The Education Gadfly Weekly

The cost of groceries, cars, plane tickets—it seems like everything is going up these days. What’s not? The number of teenagers going to college. Recent statistics show that 685,000 fewer students were enrolled in undergraduate programs (both community colleges and four-year institutions) in spring 2022 than the previous spring. That’s a drop of 4.1 percent—steeper than the 3.5 percent decline the previous spring. To date, the college student body has shrunk by nearly 1.4 million or 9.4 percent during the pandemic.

One reason is that younger Americans, for better or worse, are starting to question the value of college. Among those with a bachelor’s degree or more, just 56 percent under age thirty think the benefits of their education exceed the cost. That compares with 82 percent of those age sixty or over.

While postsecondary education obviously remains valuable for students’ career prospects, escalating tuition costs—coupled with many young people saying they aren’t gaining job-ready skills—means that we need to do a much better job preparing both students who choose to go straight into the labor market after high school and those headed into college. One way that high schools can respond to increasing demand for career preparation is by helping their students attain industry-recognized credentials (IRCs).

Conferred on individuals by businesses, industry groups, or state certifying entities, these credentials signify a sufficient level of knowledge and skills in a particular domain, often through one or more assessments. For instance, the American Welding Society (AWS) issues several different types of welding certifications pertaining to inspection, engineering, education, and sales.

High school students most often earn IRCs through career and technical education (CTE), including “concentrating” in several related CTE courses. Some want an IRC, or at least its content, for personal reasons—so they can repair their own car, cook for their family, or even flip houses one day. Others see a high school IRC as part of a stack of credentials to be accumulated, a stack that may include some (or a lot of) college and additional vocational and technical instruction.

But the most straightforward reason for a high school IRC is to advance one’s prospects in the workforce. Yet we know almost nothing about whether IRCs better equip high school graduates to gain employment and earn a living wage. Neither do we know whether IRCs earned during high school make it likelier that students will build upon them when choosing college majors.

Texas has taken this seriously. In 2017, the Lone Star legislature directed the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to publish a list of approved IRCs that are recognized and valued by employers and to factor students’ receipt of such IRCs into the state’s school accountability system. Students who complete an approved IRC in Texas are now deemed to be college, career, and military ready (CCMR) in the state’s school accountability ratings.

Now, thanks to Fordham’s new study, How Attaining Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shapes Education and Employment Outcomes, we can see how young Texans with IRCs fare in their first year out of high school and can compare them with similar peers who lack IRCs. Matt Giani, director of research and data science at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted the study. Professor Giani has a history of successful projects that link Texas K–12 data to postsecondary and workforce outcomes.

His key findings include:

• IRCs earned in high school are mostly a positive for students who earn them compared to similar students who don’t, but those differences tend to be small.
• IRCs in agriculture, business, and health science are positively associated with college enrollment and persistence, but those in cosmetology, manufacturing, and transportation are negatively associated.
• The majority of students who earn IRCs are not employed in the industry most closely aligned with their credentials (if they enter the workforce), nor are they enrolled in related college majors (if they go to college).
• Career and technical programs that lead to IRCs today do not necessarily constitute a lower educational “track” for high school students.

That first finding in particular—that high school IRCs are a net positive for students who earn them but are not game changers—raises a lingering question: How else can we transform the high school experience for students so as to significantly boost their wages and career prospects once they are in the workforce?

Here are four ideas:

1. Stress the key roles of high schools—and middle schools, too—in helping students figure out their career interests and aptitudes.

If we really want young people to make the most of their last four years in K–12 education, we need high schools to help them align their aptitudes with their interests. This means using middle school to commence career exploration. Grades 5–8 are a good time for students to learn about different career options through exploratory and introductory CTE courses and to develop a plan for reaching future goals—perhaps gaining some exposure to coding, robotics, digital media, film production, and so on, all while also learning the essentials of a quality core curriculum.

Nobody is saying that twelve-year-olds should make major life decisions, but one way to help students learn about their options is to identify not only what they are interested in, but also what they are good at. One of us recently wrote about a new generation of aptitude assessments for middle and high schools where students complete a series of activities (or “brain games”) that “allow them to see career paths for themselves that line up with their aptitudes and are free of the race, class, and gender biases that tended to plague old-style interest inventories.” Such assessments focus on potential, not achievement, so “the results often tell kids about strengths in areas the children had thought were weaknesses.”

