, technology, and maybe even the odd book or two. I wish them well. Kids have more to learn than ever before, and not just those who lost a lot during Covid. But they need healthy bodies, too, plus social skills and emotional well-being. Summer can help.

The livin’ isn’t as easy as we’d like. But make the most of it we shall. And the day after school ends, my wife and I have an expedition in the works with two of the grandkids.

Recent shifts in enrollment patterns across Texas school sectors have gone in one direction—out of traditional public schools. Within those shifts, a disproportionately large swath of students has left for classical charter schools. These trends reflect a wider renaissance of classical schooling across the United States. Parents from all manner of backgrounds increasingly sought out classical schools during the pandemic, but also beforehand. And that trend appears to be continuing.

In a new report, we use data from the Texas Education Agency and the National Center for Education Statistics to uncover exactly how much classical charters have grown in Texas since 2011 and the reasons behind such growth.

Texas is home to several classical charter schools. Great Hearts, Valor, and ResponsiveEd operate networks throughout the state. Other classical charters such as Houston Classical and Trivium Academy, though not part of larger networks, are well known in their respective communities.

What do these schools have in common? As Jennifer Frey explains on the Flypaper blog:

On this model, to become educated is, at least in part, to become a person of good character—to become habituated into recognizable patterns of correct thinking, acting, and feeling so that one is disposed to judge and choose well on the whole, in order to live a purposeful and meaningful life that contributes to the common good.

As depicted in Figure 1, Texas’s charter sector has grown dramatically in the past decade. However, the most prolific growth within the sector appears to be concentrated among classical charter schools. While enrollment in other Texas charters doubled between 2011 to 2021, enrollment in Texas classical charter schools increased nearly sevenfold to 20,000 students over the same period. Several thousand students remain on waitlists for seats in them.

The classical charter sector also grew along ethnic lines, with the most pronounced increase for Asian American (a thirteenfold increase) and Hispanic students (a ninefold increase).

Figure 1: Classical charter enrollment increased sevenfold in less than a decade

Note: Authors calculations based on Texas Education Agency data.

Why might parents be drawn to classical charter schools? In our survey of 431 parents of Texas classical charter schools, we asked them to rank twelve different educational priorities according to level of importance from “extremely important” to “not at all important.”

The parents’ priorities appear to match the distinctive mission and educational model of classical charter schools. As shown in Figure 2, all parents believed that instruction in core academic subjects was “extremely” or “very” important, and four out of every five respondents indicated that independent thinking was an “extremely important” priority. Forming students to love and seek the truth was also highly valued among our respondents. The third-most-highly-rated educational priority was the formation of moral character and virtue. In contrast, acquiring skills for future employment, college success, and fixing current social problems were much less important.

Figure 2: Parents’ views about the purpose of education

Note: Online survey data collected by the authors between October 18 and November 30, 2022.

Moreover, classical charter schools seem to deliver the kind of education they promise to deliver. As shown in Figure 3, 64 percent of surveyed parents reported being “very satisfied” with their school overall, and an additional 28 percent reported being “satisfied.” Parents were the most pleased with the quality of their child’s teachers, followed by the academic standards at their child’s school and their child’s learning progress. Over 90 percent of parents expressed satisfaction with how well their child’s school provided instruction in character and values.

Figure 3: Parent satisfaction with aspects of their child’s school

Note: Online survey data collected by the authors between October 18 and November 30, 2022.

Classical charter schools in Texas offer a distinctive education that many parents want for their children, and we suspect that this is also happening elsewhere. Across the country, parents are seeking opportunities for classical education in charter schools, private schools, and through homeschooling.

Texas is home to a fifth of the country’s English learners, as well as the state where the number of them has quintupled over the past decade. Recently, we published Charter Schools and English Learners in the Lone Star State, written by Deven Carlson with David Griffith. The study used nearly two decades of student-level data to examine how charter school enrollment is related to Texas English learners’ achievement, attainment, and earnings. You can read about all of the results here.

Jennifer Acevedo and Starlee Coleman are Data and Research Analyst and Chief Executive Officer at the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, respectively. The organization’s mission is to strengthen the policy and regulatory climate in Texas, such that every student has access to high-quality public school options. Given their key roles in the Texas charter landscape, we wanted their take on the report’s findings and how policies might be improved to support the education of English learners enrolled in charter schools. Here’s what they had to say on a quartet of questions.

1. What’s your overall reaction to the report? Was there anything that surprised you?

We are incredibly proud of, but not surprised by, the results of the report. These findings are consistent with data for the past several years showing that English learners in Texas public charter schools are outperforming on our state assessment and also on NAEP.

