Everyone benefits from exemplars. We all need models to mimic and follow. In the policy realm that means states, legislatures and governors who pass policies and reforms that materially improve the lives of their residents.

We also need cautionary tales, clear examples of mistakes and pitfalls to avoid. On education, California has stepped into that role. Any aspiring policymaker looking for guidance on sensible education reform should take a glance at Sacramento over the past half-decade and do exactly the opposite.

Most recently, under pressure from teachers unions, the Legislature killed a bill introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio that would have mandated the teaching of phonics. The bill had the support of both the state-level parent-teacher association and the NAACP—and rightly so. A mountain of research going back to the 1950s vindicates phonics as the best way to teach young children to read.

The nation’s schools have had something of a reckoning in the past few years: Millions of children struggled to read because schools followed pseudoscientific theories about early literacy. Now at least a generation more will suffer the same fate in California.

In an open letter to Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, the California teachers union bristled at the “top down, statewide mandate” approach of this bill. But the teachers unions are happy to see California impose curricular, instructional and ideological mandates in other realms.

The state’s top-down sex education framework clocks in at 746 pages of material, curricula, assessments, grading recommendations and instructional requirements. The state compels teachers to tell kindergartners that children in “kindergarten and even younger have identified as transgender” and that biological sex is completely divorced from “gender identity.”

In 2021 the state ignited a brawl over its mandated ethnic-studies curriculum. Its content and instructional practices have roots in 1960s activism against American hegemony; the goal is to “liberate” students from the oppressive forces of capitalism, patriarchy and settler colonialism.

In 2023 California implemented a new mathematics framework, the first edition of which included “whiteness” and “social justice” as topics for instruction. The goal was to raise the “sociopolitical consciousness” of students—in math class. A revised framework was notably less political but required teachers to use a quantifiably ineffective approach to teaching called “discovery” learning, where students must be left to “discover” their way into long division or algebraic equations.

Taken together, the California Legislature is happy to impose top-down mandates about curricular content and instructional “practices” in other content areas as long as they align with progressive pieties. Lawmakers will mandate that teachers educate children about the latest obsessions of critical race theory or gender ideology, but letter sounds or math facts are a bridge too far.

Fundamentally, California demonstrates what happens when a radical theory of education is put in practice. There are a handful of competing philosophies of education, and the most popular in schools of education is “critical pedagogy.” Its fundamental principle maps the Marxist oppressor-oppressed dichotomy on to the student-teacher relationship, concluding from there that the imposition of any content, any behavioral norms, any expectations is inherently oppressive. The teacher’s only role is to develop a child’s “critical consciousness,” to foster discontent with the current power structure and spur students into left-wing activism.

In most American schools, vestiges of a liberal-arts education remain: Kids practice academic skills, learn history and might even read excerpts of Shakespeare. With its rejection of phonics, California has fully committed itself to a rejection of a liberal-arts tradition and fully embraced a radical agenda in its schools.

Editor’s note. This was first published by The Wall Street Journal.

For several years now, critics have been blaring klaxons about the questionable quality and increasing prevalence of “credit recovery” courses in America’s high schools. Credit recovery programs (or “online credit recovery”), unlike repeating a class or taking traditional “summer school,” allow students to navigate through computer modules, taking quizzes and assessments within these digital programs to earn the high school credits they initially failed to obtain. Now, a working paper by Carolyn Heinrich and colleagues shines a spotlight on the troubling realities of these programs, particularly through their analysis of an online Algebra 1 credit recovery course.

They approach credit recovery by focusing on the assessments, in particular the assessments for an Algebra I course offered by one of the nation’s largest credit recovery vendors. The team analyzed 1,408 assessment questions, classifying them by their form and also using Bloom’s taxonomy to measure their quality and rigor. Such classifications are not direct measures of question quality, which might be debated by educators and psychometricians, but certainly speak to the value of the assessments. The results are both unsurprising and disheartening: Not only were 83 percent of the questions multiple choice, but over 90 percent did not demand any higher-order thinking such as analysis or evaluation. Only a handful of word problems required students to engage in more complex cognitive tasks.

Since in-person proctoring of these exams is rare, what’s even worse is that 91 percent of the assessment questions could be easily answered with a simple Google search. Many of these questions have been floating around the internet since 2015, with answers readily available on numerous websites. The process for retaking tests previously failed is also alarmingly lenient. Students retaking unit exams, known as “post-tests,” can review all their previous answers along with the correct ones before attempting the exam again, often with the questions in the exact same order. This method maximizes the student’s likelihood of passing the exam without actually understanding the material, further diminishing the credibility of these assessments.

