This week the Nobel committee announced that the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics would go to Joshua Angrist (MIT), David Card (UC Berkeley), and Guido Imbens (Stanford). Education researchers are rejoicing, since Angrist and Card have both made major contributions to our field (along with celebrated work on other topics, both substantive and methodological).

In recognition of their wins—and whether they jibe with your priors or not—here’s a few takeaways for the education policy world from these newly-minted Nobel laureates.

Lesson 1: Education matters

Perhaps you have never questioned it, but to cynics and economists alike (and is there a difference?), it has always been unclear whether formal education really makes us smarter or, instead, schools are just an overpriced mechanism for sorting students into groups that would have emerged through the job market anyway. (For a recent version of the argument that education is all about “signaling,” see economist Bryan Caplan’s 2018 book, The Case Against Education.)

A seminal 1991 paper by Angrist (with Alan Krueger) provided new evidence that spending more time in school had a positive impact on a person’s earnings. (Angrist published a separate paper on the methodological innovation with Imbens.) Using data from the 1930s to the 1950s, when students could drop out after a certain age (sixteen or seventeen), they used students’ birthdays to identify how many months of schooling the students received, finding that students born in months that made them go to school longer earned measurably more later in life. Another of Angrist’s papers proved that educational grants to veterans through the G.I. Bill led to more schooling and substantially improved veterans’ later earnings.

Fellow laureate Card delves into many nuances of this complicated question in an entry from the Handbook of Labor Economics, concluding that the “return to education in a given population is not much below” the raw correlations we observe between education and earnings, but that, of course, they “vary across the population with such observable factors as school quality and parental education.”

Lesson 2: School choice works

Using student lottery data, Angrist and his colleagues showed powerful effects of attending charter schools in Massachusetts. In one study, the researchers found that students who won the lottery to attend a KIPP school in the Boston area outperformed their peers substantially in math and marginally in reading. In another study, the researchers found that attending Boston charter schools had a positive effect on student test scores that were “large enough to reduce the black-white reading gap in middle school by two-thirds.”

Angrist also worked with co-authors to study a school voucher program in Colombia, showing that students who won a random lottery to receive a school voucher to partially pay for a private secondary school strongly outperformed their peers who attended public schools. Voucher recipients in Colombia were 10 percentage points more likely to finish eighth grade and outperformed their peers by 20 percent of a standard deviation.

For his part, Card (with collaborators) showed how school choice can foster positive forms of competition between schools in a paper studying competition between Catholic schools and traditional public schools in Ontario. Not only do schools respond to increased competition, but the researchers also found evidence that the schools that faced the most competition had higher productivity, measured by test score gains among elementary students.

Lesson 3: Inputs matter

Some of us have been arguing that the final nail has long been in the coffin of the argument that money and other resources “don’t matter” to school performance, and Angrist and Card have both done work that has driven some of these nails. Card’s paper (with Abigail Payne) found evidence that court rulings against inequality in school funding helped narrow gaps in student outcomes, including narrowing SAT test score gaps. Card also published a study (with Alan Krueger) showing that attending better-resourced schools has an effect on students’ long-term outcomes, including earnings.

Regarding one specific costly (and controversial) input, Angrist’s paper (with Victor Lavy) on class sizes in Israel found that students in smaller classes generally learned more, at least according to test score increases.

Lesson 4: Student incentives increase effort (at least for girls)

Angrist has several papers showing that well-designed incentives can get students to work harder and learn more. His experiment (with Victor Lavy) for students in low-achieving Israeli high schools showed that a large cash incentive to succeed on the country’s series of content-based college entrance exams induced students to study longer and go to college at higher rates, although the effects were driven entirely by girls at these schools.

Another of Angrist’s papers (with Daniel Lang and Philip Oreopoulos) presents findings from a randomized controlled trial of financial incentives and academic supports (such as additional advising) for students at a Canadian university. Interestingly, the effects were again driven by female students, even though males actually struggle more in school. Women who were offered a mix of cash incentives and additional academic services earned markedly higher grades than the control group. Not only that, but women students also did better academically in the second year of the study, when the incentives and supports were removed, suggesting that these programs can alter student learning and behavior in positive and durable ways.

(Just to be clear, other studies of incentive programs have found strong effects for boys, as well.)

Lesson 5: “Gifted” education can be reformed

The newspapers are full of politicians debating whether to abolish differentiated programs for students who are higher-performing, but Card’s influential work (with Laura Giuliano) has shown that these programs can be made more equitable without sacrificing rigor. Their 2016 paper shows what’s at stake: well-designed programs for high achievers can have powerful positive effects on Black and Hispanic students. And their NBER paper from 2014 shows that students benefit most from these programs when they are conditioned on prior achievement (rather than IQ tests), with benefits again falling disproportionately on traditionally disadvantaged students.

