1. The superintendent of LaBrae Local Schools (nope, me neither) has a list of interesting questions that he says “Ohio citizens should ponder earnestly” with regard to the possibility of a universal voucher (a.k.a. backpack funding) as proposed in the state. Since this is an opinion piece, I won’t tell you where he comes down. But I will suggest that any Ohio citizen who really ponders those questions will also consider their corollaries—unstated here, but pretty obvious if I do say so myself. (Vindy.com, 1/29/23)
   
   

2. Today is the start of Catholic Schools Week and St. Jerome School is simultaneously celebrating its 100th anniversary of serving students in Cleveland. Kudos to the thriving and growing school. I assume the LaBrae supe was observing Catholic Schools Week in his own way by penning that op-ed, but I am hopeful that he would accept that 10-year-old Zion Booker’s family are among the many Ohio citizens who have already earnestly pondered that list of leading questions he proposed regarding vouchers and private schools and already come to a different answer than himself. “My mom just wanted me to get better in school,” Zion told News 5. “It’s working really well and the staff are really nice.” But maybe not. (News 5, Cleveland, 1/27/23)

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Celebrating National School Choice Week pt 1

Dr. Anne Clark, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, explains in an op-ed recognizing National School Choice Week why she supports a wide variety of educational options for kids: “I am a product of school choice,” she writes, and so are her grandchildren.

Celebrating National School Choice Week pt 2

Cristina Gulacy-Worrel, vice president of advocacy and development for Oakmont Education, similarly tells of her own education journey in this piece from Fox News. Not only does it illustrate why she supports Oakmont’s vital work to provide options for students but it also explains why the validation provided by Oakmont’s recent YASS Prize win means so much to her. Happy School Choice Week to all!

The view from Dayton

The principal of Horizon Science Academy says she is dubious of the measures approved by Dayton City Schools last week which they say are intended to help improve student transportation. While she hopes for the best, for her, and for the families attending HSA, the reality on the ground calls for a stronger and more decisive response.  

Indy funding saga continues

Last week, Indianapolis Public Schools officials unveiled a revised revenue-sharing plan to increase the amount of funding that affiliated charter schools would receive from a potential tax hike. The proposed new plan, which increases the shared amount from $6.4 million to $9.7 million, is still inadequate Indy charter supporters say; mainly because it leaves out all the non-affiliated charters in the city. More to come on this story.

Speaking of school funding

Ahead of budget season here in Ohio, Fordham’s Aaron Churchill launched a blog series looking at the state’s complex school funding mechanisms. His first piece starts with the basics of the current system and future editions will take a deeper dive into the mechanics.

*****

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The release of “The Nation’s Report Card” on October 24, 2022, created shock waves though out the country’s education and policy establishments. The dramatic academic achievement losses reported for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) achievement testing program, which had been suspended because of Covid, were unprecedented during the fifty-plus years of national achievement testing and monitoring. Indeed, achievement trends have been positive for most of the years that NAEP testing has been in existence, particularly after passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2001.

Few would disagree with a “common sense” explanation that, since Covid caused so many school closures, NAEP achievement losses were due to large segments of the K–12 population not being in school. But is this a priori conclusion clearly justified? Most if not all closed school systems offered virtual classroom instruction, and we know that online education has become commonplace and relatively successful in other educational settings, especially community colleges. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that home schooled children can achieve as well if not better than children attending regular schools.

When NAEP scores first declined on a wide scale in 2015—after many years of steady increases—a major study by education economists Jackson et al argued that the drop was caused by a reduction in school expenditures arising from the serious recession of 2008–09, which had some financial impacts lingering until 2010–11[1]. Could school funding also be part of the explanation for the 2022 losses?

Finally, there is an alternative explanation of the 2015 NAEP score decline that has received little attention, which is the termination of the accountability provisions when NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) legislation in 2015. The effects of accountability requirements have received less attention than expenditures with the notable exception of work by Hanushek and Raymond in 2004.[2] If lessened accountability requirements are a major cause of NAEP declines in 2015 and later years, it may be reasonable to interpret the Covid losses to a type of accountability—that which takes place when children are required to be present in a classroom.

This paper examines national and state-level trends in NAEP scores to evaluate whether school expenditures or accountability requirements might be the better explanation for NAEP trends, including the recent Covid-induced losses.

National trends

The national trends for fourth and eighth grade math and reading scores are shown in Figures 1 and 2, respectively, juxtaposed with per pupil current expenditures. With regards to math scores, there are two distinct trends, and they are nearly identical at both grade levels. Scores rise steadily and substantially from 1990 to 2013 (by 22 and 29 points, respectively), and then they both drop by several points in 2015 and remain lower until the large drops of 8 and 5 points in 2022.

The expenditure trend shows a distinctly different pattern. Expenditures are flat between 1990 and 1997, and then they rise steadily until about 2010 when the recession causes a decline lasting about three years. Expenditures were back to their pre-recession levels by 2016 and continue their pre-recession trend until 2019 and beyond. If declining expenditures are the cause of the math score decline in 2015, math scores should have started rising again when expenditures started increasing.

Figure 1

The patterns and trends for reading scores differ somewhat from math scores. Reading scores made more modest gains between 1990 and 2013, but they also started decreasing in 2015 for eighth grade and 2017 for fourth grade. Reading scores continued to fall in 2019, and in fact, the scores following the Covid shutdown appear to be nearly a straight-line continuation of the trends established between 2013 and 2019. Like the math scores, if recession-induced expenditure losses caused these achievement declines, it seems reasonable to expect that the expenditure recovery would reverse those losses.

These consistent patterns of achievement losses, and their failure to match up with expenditure changes, suggests other explanations for declining achievement. The other major event in education policy which matches up with these achievement losses is termination of the No Child Left Behind act in 2015. The most controversial and unpopular provisions of NCLB were its accountability requirements. NCLB required every state that received federal funds to develop education standards for every grade level, administer standardized achievement tests to grades three through eight and one high school grade, and publish results of those tests by race/ethnicity and poverty status (as indicated by the free lunch program) every year. The most controversial requirement of NCLB was its “adequate yearly progress (AYP)” provision, which established a goal of eliminating racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities by the year 2014.