Strategies like these can open up new career paths for students to explore in middle school, as well as get them thinking sooner about which paths they want to take more seriously in high school. If we wait until students are eleventh or twelfth graders before we attempt to help them prepare for the world of work, we’ve done them a disservice.

2. Embrace approaches that are much more ambitious than IRCs, such as serious youth apprenticeship programs.

Exposure to the workforce in high school has generally benefitted students. For instance, prior research found that summer employment helps improve school outcomes for low-income youth. What’s more, students who work ten or so hours a week during the school year—even as early as grade nine—experience a boost in test scores and in the amount of schooling they complete. Thankfully, more states are calling for work-based learning programs, which, says Jobs for the Future, provide “real-world opportunities to apply the lessons learned in classroom settings, build professional networks, earn money while they learn, and get a head start on the road to a career.”

It makes sense, then, that the culminating high school experience for students choosing to go straight into the workforce should be an in-person, hands-on experience in a field in which the student has demonstrated aptitude—ideally by concentrating in a series of sequential CTE courses and earning an IRC in the same industry while engaging in a real-world apprenticeship (or at least the start of one). Such an approach must be high-quality and equitable; hence it’s encouraging that our results show that career and technical programs leading to IRCs do not constitute a lower educational “track.” Still, given historical concerns about adults doing the steering, these choices must also be student-initiated, which leaves open the possibility that many of these students will choose to return to formal education at a later point in time.

We can imagine a middle or high school continuum that moves students along a series of options ranging from less intensive and less transformational to more intensive and more transformational. Such a continuum might look like this:

1. Career exploration
2. CTE course taking
3. CTE concentration
4. IRCs (on top of CTE concentration)
5. Youth apprenticeships

Several states have recently gotten serious about providing high-quality apprenticeships as capstone experiences for young people. Research on them is growing, with recent studies finding that apprentices earned significantly more than similar peers who completed only the accompanying course. Other studies find that apprenticeships boost employment and “decrease idleness” among male high school graduates who don’t enroll in college.

CareerWise Colorado operates a program in which participants split their time between high school and the workplace. Apprentices begin in grade eleven and finish in their thirteenth year, yielding both an IRC and a chance to earn debt-free college credit.

What these and similar programs recognize is that high schools must free up significant time in students’ schedules to accommodate apprenticeships, which almost surely means expanding the high school day, making generous use of dual-enrollment courses, or foregoing some traditional academic requirements.

Louisiana’s Fast Forward program includes a couple of these approaches:

As part of the Fast Forward program, students spend the majority of grades nine and ten on the high school campus, earning core graduation requirements.

Once they reach grades eleven and twelve, students spend the majority of their time on the postsecondary campus or a satellite location while dually enrolled in courses. This ensures students complete their graduation requirements while also earning an associate’s degree or earning on-the-job experience participating in a state-registered pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship.

3. Encourage stackable credentials.

Many IRCs worth getting—because they relate to good jobs and authentic careers—cannot be completed while in high school. The high school version is a solid stepping stone, however, which is why the idea of stackable credentials needs to be taken seriously. As the term implies, these credentials build on one another well beyond high school, often embedding certifications that help students quickly and cost-effectively gain skills that lead to employment.

Stackable credentials can be more or less useful, however, as the skills and knowledge earned through some IRCs are more tightly linked to particular industries. The IT and health science fields tend to be more amenable to stacking, while those in retail trade and manufacturing are less so.

A better understanding of the fields that already boast fruitful stackable certifications would benefit workers and employers alike. So would development of more such stacks in high-demand fields. Indeed, recent research in Virginia showed how stacking can affect one’s labor-market outcomes. Adults who completed a stacked credential were 4 percentage points more likely to be employed than non-stackers and earned about $375 more each quarter.

4. Make state accountability systems more selective regarding which high school IRCs count in their college- and career-ready indices.

More than half of states report including K–12 IRC attainment measures in their accountability systems. But many of them are awfully lenient in terms of which credentials count as part of college and career readiness.

We need truth in advertising. A certification in a popular desktop program is not the same as one that combines hands-on, industry-specific skills and tech-specific software. We might benefit from a credentialing hierarchy, perhaps one that distinguishes among “building block” or general readiness skills (such as basic first aid, financial literacy, and general safety), stackable certifications, and capstone credentials that demonstrate mastery or advance careers.

