1. The Senate Education Committee heard testimony on SB 1 yesterday. (That’s the one that would, among other things, lead to a big revamp of education policy governance in the state, in case you had perhaps forgotten.) Fordham’s Chad Aldis was there, telling committee members that the current set up of the state board of education is “a recipe for gridlock, discord, and a lack of accountability”.  Yowza. Chair Brenner noted several amendments likely to be added to the bill before passage. (Gongwer Ohio, 2/14/23) Chad’s full testimony is here, if you are so inclined.
   
   

2. Speaking of Fordham: I don’t know why nobody called our own Aaron Churchill to help out with this piece about the possible cost of voucher eligibility expansion in Ohio. Oh wait. Yes I do. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/13/23)
   
   

3. But seriously, folks: When has anyone ever correctly predicted the cost of an education initiative in Ohio? Here are two additional clips to illustrate that point. Lake Local Schools is staring down a projected deficit of over $3 million dollars. (In the year of our lord ESSER 2023, how?!) Plan A for dealing with it is, of course, getting more money from voters and doing nothing else differently or better or more efficiently. Plan B, which the elected board only discussed due to “statutory requirement”, is to reduce salaries “by attrition”. Leaving aside the fact that this is lame and passive, the idea that even attrition-based expense reduction is not part of the primary solution to an imminent “we don’t have enough money to operate as we have been” problem shows that no one in education gives a fig about budgets and planning and adhering to them. And that the crie de coeur “it costs more than we thought” is only a problem when the other guy is saying it. (Canton Repository, 2/14/23) Meanwhile, the sudden and immediate resignation of Akron City Schools’ superintendent is going to require the district to shell out a lot of money this year—just south of $500,000—that one imagines its treasurer and elected board members did not budget for. Said the elected president of that elected board: “While the sum may sound large to some people, it’s an inconsequential number as it relates to our budget.” Inconsequential, eh? Does that sound right? (Akron Beacon Journal, 12/15/23)

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NOTE: Today, the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee heard testimony on SB 1 which would, among other things, make substantial changes to the state’s K-12 education governance. Fordham’s Vice President for Ohio Policy provided proponent testimony before the committee. These are his written remarks.

I am here today to testify in support of Senate Bill 1. This legislation would represent a major restructuring of education governance in Ohio and would move the state toward a more coordinated, coherent approach to K-12 and workforce-development policy implementation.

Why is a change necessary? Ohio students today encounter challenges that they are too often ill-equipped to face. We’ve all heard the data on K-12 education. But since the pandemic, it’s gotten even worse. On Ohio’s state tests only 53 percent of eighth grade students are proficient in English and only 43 percent are on grade level in math. Using the higher—college ready—NAEP standards, Ohio 8^th grade proficiency numbers dip to 33 percent in reading and 29 percent in math. Low-income students and students of color post even lower scores. It’s clear that we must find ways to improve student achievement in K-12 education. For those inclined to discount test scores, the long-term data indicates that students struggle after K-12. While around 53 percent of Ohio high school graduates enroll in a college or university, only about 30 percent actually go on to earn two- or four-year degrees. These numbers shouldn’t be surprising given that even with the rise of co-requisite remediation, one in five Ohio students going to college still requires non-credit bearing remedial coursework.

Quite simply, too many students leaving high school today are ready for neither college nor work. Ohio’s economic future and—just as important—the lives and long-term happiness of our citizens demands change.

What’s this have to do with the state board? The board has a host of responsibilities under current law (3301.07 ORC), but probably it’s most important is to “exercise leadership in the improvement of public education in the state.” This duty—always paramount—has become especially crucial in the wake of the pandemic, during which hundreds of thousands of Ohio students fell behind academically. Black and Hispanic students, those with special needs, and children from low-income backgrounds have been hit the hardest.

Unfortunately, on this front, the most important to Ohio’s students—the board has fallen short. Before expounding on this view, I want to make clear the deep respect that I have for members of the state board of education—both past and present. I’ve testified before and interacted with board members and believe they are doing their best to make a difference on behalf of students. In many ways, it’s a thankless job. It’s a board that is designed in a way that—through no fault of its members—prevents it from functioning efficiently and implementing the education laws that the legislature passes. Nineteen voting members—split between appointees and elected members—is a recipe for gridlock, discord, and a lack of accountability. And anyone paying attention over the past few years has seen that and more.