Figure 2

The AYP goals, while admirable, proved very difficult if not impossible to attain. The sanctions were quite severe; a school not meeting specific progress goals—in terms of the percent of students deemed “proficient” within a specified number of years—would be subject to increasing sanctions, including total school restructuring after four or five years.

As the years passed, real progress was made in raising achievement levels, as can be observed in Figures 1 and 2, especially for math. However, it also became clear that the goal of eliminating achievement gaps was not going to be realized by 2014. While Black and Hispanic achievement gains were very substantial, the achievement gaps narrowed less than anticipated because White students also gained at nearly equivalent rates (the same was true for free-lunch versus paid-lunch students).

By 2012, over half of the states had requested and been granted waivers from the AYP requirement. Nationwide, the maximum levels of achievement occurred for NAEP scores in the spring 2013. When it became clear that NCLB was going to be replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, schools dropped their AYP goals and requirements. As a result, the 2015 NAEP results revealed the first declines in math and reading scores in nearly twenty-five and ten years, respectively.

The impact of ending NCLB and AYP goals is seen more clearly in Figure 3, which shows eighth grade math trends by race and ethnicity. Although Black and Hispanic students were improving before NCLB, the adoption of NCLB and AYP requirements in 2000 led to even greater gains for these two disadvantaged groups, and the gaps with White students were actually closing. Between 2000 and 2013, the Black-White gap decreased from 40 to 31 points and the Hispanic-White gap decreased from 31 to 22 points. As impressive as these gains were, they were less than the NCLB objective of eliminating the gaps entirely by 2014.

After the new ESSA program was adopted and AYP requirements were dropped, both White and Hispanic students dropped by 2 points in 2015, while Black students dropped 3 points. After 2015, the Black-White gap remained constant but the Hispanic-White gap—which had been reduced by 11 points between 2000 and 2013—grew from 22 to 24 points between 2013 and 2019. It should be noted that Asian students continued to progress, scoring well ahead of White students throughout this period.

Figure 3

State trends

To this point only national trends have been examined. Since each state determines its own academic standards and designs an assessment protocol to evaluate progress, state-level outcomes should also be examined before deciding whether expenditures or accountability policies offers a better explanation of changes in test scores. In fact, the 2020 paper by Jackson et al. evaluates the recession impact at the state level because of very different degrees of public school dependence on state funding. Like Jackson, we also use NAEP scores in order to have a common metric to investigate the causes of achievement trends. In the state analysis we focus on eighth grade math scores which showed the largest losses following the Covid shutdown.

Jackson et al. classifies states according to their level of dependence on state revenues (as opposed to local property taxes) because the impact of the 2008 recession on spending levels differed according to this metric. For this analysis, we have selected two states from those with the highest levels of state funding, California and Minnesota, and two states from those with the lowest levels of state funding, Illinois and Pennsylvania. In addition, NAEP achievement trends in New York is also added as a special case due to an adequacy lawsuit that required increase state funding for school districts with higher poverty rates in order to overcome the achievement gaps. These five states account for about one-third of the United States K–12 population.

NAEP scores and expenditures for the two states with high dependence on state funding dependence are shown in Figure 4. It is clear that both California and Minnesota experienced very large funding declines between 2007 and 2014, although durations differ: Minnesota declines occurred from 2009 to 2012, while California reductions took place from 2008 to 2013. Both states’ expenditure cuts were largely restored by 2015.

In contrast, neither state experienced significant reductions in eighth grade math scores associated with these large spending reductions. Neither state experienced declines in eighth grade math scores between 2009 and 2017, and in fact California increased from 270 to 275 between 2009 and 2017. In 2019, Minnesota dropped 3 points and California dropped one point, but by this time, expenditures had returned to their pre-recession levels. For these two states, there is little evidence for recession-induced eighth grade math achievement losses. Moreover, there is no evidence that California experienced a loss associated with the end of NCLB.

Figure 4

Trends for the two states with lowest dependence on state funding are shown in Figure 5. Neither Illinois nor Pennsylvania experienced significant school spending reductions between 2007 and 2013, although their inflation-adjusted expenditures do remain fairly constant during this time before starting to rise again in 2013. Pennsylvania test scores remain generally high through out the period, reaching a maximum of 290 in 2013, but dropping to 284 in 2015 before rising to 286 in 2017. Likewise, Illinois scores reach a peak of 285 in 2013 before falling to 282 in 2015 and to 280 in 2019. During this same period, Illinois per-pupil expenditures rose from about $14,000 to $17,000. For these two states, spending is not a likely explanation for the test score declines in 2015; the end of NCLB is a more credible reason.

Figure 5

NAEP and spending trends are shown for New York state in Figure 6. Not only is New York the fourth largest state in K–12 public school enrollment, but it has experienced two major “adequacy” litigations, both of which resulted in state court decisions favoring additional funding for its K–12 public schools, primarily on the grounds that disadvantaged minority students were not receiving an “adequate” education.[3]

Similar to the national pattern, achievement grows rapidly during the 1990s despite a very small growth in spending. After NCLB was adopted in 2001, math achievement grew rapidly to 280 in 2003, where it remained for the next several years. In subsequent years, math scores fluctuated between 282 and 280 until 2019, despite very substantial spending increases from $20,000 in 2007 to nearly $26,000 in 2019. At least some of those increases were due to court orders from its two adequacy cases. Recession-induced spending cuts were very small, on the order of $200 per capita.

Figure 6

What about achievement trends for disadvantaged minority groups compared to non-disadvantaged groups? Figure 7 shows eighth grade math scores by race/ethnicity for California, and Figure 8 does the same for New York. In California, White and Asian students show no adverse impact from reduced expenditures or the end of NCLB. White eighth grade math scores increased steadily throughout the entire period between 2000 and 2019, rising from 277 to 294 during this period—a 16-point improvement. Asians show even greater gains.