The finding that English learners from charter schools earn more money in the post-college years was especially exciting to see. There are quite a few charter schools in Texas that have created models focused on preparing students for both college and careers. For example, the School of Science and Technology offers pathways in engineering, biomedical sciences, and computer science that empower students to solve real-world challenges through engaging and hands-on learning projects. It is clear from test scores that English learners are being well-served by Texas charter schools during their K–12 years, but the findings regarding earnings shows that they are also receiving a strong foundation that leads them to lifelong success. This is the type of success we hope to see for all students.

2. One question the report doesn’t answer is why English learners are increasingly overrepresented in Texas’s charter schools. What do you think might explain this trend?

We think this trend is potentially attributable to many factors, but let us highlight three.

First, many charter schools are founded with a specific mission to serve underserved communities, English learners included. When a school’s mission is to make students (and their families) with specific educational needs feel welcome and puts their needs front and center, it’s no surprise families are attracted to those school communities.

Second, success begets success. As Texas charter schools have proven their value in communities across the state, the waitlist for seats in high-performing campuses has grown (and now stands at approximately 66,000 students). Often, these families find out about a charter school by word of mouth. 

Finally, in addition to serving more Hispanic students than traditional school districts (30 percent versus 21 percent), charter schools have more Hispanic teachers (37 percent versus 29 percent). And considerable research suggests that students of color who are assigned to teachers of the same race or ethnicity tend to have more positive experiences. 

3. One point that came through very clearly in the interviews with practitioners was the almost universal demand for more bilingual educators, even in schools that don’t have an official bilingual program. The shortage of bilingual educators isn’t a new problem, of course, but is there anything to be done now, policy-wise, to address the problem? And if so, how can charter schools be part of that solution?

As always, there is no silver bullet. However, there are promising practices and policies that can make a difference.

One is to increase the number of pathways and training programs to become a certified bilingual educator. For example, quite a few charter schools in Texas have created “grow your own” teacher programs focused on identifying and developing prospective teachers to serve in hard-to-staff areas like bilingual education. Some of these programs provide high school students opportunities to explore the teaching profession, others provide support for paraprofessionals seeking certification, and still others are for teachers who want to pursue a graduate degree or a more specialized education certification. But regardless of their design, the goal is to capture and support talented educators who may not otherwise pursue the career.

Additionally, there is a longstanding disconnect between what it takes to complete a certain exam or certification requirement and what it takes to be a strong bilingual educator, especially in a dual-language teaching environment (where the teacher is typically speaking a lot of conversational Spanish). Most likely, the forms of assessment and certification can be modified to better capture the skills and knowledge needed to be a successful bilingual educator. (For example, instead of taking a standardized exam, teachers could present a sample lesson.) And charter schools can and should be advocates for this sort of flexibility.

4. Suppose you could make one policy change that you think would benefit English learners in Texas’s charter schools. What would it be?

While Texas is a leader when it comes to strong statewide policies for serving English learners in schools, there is always room to improve. One change that would be great to see is related to dual-language immersion programs. Though Texas recognizes the value of dual-language immersion programs for English learners and provides an additional bump in funding for schools operating those programs, that funding is dependent on teachers being fully certified as bilingual educators. As discussed before, there is a nationwide shortage of bilingual educators, and this is not a problem that will be quickly or easily solved. However, an uncertified teacher does not automatically mean that these are not high-quality dual-language programs achieving great outcomes for students, especially as seen from results of this study. Providing schools with the funding needed to continue to operate dual-language programs, regardless of teacher certification status, should be a priority. There was recent legislation aimed at addressing this, but time ran out before it could pass into law. We will continue to advocate on this issue in the future.

Jennifer Acevedo is the Data and Research Analyst at the Texas Public Charter Schools Association and a former bilingual educator in Texas charter schools.

Starlee Coleman is the CEO of the Texas Public Charter Schools Association and has twenty years of experience turning public policy ideas into laws.

Arguments for and against “no zeroes” and other types of “hold harmless” grading policies in K–12 schools are often rooted in emotion rather than evidence. Proponents argue that rigid grading schemes are punitive and crush students’ love of learning. Opponents say that lenient grading disincentivizes student effort and fails to reward high achievers. A recent NBER working paper attempts to put some empirical meat on those rhetorical bones, looking specifically at college courses graded on a pass/fail basis. The study was conducted at Wellesley College, a private liberal arts institution for women founded in 1881 that boasts as alumnae Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, and Cokie Roberts, for starters.

Wellesley students can take an unlimited number of courses as voluntary pass/fail. “Pass” appears on students’ transcripts if they receive a letter grade of A–C, while “fail” appears for D–F. Between fall 2004 and spring 2013, 9 percent of Wellesley courses were designated as pass/fail based on students’ choices.

In fall 2014, the school began mandating pass/fail grading for first-year, first-semester students. The intention was to ease the transition and growing pains from high school into college and to nudge new students to take courses—presumably ones they perceive as harder—that they might not otherwise undertake. However, instructors still followed a “shadow grading” policy, meaning they recorded letter grades but only shared them privately with students. Transcripts for these first-year courses reported “pass” for letter grades A–D and “fail” for the letter grade F, making it even easier to successfully complete a course than under the voluntary pass/fail grading scheme above.