Areas where the board and/or its structure has hurt the state’s efforts to improve public education:

1. Failure to focus on the big things—Entirely too much time in board meetings has been spent discussing parliamentary procedure and political resolutions that are under the purview of the General Assembly not the state board.

2. Lowering expectations for students—On multiple occasions, the state board pushed to lower Ohio’s graduation requirements and urged lawmakers to grant diplomas for things like attendance, capstone projects, and volunteer hours. More recently, the board passed a resolution urging the legislature to drop the retention requirement for third graders who cannot read.

3. Moves too slowly—From hiring a new state superintendent to implementing the ACE ESA program to conducting five-year rule reviews, the state board’s slow committee process and failure to act in a timely manner on these and other issues is detrimental to students and often subverts the intent of the legislature.

4. Lack of accountability—At the end of the day, under Ohio’s current education governance structure neither the governor nor state board has ultimate authority and responsibility for improving educational outcomes. Each can—quite plausibly—stand and point the finger at the other when things don’t work out as hoped. From Academic Distress Commissions to charter school sponsor evaluations, when implementation went awry no one was ever really accountable.

To reiterate, we stand in support of SB 1. It would call upon governors to take on a stronger leadership role in agenda setting, policy design, and the implementation of initiatives aimed at improving readiness for college and career. In the realm of K–12, Ohio has a fragmented system in which governors rightly run for office on how to improve education but an almost anonymous state board of education—with less accountability as a result—actually exerts the most influence over policy implementation. The result has been uninspiring academic achievement which creates hardships for our students. By granting the governor greater leadership over education, we will finally have some semblance of accountability for education outcomes.

SB 1 would also create conditions that allow education and workforce initiatives to be vigorously implemented. The bill’s more unified approach—including creating a deputy director for career and technical education—is critical as data continue to show that too many young people struggle to make transitions from high school to career. The improved alignment of K–12 and career and technical education systems should help to set consistent expectations, align policy development and information systems, and create a culture of shared responsibility for the well-being of young people from elementary school to their first jobs.

Governor DeWine and future governors—regardless of party—should be allowed to oversee a unified state education and workforce agency. SB 1 would significantly improve the likelihood that initiatives are faithfully carried out. This is surely why governors of both parties, including Governors Celeste, Voinovich, Strickland, and Kasich, have at times sought more formal authority in primary-secondary education. Of course, this is not to say that governors should always get what they want: Checks and balances are essential to any governing model. But the check on the governor should come primarily via the legislature and, of course, through the will of the people who ultimately hold him or her accountable at the ballot box.

The time is right to make these changes. Post-pandemic, Ohio students are facing tremendous challenges to get back on track. We need strong, aligned, bold leadership to improve our education system. Unfortunately, our current governance structure for K-12 education has proven not to be up to the task. While restructuring alone may not deliver the results Ohio needs to secure its future prosperity, the changes proposed in SB1 would create conditions that promise more seamless transitions for students and a renewed accountability around academic achievement.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Last week, Governor DeWine delivered the first state of the state address of his second term. He covered a wide range of topics, from housing and public safety to workforce and economic development, but began his speech by pointing to the “moral imperative” of ensuring that all Ohio children are “fully educated.”

His primary focus was on early literacy and the fact that 40 percent of Ohio third grade students are not proficient in reading. He didn’t spend time explaining why this should be such cause for concern, but he didn’t need to. Research on outcomes for struggling readers is well-established. A 2012 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that third graders who weren’t proficient in reading were four times as likely to drop out of high school than those who were proficient. Longitudinal analyses conducted in Ohio and elsewhere have produced similar findings. The consequences aren’t limited to academic performance, either. For the estimated 16 million Americans who are functionally illiterate, everyday activities like getting a driver’s license, reading news stories online, or voting are far more difficult than they should be.

Fortunately for Ohioans, the administration seems eager to not only shine a light on early literacy struggles, but to actually do something about them. In his recently released budget recommendations, DeWine invested $174.1 million toward improving literacy and outlined how those funds would be spent. Let’s take a look.

The strategy starts with high-quality curriculum. In his address, DeWine reminded listeners that there is a “great deal of research about how we learn to read.” And he’s right. The science of reading—the pedagogy and practices proven to effectively teach children how to read—focuses on five main components: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Phonics, in particular, is crucial. Unfortunately, far too many schools still use curricula and materials that aren’t properly aligned with the science of reading. To fix this, DeWine has a three-step plan.

First, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) will be charged with creating a list of high-quality core curriculum and instructional materials in English language arts, as well as a list of evidence-based reading intervention programs, that are aligned with the science of reading. Second, public schools will be required to use the materials and programs that appear on this list—and only those on the list—starting in the 2024–25 school year. Unless schools apply to ODE for a waiver (which they are permitted to do on an individual student basis in certain circumstances), they are forbidden from using any curriculum, materials, or reading intervention programs that utilize the three-cueing approach, which encourages students to make predictions and use context clues to identify words. Third, DeWine has pledged to provide funding to each school to pay for curriculum based on the science of reading.

Funds will also cover the cost of professional development for teachers. Specifically, DeWine has promised that the ODE will “create professional development coursework rooted in evidence-based strategies for effective literacy instruction” and that the state will provide funding to schools to incorporate this literacy training into their classrooms. This is important for two reasons. First, although Ohio requires most teachers to pass a Foundations of Reading exam prior to receiving a teaching license and also mandates the completion of a minimum of twelve semester hours of college coursework covering topics like phonics and reading instruction, such requirements can’t—and weren’t intended to—keep current teachers up-to-date on the best strategies and approaches for teaching reading. Teachers need ongoing support, and providing them with professional development coursework meets that need. Second, by picking up the tab, the state ensures that districts and schools with tight budgets won’t have to skip out on offering critical professional development for the sake of saving a few bucks. 

Last but not least, the DeWine administration has pledged that ODE will support up to 100 additional literacy coaches in schools and districts with the lowest reading proficiency. Coaches will implement the Ohio Literacy Coaching Model, which was part of the state’s 2020 plan to raise literacy achievement, and will support the use of high-quality instructional materials statewide. This is a smart move by the administration, as it’s proven effective elsewhere. Mississippi, which has improved its early literacy outcomes to such a degree that it’s been called a “miracle,” also invested in literacy coaches.

All things considered, the DeWine administration has put forth a solid plan for investing in early literacy improvements. There’s still a long way to go before these proposals become law, but the fact that early literacy occupies such a prominent part of the governor’s education agenda is worthy of celebration.

English learners (ELs) are students whose native language is other than English and who score below proficient on an English proficiency test. There were more than 5 million ELs in U.S. schools in 2019, and millions of dollars in federal, state, and local funds are spent each year in an effort to help them reach proficiency and shed their EL classification. While specific language instruction is most of what’s done to reach that goal, these young people are not just learning language, but also math, science, social studies and (yes) English with their peers. Could the effectiveness of their general education teachers have an impact on the speed with which ELs reach proficiency, as well? A new study aims to find out.

SRI International researcher Ela Joshi uses administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Education covering the school years 2006–07 to 2014–15—a dataset that includes student and teacher demographics, students’ annual EL status, measures of teacher effectiveness from the state’s evaluation system, student-teacher linkages, and staffing details—as well as EL students’ scores on end-of-year tests. Her sample comprises over 13,000 Volunteer State students who began kindergarten between 2006 and 2012 and who were continuously enrolled through third grade. Most importantly, all were still classified as ELs at the start of third grade, and all were linked with specific EL teachers and specific general education teachers at the elementary level or specific general education English teachers in middle school.

Joshi uses discrete-time survival analysis to estimate the relationship between ELs’ likelihood of reaching English-language proficiency in each year between third and eighth grade, as well as specific characteristics of their general education teachers—such as demographics and effectiveness—that may impact that trajectory. Joshi tests five separate measures of teacher effectiveness, all of which use either state value-added (TVAAS) or teacher observation scores: a continuous three-year composite value added score; the TVAAS level of effectiveness; a continuous average observation score; observation quartiles; and a summary level of effectiveness (LOE) score, which combines TVAAS, observation data, and student surveys.

Overall, ELs assigned to effective or highly-effective general education teachers (as rated by any of the five effectiveness measures) were 17 to 50 percent more likely to reach English-language proficiency in a given year, compared to their peers assigned to less-effective general education teachers. However, robustness checks on these findings began to whittle away at the observed impacts. In the end, teacher effectiveness based on TVAAS scores and observation scores were the strongest predictors of student success (10 to 31 percent more likely than their peers to reach proficiency), the others showing little to no impact. Joshi discusses a number of possible mechanisms that may be at work, all of which boil down to “great teachers are great teachers to many different types of students.”