Using achievement tests to select students isn’t their only piece of advice for designing these programs, though. Card and Giuliano’s 2015 paper showed how crucial it is for schools to screen all their students rather than relying on recommendations or “opt-in” assessments. “With no change to the standards for gifted eligibility,” universal screening resulted in an extraordinary 180 percent increase in the proportion of traditionally disadvantaged minorities selected for acceleration. These studies show that the concern that these programs promote “segregation” and stymie equity initiatives can be alleviated substantially by improving the selection criteria.

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None of these studies is the last word on its topic, but these esteemed economists have offered powerful research that has challenged us and shaped the way we think about education policy problems. And in case you think that earning a Nobel prize is all ivory tower debates and laborious coding of statistical models, I’ll let University of Chicago economist Austin Goolsbee have the last word:

Remembering when Josh Angrist moonlighted as an Uber driver to get info for a paper (he got low ratings b/c passengers said he asked them too many questions).

Rando drunk Boston ppl driven around by a Nobel laureate studying incentives and human behavior is <kiss-fingers>

— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) October 11, 2021

With the effects of the pandemic dragging on for another year, labor markets are acting strange and organizations are struggling to find qualified workers. Schools are no different. The teacher pipeline has slowed to a trickle as teacher preparation programs see fewer and fewer candidates. Teachers have been leaving the profession early. And the stress and uncertainty of a Covid-19 school year—with perhaps another one on the way—certainly isn’t helping.

This is a problem without one clear solution. And because of that, it can make the conversation difficult when so many of our public policy debates are soundbites and slogans. But one area of the teacher shortage problem that deserves more scrutiny is the role teacher licensing red tape and requirements play in making it difficult to get talented teachers into the classroom. Moreover, my experience highlights just how the absence of teacher licensing has allowed me to find my way into a classroom, bringing decades of professional experience to a school that launched an innovative curriculum.

Since 2018, I have served as the Executive Director of the Free Enterprise Academy at Milwaukee Lutheran High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I teach business and free market curricula to a student body that is over 90 percent inner-city, economically-disadvantaged children—most participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). The opportunity at Milwaukee Lutheran allowed me to bring twenty-five years of experience as an attorney, including twelve years as a commercial litigator at a business law firm, into the classroom with the goal of developing financially literate graduates and students who can appreciate the free enterprise system and its role in creating wealth and opportunity.

But this opportunity, both for me and the students, is only possible outside of the teacher licensing system in Wisconsin. I have been asked to go back to my alma mater law school to teach on many occasions. But under Wisconsin’s current teacher licensing laws, teaching in a public school would have required all kinds of costly and time-consuming hoops and hurdles. While I may not be versed in pedagogy, one of my jobs as a litigator has been to educate clients, judges, and juries. And I’ve gotten very good at figuring out how to get my point across. I certainly cannot be the only one with the ability and willingness to put professional experience to use in a classroom for the benefit of students.

According to the Council of State Governments, teaching is one of the most regulated professions in America. And it stands to reason that as states pile on more and more regulations, we should expect that to play a role in the dwindling teacher supply. A recent study from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), where I am a fellow, on teacher licensing and the teacher shortage highlights just how long and difficult the path to becoming a fully licensed teacher really is. Add in that teacher licenses don’t always translate across state lines and the proliferation of licensing specializations narrows the pool of eligible teaching candidates further, and a picture comes together of a system that is working against itself, and certainly not for the benefit of students.

Advocates claim the current teacher licensing system is critical to ensure some quality control. And there may be some case to make for elementary school where teachers need to be prepared and competent to teach reading and literacy to young children. But at the high school level, the unintended consequence has been to exclude highly intelligent and experienced would-be instructors from our public schools at a time when they are needed the most. As many as 20 percent of those who completed an education preparation program in Wisconsin in 2017–18 failed to earn their teacher license. And given the state of many public schools, the evidence that licensing results in quality or academic achievement is lacking.

Public schools are going to have to decide what it will take for them to innovate and take back some control from the state over hiring and the teacher pipeline. School boards and district administrators best understand the needs of their students and should be able to do what is necessary to provide teachers, curricula, and programing for their schools. School districts in Wisconsin are already relying on more than 10,000 teachers with limited or provisional licenses. The state teacher licensing requirements may be stopping many more promising educators before they even try. If children are our future, then we are shooting our future in the foot.

Any serious attempt at education reform must address the teacher shortage issue. Improving the quality of our public schools requires attracting, training, and retaining good teachers. But the state has to give up some control over the process. Reforming teacher licensing to ensure motivated and smart people have multiple avenues to get to the classroom is a constructive policy conversation to alleviate our teacher shortage.