The analysts, a trio of economists from Wellesley itself, use a regression discontinuity-in-time design, in which the academic year is the running variable and fall 2014 is the policy cutoff around which they examine outcomes. So they are analyzing two periods: 2004–05 through 2013–14 (pre-mandate) and 2014–15 through 2019–20 (post-mandate). They test for bias in numerous ways while refining their models, attending to the possibility that their results could be affected if students were non-randomly sorting into or out of the sample (either in anticipation of the pass/fail policy or in response to it). Ultimately, they are able to conclude that sorting is not a major threat.

As to the question of course choice, results show that first-semester students exposed to the policy of mandatory pass/fail were 82 percentage points more likely to take a course as pass/fail compared to the earlier groups (pre-2014) that had only the option of doing so. Students in some later semesters—meaning after the first semester when the mandate no longer applied—were slightly less likely to use the voluntary pass/fail option, possibly providing tacit understanding that “too many” ungraded courses on official transcripts is off-putting to employers or graduate schools. The mandate also specifically influenced course choices in the first semester, increasing the probability of taking a STEM course by 5 percentage points. The analysts looked to see if early engagement with introductory STEM classes might spur later engagement via course and major choices. However, they find no evidence of an increased number of STEM courses taken or of an increased probability of graduating with a STEM degree. Rather, the policy’s main effect on students’ choices was to shift enrollment into introductory STEM courses to earlier in the college career—potentially nudging them to take courses they perceive as harder, per the policy’s intent.

“Shadow grading” also revealed that the pass/fail policy lowered the average grade points of first-semester students by about 23 percent of a standard deviation as compared to that of first-semester students in the pre-policy era (prior to 2014). What’s more, it lowered the grades of first-semester students relative to later-semester students enrolled in the same courses.

Why would that be? Analysts test a number of theories, and find little evidence that differences in the classroom composition of students, lower-quality instruction, tougher grading, or arbitrary modifications in grading standards for first-semester versus later-semester students are to blame. In the end, their most plausible explanation for the policy-induced reduction in grades is that students in mandatory pass/fail classes exerted less effort relative to letter-graded students. (No surprise there!) More specifically, removing transcript consequences for first-semester students likely led to a lowering of effort in those classes and did not translate into longer-term pivots to STEM fields.

Still, let’s keep in mind that this is Wellesley, a prestigious destination for smart and accomplished students. It seems likely that first-semester jitters—and induced GPA reduction—will resolve themselves as these small fish feel more at home in their big new pond. Alas, the same cannot be said of general-education, open-to-all K–12 schools, where administrators should be quite wary of hold-harmless grading policies that could usher in a perpetual lack of effort—with permanent consequences on educational attainment for many students.

SOURCE: Kristin Butcher, Patrick McEwan, and Akila Weerapana, “Making the (Letter) Grade: The Incentive Effects of Mandatory Pass/Fail Courses,” National Bureau of Economic Research (December 2022).

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Paul DiPerna of EdChoice joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the results from the EdChoice survey on teacher satisfaction and wellness across the district, charter, and private school sectors. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber discusses a study that investigates the negative long-term effects of Reading Recovery.

Recommended content:

• “Where are teachers thriving?”—Mike McShane
• “Teacher job satisfaction rebounds from last year’s low. But there’s still a ways to go” —Education Week
• The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Henry May et al., Long-Term Impacts of Reading Recovery through 3rd and 4th Grade: A Regression Discontinuity Study, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness (May 2023)

Feedback Welcome:

Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Jeanette Luna at [email protected].

Cheers

• According to a new poll, teachers are happier in charter and private schools. —Forbes
• L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho pushes for data-driven reform, especially when it comes to the science of reading. —EdSource
• Former Dallas schools superintendent Mike Miles will lead the Lone Star State’s takeover of Houston schools. —Texas Tribune
• A new Nebraska bill will allow up to $100 million in tax credits to fund private school scholarships. —The 74
• A New Jersey teacher donated a kidney to a colleague. —News 12 New Jersey

Jeers

• Another tragedy: “Two dead, several injured in shooting at a high school graduation in Virginia.” —NPR
• “Violence against teachers is on the rise.” —Wall Street Journal
• 46 percent of Philadelphia’s students are chronically absent. —Philadelphia Inquirer

• “There is no such thing as a morally neutral education, in public schools or anywhere else.” —American Conservative
• Schools should be phone-free zones, as a growing body of research shows that they inhibit academic, cognitive, and social development. —Jon Haidt
• Defying stereotypes, Mississippi makes trailblazing progress in reading instruction. —Nicholas Kristof
• Will AI make learning to code obsolete? —Farhad Manjoo