As to demographics, a ten-year increase in teacher experience was associated with a 5 to 8 percent increase in the probability of a student reaching proficiency in a given year, and assignment to a general education teacher of color was associated with an 11 percent increase in the probability of reaching proficiency. The latter finding could be connected to the benefits of a sympathetic set of academic perceptions and attitudes between teacher and student observed in other research, but the former seems to be more of the “great teacher” effect.

All of this combines to point out the obvious: To reach the highest possible level of achievement, all students need their teachers to be of the highest possible quality. Unfortunately, how to make that happen is far less obvious.

SOURCE: Ela Joshi, “Unpacking the Relationship Between Classroom Teacher Characteristics and Time to English Learner Reclassification,” American Educational Research Association AERA Journal (January 2023).

1. As I was reading this piece about the efforts of Licking Heights and Southwest Licking school districts to reduce chronic absenteeism after a Covid-era pattern of same proved stubbornly persistent, I couldn’t help but wonder what the numbers had been in these districts before the pandemic and how they had handled the issue back then. We get one half of the answer in the very last paragraph: “I can tell you what we’re doing now…is significantly leaps and bounds better than what we were doing before.” And while we don’t get the answer to the first part of the question, the remote learning aspect of Covid disruption is blamed for the problem as it currently stands. Thus, look out for the point at which chronically absent students in Southwest Licking are switched into the district’s Digital Academy “if they are more comfortable” with that option. Go Warriors, indeed. Additionally, I have some follow up questions about the kid who was “banned from the bus” but was driven to school by a staffer. (Newark Advocate, 2/12/23)
   
   

2. My dedicated Gadfly Bites subscribers (all 11 of you lovely souls) know very well the first question I have whenever discussing one of these “community surveys”, gathering “input from the public”, which are regularly conducted by school districts in Ohio: How many of the inputters are district staff members and how many are parents or students? Neither you nor I will find the answer in this coverage of Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s survey efforts, conducted on the occasion of the search for a new CEO, but there is a handy link to the full presentation slides. Answer: Teachers outnumbered parents and students combined, with a raft of other district employees piling on top. With those demographics now firmly in mind, it is interesting that the survey listed “school choice” at top of the pile of the “programs parents and residents want CMSD to keep and develop”. The citizens have spoken…I think. (Signal Cleveland, 2/9/23) Meanwhile, among the mish-mash of extremely-Cleveland-sounding news bites, the list of newly-appointed members of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance board includes a Breakthrough Schools parent. Nice. (Signal Cleveland, 2/13/23)

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Budget coverage, media style

Cleveland.com continued its coverage of Governor DeWine’s education funding proposals this week, looking at changes to the overall school funding plan as well as to voucher eligibility and various charter school supports. Their question: Will these proposals pass the legislature? Answer: Stay tuned!

Budget coverage, analyst style

Fordham’s Aaron Churchill, one of the foremost authorities on education funding in Ohio, analyzes the charter and voucher provisions in this blog post. He concludes with “three hearty cheers for Governor DeWine and his bold support for charter schools and private school choice”. Nice.

Charter funding in West Virginia

Not to be outdone, lawmakers in the Mountain State passed SB 47 out of committee this week. The measure would create a Charter Schools Stimulus Fund, to support charter applicants that may not have the resources for start-up costs. If approved, the fund would consist of state funding, grants, gifts, and even donations from any public or private source. Initial grants would be up to $300,000 with an option for a second. The bill moves on to the full Senate for consideration.

Unconventional

Back in Ohio, here’s a great look at a recent fashion show held at Horizon Science Academy in Lorain. As you might expect from a science-focused school, it was way more unusual than your average Project Runway episode. Think designs inspired to bring two continents together and skirts constructed out of sno cones.

He’s the patron saint of the internet

As you can imagine, there are a number of pieces that need to fall into place before this becomes a reality, but an application for a new online school in Oklahoma is already drawing attention. Called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School and affiliated with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, it would likely be the first such religiously-affiliated public charter school in the country if approved. It is aimed to launch in June of 2024, giving plenty of time for the issues to be worked out ahead of approval. And there will likely be plenty of them between now and then.