Hispanic students, comprising more than half of all California students, also show significant gains between 2000 and 2013, but starting in 2015 scores were flat until 2019. Scores for Black students (who comprise only about 5 percent of the K–12 school population) fell quite sharply by 8 points between 2015 and 2019—and then another 4 points by 2022. It seems very unlikely that this drop is due to school spending, which had returned to pre-recession highs by 2015.

The lack of relationship between spending and achievement is also seen in the race/ethnicity breakout for New York in Figure 8. Despite court orders from the adequacy cases leading to substantially higher expenditures, both Black and Hispanic achievement dropped sharply between 2015 and 2019. Since expenditures grew substantially during this time, the end of NCLB accountability provisions seems a more likely explanation for the declines in eighth grade math scores for New York Black and Hispanic students.

Figure 7

Figure 8

Discussion

At the outset, I understand that the school expenditure and NAEP testing data presented here do not constitute a definitive study of the causes of achievement changes, at least not on the order of studies like those carried out by Jackson et al. The limitation of that study, however, was that it covered only the very beginning of achievement test declines that occurred a few years after the recession. As such, it would be a stretch to argue that expenditures—which have reached all time highs in recent years—are responsible for the dramatic achievement losses that have taken place following the Covid shutdown. That loss, plus my experience studying the relationship between spending and achievement in state adequacy cases, prompted me to revisit the issue by reviewing the national and state data used in Figures 1 to 8.

The Covid losses are clearly related to the fact that many students—perhaps most in some states—were not in school classrooms for one to one and a half years. They were offered online instruction, and theoretically, students (and parents) who tracked carefully with virtual classes and assignments could make the same progress as students in regular classrooms. But in-person classrooms run by teachers are more likely to hold students “accountable” for lessons, practice, and homework. While parents could theoretically do the same, they are not expected to put in the same level of attention as regular teachers in regular classrooms. Thus in-person classrooms are more likely to assure learning than virtual classrooms which reduce accountability.

The fact that almost all of the achievement losses observed in Figures 1 to 8 start in 2015, when No Child Left Behind accountability rules ended, suggests that losses between 2015 and 2019 are most likely due to the end of NCLB and its associated accountability provision. In that sense, then, all of the losses from 2015 to 2022 might be ascribed to losses of accountability, albeit of differing types. This explanation fits the test score trends much better than recession-induced spending cuts which were largely over by 2016.

1. There are, in my estimation, only two people in Ohio (outside of state government, that is) who truly understand our school funding system. Neither of them is me. One of them, Dr. Howard Fleeter, was talking this week to the OCJ about a December report he co-authored on the topic which has two conclusions. The first, it seems, is something that the state has already done; and the second, as I read it, is something that the other funding expert has been talking about for years. (Ohio Capital Journal, 1/26/23) Pssst: ICYMI, the other fella is also embarking on a new look at education funding. Part one is here.
   
   

2. Here’s something that I do understand: People who embrace school choice because they needed a different educational fit growing up and couldn’t get it. Cristina Gulacy-Worrel, vice president of advocacy and development for Oakmont Education, tells her own education story as a way to illustrate why she supports Oakmont’s many alternative programs. And to explain why the validation provided by Oakmont’s recent YASS Prize win means so much to her. (Fox News, 1/25/23)

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In summer 2021, Ohio lawmakers passed a brand-new school funding formula for Ohio’s 600-plus school districts and 300-plus public charter schools. To fulfill its constitutional responsibility of properly funding K–12 education, Ohio has long used a formula that seeks to deliver more state aid to districts that have less capacity to generate dollars locally and/or serve greater numbers of high-need students.

The latest iteration of the formula follows the much-discussed Cupp-Patterson plan, named after its legislative sponsors former Speaker Bob Cupp and former Representative John Patterson. They first unveiled this blueprint—also dubbed the “Fair School Funding Plan”—in spring 2019, and after much debate and revision, lawmakers eventually enacted the blueprint via the state budget bill for FYs 2022 and 2023. The new formula calls for an estimated increase of $2 billion per year in state education expenditures—a roughly 20 percent bump—and includes a new “base cost” model intended to determine the cost of educating an average student, among other structural modifications.

With the next biennial budget bill on deck for 2023, legislators will soon be reviewing the new school funding formula. There will certainly be strong advocates for maintaining the current model, but continued implementation isn’t a slam dunk. During the last budget cycle, important questions were raised about the formula, including concerns about its costs and long-term sustainability. As a result, legislators phased in just 33 percent of the additional funding called for under the new formula, and also included language that explicitly limited its use to FYs 2022 and 2023.

In this essay and a few forthcoming pieces (stick with me!), we’ll take a closer look at the formula and the major issues that legislators should focus on in the coming months. The details can get wonky, but it’s important for Ohio to get them right and ultimately implement a fair and sustainable formula. This piece starts with the basics, while future pieces will take a deeper dive into the mechanics.

The big picture

To understand the formula, we first need a handle on the basics of how funding in Ohio works. At a rudimentary level, we must remember that Ohio takes a “hybrid” approach to funding K–12 education, whereby both local and state dollars support schools. On the local side, all districts receive significant sums through property taxes. This includes dollars raised via a state-required property tax of at least 2 percent (20 mils), along with supplemental dollars generated when districts tax above that floor with voter consent. In total, Ohio districts received about $11 billion in local revenue during FY 2022.

The well-known problem with a “local-only” funding system is that substantial disparities in property wealth and income exist from district to district. Because of these differences, the state works to “level up” poorer districts to create a more even playing field. In 2022, the state provided approximately $10 billion to schools, allocated largely through the funding formula (about $8.5 billion).

Table 1 illustrates how the formula works to counteract disparities in local wealth. Districts such as Solon and Parma generate more local dollars, and as a result, their state funding levels are relatively modest. Cleveland, a poorer district, raises fewer dollars locally and thus receives—as it should—more from the state. Ohio’s public charter schools do not receive local funds (save for a few in Cleveland) and thus receive more state dollars, as well. However, charters’ state funds do not fully compensate for the absence of local resources. Consequently, charters on average receive significantly less overall funding than nearby districts.