The study points to lax state policies on credit recovery as another area of concern. Only a few states have any form of regulation for these programs. New York stands out as the sole state with comprehensive regulations, including rules for ongoing interaction between students and teachers, ensuring that the process isn’t entirely virtual. Still, requiring significant student-teacher interaction is an exceedingly low bar for quality, especially considering the potential for misuse—and the incentives to raise graduation rates. When the American Enterprise Institute surveyed districts about credit recovery policies in 2019, they found little regulation at the district level, either.

What can be done to address these issues? Heinrich and her colleagues recommend several measures. First, they advocate for better assessments that truly measure student understanding and learning. Second, they suggest mandating in-person proctoring to curb the rampant cheating facilitated by the current online formats.

There’s also a pressing need for state-level auditing of these programs. Randomly selecting students for additional testing could provide insights into the extent of superficial learning and cheating. Since districts are what ultimately hand out the credits, districts themselves ought to implement separate, rigorous assessments that students must pass, ensuring that the credits students receive reflect genuine learning and comprehension.

The story of Jeremy Noonan, one of Heinrich’s coauthors for this study and a whistleblower in the Paulding County School District in Georgia, underscores the systemic nature of these issues. Noonan exposed how his district provided test bank questions with easily searchable answers and tried to raise awareness of the problem with authorities ranging from his own principal and other local administrators to state officials in Georgia and even his district’s accreditor, Cognia, which declined to investigate Noonan’s claims. Eventually, he resigned and went public with these problems, which extend far beyond his suburban Atlanta district.

Although credit recovery programs are sold to districts as a more effective and efficient method of catching students up than traditional course-retakes and summer school, evidence continues to accumulate that the way they are implemented in high schools is rife with misuse, prioritizing increasing graduation rates over increasing student learning. As this new study reveals, these programs need a comprehensive overhaul, with rigorous assessments, in-person proctoring, and robust state regulations to ensure they fulfill their promise of helping students succeed. Without dramatic changes, students would almost certainly be better off recovering credit the old-fashioned way, through normal course-retakes and summer school.

SOURCE: Jennifer Darling-Aduana, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Jeremy Noonan, Jialing Wu, and Kathryn Enriquez, “Failing to Learn from Failure: The Facade of Online Credit Recovery Assessments,” Working Paper (June 2024).

Teacher voice is often missing from education policy discussions, leading to what can feel like an adversarial relationship between pundits and practitioners. Educators for Excellence (E4E) strives to reframe that relationship by amplifying the interests and concerns of teachers across the land. They have recently released the results of their wide-ranging teacher survey, conducted annually since 2018, and this year’s findings are well worth the attention of education leaders.

Developed by a cadre of eighteen teachers dubbed the National Teacher Leader Council, the eighty-five-item questionnaire was administered online during the first two months of 2024. A nationally representative sample of 1,000 full-time, pre-K–12, public-school teachers working in both district and charter schools responded. Following the overall demographics of the profession, respondents were overwhelmingly female and white. Nearly 60 percent were between the ages of thirty and forty-nine, and a similar percentage reported having earned tenure in their job. Eighty-five percent taught in traditional districts. Forty-five percent of respondents worked in suburban schools, 29 percent in urban settings, and the remainder in rural locales. Approximately one-third of the sample taught in large schools (more than 1,000 students), and another third taught in small schools (less than 500 students). A plurality of respondents taught grades pre-K–5.

The topline findings are organized into seven themes, spanning topics like student outcomes, curriculum and instruction, feelings about union representation, testing, technology, etc. Here is a selection of the big picture takeaways: Teachers believe that students are still struggling in the wake of the pandemic, with 70 percent reporting that their students are behind academically and 64 percent reporting that their students’ mental well-being is worse compared to pre-pandemic. Teachers are pessimistic regarding their profession, with just 16 percent indicating they would recommend the job to others—an all-time low among E4E polling results. Interestingly, teachers of color report that their morale and outlook have significantly improved over the past few years after also hitting all-time lows.

Generally, a majority of teachers are positively disposed toward their unions’ efforts to address traditional issues, such as salaries and working conditions, but those positive numbers are down from previous years. Overall satisfaction with efforts to transform the profession from within is below 50 percent, and is even lower for certain specific union functions like improving professional development (42 percent) and expanding career ladders (38 percent). To improve working conditions, teachers are calling for more collaborative and dynamic work environments. More specifically, they expressed interest in strategic staffing approaches that would break from traditional school models and focus on team teaching and other collaborative structures.

A section of questions related to curriculum highlighted concerns over what many teachers view as a quick switch to science-of-reading-based literacy instruction. More than 60 percent of teachers say their district has implemented new curricular materials aligned to the science of reading in the last year, but only a quarter of those teachers say their instructional practices have shifted “very much” as a result of the changes. For elementary school teachers specifically, a slightly higher 31 percent say their instructional practices have shifted. A majority of respondents across the board indicate that better support and training are needed to fully implement the shift to science of reading.