Between the state budget, debates over school choice and pandemic protocols, and new legislative proposals, it’s been a busy year for education policy in Ohio. With so much happening, the question of how the state is spending its federal Covid-19 relief dollars has fallen by the wayside.

That’s partly because there’s so much money to keep track of. The federal government has sent three rounds of funding to states, which in Ohio adds up to around $7 billion dollars for K–12 education. Most of these dollars flow directly to Ohio schools, but states are permitted to reserve up to 10 percent of the funds for state-led efforts that, among other things, address learning loss.

The recently passed state budget includes an example of one such activity. It earmarks a total of $500,000 from the federal relief funds to create the Career Promise Academy Summer Demonstration Pilot Program (CPA). This program is designed to target rising ninth graders who are at risk of not graduating and to provide them with intensive literacy instruction, internship or mentorship experiences, and instruction in academic and life skills as well as financial literacy. Only districts that have persistently low state report card ratings (but are not subject to an academic distress commission) are eligible to apply. Two districts will be awarded grants totaling $250,000, one per summer. An emergency provision made initial funding available for the summers of 2021 and 2022, but the budget wasn’t signed into law until July 1. That made the summer 2021 application deadline an extremely tight turnaround, and that’s likely why only one district—Dayton City Schools—applied. (It’s too soon to know how their pilot went, but we’re keeping our eyes peeled for more information.)

With more time to prepare an application and some worrisome 2021 test scores on the books, hopefully the number of districts applying for CPA will increase during the summer of 2022. But even if interest remains low, that doesn’t mean policymakers should shift their attention elsewhere. There are several aspects of the CPA pilot that could be transplanted into other potential state-led initiatives funded through federal relief dollars.

For instance, consider the pilot’s focus on ninth grade. The only students eligible to participate are rising ninth graders who are “at risk of not qualifying for a high school diploma based on the student’s scores on state ELA and math assessments administered in eighth grade and other academic or social-emotional factors.” Targeting rising freshman might seem like a random decision, but it’s not. Data show that while the ninth grade often has the highest enrollments in high schools, it also boasts the lowest grade point average, the most missed classes, the majority of failing grades, and more misbehavior referrals than any other high school grade level. These issues not only impact the remainder of a student’s K–12 education, they can also influence access to and success in college and the workforce. Teachers and researchers have known for years that ninth grade is a make-or-break year for many students. There’s plenty of evidence on the importance of ninth grade, and a research-backed initiative in Chicago Public Schools aimed at improving the academic performance of ninth graders led to a large increase in graduation rates.

Focusing on ninth graders in a single pilot program won’t have such a huge effect in Ohio. But policymakers could use the CPA pilot as a jumping off point for creating and investing in more ninth grade initiatives. For example, an early warning system like the one used in Chicago could identify ninth graders who are behind on credits or have earned at least one F in a core academic course, are chronically absent, or have a high number of suspensions. Schools could notify families that these students are off track, and districts could use this information to provide students with additional support. Ohio already has a law on the books that requires schools to do many of these things. Providing federal funds to zero in on ninth graders would be a wise investment.

Another aspect of the CPA pilot that shows considerable promise is its inclusion of work-based learning. As part of their application for the CPA pilot, districts must include an agreement with their business advisory council to identify internship and mentoring experiences for students. Considering the CPA pilot is so small—only 75 students in one district can participate each summer—it’s understandable that lawmakers focused only on internships. But over the next few years, the state could use federal relief dollars to expand access to a broad set of work-based learning options that would be available during the summer months. These programs would help students master academic, technical, and professional skills and gain valuable experience. They could also put young adults on the path toward earning an industry-recognized credential that can be used as a pathway to graduation and a stepping stone into a well-paying career field.

The CPA pilot is tiny. By law, it’s only accessible to a total of 150 students. As is the case with other pilot programs, that’s a feature not a bug. When trying something new, it’s usually best to start small. But the key aspects of the CPA pilot—its focus on ninth graders and its connection to work-based learning—are research backed initiatives that are, or have been, part of Ohio’s educational system. Going forward, state officials and policymakers would be wise to spend at least some of Ohio’s federal relief funds on programs that emphasize these same features.

Fixing gifted education in Ohio

Fordham’s Aaron Churchill published an op-ed on Cleveland.com last week discussing the findings of the recent Lost Einsteins report, which shows widespread problems in serving low-income and minority high achievers in Ohio. He lists a number of recommendations for changing this situation for the better, including a reference to Menlo Park Academy, the only charter school in the state focused solely on serving gifted students.

Expanding opportunity

KIPP Columbus is working to expand its campus on the city’s east side, to serve more students and to alleviate its enormous waiting list for enrollment.

School report cards released

Ohio’s school report cards were released this week, with limited but very important data available. Initial media coverage, like this piece from Cleveland.com, note some big differences in student performance between high- and low-poverty districts. Analysis does not as yet focus on charter schools in the state, but additional stories will likely be forthcoming.