*****

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1. There’s not much substantive detail in this coverage, but the Ohio Department of Education’s testimony before the House Finance Committee contains many variations on the tried and true “we’ll look into that and get back to you, Representative”. What are our elected representatives asking questions about? The school funding formula and possible voucher expansion, as you might have expected, but also school lunch spending, bus purchasing, and early literacy proposals. As one astute rep put it: “I would appreciate many more conversations about that in the future.” Bound to happen, no matter which “that” he is talking about. (Gongwer Ohio, 2/9/23)
   
   

2. Headline: “One Ohio school district set a goal for every student to join a club or sport. Here’s why”. Actual reason: District leaders misunderstand statistics. Joking aside, I hope that at least all the kids with jobs are allowed to opt out of this mandate. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 2/9/23)
   
   

3. Fort Frye High School graduate Zachary Eddy appears to have always been something of an overachiever. Thank heavens, then, for the early college opportunities he was able to access starting back in 2012, even in his small Ohio town. He zoomed through his associates, bachelors, and JD degrees and is now a big fancy lawyer for a prestigious firm. He has also recently joined the Board of Directors of Washington State Community College’s supporting foundation. This is a full circle moment for him, because WSCC was where he got that early college jumpstart all those years ago. Nice! (Marietta Times, 2/10/23)

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“Chicken Coops, Trampolines and Tickets to SeaWorld: What Some Parents are Buying with Education Savings Accounts.” That’s the title of a news story from The 74, cross-posted to the The Guardian, about states like Arizona that are passing laws giving parents money to use for private or homeschooling. The emailed version is titled “ESA Boondoggle.” The charge? “Some find the rules, as one former state chief put it, ‘incredibly permissive.’”

Under the excitable headline is a balanced article. These Arizona parents aren’t just buying books and tutoring with their education accounts; they’re also buying kayaks, skating lessons, and roping lessons. One poor vendor gets the raised-eyebrow treatment: “The sword casting instructor, for example, said he would teach students ‘archaeology, physics, history and metallurgy.’”

I’m not here to debate the usual stuff: Who decides, parents or educators, on the last 1 percent of dollars spent? Who decides what is a reasonable expenditure?

Instead, my contrarian take is four-part:

1. All these scary examples seem good to me. The number one enemy of K–12 is boredom.

2. Public school teachers are already—and appropriately—doing all of these things. (More on that below.) It’s not just parents.

3. Public schools are hit or miss on what they’ll approve. So many teachers have to privately fundraise for their individual pet projects. But they shouldn’t! The stuff that only one teacher wants to do is precisely what will make it a unique experience for the kids.

4. My proposal: Rather than hem in the ESA program, we should create “Teacher Mega-ESAs” for precisely this type of individual teacher spending. A few such teacher choice programs already exist, but they are small. A Boston elementary school teacher has twenty kids at $25,000 per student per year of government spending. Why is her discretionary share of that $500,000 just a few bucks? Why couldn’t she control $10,000 per year (2 percent) to spend directly on her students? Why does a school administrator get to control all 100 percent?

—

What follows are requests from public school teachers on DonorsChoose. They want all these so-called “bad examples” of parent “boondoggle” spending. Yet I think they’re good ideas! (And yes, you should pick one and donate.) Parents and teachers alike should have the right to spend on discretionary items like these.

Coach Smith, at Noble High School in Oklahoma, wants kayaks:

We would like to start a lesson teaching student how to kayak. Our school has a pond on location along with Lake Thunderbird and Lexington Wildlife Management Area and nearby private ponds. We have access to personal kayaks, but we need more to conduct a lesson that can involve everyone in class…. From my experience, if people do not spend time in the outdoors, they are not concerned with the impacts relating to it.

Did you say trampoline? Mrs. Bustos at Lundy Elementary in Texas needs one:

My little preschool students are super creative, active, and kind. They deserve a variety of outdoor playtime games to keep their big minds engaged and promote creativity throughout outdoor play. A trampoline, sandbox, and sand toys will enhance their current playground equipment by giving them extra choices in their daily outdoor play. They currently have a playground with two slides and it gets pretty crowded when all three classes are outside during recess.

Mr. Pierce, an elementary and preschool teacher at Bokoshe Elementary in Oklahoma, will teach roping. His ask is a couple of junior roping kits from Colorado Saddlery, includes “dummy steer head, rope, gloves, stakes, [and] durable training rope.”

Mr. Simmers in Alaska is giving skating lessons to his students. He needs to buy ice skating trainers for the adjustable ice skates he’s already purchased.

The chicken coops? I found five pages of teachers buying those (plus two different teachers named “Mrs. Coop”). How would you not donate to Mrs. LaCour in Arizona, and her “Chick It Out” project?