Credentials Matter looked at thirty states and found that Microsoft Office Specialist was the most commonly earned credential (it was second in popularity in this report). But they termed it a “nice to have” because “overall, employers do not [specifically] request credentials to prove software competence, and most people learn and validate these in-demand skills through other means.” Further, “states, educators, and employers [need] to help students prioritize the credentials that will carry the most value in the workforce given the time and resource constraints inherent in schools.”

We agree. General skills are important to have but do not deserve much weight in a statewide accountability system that prizes high-skill, high-wage occupations. States need to be more discerning regarding what counts and what doesn’t.

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This first-of-its-kind report gives us an in-depth look into the value of IRCs in a state that takes them seriously and has invested in them. We hope that other studies will trace the impact of IRCs in other states and for longer timeframes.

In the meantime, we very much need to distinguish between two purposes of IRCs: the “must haves” and the “nice to haves.” As for the latter, of course let’s leave room for students to obtain these credentials because they enjoy the work and see real-life value in them. But let’s not forget that these are industry-recognized credentials. The “must have” is to promote job success. Yet the kind of IRCs you can earn while in high school are often just a starting point. That’s because most high school IRCs need to be linked to meaningful CTE programs that include high-quality apprenticeship and internship programs and myriad other opportunities to gain additional credentials, often including further study of some kind after graduating.

There’s not enough of that happening. If we’re serious about helping students to succeed on the job, this needs to change.

Earlier this month, I argued that “education reform is alive and well, even if the Washington Consensus is dead for now.” What’s more, I wrote that we should stay the course on the current reform strategy:

Keep growing charter schools. Keep expanding parental choice. Keep adopting high-quality instructional materials, and keep getting teachers trained up on them. Keep testing students regularly, and keep reporting the results. Keep being honest with parents and taxpayers about their students and schools are performing.

That was the too-simple version. Let me flesh out three key points:

1. This agenda will of course continue to evolve as reformers debate what’s in and what’s out, informed by research and experience.
2. This is an agenda focused almost entirely on policy, not practice.
3. Remaining agnostic about classroom-level practices—and the culture wars and other controversies wrapped up in them—helps keep the reform coalition together, but it limits our impact, since that’s where much of the action is.

The education reform agenda continues to evolve

I heard from a friend that my call to “stay the course” on the current reform agenda sounded “nostalgic in a way that feels like it might be clinging to something we have to rethink.” I can see why it might feel that way. So to clarify: The current ed reform agenda is not the same as thirty or twenty or even ten years ago. In the 1990s, for example, we were very focused on boosting the percentage of students scoring proficient on state tests—and, eventually, on seeing the “disaggregated data” move in the right direction. The focus on disaggregated results remains, but thankfully we have largely moved passed a single-minded focus on proficiency—a “snapshot in time”—and toward greater attention to individual student growth.

By the early 2010s, much of the conversation was about holding individual teachers accountable via test-informed teacher evaluations. Ham-handed implementation and poisonous politics led us to leave that misguided reform behind. On the other hand, an embrace of “high quality instructional materials” is rather new, enabled by the common set of standards for English language arts and mathematics still in place in most states.

No doubt, the agenda will continue to evolve, as well it should, informed by hard-earned, real-world experience, plus what we’re learning from rigorous research studies. We see, for example, a growing interest in school funding reform—including among those of us on the center-right. As the evidence continues to build that increases in spending do in fact relate to improvements in student outcomes, even the fiscal conservatives within the reform coalition are increasingly open to engaging on the issue. That’s especially the case if funding reform means that schools of choice—including charter schools, and maybe private schools, too—receive more equitable resources as well.

Parental choice is another fluid policy area. There’s always been a debate among reformers about how wide the range of choices should be, with conservatives and libertarians more comfortable with including private and religious schools in the mix. That debate is not going away, but new issues are joining the mix, most notably about options (and public funding) for out-of-school time, and various approaches to “unbundling” school services. Equity-minded reformers on the left may never reconcile themselves to public funding for religious schools—especially if they are allowed to exclude LGBTQ students or teachers of different faiths—but they may be more open to various forms of à la carte education. (Granted, some on the left aren’t even open to charter schools these days.)