The view from West Virginia

It is perhaps ironic that, in response to fierce opposition to a single charter school trying to open in West Virginia, no fewer than seven charter applications are now being reviewed for startup in the Mountain State. Here is a look at the four members of the new West Virginia Charter Board who are performing those reviews and will make the ultimate decision on the applications.

Case studies

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools recently released a set of three case studies from California in which districts and local charter schools worked together to issue bonds for new or upgraded facilities that would benefit students in both sectors.

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1. In case you missed it, Ohio released school and district report cards yesterday for the 2020-21 school year. They are, in general, not pretty. Our own Aaron Churchill was quoted in Gongwer in immediate response to the data…and in response to the state teachers union’s very…“idiosyncratic” hot take. (Gongwer Ohio, 10/14/21)
    
2. Speaking of Aaron, his recent blog post making the case for partisan labeling of candidates in school board elections is quoted and discussed—albeit a little stream-of-consciousness-y—in an editorial by the owner/publisher of the Highland County Press. (Highland County Press, 10/14/21)
   
   

3. As is usual the last few years, Jeremy Kelley is the first reporter out of the gate looking at report card data for schools and districts in his area. Some districts have done decently well for themselves in the measured areas (I’ll bet you can guess who those might be), especially given pandemic disruptions. Some have not. And I’ll bet you can guess those ones too. (Dayton Daily News, 10/15/21) Statewide data is summarized by Robert Higgs and Rich Exner of Cleveland.com. They have noticed some similar patterns in districts across Ohio as in the Dayton area. (Cleveland.com, 10/14/21)
    
4. Getting a bit more local, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon gave his take on his district’s report card. While he called the generally bad news “not surprising”, he put the onus firmly on the switch to remote learning (“jarring for us all”) and highlighted whatever positives he could. That basically means graduation rate, which somehow managed to climb in districts across the state despite poor performance on other metrics. I am hopeful that some more detailed analysis will find a way to explain this obvious-seeming contradiction. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 10/14/21) Toledo City Schools’ data looked a lot like CMSD’s. In response, Superintendent Romules Durant cast doubt on test score data. “It’s skewed because we had 5,000 students who were in virtual learning,” he explained to the Blade, “for 4,000 of them, the parent chose not to send them in. Which means 4,000 students got a zero. So to put it in perspective...if your child had four tests, three of them they got 100s, but you chose not to send them in for the fourth test and they got a zero, they would then go from a 100 percent average to a 75 percent average.” Interesting idea that parents were somehow selective as to which tests they would or wouldn’t have their children go in for. He goes on to add that state testing “often does not really give us good valid data to measure of off. It would have been much better if they controlled for that variable and just focused on students who were in attendance.” Expect variations on this theme to grow in the coming days…kinda like algae in a dirty pool. (Toledo Blade, 10/14/21)

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Earlier today, the Ohio Department of Education released report cards for the 2020–21 school year. Due to emergency legislative measures enacted due to the pandemic, this year’s report cards do not include any school ratings (those are slated to return next fall). These data, however, allow parents, educators, and the public to get a clearer picture of where students stand amid much disruption to their education.

“Publishing and analyzing these report card data are a critical first step in Ohio’s academic recovery efforts,” said Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “While student achievement has declined across the board, the data will allow state and local leaders to set a baseline and track progress moving forward. The detailed information about achievement by student groups and grade levels will further allow policymakers to target resources to the children who most need the extra help.” 

According to a September analysis of spring 2021 state test data, researchers from Ohio State University found that low-income and minority students lost more academic ground during the pandemic than their peers. The steeper declines in the performance index (PI) scores of Ohio’s high-poverty “Big Eight” schools offer further evidence of this pattern. Note, however, that the achievement losses were greater in Ohio’s Big Eight school districts than in Big Eight charter schools, suggesting that charters on average may have more effectively remediated learning losses.

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Note: The Big Eight district and charter averages are weighted by the enrollment of each district and charter school. The Big Eight cities are Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown. The statewide average decline was -14.4%. The performance index is a composite measure of student achievement across all state exams.

“Ohio has a tall task ahead to get students back on track and doing reading and math on grade level,” continued Churchill. “The challenge, however, is not insurmountable and starts with an honest reflection of exactly how our students were impacted by the pandemic.”

Every parent has the right to educate their children in way that meets their kids’ needs and accords with their values and beliefs. Don’t just take my word for it: The U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1925, “Those who nurture him [the child] and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” Congress declared in 1979 that “parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children.”

Despite these lofty statements, the ability of parents to fully exercise that cherished right and weighty responsibility has long been thwarted by government policy. Most notably, school finance policies strongly encourage parents to enroll their children in public schools, even if that isn’t their first choice. Under traditional funding arrangements, parents pay extra—on top of their taxes—to access other alternatives, whether private schools or homeschooling. Unfortunately, most families cannot bear those costs.