Table 1: Illustration of local and state funding in Cuyahoga County, FY 2022

The chart below provides a higher-level look at the state’s allotment to all districts statewide. As indicated by the upward sloping line, districts with more economically disadvantaged students tend to receive more state funds. Of course, it’s not a perfect correlation—that would occur if the formula were premised only on disadvantaged enrollments (and ignored variables such as districts’ property wealth or special education pupils)—but, in general, the state’s formula is “progressive,” distributing more aid to districts with needier students.

Figure 1: Economically disadvantaged students versus state funding per pupil, Ohio districts, FY 2022

It should be emphasized that this progressive allocation at the state level has existed for many years. It’s not a novel invention brought about by the new formula. Ohio’s hybrid model—making school funding a joint state and local responsibility—has also existed for a long time. Over the past decade, the local-state share of overall education funding has been a near even split (roughly 43 to 43 percent), with the remainder coming from federal and non-tax sources. Overall, when looking at Ohio’s school funding system as a whole, Education Week awards the Buckeye State a solid B+ rating for funding equity.

What does the new formula do?

Broadly speaking, the new formula follows the previous one in many ways. The overall goal certainly remains the same—to deliver more state aid to districts in need of more financial assistance—and the new formula seems to accomplish this about as well as the old one. Moreover, the formula’s general design resembles the old framework—though there are some significant alterations beneath the hood.

Table 2 shows an overview of the two system’s formula components. At the top is a core funding component that, in both models, delivers most of the state’s formula aid. However, the calculations are very different. We’ll discuss these changes in future pieces, but the two main things to know are that the new model’s base calculations (a) drive the much higher cost of the formula and (b) create a number of implementation challenges for policymakers. In addition to the core funding stream, the old and new systems include categorical “add-ons” that supply extra aid to districts serving students with greater needs. There also remains a supplemental tier of funding known as “targeted assistance,” as well as transportation dollars. While the general approach for these components is similar, some of the details are different and we’ll also touch on those in future pieces.

Finally, while not reflected in the table below, the new formula shifts to a direct funding approach for school choice programs. Rather than counting charter and most private-school scholarship students as district students and then transferring state funds for their education to their school of attendance, the state now sends dollars directly to schools of choice. This shift should reduce misconceptions about the source of charter and scholarship funding—they are supported by state dollars, not local—and eliminate some distortions in district formulas when choice students were included in their enrollments.

Table 2: An overview of Ohio’s previous and new funding formulas1

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Some basic orientation to Ohio’s school funding system is critical for productive debates about the formula. We should first remember that in a “hybrid” local-state funding system, the state’s formula needs to counteract local inequities in wealth by sending more dollars to poorer districts. By and large, Ohio’s school funding formulas—both past and present—generally work to meet that goal. Big picture, the old and new formulas also have an overall framework that makes some reasonable sense. There is a core funding component, with categorical dollars for special-needs students added on top. But the devil’s in the details, and there are areas that require closer inspection. In the next piece, we’ll begin looking at several elements of the new formula—starting with the new “base cost” model—and see what we find.

• 1Charters previously received 25 percent of their local districts’ targeted assistance; under the new formula they are not eligible to receive targeted assistance. While brick-and-mortar charters receive all of the categorical funding streams, e-school charters are not eligible for economically disadvantaged or English learner funding (in both the old and new systems).

Reviewing academic standards is the work for which our organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, may be best known. In fact, in the first report we published, back in 1997, Sandra Stotsky addressed the quality of states’ English and language arts standards. And we’ve been periodically evaluating state standards in key subjects ever since—including but not limited to math, science, geography, and world history.

Because of our experience in this area, state departments of education and other state officials routinely reach out to us (and the content experts on whose know-how we rely) for input when their standards are up for review. After all, standards have to be periodically updated to reflect new developments in their respective fields—a process that typically occurs every five to ten years.

When its staff contacted us about proposed revisions to state-mandated history and social science standards in July 2022, the Virginia Department of Education had already embarked on this challenging but essential process.

In the ensuing months, multiple news reports have listed us among the organizations that provided feedback on early drafts of the standards. That is true, and we were glad to function in that capacity for Virginia as we’ve done for many other states over the years. But it’s also been implied by some that we tried to inject the draft standards with some form of conservative bias, even to “whitewash” history, and that is completely false.

My purpose here is to clarify our role and key recommendations, and to highlight which suggestions were ultimately integrated into the latest draft (mindful that such changes could have been suggested by multiple experts). Note that I’m comparing our initial feedback against the current (January 2023) draft on which Virginia has scheduled public comment and public hearings in the weeks to come.

Our role

In July 2022, Department staff let us know that they had read our report on The State of State Standards for Civics and U.S. History in 2021, in which our bipartisan group of civics and history experts assigned Virginia’s 2015 standards two B-plus grades (one for each subject). Although Virginia was one of just sixteen states that had received “honors” grades from our reviewers, Department staff wanted to hear more about how they could strengthen student expectations moving forward. So on August 1, my colleague David Griffith and I participated in a phone call with several staff members, during which they asked us for any additional feedback from our content experts not reflected in the published review. We didn’t recall any. They also shared some of the organizational challenges they faced as they contemplated combining the standards and curriculum frameworks. (The latter document is intended to “enrich and clarify the concepts” in the standards through suggested resources and student activities.) The decision to combine the two documents has since been reversed and they are now separate again, as in prior standards adoptions.

Staff were charged with integrating feedback from external experts, so we volunteered to give them input on the latest draft, which at that time was dated July 2022.[i] Subsequently, we asked two of the content experts who had co-authored our 2021 report to evaluate the proposed revisions.

We had another call with the Department’s staff on August 22, most of which again pertained to the organization and internal coherence of the (now separated) curriculum frameworks. Finally, on August 25, we compiled our reviewers’ feedback and sent it to the Department.