My students are Egg-Cellent scholars. They love to do hands-on projects, as well as engage in experiential learning. By far, this Chick It Out project will have these scholars seeing and doing “the why” of learning. These resilient scholars will delight in making connections to the real world by hatching and brooding their own chicks at school.

The SeaWorld trip? Public schools subsidize those types of trips every year, and in high-poverty schools, they sometimes pay the whole way after a nominal fundraising effort. DonorsChoose doesn’t seem to allow in-person trips, but teachers have a backdoor. Mrs. Roberts, for example, at Caloosa Elementary in Florida is seeking matching T-shirts for their school trip to Busch Gardens.

People, come freaking on. Don’t you remember how the field trip was the best day of the school year? When did you all become grinches? Let’s free teachers to do more of that, not less. Way more.

Oh, and the sword-casting guy. Honestly, if I lived nearby, I would take our two kids this weekend for his six-hour session. My kids know zero metal working or woodworking. (Dad, um, is not handy like that.) This is a great use of ESA money, in my opinion.

You be the judge. Here’s the sword guy’s website. Doesn’t that look legit?

If you agree that this seems like a glorious six-hour learning experience compared to the other 1,000 hours per year of school, then join me in not just letting ESAs push the edges a bit in appropriate spending, but also freeing public school educators with new Teacher Mega-ESAs for their professional discretion.

Editor’s note: Mike Goldstein wishes he had set aside way more cash for individual teacher spending when he ran a Boston charter school.

I’ve lost count of the number of teachers I know who have either left their school or entirely abandoned education because of student behavior. A student physically threatened a friend, and the administration provided no consequence. This friend quit soon thereafter. Another started a family and just couldn’t remain emotionally present as a father while dealing with chaos at work all day. At one particularly unruly school, I lost track of how many teachers up and left mid-year; they put their keys on their desks and walked out the doors.

While most discussion about student behavior understandably focuses on its impact on students—the telos of a school is educating children, after all—too often the effects on teachers are simply overlooked. They’re collateral damage that seldom gets a mention.

My experience is typical. According to poll from the National Education Association, for example, amid fears of a coming teacher shortage, almost half of all teachers report a desire or plan to quit because of school climate and safety.

I’m into my seventh year teaching. I’ve taught in rich schools and poor schools, private and public, middle school and high school. My class schedule has been both unforgivingly busy and also free to the point of leaving me bored at midday. I’ve had great administrators and terrible ones. I’ve used more curricula than I care to count. I’ve spent entire Saturdays and Sundays grading and prepping. But nothing has left me more stressed or anxious than student discipline.

It was worst in my first year of teaching, when both my classroom management skills were at their weakest and the school in which I taught was distinctly weak-kneed. Every day was chaos, and the unpredictability of it scared me the most. What insult would fly across the room? Would I have to break up a fight today? For what educational failure or emotional damage was I responsible because of the chaos in this room? I still remember one student laughing at me after I asked him to sit down.

But it wasn’t just me. An experienced educator across the hall quit that year and checked into a mental hospital because of the verbal abuse she suffered from students. The shift from “these students are disrespectful” to “I am unworthy of respect” comes quickly, and it’s emotionally crushing.

In an open letter to Milwaukee Public Schools, one teacher described how her former feelings of joy and excitement about her job have changed to “fear of how my colleagues and I will be abused for yet another day.” What began as regular instances of students cussing out teachers or acting in deliberate insubordination escalated to a scenario where teachers are just trying to put out “bigger fires” like fights and vandalism.

One dismayingly popular policy that fosters such disorder is the eradication of punitive discipline like suspensions. We have countless case studies—from cities like Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh to entire states like Illinois and California—that demonstrate the necessity of discipline. When policies bar schools from using suspensions and instead make them rely on soft approaches like “positive behavior interventions and supports” (PBIS) or “restorative justice,” then misbehavior, bullying, classroom disruptions, and more severe behavior all flourish.

It’s worth noting that the cities and states mentioned above demonstrate that this behavioral pandemonium is a systemic problem, not a result of individual teachers with inadequate classroom management skills. I liken it to sailors. One captain may get from point A to point B regardless of the state of their craft or the weather, but it would certainly be easier if their boat hasn’t sprung holes and the sun is shining. Certain teachers will succeed no matter their environment, but the only way a school is going to be calm and orderly is if there’s a schoolwide approach to discipline that’s enforced consistently and uniformly. And that’s what “discipline reform” has eroded.