To their credit, Ohio lawmakers have removed some of those financial barriers. Thanks to their work, approximately half of Ohio students are now eligible for private-school scholarships, including all children from low-income households. But what about the other half? Thousands of parents still have to “double pay” for education—tuition plus taxes—should they prefer a private school. Then, there is the large and growing number of parents who are homeschooling or teaming up with others to create learning pods. Apart from a small tax credit, nothing else is done to support that form of education.

To ensure that all Ohio parents have access to their preferred educational option, State Representatives Riordan McLain and Marilyn John last week unveiled “backpack funding” legislation. Supported by the Center for Christian Virtue, the bill (HB 290) would offer state funding for every private school and homeschooling parent. Those dollars would go into “backpacks” that travel with children to their school of choice. Many school reformers have championed this concept, as it treats all educational alternatives as equals—dollars flow to any type of school, regardless of sector—and it ensures that funds dedicated to kids’ education actually reach their intended destination.

What HB 290 does

How would the McLain-John proposal work? It would do the following:

Support universal private-school choice by creating an ESA program that is open to all. As noted above, Ohio has long offered private-school scholarships (a.k.a., vouchers)—but only to students who meet certain eligibility criteria. EdChoice is restricted to low-income students and children assigned to low-performing schools, while the Cleveland scholarship is limited to those who live in that city.

HB 290 would eliminate both of these programs. In their stead, it would create an educational savings account (ESA) program that any Ohio parent—no matter their income or residence—can apply for. The funds in these accounts could be used to cover private-school tuition, and should any dollars remain, parents could use them for other educational purposes. The amount deposited into an ESA would be equal to the current value of EdChoice and Cleveland scholarships—$5,500 for grades K–8 and $7,500 for grades 9–12—so the transition from a voucher to ESA model should be seamless for current voucher recipients. Akin to current EdChoice policy, HB 290 prohibits private schools from charging tuition above the ESA amount if a family has an income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Families above that threshold could be asked to cover the difference between the tuition and ESA amount.

Note that HB 290 would keep intact Ohio’s scholarship programs for students with disabilities—autism and Peterson. However, parents participating in those programs would still be eligible to apply for an ESA that further supplements their children’s learning needs.

Support homeschooling by allowing such parents to tap ESA funds. The proposal would allow homeschooling parents to apply for an ESA of the same amount that would cover curriculum and materials, as well as pay for tutoring needs and extracurricular fees. The ESA could also be used to pay tuition at nonchartered, nonpublic schools, which some consider a form of homeschooling. The upshot: The proposal would reverse longstanding policy that has denied public funding to these parents, even as they labor to educate their own children. Bear in mind that participating in the ESA would be voluntary—no parent would be compelled to apply, nor any school be required to accept these funds. That’s important, as some parents and nonpublic schools may not want to subject themselves to the rules discussed next.

Require the Treasurer of State to administer and oversee the new program. HB 290 would shift the oversight of private-school choice programs from the Ohio Department of Education to the Treasurer of State (ToS). The reasoning isn’t exactly clear, but it might make better sense for the ToS to administer what could become tens of thousands of individual ESAs. Some of the key roles ToS would play under HB 290 include: (1) accepting applications from parents and schools to participate in the program; (2) overseeing ESA expenditures to ensure they adhere to the spending purposes outlined in law; and (3) determining penalties for noncompliance or misuse of funds. The ToS would also be responsible for publishing aggregated test results of grade 1–8 private-school students who would be required to take a norm-referenced exam every two years in reading, math, and history, along with the results of high school students taking state exams or alternative tests. Finally, HB 290 would maintain current law regarding private school adherence to state operating standards and homeschooling requirements (e.g., district notification and annual assessment, though their results wouldn’t be published under HB 290).

Maintain the current funding model for Ohio’s public schools. The legislation proposes no revisions to the funding system for school districts and public charter or STEM schools. The bill also leaves local funding policies untouched. Those tax dollars would still be excluded from children’s backpacks when they attend charters, STEMs, and private schools or participate in homeschooling. Students enrolling in public schools wouldn’t be eligible for ESAs—their educations would be subsidized through the existing funding model—but their parents could of course apply for an ESA that allows for a transfer to private schools or homeschooling.

Can the bill be improved?

The overall idea behind HB 290 is right on the money. Structurally, shifting to a single ESA program could be more parent friendly than asking them to navigate multiple voucher programs, and the savings account structure could encourage private schools to keep their tuitions low. But there are a few ways that the bill could be improved to boost its chances of passing—and increase the likelihood that the program will succeed and benefit kids over the long-haul.