There’s far more detail to be had from the raw question and response charts at the back of the report, covering issues both mundane and hot button, including standardized testing, college readiness, and some “culture war” issues. Questions and answers regarding teachers’ adoption and use of artificial intelligence are new and will be of interest to many on the policy front. There is, literally, something for everyone in this report. Here’s hoping policymakers pay close attention to the results.

SOURCE: Educators for Excellence, “Voices from the Classroom 2024: A Survey of America’s Educators” (May 2024).

Cheers

• A bipartisan coalition has called for schools and districts to cut chronic absenteeism by 50 percent in five years. —K–12 Dive
• An advocacy organization calls on schools to ban phones entirely, not just during instructional time. —Education Week
• One gifted student tells of the benefits and drawbacks of her own experience skipping grades. — Ilana Walder-Biesanz, Chalkbeat

Jeers

• After approving ten new charter schools, New York City has once again hit its cap and can approve no more. —Chalkbeat
• A new paper from NWEA finds that students are faring even worse than before the pandemic, not catching up. —Washington Post
• State leaders are ignoring the crisis in urban education at their peril. —Robin Lake, Hechinger Report

• The media coverage of Project 2025, which on education is little more than a wish list of standard conservative policy, has trafficked many falsehoods. —Rick Hess, Education Week
• Instead of a school voucher bill, Pennsylvania lawmakers reached a budget deal that includes expanding existing tax credit program. —The Philadelphia Inquirer
• The College Board plans to recalibrate their AP exams to allow more students to pass, and it seems to be the latest example of “defining deviancy down.” (The College Board released a document this week explaining these changes.) —Checker Finn, Education Next

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?” Learn more.

The onset of Covid-19 and the school closures that followed served as a catalyst for education choice programs to explode nationwide. The school choice movement even landed itself a new catchy tagline: “Fund students, not systems.” Now, as the challenge of addressing the absenteeism crisis in public schools takes center stage, policymakers would be wise to heed the lessons of directly funding families by going a step further: Let’s pay students to go to class.

Thanks to the pandemic, cultural norms and, more concerning, the value of attending school have weakened and even crumbled in some households, adding yet another factor to the complex challenges driving many students out of the classroom. While the factors may be complex, the potential solution to the chronic absenteeism crisis needn’t be complicated. In fact, it can be summed up in three words: Cash is king.

As a kid, which would you have preferred: to go play baseball at the park or to attend school when the sun was shining? If you hesitated over that question, you must have been a great student. For us it was baseball all day—no competition.

Luckily, we had parents who placed great value on receiving an education and forced us to attend. Nowadays, not every parent is as able or as assiduous. Some, like single working moms, are unable to enforce their kid’s presence at school, and others don’t view school attendance as a necessity.

In these situations, using the stick over the carrot just doesn't work. Perhaps we should try the oldest carrot of all—bribery. Growing up, our schools used to do this all the time by offering pizza parties, special field trips—once even Portland Trail Blazers tickets—in exchange for reading books and scoring well on our tests.

Schools already attempt to purchase student outcomes. Why not try the same with attendance by using cash payments?

Believe it or not, this is not a new idea. Renowned education reformer Geoffrey Canada has his Harlem Children’s Zone pay $120 a month for high-quality performance and attendance. Similar conditional cash payments have been used in countries such as Mexico, with students involved in the program having a probability of completing high school at 10 to 15 percent higher rates, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In 2010, Roland Fryer ran a landmark experiment on financial incentives and student achievement that observed paying students for their test scores did not significantly alter their performance in Chicago; nevertheless, student attendance increased. Furthermore, what gets considerably less coverage from that study is that English-speaking students in Dallas, who were paid $2 for every book they read and understood, saw noteworthy improvements in their reading achievement equivalent to over two months of schooling.

A similar program in Washington, D.C., generated promising, if muted, results. There, students could earn as much as $1,500 a year for good behavior, proper attendance, and completing their assigned work. Fryer found positive results for both student achievement and number of hours spent in the classroom, though these were not statistically significant. Even so, these data indicate that the carrot may really be better than the stick.

Why does paying students for attendance and other positive behaviors succeed where rewarding students solely for their performance consistently fails? It could be that children—particularly younger kids—may intuitively understand how to make different choices but not how to improve their test scores.

For example, a fourth grader may immediately recognize the relationship between good attendance, doing their homework, reading books, and a financial reward, but they may struggle to understand how to write a better book report or do better in math.

Nonetheless, this approach does raise two major problems: the moral dilemma of paying children for something that they really should be doing anyway, and the financial dilemma of how a district or state is going to be able to afford to pay their students.

Fortunately, data from Dr. Fryer’s study show little negative impact on students’ “intrinsic motivation” after receiving payment. Moreover, the attendance problems plaguing districts nationwide call to mind two old mantras: desperate times call for desperate measures, and the ends justify the means. Districts cannot simply do nothing, pretend that all is well, and expect truant students to return to school. They must adapt and provide some sort of incentive.