Contrary to reports that we submitted additional commentary on the “November” draft, that August 25 email was our last communication with the Department.

Our recommendations

What Fordham sent to the Department included general comments, while also detailing specific strengths and concerns for each early elementary grade (K–3) and each of the six higher-level courses with civics and/or U.S. history content (Virginia Studies, U.S. History to 1865, U.S. History 1865 to Present, Civics and Economics, Virginia and U.S. History, Virginia and U.S. Government).

Altogether, we sent approximately fourteen pages of comments. Because some of the reviewers’ suggestions were admittedly “nitpicky,” David and I bolded the suggestions that we felt were most important.

For example, a key weakness—which had been cited in our 2021 review of Virginia’s existing standards—was the failure to clarify the suggested sequence for U.S. history and civics content, which led our reviewers to complain that there was “no indication of the target age for the courses.” This problem remained in the July 2022 draft, hence our bolded recommendation to “Clearly articulate a suggested content sequence(s) for grades 4–12, as many other ‘local control’ states have done.” The latest January draft now addresses this concern, with pages 11–12 laying out a sensible sequence and progression to guide educators.

On a more specific note, our reviewers observed that the fourth grade Virginia Studies course made no mention of the Bill of Rights (nor had the existing standards), despite Virginia’s critical place in its history. That reference has now been added. We also recommended more coverage of the rule of law and the role of the courts, judges, and juries, all of which now appear in grade seven.

In the sixth-grade course, U.S. History 1865 to Present, reviewers noted the omission of the two Red Scare periods, in which heightened fears of communist influence led to the violation of Americans’ rights (both also missing in the 2015 standards). The post-World-War I Red Scare is now referenced, but the post-World War II Red Scare—also known as McCarthyism—is not. Similarly, our comments recommended reference to “growing social tensions over religious traditionalism in the 1920’s, as manifested in the Scopes trial,” in which the plaintiffs challenged a Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution. That suggestion went unheeded.

In the grade seven Civics and Economics course, we and our reviewers favored more explicit reference to the Supremacy Clause and recommended that scattered content on the three branches of government “be reordered so all three branches of the federal government are bundled together”—both of which were also issues in the 2015 standards and have now been addressed.

Reviewers identified a significant omission in the eleventh grade Virginia and U.S. History course (also omitted in 2015). In their words: “The Dred Scott decision is not noted by name in any of the U.S. history course standards. Its enormous impact should at the least be mentioned here in what is (presumably) the high school course.” Reference to this Supreme Court case—which held that the Constitution did not extend American citizenship to individuals of Black African descent—has now been added to that course in a standard covering the development and abolition of slavery.

Our content experts also wrote that it was “surprising not to see the Electoral College or the primary system in the otherwise comprehensive Virginia and U.S. Government course” (also missing in 2015). Today’s draft now includes the requirement that students explain “the role of the Electoral College and the impact of reapportionment and redistricting on elections and governance.”

Reviewers thought, too, that parts of the twelfth grade course were “case law–poor” and recommended the addition of particular Supreme Court cases, including Obergefell v. Hodges 2015 (which required states to license and recognize same-sex marriage) and Reed v. Reed 1971 (which addressed discrimination based on gender). The former case is now included in an overarching standard addressing the “development of and changes in domestic policies” due to acts of Congress and Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education, Obergefell v. Hodges, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, as well as Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (the 2015 standards included only Brown v. Board of Education).

I could go on, but here’s the point: In our 2021 review of Virginia’s 2015 standards, we encouraged state officials to “Preserve the considerable strengths of the current standards in the forthcoming review process” and “Plug the specific gaps in coverage.” Virginia now appears to have done that (despite editorials to the contrary).

Yes, they made missteps and errors along the way. But make no mistake: This latest draft does not suffer from political bias. In fact, the Guiding Principles rightly allude to our nation’s complex history: “The events of our history demonstrate that people have incredible ability to inspire, innovate and improve lives, and this human story also shows that evil exists with the capability of destroying civilizations, communities, and individual lives.”

Nor do we see evidence of “whitewashing.” Virginia, for instance, is now one of only a few states that teaches fourth graders that the institution of slavery was the cause of the Civil War—not one of multiple causes (as was suggested in the 2015 standards). If I had my druthers, they would drop this sentence from the Implementation section of the Principles: “Teachers should engage students in age-appropriate ways that do not suggest students are responsible for historical wrongs based on immutable characteristics, such as race or ethnicity.” Although I certainly agree, in my opinion it unnecessarily douses gas on a partisan fire. But if that is as close as they get to politicization, so be it.

Writing thirteen school-years worth of accurate, balanced, rigorous, and age-appropriate academic standards that are aligned across grade levels isn’t for the faint of heart—especially in today’s outrage-fueled news cycle—which is why most states publish exceptionally vague civics and history standards that omit most content and paper over the sticky issues. That may keep them out of hot water, but it ill-serves their teachers and students.

Take Vermont’s requirement that fifth graders explain “how policies are developed to address public policy problems” or South Dakota’s requirement that eighth graders learn “how government decisions impact people, places and history.” No one could accuse the writers of these standards of bias, much less of omitting essential content: There is none to begin with.

To its credit, the Old Dominion took the road less traveled in 2015 and is doing so again in 2023. And when it comes to preparing the next generation of Virginians for thoughtful and informed citizenship, that will make all the difference.

Last week, as we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we recalled his civil rights activism as an admirable example of creating what John Lewis called “good trouble.” Dr. King is an American icon precisely because he possessed the wisdom and courage to hold America up to her own high standards: that all men are created equal and must be treated equally before the law. Educators will teach their students about the activism of Dr. King, in the hope that students will be inspired to continue to work for the cause of justice. This practice is salutary. But we do not pause often enough to consider Dr. King’s own education and its connection to his activism.