• Fiscal impacts. As currently written, HB 290 would make all tuition-paying private school students and homeschoolers immediately eligible for an ESA. There are roughly 150,000 such students in Ohio, so lawmakers are looking at an almost $1 billion per year price tag to fund the plan. That’s not pocket change, especially as they’re already facing challenges funding Ohio’s new public school formula. One way to ease fiscal impacts is to phase in newly eligible private-school and homeschooling students, starting with a grade level or two each year. While that would withhold dollars from some students in the short run, ramping up the program in this way would make the proposal more fiscally manageable.

• Anti-fraud measures. Like other government benefit programs, the ESA could unfortunately fall prey to abuse. HB 290 recognizes that threat but contains few specifics about how the ToS would actually oversee the program. Instead, the bill opts to give the agency broad discretion to write rules and guidelines. Lawmakers could strengthen the bill by enumerating various anti-abuse provisions—for instance, by directing the ToS to conduct random audits of accounts, creating a fraud hotline, and specifying penalties for abuse.

• Transparency around student learning. The ESA program is taxpayer funded, and the public deserves information about whether those dollars are being used to drive student achievement. To its credit, HB 290 requires assessment of private school students. But it could be stronger in a few ways. First off, instead of testing students in grades 1–8 tests biennially, private schools should be required to assess annually. Every year matters for students, and annual testing would better allow for calculations of student growth. Speaking of growth, legislators should also consider ensuring that private schools’ average learning gains (or losses) on norm-referenced tests are calculated and made public. This would give parents a better sense of private-school quality than simply publishing raw test scores that may not be comparable across different tests and reflect pupil demographics. Last, in the realm of assessment, homeschooling students’ test results should be published in the aggregate as well. Those results could help dispel critics’ worries about student learning in such an environment and ensure public transparency for those funds.

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As has been recognized for generations, parents have the primary responsibility for educating their children. But for too long, policymakers at all levels of government have pushed their needs and concerns to the side. The McLain-John proposal puts Ohio parents firmly back in control. Most families will undoubtedly continue to select public schools. Yet for those longing for something different, this bill gives them the resources to pursue innovative solutions, such as learning pods and microschools, as well as more traditional private school and homeschooling alternatives. All options should be open to parents, and this bill would deliver just that.     

Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose two terms in office are nearing their end, announced the phasing out of New York City’s gifted education program in its current form, and plans to replace it with something not yet fully defined. It’s a vision that’s starkly at odds with that of Eric Adams, who won the Democratic mayoral primary this summer, and who has advocated for keeping the program mostly intact but expanding it into more low-income schools. Neither approach is perfect, but Adams’s is much closer to the mark.

At issue are three defining questions for any form of gifted education: when do you screen students for signs of giftedness, how do you screen them, and what’s then done by the schools for those who get identified.

Before de Blasio’s overhauls, New York City parents interested in having their children considered for gifted education had to opt them into a standardized test available from kindergarten through third grade. Admission was based on objective cutoff scores, adjusted by age. Those who passed then entered separate classes or schools with other gifted students, where they received accelerated instruction in grades K–5. After fifth grade, all of the city’s students can seek admission to the district’s many selective, though often competitive, middle and high schools.

Mayor de Blasio would scrap much of that, following a larger and misguided trend in American K–12 education that, in the name of equity, calls for dismantling gifted programs instead of expanding gifted services for Black, Hispanic, and other historically disadvantaged students. Going forward, the New York Times reports, “the city will evaluate all rising third graders, using past work and input from their teachers, to determine whether they need higher-level instruction in specific subject areas, for one or two periods a day.” No admissions test, and no separate classes or schools. The mayor’s office says it’s seeking feedback on the plan through next month, so aspects could be changed and details filled in before he leaves office. What’s unlikely to change is the axing of substantive gifted education that’s long existed in the city.

Eric Adams could reverse all that. He’s all but guaranteed to win November’s general election in a landslide in a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans. And just this week, in his first comments since de Blasio’s proposed overhaul, Adams said, “I’m going to reserve my right, if I’m fortunate to be mayor, to determine how we handle Gifted and Talented, to deal with the segregation in our schools...and ensure that we create a system where every child reaches his or her full potential.”

He declined to offer his own detailed roadmap of how he would achieve this. But in past remarks, he’s supported keeping the exam and supplementing it with other methods for evaluating children’s academic skills and potential. And he’s endorsed keeping gifted classes but expanding them to more low-income schools.

Currently, New York City has approximately eighty gifted programs serving 16,000 K–5 pupils. That’s in a district comprising 700 elementary schools attended by half a million students, meaning only 3 percent of the children participate. These programs have disproportionately served White, Asian, and affluent students, so there’s ample cause to take steps to expand access to them.