Covid relief funds were a missed opportunity, but paying students to attend class is still possible for most districts despite the “bloodletting” from the fiscal cliff, which has resulted in school closures. Undoubtedly, district budgets will likely force the closing of under-enrolled schools that are underperforming, but they shouldn’t stop there. School Districts should continue analyzing their budget by measuring which staff have a high return on investment regarding student attendance and outcomes.

Clearly, the presence of many of these administrators, attendance coaches, and mentors who have been hired to help students get back into school has not successfully improved student attendance or student outcomes.

So why stick to what hasn’t been working?

Instead, districts concerned about chronic absenteeism should reallocate a financial amount that works best for them and pay cash to students for attendance and inputs that translate into increased student outcomes such as reading books, doing homework, and behaving well in class. The philanthropic world could even alleviate some of the financial burden by funding these programs.

In the few places where paying students has been tried, it has shown promise. Now the only thing missing to scale the success of cash payments to students is a cadre of leaders to champion the solution.

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?” Learn more.

I have a radical idea. As schools across the country grapple with how to curb absenteeism, let’s give the responsibility to the kids themselves. We should work together to modify our expectations for participation and attendance by taking the pressure off parents. Let’s ban the endless lines of minivans, SUVs, and buses in the morning and afternoon. This year, it’s time to give responsibility back to kids.

I know this seems crazy. We have a problem with kids not coming to school, and your suggestion is to give them more opportunities to ditch school? Are you insane? The answer is both yes and no.

We are entering the third year following the Covid-19 closures, and student absences are still above pre-pandemic levels. It’s not hard to see why. In commentary from the New York Times, students report they no longer feel an urgency or necessity to go to school.[1] With online learning systems now ubiquitous, our students know educators will accommodate their participation through various instructional modalities, none of which require a physical classroom presence.

While our oldest learners had to manage their schedules and workload independently, these same tools shortened the day for students in elementary and middle school. In the morning, at lunch, and after school, learners no longer had to rely on buses, carpools, or scheduled enrichment activities. Freedom from the classroom environment began the minute they closed their screens. The pandemic’s shift from in-person to remote learning enabled a specific type of autonomy, external to an environment built on rigid schedules and locked exterior doors.

One of the bestselling books this year is Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, which outlines the challenges facing our youngest generation. Haidt argues that over the past 30 years, American culture has overprotected and overindulged children, making them more fragile to setbacks, challenges, and adversity.[2] We saw this in real-time when students returned to school, stripped of the autonomy and agency they had during remote learning. Today, many students reject this encroachment on their autonomy, exemplified by their chronic absence from classrooms across the country.

In the book’s conclusion, Haidt makes a strong case for giving kids more autonomy and responsibility. Kids need to want to be at school. Our job as parents and educators is to help them realize school is not a place where they are trapped, but a place that provides opportunity and independence. If we start with this small change in how they get to school, we might motivate them to come back together.

For context, let me give you some data. Every decade, the Federal Highway Administration publishes the National Household Transportation Survey Children’s Travel to School Brief. For 2017, the year it was last compiled, only 10.4 percent of students walked or biked to school. Most students—54.2 percent—got to school in a private vehicle,[3] meaning a parent or guardian took time out of their day to drive them. We have clipped students’ growth and limited their independence by chauffeuring them to school every day.

Yes, in some areas, distance to school is an issue. FHA surveys show many schools are two to six miles from a student’s home.[4] This is significant but not insurmountable. With e-bikes, scooters, and hoverboards—many of which have a fifteen-mile range—getting to school without a bus or car has never been easier. We need to look at how technological advancements can create opportunities for unscheduled play and peer engagement.

Encouraging students to rely less on vehicles may foster behaviors that prime them for greater engagement with classroom material. A systematic review by Donnelly et al. (2016) found that physical activity benefits students’ health and well-being and positively affects cognitive function.[5] Data from IES suggests students spend around 6.9 hours a day in school,[6] with less than thirty minutes per day for recess.[7] Not only have we locked them on campus, but we have also cemented them to desks limiting their opportunities for physical activity. Requiring students to walk, bike, or commute without cars and buses might enhance learning and instructional effectiveness.

To make this work, we need radical change. Kids need to be in school to learn, and we need to make schools places they want to be. This requires changing our expectations and norms around attendance. Police and public safety must work with district leaders to ensure local areas are safe for active transportation. Neighborhoods need walking busways, and local public safety must identify streets that support micromobility during school drop-off and pickup times. LEAs may need central pickup and drop-off locations for students who must cross highways. Districts should install bike racks for students traveling to these locations. Additionally, schools need bike stands, charging ports for e-transport, and storage areas for transportation materials. School administrators must map out new walking, biking, and e-transportation options to meet all students’ needs.