We should not lose sight of the fact that Dr. King was liberally educated, and early in his studies—he entered Morehouse College as a freshman at the age of fifteen—he was convinced that a true education involved moral formation and a concern for the cultivation of interior freedom. It was at Morehouse that he was first introduced to the writings of Thoreau, whose essay “On Civil Disobedience” would become so influential in King’s own self-conception as an activist. It was also at Morehouse that King wrote a short piece in the school newspaper titled, “The Purpose of Education.” In that fiery article, he argued that education’s concern with intellectual virtue and critical thinking must be married to concern for moral virtue. “Intelligence plus character—that is the true goal of education,” he wrote. Even as a young man, King believed that knowledge and virtue must not he held apart. After all, he argues, “the most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

After Morehouse, King matriculated at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor of divinity in systematic theology through study of the classics of philosophy and the Christian tradition. At Crozer, he underwent serious study of the Western philosophical tradition, from Plato up to Hegel and Thoreau, which he writes about movingly in his autobiography. In his spare time, King was reading Marx solely to understand the appeal of communism. Although convinced that communism was “basically evil,” he wrote that it challenged him to see some problems in need of reform within the capitalist system, and how the profit motive could be an engine of inequality. It was also at Crozer that he was introduced to the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, whose philosophy of nonviolent resistance became central to King’s own political activism.

In his autobiography, he describes his “intellectual quest” for “a method” to help him to think about how to eliminate social evils like racism and poverty. It was in Gandhi that he found the method he was seeking. He writes, “The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the ‘back to nature’ optimism of Rousseau, the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi.” His liberal study of the classical western canon led him to seek wisdom from South Asia.

Nor did King’s extensive study of philosophy cause him to lose his faith. If anything, it strengthened it, and led him to pursue a Ph.D. in theology. For the more he studied history, and the more he contemplated the twin evils of racism and poverty in America, the more King was inclined to believe in the reality of sin and man’s essential fallenness. He writes that “reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.”

After Crozer, King pursued his Ph.D. at Boston University’s School of Theology, where he continued to study both philosophy and theology. That period of study solidified his two most important convictions: (1) the reality of a personal God and (2) the dignity and worth of all humans. What liberal education helped him to discover were the metaphysical underpinnings of these beliefs, and the arguments that he would need to defend them.

During his early years as a pastor, as King was deciding whether to support the Montgomery bus boycotts, he had to ask himself whether the means were in line with his moral principles. For he had studied his Machiavelli and Aquinas, and he believed with the latter against the former that good ends did not justify immoral means. Drawing on his study of Thoreau, he decided that the boycott was right and just because it was best understood as a refusal to cooperate with evil. Drawing on his study of Gandhi, he decided that nonviolent protest was the best means to express the power of Christian charity.

After the success of the Montgomery bus boycotts, King became an internationally recognized political figure. He returned to Morehouse College in 1962 to teach philosophy (see his syllabus and his final exam). It was a course in political philosophy, and if you study the syllabus carefully, you will see the sources of some of his most famous political statements, including his “I have a dream” speech and his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In that letter, he calls on the figure of Socrates—a “nonviolent gadfly”—as someone who well understood that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. He also addresses the movement’s willingness to break the Jim Crow laws in Alabama. Drawing on St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, King notes that there is a distinction between a just law (one that accords with the moral law and eternal law of God) and an unjust law that merely expresses the will to dominate and subdue others. He also draws on the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich and the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber to argue that the laws of segregation are unjust. The letter is powerful—the work of a scholar-activist who genuinely wants to convince others of the righteousness of his cause and the legitimacy of his tactics.

Dr. King’s mastery of the Western canon deeply formed his intellect, which is the ultimate source of his activism. His liberal education helped him understand what justice is and how to fight for it within the limits of his deeply Christian commitments. As calls to “decolonize” the curriculum grow louder in today’s education circles, we should look to Dr. King as an eminent case for teaching the canon. The study of the classics helped Martin Luther King Jr. understand what is a good human being and a good citizen, and we should not forget, neglect, or downplay that aspect of his legacy for future generations.

For the vast majority of America’s children, going to school has changed little from their parents’ generation, even their grandparents’: Where you live is where you learn, in a school run by your local public school district. But last year, Arizona functionally declared its school-aged students free agents, putting parents, not real estate agents, in control of directing where and how their children are educated. In time, the effect could be as disruptive to K–12 public education as the transfer portal and “name, image, and likeness” deals have been to college athletics.

More than a decade ago, Arizona passed a first-in-the-nation education savings account (ESA) law with eligibility restricted mostly to families of children with special needs. Last September, Arizona expanded the program, adding $1 billion in funding for public education and giving every parent the power of the purse—putting in their hands 90 percent of the state’s share of education spending, an average of $7,000 per child, which parents can use to pay for tutoring, online education, or other authorized educational expenses—including private school tuition.

If lawmakers assumed that setting families free with a backpack full of cash would create a market for quality private school operators to open or expand, their faith is about to be rewarded. Arizona’s most successful charter school operator, Great Hearts Academies, which operates forty-two charter schools in Arizona and Texas, has quietly been courting churches and pastors to partner in a network of private Christian academies aimed at low- and middle-income families, with tuition paid almost entirely with ESA funds. Great Hearts officials confirm they will shortly begin recruiting families to schools in the network, dubbed Great Hearts Christos. Plans call for three church-based schools to be opened in the Phoenix area this August.

“This is our response to the legislation,” said Great Hearts Chairman and CEO Jay Heiler, who compared Arizona’s ESA expansion to the law authorizing charter schools nearly thirty years ago. “Parents may now directly receive and direct funds to support their child’s education. And that directs us to the creation of private schools in response to that policy.”

By expanding the state’s ESA to permit universal eligibility, Arizona becomes the most interesting public education state in the nation and an emerging laboratory for innovative school choice policies and programs. The state has long shown a stronger appetite for choice than nearly every other U.S. state. Much of this has to do with who avails themselves of choice options in Arizona.