Adams’s general vision is spot-on except for one misstep: his embrace of an admissions test with universal cutoff scores that is administered to four-year-olds and that parents must opt into. De Blasio’s plan, however, really only gets one thing right: screening every child when they get to third grade. Everything else about the mayor’s plan—the total rejection of testing, the elimination of separate classes and schools, the cramping of accelerated learning into just one or two class periods per day—will harm many of the Black, Hispanic, low-income, and otherwise disadvantaged students it purports to benefit. Because of it, even more of these children will languish in classes that fail to maximize their education.

In January, then, assuming Adams takes office, he ought to advance a plan that screens every third-grader using a universal assessment—like the annual state achievement test taken by every student—but that otherwise sticks to the sensible approach to gifted education he’s previously supported.

First, use that exam to find the top-scoring kids in every single school. This alone—rather than admitting the highest scorers citywide—would greatly diversify the population qualifying for gifted education services. Recent research finds that using “local building norms for gifted identification would substantially reduce group differences in rates of gifted identification.” And when Broward County, Florida, employed this approach, it worked really well for poor and minority children, found Laura Giuliano and David Card, who this year won the Nobel Prize in economics.

Next, as Adams has said, look beyond test scores. Ask teachers to use a holistic approach to nominate additional youngsters who don’t earn top marks on the exam but show uncommon potential. Consider grades, other scores, and attendance, but also look for sparks that perceptive teachers are adept at noticing. When this is done thoughtfully and with an eye towards avoiding group biases, research shows that it can be an important component in making more students eligible for gifted services, meaning that fewer of those who ought to be admitted will be missed. And as a recent Fordham study of Ohio found, just identifying Black students as gifted seemed to help them do better.

The last element—and admittedly a heavy lift for a vast school system—is to provide a sufficient supply of gifted classes. Adams recognizes this in his call to expand gifted education into more low-income schools. Fortunately, there is a relatively simple and inexpensive solution. The school-specific two-step model would yield enough pupils to fill designated separate classrooms that provide enriched and accelerated curricula in every elementary school. Neither new staff nor new buildings would be required. The same could be done grades 6–8 if the city’s selective middle schools aren’t providing these students with the services they need.

Mayor de Blasio’s announcement last week was bad news for New York City’s gifted students, especially those who are disadvantaged. But Adams’s reaction and seeming readiness to right those wrongs is a welcome and hopeful salve.

Do students have a right to a high-quality education? A proposed ballot initiative filed in California last Thursday says yes. If successful, it would amend the state constitution to say that all public school students “shall have the right to a high-quality public education” and that relevant state laws and regulations must “put the interests of students first.” This would significantly up the ante from the Golden State’s current constitutional requirement for the legislature to “provide for a system of common schools.” Backers of the effort, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, aim to put the question before voters in November 2022 in what is likely to cause an expensive and brutal battle with the state’s formidable teachers union.

The California initiative represents the latest effort to leverage judicial power—in the form of court challenges sparked by constitutional amendment—to solve a problem that billions of dollars and countless policy reforms haven’t: the persistent inequities and inadequacies endemic to America’s K–12 education system. Ten years ago, the landmark Vergara case drew national attention to California and the question of a student’s educational rights, followed by high-profile litigation in New York, Minnesota, and more recently, Michigan and Rhode Island. Now, in the midst of a pandemic that stubbornly refuses to go away, there’s renewed momentum for finding a way to enshrine a student’s right to an effective education.

Measures similar to California’s have been introduced in Minnesota and New Mexico, with kindred efforts underway in other states, focusing on educational quality, literacy, and learning outcomes. The bland pledge to “put students’ interests first” may seem obvious and unarguable, but it’s worth understanding how such language might play out if embedded into state constitutions. Supporters say they are not targeting any specific statutes, but it’s not hard to imagine antiquated school finance laws that underfund low-income districts, for instance, being put in the crosshairs. Or restrictive charter laws that artificially limit their expansion or unduly inhibit their ability to operate. Or teacher tenure laws and seniority-driven contracts. Proponents are basically trying to empower the courts to overrule legislatures and local authorities. You can see why unions are alarmed, even if some potential court decisions could go their way.

One key supporter of the ballot initiative is Ben Austin, founding partner of a new national advocacy organization called Education Civil Rights Now. He offers a compelling narrative for why education reformers should rally around this “new constitutional North Star”:

For decades, the education reform community has attempted to build a movement around technocratic tinkering and school models, which (unsurprisingly) hasn’t worked. Establishing a civil right to a high-quality public education would empower public school parents with the same kind of seat at the table to advocate for the interests of students that has guided other social movements to sustainable victories across generations.

Considering the painful inertia of school systems and state legislatures and their tendency to prioritize adult interests, there’s obvious appeal in doing an end run around the status quo to establish pro-student policies at the state and school board level.