On the testing and transparency fronts, there’s growing interest in new models for assessment—and plenty of enthusiasm for measuring student and school success with measures in addition to test scores. But this high-level agreement breaks down when digging into the details. How would assessments be different? If schools do well on “alternative measures” but not on test-score growth, then what? Should we ever consider such schools “good”? Not to mention whether we should try to return to NCLB-style accountability measures, like threatening to close chronically low-performing schools.

Reinventing high schools is another frontier for the ed reform agenda. (Though high schools have been a problem ever since A Nation at Risk, they’ve remained largely untouched by reform.) As with the country as a whole, I sense that enthusiasm for career and technical education is growing among reformers—with the usual caveats that it must be high-quality and equitable. But so far, this is mostly hypothetical; a tiny percentage of students spend significant time in high school doing serious career prep. And we haven’t yet reckoned with the major changes to high school graduation requirements that would allow students to spend most of their junior and senior years doing apprenticeships and the like instead of taking traditional academic coursework. Likewise, enthusiasm for “mastery-based learning” and the like—either in the context of traditional college-preparation or CTE—is mostly talk and little action, at least so far.

The reform agenda is mostly about policy, not practice

Ever since A Nation at Risk, the reform movement has been animated by calls for policy change. That’s understandable, given that the energy for reform has mostly come from outside the system, and thus outside the schools. And that’s still where the heart of the reform agenda lies.

To be sure, a few areas of practice have come to garner widespread support in reform-land. The best current example is around the Science of Reading, an issue that is often driven by laws (according to Education Week, thirty states have enacted reading reforms in recent years), but nothing real can happen without changing classroom practice. So, too, with the effort to get schools to adopt high-quality instructional materials, and provide effective support to teachers to ensure their faithful and effective implementation.

But on the whole, the classroom is where consensus goes to die. That’s obviously the case with the raging education culture wars around “woke” curricula, CRT, gender identity, and the like. But it’s not just these divisive social issues. It also erupts over fundamental questions about how schools do their work. Should we embrace personalized learning—even if that means that not every student covers all the academic content we think is important for them to learn? Should we ensure that all students can learn at their own pace, including advanced learners, via gifted and talented education, ability grouping, tracking, and gated access to accelerated courses? What should school discipline look like, and how worried should schools be about apparent racial disparities?

None of these issues is easy; they all feature trade-offs and competing priorities. How do we balance the needs of the lowest-performing students with those of their high-achieving peers? Or balance the needs and interests of students with behavior challenges against those of their well-behaved peers? Does it matter if both groups of students are poor and Black or Brown? We shouldn’t be surprised that liberals and conservatives hold very different views on these matters—and thus that such questions strain the bipartisan reform coalition.

The question is whether we can agree to disagree on such matters—and still be effective at driving improvements in our schools. Let’s turn to that question next.

A focus on policy, not practice, is good politics. But does it work?

It’s no small thing that reformers on the left and right can still agree on major system reforms—on issues like ensuring adequate and equal funding; measuring school effectiveness by test scores and other reliable indicators; and empowering parents with a wide range of education options, at least within the public school universe.

But the endpoint of these reforms is to improve what actually happens in the classroom, and thus boost educational outcomes—and, one would hope, life outcomes for students as well. Stopping at the schoolhouse door, then, is far from satisfactory.

That’s especially the case for what we used to call standards-based reform. The whole theory is to bring alignment and coherence to standards, assessments, instructional materials, and teacher training and support in order to improve instruction and outcomes. But it’s impossible to do any of that without facing questions about content. What exactly should students learn? How should they be taught? Perhaps in a narrow range of subjects—like early reading and math—the discussion can remain fairly technical and non-ideological. But eventually, this bumps into pedagogical and culture war debates. Which books should kids read in eighth grade English? (And which belong in the school library?) How should schools present difficult topics in U.S. history? How should schools handle the vast differences in student readiness at any given time?

School choice has it easier. There, agnosticism about classroom-level practice is a feature, not a bug—if advocates can get policymakers and the public to embrace pluralism as a guiding principle. Let schools come to different decisions about all of the sensitive questions, and empower parents to choose the school that best fits their values. Yet that’s harder than it sounds; pluralism is all well and good until a school promotes a view that someone finds offensive, or sets admissions rules that some consider discriminatory.