Nationally, the best-known charter schools tend to serve mostly low-income families of color in inner cities long beset by educational failure. In Arizona, however, Great Hearts, BASIS, and other charter schools are popular choices among relatively affluent suburban families. This dynamic has tended to insulate Arizona charter schools from the partisan political fights common to other states, creating a more hospitable political climate for school choice policies at large.

That said, challenges to the hegemony of traditional public schools are never without controversy, even in the deepest red states. Or in Arizona, which has earned a reputation as education’s policy’s “Wild West,” a label often invoked derisively, but one that has been embraced affectionately by choice and charter school proponents. An attempt by teachers and public-school advocates to block implementation of the expanded ESA program through a referendum initiative failed to garner enough signatures to get on the statewide ballot last November.

Still, Great Heart’s rush to open the first Christos academies less than eight months from now suggests at least some concern that Arizona’s universal ESA is likely to remain in political jeopardy under new Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, and in the state legislature, where Republicans, who backed the expansion, maintain a slim one-seat majority in both houses. Great Hearts declined to say if its leaders are concerned about shifting political winds, but it’s politically harder to close existing schools than to stop new ones from opening. “So far as Caesar allows, we will organize to serve parents and families,” Heiler tells me.

Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy and an Arizona resident, suggests Great Hearts and other would-be private school operators are wise not to be complacent, but notes that “no private school choice program in this country—no tax credit, ESA, or voucher program—has ever been legislatively repealed” once it goes into effect. That does not mean, however, that there will not be court challenges or attempts to limit funding.

Indeed, Hobbs claims the expanded ESA “will likely bankrupt the state.” Her budget proposal released earlier this month would functionally repeal the universal ESA expansion by eliminating funding for it. Bedrick, a former New Hampshire state lawmaker, notes the original, more limited program has already withstood more than a decade of lawsuits; he thinks there is “nearly no chance” the legislature will go along with gutting the program. Arizona Speaker of the House Ben Toma was the Republican majority leader last year and the prime sponsor of the bill. “It’s his baby,” Bedrick said. “The speaker of the House is not letting the governor undo his signature achievement.”

While Arizona is positioned to become the first state to see significant numbers of students attending religious K–12 schools at public expense owing to Great Hearts move into the market, the pieces are falling into place to spread rapidly to other states. A U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer ruled that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from public funding that allows rural students to attend private schools. A legal opinion from Oklahoma’s attorney general recently cleared the way for religious charter schools. Courts in West Virginia have refused to block a school choice program nearly identical to Arizona’s. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds introduced school choice legislation this month, and it is widely expected to pass the Republican-controlled legislature. It would make universal choice a feature of that state’s education system within three years.

The entry into the private school market of high-quality operators such as Great Hearts is a best-case scenario for school choice proponents. Critics including teachers’ unions have long pilloried vouchers, ESAs, and similar mechanisms as bids meant merely to siphon public dollars to the private sector without accountability or transparency. Great Hearts, however, enjoys a sterling reputation in the Grand Canyon State, with eighteen of its twenty-one schools earning an A rating on Arizona’s accountability system. There is also strong evidence to suggest church-based schools will be effective for the disadvantaged families Great Hearts Christos hopes to recruit. William Jeynes, a professor of education at Cal State-Long Beach and one of the nation’s leading researchers on the influence of religious schools, estimates that “just attending a faith-based school, whether a student is religious or not reduces the achievement gap [between white students and students of color] by 25 percent. Just as a matter of objectivity, shouldn’t we be doing more of this if we want the achievement gap to go down?” he said. 

Following the launch of the first Christos schools this fall, plans are to open “four or five new schools a year” according to Great Hearts’ co-founder Daniel Scoggin, “and then from there to Florida, West Virginia, and other states” where ESA adoptions and expansions make the model attractive to parents and financially feasible for them. Heiler also tells me that Great Hearts’ classical school model could spawn any number of faith-based academies, not just Christian schools. “We could also open schools, for example, with Jewish communities that want a private school,” he said. “We can place schools wherever there’s a funding mechanism.”

The vast majority of students still attend a zoned, district-run public school and likely will for the foreseeable future, even with a rapid expansion of ESA programs and similar school choice funding mechanisms. Cobbling together a child’s education from a menu of providers is fair game under an ESA, but it requires a high degree of parental engagement and bandwidth; it would likely be an option only for the most committed and motivated families. Busy parents with jobs, daily routines, and obligations will always need a safe place for their children to spend their days. Low-cost private schools based in families’ church communities could pose a significant challenge to traditional public schools. Great Hearts and Arizona bear watching carefully.

Editor’s note: This was first published by The Dispatch.

Reversing decades of economic struggle in America’s former manufacturing centers is a high priority for leaders in cities and regions across the nation. Many would like to see technology-focused industries lead such a resurgence, but do they have enough qualified workers? And if not, how can they increase those numbers? A new RAND study uses quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the state of play in Pittsburgh, including comparisons with Nashville and Boston, and highlights a few important implications for the K–12 and postsecondary education sectors.

In brief, the research team finds that the seven-county Pittsburgh metro area is decently positioned to capitalize on the anticipated growth of science- and technology-focused (STF) employment sectors, with some important caveats. Approximately 18 percent of Pittsburgh’s workforce is currently employed in STF occupations, ahead of both the national share and the share in the Nashville metro area (16 percent), but lagging the Boston metro area (21 percent). Additionally, a large proportion of Pittsburgh’s STF workers are in the health sector, which requires somewhat different skills than what analysts term “technician and production-related” industries, where the most job and wage growth is expected to occur. And while Pittsburgh’s STF workforce grew as a share of the overall labor force between 2015 and 2019, the pace of growth was too slow to fill all STF positions in that period, let alone new ones expected/hoped for in the future.