Unsurprisingly, most teachers support tougher behavior policies. A Fordham survey from 2019 found that teachers report “putting up with more misbehavior than they used to.” While they see value in restorative justice and PBIS as add-ons, they believe that suspensions remain a necessary part of any behavioral structure. It’s easy to sloganeer in support of abolishing suspensions in policy proposals or from social justice advocacy groups. It’s harder to support these naive policies when you’re the teacher in the hallway breaking up a fight or in a classroom trying to teach the majority of eager students over the din of a noisy few in the back.

And while the emotional toll is perhaps the greatest consequence on teachers, it’s also just hugely time consuming. More misbehavior means more paperwork and more time meeting with administrators, speaking with parents, and wondering whether your response was correct or incorrect or if today will be better or worse than yesterday.

And of course, none of this touches on the lost learning, academic mediocrity, and emotional harm that chaotic environments inflict upon students, all of which are very real.

If we really want to support educators—as so many institutions, advocates, and politicians claim to want to do—keeping student behavior in check is an important, too often overlooked place to begin.

Several studies show that a combination of market pressures and state or authorizer policies help prevent public charter schools from “cream-skimming”—enrolling high-achieving, less-challenging, or less-costly-to-educate students—and shunning or forcing out low-achieving, more-challenging, and more-costly-to-educate students. The extent to which these practices may occur in private school choice programs, however, is less understood, as most states generally allow private schools to follow their own admissions and retention criteria. In an effort to shed some light on the matter, a recent report from Joseph Waddington, Ron Zimmer, and Mark Berends examines the data from private schools participating in Indiana’s statewide voucher program.

Analysts use eight years of data (2010–11 through 2017–18) from the Indiana Department of Education, which includes information on students attending district, charter, magnet, and private schools (including voucher and non-voucher students). Critical to the study design, almost all students in Indiana must participate in statewide testing, including private schools that take part in the voucher program. Analysts focus on the students who switched schools between school years and distinguish between structural moves (meaning that students are moving into schools with higher grade levels) and non-structural moves (meaning they switched schools for any other reason). Their primary outcomes are math and English language arts achievement and potential differences in the creaming/pushout status of students with special needs (SPED) and those learning English (English language learners/ELL), since those needs are generally costlier to address.

For the pushout analysis, the scholars examine whether students made a non-structural move. They want to see whether low-achieving or costlier-to-educate voucher-receiving private school students are more likely to transfer out of a private school and into a district school compared to similar students who are voucher-eligible (but not voucher-using) and make a non-structural move from their traditional public school. The primary question is whether students have below average achievement in math and ELA relative to peers in their school each year.

For the cream-skim analysis, they examine whether students made either a structural or non-structural move between years, since there could be motivation to “cream” a student regardless of whether they reached the terminal grade of their previous school. They look at whether a student has above-average achievement—again relative to their peers in their school each year—and no discipline issues (the analysts have suspension/expulsion data only from the public schools). They are examining the difference in the relative likelihood of making a move for a high-achieving/less-disruptive/less-costly-to-educate student who receives a voucher to attend a private school, compared to those same types of voucher-eligible students who make a move without a voucher.

Analysts find no evidence that private schools are cream-skimming higher-performing, less-disruptive, or less-costly-to-educate students from district schools. They also do not find strong evidence that pushout occurs relative to English language learners and students with special needs. However, they do find evidence consistent with the claim that the lowest-achieving voucher students are being pushed out of private schools at a modestly higher rate than their similarly low-achieving, voucher-eligible traditional public school peers (1 to 3 percentage points higher)—as well as their higher-achieving voucher-using private school peers (3 to 9 percentage points higher).

Note that this is a descriptive—not causal—study. Which means that the so-called “pushout” data could also be consistent with any number of voluntary student departure scenarios, such as that private school is too hard (or too easy) for students; that voucher students are having trouble making friends or otherwise fitting in; or that the commute from home to school is too long. We need more information to determine the mechanisms behind the observed outcomes. Still, the lack of obvious cream-skimming and minimal pushout are both encouraging findings, seeing that private school choice programs have far fewer mandated guardrails to prevent them from occurring.

SOURCE: Joseph Waddington, Ron Zimmer, and Mark Berends, “Cream Skimming and Pushout of Students Participating in a Statewide Private School Voucher Program,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (August 2022).