Internal policies must also evolve. Teachers and parents can tap into school service organizations to build neighborhood paths through woods, fields, and roads. Administrators and teachers need to identify students in upper grades who can take on roles as crossing guards or walking-bus drivers. Programs like Safe Routes to School and Action for Healthy Kids can support LEAs and school leadership through these steps.

Schools should help kids who live near each other connect and increase peer accountability. Given that the youngest kids are absent the most, start in elementary school. Let the 5th and 6th graders mentor younger children. Schools may need to provide incentives like extra recess, dress-up days, or in-school privileges to these grades and reintroduce perfect attendance and competition initiatives. It is easier for kids to say no to parents than to a schoolmate waiting at their door to maintain a perfect month streak.

This plan may also necessitate shorter, more flexible school days, especially for younger grades. One that, instead of being six or seven hours long, is closer to four to five hours long. If students don’t want to be in the building, spending less time there could be beneficial. Instead of cutting time from the school day, consider it an opportunity for better time usage. Schools might need to open earlier and stay open later, allowing kids to stream in and out at different times. Secondary schools could adopt more flexible scheduling, accommodating work, extracurriculars, or other activities. Open gyms, playgrounds, and common spaces can support various afternoon activities and peer interactions. More flexible scheduling provides options for peer tutoring and extracurricular engagements. In other words, give kids more opportunities to engage without feeling overwhelmed by external obligations. Shorter days with more unstructured time before or after learning may motivate attendance.

Finally, schools must ban the endless parent and guardian car pickup lines. This will be challenging. School security needs to block access during traditional pick-up and drop-off times. Local law enforcement may need to enforce idling statutes. One benefit is schools will not need to charge for early drop-offs or late pickups, as students will have the autonomy to arrive and depart when they want.

By giving kids the autonomy to get to school and the peer support to help them, students may stop viewing schools as buildings they are locked in and prevented from leaving. Instead, they might begin to see school as adults see jobs—a place to do work, then leave when tasks are done. This is good; we need to give kids more unscheduled and unsupervised time to learn responsibility for their actions.

If we reframe school as an opportunity for independence—to be active, to be with peers, to be responsible for each other—maybe, just maybe, they will rise to the occasion.

__________________________

References

Active Education: Growing Evidence on Physical Activity and Academic Performance. (2015). In activelivingresearch.org. https://activelivingresearch.org/sites/activelivingresearch.org/files/ALR_Brief_ActiveEducation_Jan2015.pdf

Bricka, S., Reuscher, T., Schroeder, M., Fisher, M., Beard, J., & Sun, L. (2024). Summary of Travel Trends: 2022 National Household Travel Survey.

Carlson, J. A., Steel, C., Bejarano, C. M., Beauchamp, M. T., Davis, A. M., Sallis, J. F., Kerner, J., Brownson, R., & Zimmerman, S. (2020). Walking School Bus Programs: Implementation Factors, Implementation Outcomes, and Student Outcomes, 2017–2018. Preventing Chronic Disease, 17, 200061. https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd17.200061

Donnelly, J. E., Hillman, C. H., Castelli, D., Etnier, J. L., Lee, S., Tomporowski, P., Lambourne, K., & Szabo-Reed, A. N. (2016). Physical Activity, Fitness, Cognitive Function, and Academic Achievement in Children. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 48(6), 1197–1222. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000901

Engle, J. (2024, April 4). Has Your Relationship to School Attendance Changed Since the Pandemic? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/learning/has-your-relationship-to-school-attendance-changed-since-the-pandemic.html

Federal Highway Administration. (2008). NHTS BRIEF National Household Travel Survey Travel to School: The Distance Factor.

Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press.

Jordan, P. (2019, June 27). “Walking School Bus” Drives Better Attendance. FutureEd; Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. https://www.future-ed.org/walking-school-bus-drives-better-attendance/

National Center for Education Statistics. (2019). Schools and staffing survey (SASS). Ed.gov; National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass0708_035_s1s.asp

Perno, J. (2023, April 28). The Advantages of Walking to School. Www.hopkinsmedicine.org; Johns Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-advantages-of-walking-to-school

Pete, N. (2024, July 4). Safe Routes to School aims to make getting to class an enjoyable experience for Oregon students. OPB; Oregon Public Broadcasting. https://www.opb.org/article/2024/07/04/safe-routes-to-school-getting-to-class-an-enjoyable-experience-oregon-students/

Rosen, J. (2019, February 13). Dangerous school commutes lead to absenteeism, study finds. The Hub; Johns Hopkins University. https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/02/13/dangerous-commutes-student-absenteeism/

Rovniak, L., & Holmes, L. (2024, July 8). Mitigating barriers for children walking and biking to school | Social Science Research Institute. Https://Ssri.psu.edu/; PennState Social Science Research Institute. https://ssri.psu.edu/news/mitigating-barriers-children-walking-and-biking-school