But there’s an even more fundamental, almost existential problem with reformers sticking with policies instead of practice: Policy alone doesn’t move the needle on student outcomes all that much. To be sure, the evidence is clear that reforms such as testing and accountability, smart funding increases, and carefully expanded parental choice can all boost achievement. But the gains tend to be incremental. If we are committed to addressing the massive learning loss experienced by millions of students during the pandemic, incremental gains won’t be enough. We simply must improve classroom instruction. We have to make a marked impact on what students are doing all day long, whether their teachers are challenging them, supporting them, using instructional materials that are well-aligned to what works, pushing them to work harder and smarter.

So we reformers face a choice: Stay in the relative comfort zone of public policy—or engage in the messy world of classroom practice, too. If we want to make a real difference for kids, and our country, I vote for the latter. But we are going to have to be thoughtful to find ways of doing so while keeping our coalition together.

Does school choice work? That depends on who you talk to and what you mean by “work.” For education researchers and policy wonks, school choice works if it raises math and reading scores for students who take advantage of choice programs or, more broadly, if market competition improves measurable outcomes for all students. For parents, it’s even easier: Did you get to choose your child’s school? Are you happy with it? If you answer “yes” to both questions, then choice works. For you.

The question that’s seldom asked is whether choice works for America. Perhaps that’s because there is no easy or satisfying answer. Merely asking the question surfaces uncomfortable moral questions both for choice advocates and for those who insist traditional public schools are essential to the health of the republic.

To be clear (and emphatic), school choice is an intrinsic good that should need no defense.

A parent’s first obligation is to their children and to attend to their upbringing in a way that maximizes a child’s ability not just to lead productive and self-sufficient adult lives, but to flourish morally. Since different parents will have different understandings of what that means, and since America aspires to be a pluralistic society in which that is not merely tolerated but treasured, we should have choices in education that reflect these different understandings.

At the same time, while parents should have the ability to withdraw their children from traditional public schools, they should not withdraw their concern for traditional public schools. Why? Because to do so is to withdraw concern for our republic.

There is an idea, especially prevalent among libertarians and some conservatives, that school choice is the answer to the problems of social justice activism and political indoctrination in schools because it allows parents to pull their children out of schools where “woke” ideology has infused the curriculum and school culture. This idea is not just wrong or simplistic—it’s dangerous.

A nation’s children are its future, and schools shape people. Therefore, since the vast majority of children attend local public schools, and likely always will, if you are fine with ceding public schools to activists, you are (by implication) fine with ceding the profession of teaching to activists, fine with letting the next generation of people be shaped by activists, and fine with ceding this country and its future to activists. Retreating from public schools doesn’t solve the problem of activism and indoctrination in schools: It concentrates it.

We socialize the cost of public education in America because we recognize a shared stake in the preparation for adult life and active citizenship of all children, not just our own. This does not mean that every child must attend a traditional public school, but it does mean that school choice advocates must recognize the value of maintaining constructive engagement in public schools and the likely cost to children when they choose flight over fight.

At the same time, once we recognize the importance of public education for our nation’s future, the immorality of imprisoning children in public schools that have failed them for generations and that no amount of “resources” has been able to fix becomes doubly concerning: We are failing not only those children, but also our country.

The battle between school choice and traditional public schooling is a false binary, and arguments that promote one at the expense of the other aren’t good for the health of the nation. Traditional public schools are here to stay and will continue to shape, for good or for ill, the vast majority of our nation’s children for the foreseeable future. At the same time, there is a crucial role for choice. Not only can choice provide a way out for students in failing schools, but it can also enrich our nation by enhancing its vibrancy, variety, and vivacity. Our nation is better off when its schools are not a bland monoculture but rather match the varied dynamism of its people and their aspirations.

There is a growing appetite for choice. But what recent fights over schooling also reveal is that there is also a hunger for public schools that are more thoughtful about how they should or shouldn’t shape values. We want institutions that serve us and our nation well. Indeed, even the most libertarian among us have a vested interest in the health of institutions, particularly if those institutions, whether deliberately or via our indifference, encourage hostility to liberty and choice.

Few things in our public life encourage us to take the long view. The battle for public education, a fight well worth having, should be one of them.

Editor’s note: This was first published by the Washington Examiner.