For any region to capitalize on future STF growth, such trends must change. The authors discount the long-term future of remote work as a solution, noting that the most desirable STF jobs are place-based (think robotics, autonomous vehicles, and other tech-related R & D work). Instead, one set of recommendations focuses on drawing new talent into the region. Suggestions include boosting wages in STF fields, investing in civic amenities and affordable housing (a fairly easy lift for Pittsburgh since its cost of living is relatively low already), and “addressing the racial disparities in public-facing systems (such as health care and lending) to demonstrate the region’s commitment to equity.” Analysts recommend that colleges and career training academies in the region—described as having plenty of potential to train the next generation—create scholarship programs for students and especially for learners of color. Interestingly, remote learning is highly valued by the analysts, even if remote working is seen as less likely in the future. Having employers committed to these efforts—and to hiring the folks who respond to the incentives—is also deemed important.

Another set of recommendations focuses on attracting existing workers and current students toward STF employment. Two barriers in this area are a lack of understanding of STF jobs and a lack of transparent data to illustrate how education and employment connect. The first barrier appears to be a legacy of Pittsburgh’s manufacturing past. That is, focus groups indicate that STF work is seen by many as a “dirty job” with limited future potential, akin to steel-working and coal mining. Recommendations to overcome such misinformation include STF-focused career counseling in high schools and targeted recruitment efforts by undergraduate programs and employers. Public information campaigns run by regional authorities explaining and extoling the jobs and their potential benefits could also be part of the solution.

The second barrier is exemplified by the fact that the state’s longitudinal data system collects only limited information on postsecondary education, does not connect to workforce data, and is difficult to access for both researchers and practitioners. It is also separated from important data collected on outcomes for participants in programs on Pennsylvania’s Eligible Training Provider List. As a result, officials in the Pittsburgh metro area are unable to assess the effectiveness of local education and training programs, describe actual STF career pathways for students, and demonstrate the real-world value of training programs.

Some of these changes are easier than others to implement. Employers are freer than municipal or county executives to allocate money and staff to recruitment efforts and internal culture changes. And attracting new residents of any stripe depends as much on the reception of the beckoning message as the form of the message itself. The report’s call for better data alignment and transparency between K–12, postsecondary education, and the workforce is important and should be among the easier recommendations to enact. For the most part, these are state-centered data systems—one entity with a lot of pull; there are plenty of roadmaps and examples for how to achieve the final product; and the benefits of a successful effort would transcend one industry and extend into any desired workforce pathway. Pittsburgh, of course, isn’t the only region struggling to align employer needs with workers’ skills. For community leaders working on these types of efforts, this report offers an important grounding in where to start.

SOURCE: Melanie A. Zaber et al., “Assessing Pittsburgh's Science- and Technology-Focused Workforce Ecosystem,” RAND Corporation (January 2023).

Many experts have lauded community schools as a means of mitigating the impact of pandemic-era challenges facing students, but does the evidence support substantial investment? Building on the RAND Corporation’s previous research, a new working paper by researchers from Vanderbilt and RAND examines how community schools affect attendance and academic performance.

In broad terms, community schools leverage partnerships with local organizations to enhance academic and non-academic supports for students and their families. Programs can include such varied components as physical and mental health services, cultural heritage celebrations, and instruction in practical life skills from computer classes to food preparation. Previous research has suggested generally positive effects of community schools on factors like family engagement and student attendance, but these studies have been limited in their sample sizes and capacity to indicate causation.

This new research makes two key improvements. Though not necessarily nationally representative, the sample is nonetheless the largest yet, including all New York City Community Schools (NYC-CS) serving elementary and middle school students. In addition, the data run from 2014 to 2019, making the study longer-term than most of its predecessors. The study’s second noteworthy contribution lies in its statistical method, a novel amalgamation of existing methods: what researchers call a multiple rating regression discontinuity design and an additional technique known as ridge regression. This particular combination, the authors explain, compensates for potential imprecisions in the data and allows their study to imply causation, whereas other community schools studies only indicate correlation. The strategy therefore not only deepens our understanding of community schools, but also proposes a new method for evaluating other programs.

Here, analysts measured attendance using average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism, and they measured academic achievement with third through eighth graders’ scores on end-of-year math and English language arts state assessments. They also accounted for student demographics of race and ethnicity, economic disadvantage, temporary housing status, English language learner status, and disability status.

The findings were positive and statistically significant for attendance and achievement alike. Overall, daily attendance rates were 1–2 percent higher in NYC-CS compared to control schools, and chronic absenteeism rates—the percentage of students absent at least 10% of a school year—were 7–8 percent lower in NYC-CS. The reduction in chronic absenteeism occurred almost immediately, and the impact on attendance was greatest for students in the lowest and highest grades studied (K–2 and 8). On statewide assessments, NYC-CS ELA scores were about 0.08 SD higher than those of control schools, and math scores saw almost twice that level of growth, clocking in at a 0.15 SD difference. The effects for both math and ELA were largest for fourth graders and were still significant for fifth and sixth graders. For both attendance and achievement, the effect was largest in the third year of the program, which could be, as the authors note, either because students benefit from greater exposure over time to community schools services or because the programming itself improves over time.

One caveat is that the study does not parse the role of New York City’s Renewal Schools (RS) program, which aimed to support failing schools during the same time period. Many of the city’s community schools were also Renewal Schools, meaning that they also received specialized professional development, superintendent oversight, and academic interventions. The authors hold that the RS program was merely “one of the ways in which NYC implemented their community school program.” Still, given that the RS program came from a separate city initiative (and one generally considered a failure), future studies ought to consider the impact of the RS program on New York’s community schools—and perhaps whether community schools led to improvements either because or in spite of RS status.

Regardless, that NYC-CS programming bolstered both attendance and academic achievement is encouraging. Since the attendance gains occurred sooner than the academic gains, as the authors observe, the higher attendance may have led to the academic growth. If that was the case, the greater effect on math performance could have been because attendance tends to have a larger effect on performance in math than in reading. The details of the mechanism here could offer an area for future study, but until then, these promising results still advance the evidence that New York City has made a worthy investment in its community schools.

SOURCE: Lauren Covelli, John Engberg, and Isaac M. Opper, “Leading Indicators of Long-Term Success in Community Schools: Evidence from New York City,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (November 2022).