Yet this initiative also raises the broad question of whether we really want to use the courts in this way. Almost seventy years of decisions since Brown have shown that courts can ensure access to education, but also that they do a lousy job in promoting quality. This is because the requirements they impose tend to be bureaucratic and clumsy. What’s more, courts are not good venues for finding compromise, studying tradeoffs, or weighing practical considerations.

All of our children deserve good schools. In this sense, we should embrace the motivation behind this effort, as well as the urgent desire to do something to address California’s stubborn and unmoving education problems. At the same time, we can be skeptical about how much might be accomplished, and concerned about whether this remedy would do more harm than good. The pursuit of a constitutional right to a high-quality education feels like a satisfying recourse to our present educational woes, but we should remain clear-eyed about its limitations when it comes to closing the vast distance between policy and practice.

As one paper put it, there is a “paucity of robust research” on project-based learning. Yet in the ed-school world and in many journals and professional organizations, it’s often touted as a pedagogical gold standard. This is traced back to John Dewey and William Kilpatrick and is contrasted with so-called traditionalist “fact cramming” and “assembly line” methods. An earnest goal of many professors and organizations, then, is to perform the first studies that secure evidence of its efficacy. Who can find the first picture of Sasquatch?

One study published earlier this year purports to have done so, i.e., proven that project-based learning is as effective as its proponents claim. The publication Edutopia celebrated it as “compelling evidence.” The researchers implemented intensive project-based learning programs in AP U.S. History and AP Environmental Science classrooms. The history class featured “student debates over historical and contemporary constitutional issues, mock presidential elections, and, for the culminating project, creating a political action plan intended to move an agenda item (e.g., immigration policy) through the political system.” The science classroom functioned similarly, building itself around projects as the primary means to cover the curriculum.

It was surely engaging and, in the end, students in the PBL classrooms scored 8 percentage points higher than the control group on their AP exams. At first glance, it seems convincing. Under further scrutiny, however, the research is questionable; the picture is fuzzy.

There’s an essential question in such randomized controlled trials: “Compared to what?” In this case, the treatment group in the project-based classrooms received “curriculum, instructional materials, and robust professional development supports for teachers.” They compared this group to a control group of classrooms doing “business as usual.”

Call me crazy, but I’d imagine any class that received robust professional development and instructional materials designed and tested by researchers might see improvements pretty much regardless of the instructional approach in question. If I spent extra time reflecting on my practice and conferencing with local professors, my teaching would probably improve—regardless of whether it was PBL or direct instruction. There are simply too many variables for this study to prove much of anything.

And that’s without even getting to the difficulty of defining what exactly project-based learning is. Like a Rorschach test, the phrase signals quite different things to different users, so gauging its efficacy is all the harder. Even the most prominent adherents of teacher-led instructional practices still incorporate projects of some kind, even if they are not the basic classroom structure.

This study would be inconsequential if it existed in isolation. Much more concerning is other research that finds that PBL actually risks learning loss. A similar study implemented a project-based approach in eight different classrooms. To the researcher’s dismay, the results went in the opposite direction:

1. Adopting PBL had no clear impact on either literacy (as measured by the Progress in English assessment) or student engagement with school and learning.


2. The impact evaluation indicated that PBL may have had a negative impact on the literacy attainment of pupils entitled to free school meals.

The authors of this second study themselves admit that “the existing international evidence on the effectiveness of PBL is relatively weak.” Reviews of the literature confirm this conclusion. One seminal paper led by Paul Kirschner, professor of education at The Open University, says that any minimally guided instruction like PBL “is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process.”

Kirschner attempts to explain why PBL falters in its application. In short, it ignores “the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture.” In simpler language, there’s a vast base of research into how the human brain learns. While we learn elementary skills like verbal language through play and experimentation, more complex topics and skills—ancient history, scientific concepts, written language, the stuff of culture—require explicit instruction and practice.

We cannot experiment our way into memorizing the multiplication tables. Learning the nature of the solar system requires clear explanations, examples, and analogies. Writing necessitates models and practice.

What’s more, projects can be wildly inefficient. Time spent distracted, dealing with the project itself, figuring out software, and suchlike is less time for covering models, receiving direct instruction, practicing, and other productive uses of class time. Barak Rosenshine wrote an excellent summary of the most effective strategies for teachers to use, things like questions, modeling, and structured practice. Any time spent cutting and gluing a diorama means less time for these.

To be clear, none of this research is an irrefutable repudiation of PBL. There are countless anecdotes of PBL models working. High Tech High, a successful charter network in California, is full of such examples. However, anecdotes are only that.

Project-based learning might work. Sasquatch might also exist. Even so, the evidence available today suggests that PBL doesn’t deserve its place on the pedestal, and that I can camp in the woods without worry.