Tsai, M. (2023, October 5). Prevalence of Recess and Supportive Practices at U.S. Public Elementary Schools - PAPREN. PAPREN; Physical Activity Policy Research and Evaluation Network. https://papren.org/prevalence-of-recess-and-supportive-practices-at-u-s-public-elementary-schools/#:~:text=Our%20study%20found%20that%20providing

Zimmerman, S. (n.d.). Addressing Attendance through Safe Routes to School. Safe Route to Schools. Retrieved July 10, 2024, from https://www.saferoutespartnership.org/sites/default/files/resource_files/addressing_attendance_through_safe_routes_to_school.pdf

Josh Barro wrote earlier this week that Vice President Kamala Harris has the remarkable fortune to run in a general election without having staked out any unpopular positions in a Democratic primary—at least not since she ran for president five long years ago. That means she enjoys the ability to claim some positions in the political center that can address her weaknesses and boost her chances of victory. “Harris’s biggest political liability,” Barro argued, “is that she may be seen as too politically extreme, and she can reposition herself toward the center without penalty, if she is willing to do that.”

That doesn’t mean she has a completely free hand. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, groups on the political left have been less willing to give a pass to their Democratic presidential candidates than those on the Trumpy right have:

[Trump’s] “be allowed to do that” score is off the charts. If it’s convenient for him to start saying nicer things about electric cars in exchange for Elon Musk’s money, he does that. If it’s convenient for him to pretend the Republican Party isn’t deeply committed to banning abortion, he does that.

Every progressive I know recognizes that these Trumpian stabs at moderation are good for Trump, and that it’s good for the left to try to expose them as lies. The progressives who recognize that need to see the symmetry here.

One issue that offers opportunities for moderation is education. Iglesias suggests that Harris might say something like “my parents moved to this country because it’s the greatest place on Earth, and I think my party and our school system need to get back to teaching kids patriotism.” That would be a good start, but there are plenty of possibilities. She might use this week’s speech to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to show she’s willing to buck progressive orthodoxy.

One obvious way is to talk about the current challenges facing teachers when it comes to classroom discipline. In the wake of the pandemic, but also some reforms embraced in the Black Lives Matter era, many American classrooms have gotten out of control.

Harris can lean into her prosecutor instincts and call for greater order and discipline in classrooms, and especially greater respect for teachers. She might say that it’s crazy that some states and school districts have adopted formal positions that children and teenagers can cuss out their teachers with little to no repercussions.

Relatedly, she might embrace the call to get cellphones out of the classroom, and also express support for tough love when it comes to chronically absent students. Back in California, she even prosecuted some parents for their children’s truancy, a position she later retreated from. But it wouldn’t be hard for her to say that kids need to be in school and parents need to be held accountable for making that happen. She doesn’t have to embrace draconian discipline rules; she just needs to create some distance between herself and the most unreasonable social justice warriors, who have been arguing that any form of traditional discipline is furthering the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Discipline is an issue where she can get on the side of her teachers union base, whose leaders are hearing from their members about chaos in the classroom and watching veteran teachers quit because of school violence and disrespect. But if she really wants to be seen as a different kind of Democrat than her current boss, she’s going to need to disagree with the unions on a couple of other issues. President Biden has never been willing to do so, given his self-image as the most pro-union president in history. Not to mention that Jill Biden was herself a member of the National Education Association, which she and the president pointed out at every opportunity.

So how can Harris demonstrate that she’s not beholden to the unions, especially since one of them—the AFT—already endorsed her?

One possibility is for her to return to a proposal from her 2020 campaign, which was to boost teacher salaries nationwide. This time around, however, there should be a catch, mainly that teachers need to be held accountable for improving student learning. She could, for example, say that states and school districts need to make the attainment of tenure something that teachers earn through merit and a demonstration of effectiveness rather than just surviving for a few years.

Finally, Kamala Harris could indicate support for public charter schools. It’s quite clear from public opinion polls that school choice in all its varieties is very popular with parents, especially Blacks and Hispanics. Republicans have been smart to lean into that issue in recent years, and this might be one reason that they are starting to peel off voters of color.

But Republicans have created their own political vulnerabilities by embracing private school choice for wealthy parents, which is an obvious giveaway to the rich. They also support publicly-funded vouchers for religious schools, which even supporters read as code for “Christian schools”—making lots of normie voters nervous.

This is why Democratic presidents from Clinton through Obama embraced public charter schools as a way to support school choice without the unpopular aspects of private school choice. So did a host of Democratic governors, mayors, members of Congress, and senators. Not to mention that public charter schools continue to prove their mettle in boosting student learning. A brand-new study even shows their effectiveness at dramatically raising college graduation rates.

Harris need not say much, just that she will support public schools of all varieties, including public charter schools, especially at a time when we need to make progress again on narrowing achievement gaps and helping kids recover from pandemic-era learning loss. That’s a pretty low bar—though one that President Biden failed to clear.