While some evidence indicates a return to pre-pandemic levels of academic achievement for students across the country whose learning was interrupted by school closures and remote education, not every student is there yet, and the gaps between subgroups of students are either the same or worse than they were in 2019. Additionally, evidence suggests that the negative impacts have been larger in math than in English language arts. Out-of-school time, and summer programs specifically, have emerged as promising means by which to boost achievement. A recent meta-analysis—by a team of researchers led by Kathleen Lynch from the University of Connecticut—looked to determine whether the data support summer math programming as an effective way to increase student outcomes.

The two most recent meta-analyses on the impacts of out-of-school-time programs were released in 2000 and 2006; many of the studies included at the time are now decades old and “use samples and methodologies that are now dated.” Broadly adhering to the What Works Clearinghouse recommendation of a twenty-year-review time limit, Lynch and her team gathered thirty-seven studies published between 1998 and 2020 that analyzed a summer mathematics intervention, included treatment and control groups, presented outcomes comparing those groups, and presented sufficient information to calculate effect sizes. Study types included randomized experiment and regression discontinuity designs (30 percent), as well as quasi-experimental designs that met all the previously-listed criteria (70 percent). Two of the studies had been previously included in the 2006 meta-analysis; all the others were new. Thirty-five of the studies took place in the United States, one in Canada, and one in England. The studies looked at both large national programs like Upward Bound and small local programs conducted at the school and district levels; most involved a majority of low-income, non-White students. The interventions were nearly evenly split between elementary and middle/high school students. Interestingly, 11 percent of the summer programs studied took place fully online. Most programs were rather intense, with a mean duration of 158 hours.

The outcomes were not particularly surprising. Compared to control group individuals, students who participated in summer math programs experienced significantly greater improvements in math learning, however it was measured in the individual studies. The average weighted estimate was a boost of 0.10 standard deviations overall, as well as for the subset of studies whose outcomes were measured by standardized tests. This would equate to a 4 percentile-point improvement. Longer-term outcomes—such as future math course-taking and grades—were also positive but less precisely measurable with the data available. There was no difference in outcomes for children based on income level; all students benefitted equally by participating in summer math programs.

However, there was variation in the positive treatment effects, and a few studies actually showed mild negative impacts for treatment group students. In looking at features that might play a role in these variations, Lynch and her team compared aspects such as teacher professional development and the coursework provided to the students. The most positive outcomes occurred in programs focused specifically on math, as opposed those that included reading or science as part of the curriculum. At the same time, weak or negative results were more likely in programs that used math textbooks (i.e., summer programs that look too much like school), perhaps an indicator of a program that used summer school as “punishment” for students who were faring poorly during the school year.

Lynch and her team conclude that summer programs can be valuable options for schools to help their students recover, relearn, and even move ahead in their math learning. However, a data-backed message that such programs must be properly tailored, of high quality, outcomes-focused, and available to all who might need them is both welcome and timely.

SOURCE: Kathleen Lynch, Lilly An, Zid Mancenido, “The Impact of Summer Programs on Student Mathematics Achievement: A Meta-Analysis,” Review of Educational Research (July 2022).

According to the Sentencing Project, the number of youth committed to juvenile facilities across the country has steadily declined since 1999. But a significant number of young people remain incarcerated, and while in custody, they are legally entitled to receive education services. A recent report from Bellwether Education Partners attempts to shed light on the juvenile justice education policies in all fifty states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

To get the lay of the land, researchers reviewed state statutes, codes and regulations, other relevant legal documents, and the websites of local and state agencies responsible for youth in custody. Their findings reveal “confoundingly complex and opaque” systems that make general analysis and state-to-state comparisons difficult. Overall, they conclude that juvenile justice education in the U.S. lacks robust and coherent policy in three key areas: governance, accountability, and finance.

Governance policies determine who is responsible for providing youth in custody with education services. They vary widely across the country, with at least sixteen distinct models in use. In many states, more than one agency is responsible for providing education services to incarcerated youth. For example, in twenty-eight states, the agency that educates youth in local detention centers may be different than the agency responsible at state-run facilities. Furthermore, some states allow custodial agencies to contract with LEAs, private providers, or charter schools to provide services. As a result, most states have a fragmented system where students can easily fall through the cracks.