It may be true that Vice President Harris, in her heart, is your typical progressive Democrat from California. But she has an unusual opportunity to shed some of that political baggage. Indicating that she will be open to education reform is one of the best ways to do so.

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?” Learn more.

The recent “Every Day Counts Summit: Addressing Chronic Absenteeism and Increasing Student Engagement” at The White House highlighted a crucial issue in American education. While the summit acknowledged the post-pandemic exacerbation of chronic absenteeism, it largely missed the mark in recognizing the systemic inequities that perpetuate this problem. The summit’s focus on data-driven approaches, family engagement, and community partnerships is commendable, but it needs to move beyond surface-level solutions and address the deeply embedded policies that actively contribute to chronic absenteeism.

The summit touched upon the complex reasons behind chronic absenteeism, including health issues, socioeconomic factors, and school-related challenges. However, it failed to engage with the systemic barriers built into school policies themselves. These policies, often rooted in well-intentioned initiatives, inadvertently create obstacles for students, particularly those from marginalized communities.

Here are five crucial areas where policies need a critical re-evaluation:

1. Redefining the “Excused Absence”: The summit touched on the need for improved communication with families regarding attendance. However, the misconception around excused absences remains. Parents often submit valid medical documentation, yet remain unaware that all absences are treated equally at the state level, potentially leading to truancy penalties. This ambiguity undermines the intent of excused absences and creates confusion for families. School districts should clearly define what constitutes an excused absence and ensure that policies reflect the actual intent.

2. Addressing Athlete-Related Absences: While the summit emphasized a sense of belonging as a key factor in attendance, it overlooked the impact of sports-related absences. We cannot ignore the chronic absenteeism experienced by student athletes, often due to injuries or scheduling conflicts. Schools should explore flexible attendance policies that accommodate the unique needs of student athletes, recognizing their commitment to both academics and athletics.

3. Rethinking Non-Credit Bearing Classes: The summit touched upon the importance of engagement, but it failed to address the disengagement often experienced in non-credit-bearing classes like study hall. Students often perceive these classes as irrelevant and disruptive to their academic schedule. Schools should re-evaluate the purpose and structure of these classes, ensuring they offer meaningful learning opportunities or providing alternative options for students who find them unengaging.

4. Reconsidering Early Release Days: The summit didn’t explicitly address the impact of early release days, which can exacerbate absenteeism. Many schools have eliminated early release days, recognizing their negative impact on attendance. However, the practice persists in some districts, demonstrating the need for a policy shift across the board.

5. Re-evaluating Suspension Policies: While the summit acknowledged the consequences of suspension, it didn’t delve into the problematic nature of out-of-school suspension (OSS). OSS disproportionately impacts Black students and fuels a cycle of absenteeism and academic decline. Schools should invest in alternative disciplinary measures, emphasizing restorative practices and in-school support to address behavioral issues while minimizing the detrimental impact of OSS.

Beyond these policy considerations, school uniforms also deserve scrutiny. While the intention of uniforms is positive, they often create socioeconomic and logistical barriers for students. Uniform regulations should be reevaluated to ensure they are equitable and accessible to all families.

The Every Day Counts Summit made a valuable first step in addressing chronic absenteeism. However, true change requires a deeper understanding of systemic inequities and a commitment to addressing them head-on. This means rethinking school policies, not simply adding new initiatives. We must ensure that policies are not only data-driven, but also equity-driven, reflecting the unique needs and experiences of all students, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.

In a word, yes! It’s never enough, and there’s no resting on laurels, but we have solid evidence over thirty years in America and beyond that students learn more when they—and their schools—are held to account for what and how well they’re learning. And while testing isn’t the only possible way to gauge this, nor is it a perfect way, it’s efficient, reasonably accurate, more objective than most of the alternatives, and relatively easy to explain and understand.

Accountability in education may be thought of as a tripod, although many prefer the version that adds a fourth leg, called capacity building.

The first leg sets forth the desired outcomes, typically in the form of academic standards that spell out the skills and knowledge that students should acquire at key stages of their progress through the schools. In recent decades, due largely to federal requirements, this has typically meant grade-by-grade learning expectations in core subjects, beginning with English language arts and math. Other desired outcomes, such as high school graduation or college and career readiness, may be added or substituted.

The second leg is the creation and use of measures by which to gauge how well those desired outcomes are (or aren’t) being achieved—by individual students, as well as by classrooms, schools, districts, states, and the nation as a whole. This has most often taken the form of standardized testing of various kinds, especially year-end assessments external to the school itself, generally administered by the state and aligned with its academic standards.

The third leg of the tripod includes the rewards, benefits, sanctions, changes, and interventions that follow from information on how well a student, teacher, school, or district is achieving the desired results. Consequences take many forms, sometimes spontaneous (as when a teacher or school moves to alter its practices or a parent moves her child into or out of a particular school) and sometimes imposed from outside: gold stars and blue ribbons on the one hand, restructurings, probations, staff changes, even school closures on the other.

Not every accountability system adds a fourth leg—often called “capacity building,” sometimes “opportunity to learn”—but when done, this generally consists of efforts to enhance opportunities, foster equity, and strengthen performance, typically by adding expertise, resources, and better-prepared personnel to assist schools to boost their effectiveness. In the last few years, that’s largely taken the form of implementing “high-quality instructional materials.”

Persuasive evidence appears from many sources that state-developed accountability systems of the kind that emerged in the 1990s did boost achievement. As for the federally driven regimes that got serious with enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2001, almost everyone who has looked at the data acknowledges that modest gains followed, most prominently in math and in the earlier grades, and most visibly by some student groups, particularly poor and marginalized youngsters. (Twelfth-grade NAEP scores, however, remained stubbornly flat.)

Reviewing the impact of NCLB as of 2011, Thomas Dee and Brian Jacob found that it had “generated statistically significant increases in the average math performance of fourth graders, as well as improvements at the lower and top percentiles. There is also evidence of improvements in eighth-grade math achievement, particularly among traditionally-low-achieving groups and at the lower percentiles.” (They did not, however, find similar gains in reading.)

Nine years later, an analysis by Bellwether Education Partners reached a similar conclusion: “Standards-based accountability policies have contributed to measurable improvements in student performance.... NCLB-era accountability policies produced meaningful improvements in student achievement, particularly for traditionally underserved student groups.”

They, too, were unable to find similar gains in reading—and acknowledged a leveling off as states got more waivers from the tough accountability requirements of NCLB, and then, in 2015, NCLB was itself replaced by the more pliable terms of ESSA (the “Every Student Succeeds Act”). In other words, as federal accountability pressures eased, the national trend lines flattened, even dipped a bit, then dipped more during Covid.

Some individual states, however, kept their pedals to the metal and their (pre-pandemic) results remained strong. Massachusetts is perhaps the best-known example, with its long-lasting (though now endangered) requirement that students pass the MCAS test before they can graduate from high school, as well as other assessment and accountability feature. Here’s how the Bay State’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education summarizes what happened:

Before education reform and statewide testing in the 1990s, Massachusetts students too often graduated from high school without the basic reading and math skills needed to succeed in life. Today, Massachusetts students are number one in the country in reading and math. So how did this happen? In the early ‘90s, the state passed a law that included high learning standards, consistent funding, more choices for families, and accountability for how well students are being served. Part of that act included statewide assessments to make sure schools are reaching all students.

When scores show students are not meeting basic learning standards, schools and districts can adjust instruction to address those areas. In addition, parents and the public can ask questions and ensure educators are taking action.

Moving from blue to red, Florida also illustrates the impact of a comprehensive (and sustained) approach to education reform that was—and remains—heavy on testing and accountability. Writing in Education Next in 2019, Michael Petrilli summarized what two decades of the Sunshine State’s “A+ Plan for Education” had wrought:

Florida is celebrating the twenty-year mark of the A+ Plan for Education, which brought accountability, parental choice, and evidence-based practices to the state’s schools. And to be sure, it’s an occasion worth celebrating, given the Sunshine State’s strong record of educational progress since then-governor Jeb Bush and his legislative partners ushered in the integrated suite of landmark reforms.

The most compelling numbers come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. The Nation’s Report Card. From the late 1990s until 2017, the reading performance of Black fourth graders in Florida skyrocketed 26 points—equivalent to more than two grade levels worth of progress. For Hispanic students, the gain was 27 points, and for low-income kids it was an astonishing 29 points. The numbers for eighth-grade math were almost as impressive: rises of 27 points for Black, 19 for Hispanic, and 21 for low-income students.

These results—especially in reading—put almost every other state to shame and lifted Florida from the middle of the pack to the top tier. And while much of this progress happened in the 2000s, Florida had the best showing in the nation on the 2017 NAEP in terms of progress over time, too.

No serious person would claim that testing and accountability alone cause children to learn more—but most serious analysts recognize that a policy regimen that (a) expects achievement, (b) sets standards for achievement, (c) measures progress against those standards, and (d) installs incentives for greater progress and consequences for lesser progress, is a regime that fosters stronger performance by students, educators, educational institutions, and systems. Multiple mechanisms are at work here, including more regular and transparent data for educators and parents regarding their students’ progress, better targeting of resources and supervisory attention on situations that aren’t succeeding, marketplace mechanisms that lead families to move their children from lower- to higher-performing schools, and more. There’s no one silver bullet, nor is there a grand celebration to be had that everyone is now learning all that they should and every school is at the top of its game. But creating these conditions nudges everyone in the right direction.