Like governance, accountability also varies widely across states. In all but two states, SEAs are responsible for holding juvenile justice education programs accountable. Twenty-nine of those states include these programs in their accountability system for public schools, but that doesn’t necessarily mean being subject to school report cards or data dashboards. Three states have built separate accountability systems. States use a wide range of measures to evaluate performance, but very few have indicators for what students are expected to achieve while in state custody. Instead, approximately half use post-incarceration indicators, such as successfully securing employment or enrolling in a job training program, K–12 setting, or postsecondary program. Only nineteen states define what happens when programs underperform (including nine states that directly intervene in poorly performing programs), and an additional fifteen provide technical assistance to struggling programs (five of which also directly intervene). Oregon and Florida are the only states that directly stated their willingness to shut down or reassign consistent poor performers.

The researchers note that, although states’ approved ESSA plans were the most reliable source of information on accountability policies, what was in the plans sometimes conflicted with on-the-ground reports from those overseeing juvenile justice education. Furthermore, in a reflection of fragmented governance, programs are often required to submit data to multiple government agencies, and the agencies’ distinctive goals can be in conflict and weaken accountability incentives.

Finance policies determine how funding is allocated to the agencies responsible for education in juvenile justice facilities. Although many states receive some federal dollars, funding is primarily a state and local responsibility. It should come as no surprise, then, that policies vary widely. Many states—like California, Florida, and Hawaii—make use of their funding models for traditional public schools to determine per pupil funding in juvenile justice facilities. Others, like Alaska and West Virginia, allocate earmarked money to the state department of education or its equivalent. Four states have established special funds to educate youth in custody, while two others have established shared agreements to pay for educating students in state facilities.

The report concludes with six recommendations the authors believe will set states and their juvenile justice facilities on the right path. They include reducing governance fragmentation, perhaps by making one agency responsible for providing education services in all facilities; creating meaningful accountability systems; setting clear goals that focus on short-term academic growth and successful transitions back to the community; investing in innovative assessments and data collection tools, uniform student records databases, and strong data-sharing practices; publicly reporting data to improve transparency and support rigorous research; and ensuring that finance policy is dictated by governance and accountability, rather than the other way around. Implementing these recommendations will take a considerable amount of time, effort, and funding, but the students in juvenile justice facilities deserve nothing less.

Source: Paul Beach, Brian Robinson, Hailly T.N. Korman, and Linea Koehler, “Double Punished: Locked Out of Opportunity,” Bellwether Education Partners (June 2022).

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Matt Giani, a professor and researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of Fordham’s new report, How Attaining Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shapes Education and Employment Outcomes. They discuss some takeaways of the first-of-its-kind study. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a paper examining whether schools where students make rapid academic progress in grades 3–5 also help their students do so in grades K–2.

Recommended content:

• Fordham’s new study: Matt Giani, “How Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shape Students’ Education and Employment Outcomes,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (August 2022).
• The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Walter Herring, “The Other Half of the Story: Does Excluding the Early Grades from School Ratings Matter?” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (August 2022).
• Dale Chu on why states should start annual testing earlier: “The case for K–2 testing,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (October 28, 2021).

Feedback Welcome!

Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Nathaniel Grossman and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected]

Cheers

• The “Zero Dropouts” team in Colorado pounds the pavement to track down chronically absent students and get them back to school. —Chalkbeat
• Large urban school districts are rethinking and expanding career and technical education programs to provide students with training in marketable skills. —Washington Post
• Colorado’s State Board of Education is holding the state’s teacher prep programs accountable for how they teach reading instruction. —Chalkbeat
• Massachusetts’s State Board of Education voted to raise the score needed to pass the state test required for high school graduation. —Boston Globe

Jeers

• Teachers in Columbus, Ohio, voted to strike just two days before the start of the school year. —Washington Post
• Federal rules for Head Start programs force children as young as two to mask up at school. —K–12 Dive

• The Great Recession baby bust and the Covid-19 pandemic led federal statisticians to predict enrollment declines in almost every state by 2030. —Matthew Ladner
•  Research-backed reading curricula and higher standards are needed to reverse years of learning loss cause by bad education policy and Covid-19 restrictions on schools. —Jeb Bush
• After being shut out in statewide elections for over a decade, California’s Republican party is shifting tactics and recruiting candidates for local school board races. —CalMatters
• Having launched just 18 months ago, parent advocacy group “Moms for Liberty” now has 200 chapters with 100,000 members and is making its influence felt in local school board politics. —USA Today