1. In case you missed it, the state budget bill passed out of the legislature very late in the day on Monday. Everyone was pretty bleary-eyed when it was all over—reporters and legislators alike—in a “This is one of the most significant things we have done and will do for education here in the state of Ohio,” sort of way. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/28/21) But now the dust is settling and certain facts are becoming clearer. Our own Chad Aldis is quoted in this first “light-of-day” coverage of the education provisions which remained in the bill as passed. In it, the school funding revamp included was still called “a wonderful thing” by some of the folks who worked on it, but some of those with green eyeshades indicate that the funding boost to be realized won’t actually be as “wonderful” as thought for many districts. (Dayton Daily News, 6/30/21) Of course, the point of the funding revamp wasn’t simply a pipeline of money to school districts. It was also supposed to “finally” make the state’s school funding formula “constitutional”. And after some well-deserved sleep, some of those folks who thought they’d gotten both appeared to change course and feel like perhaps they didn’t get either. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/29/21)
    
2. In fact, we went from unequivocal “cheering” for the new funding formula… (13ABC News, Toledo, 6/29/21) …to a “pleased but cautious” reaction… (Statehouse News Bureau, 6/29/21) …to a resigned “Yeah, it’s ‘historic’, but we really only got a building block” to whatever else we wanted but didn’t get. (Cleveland.com, 6/30/21)
   
   

3. Personally, I think a similar trajectory may play out with another budget provision hailed upon first passage: changes to the state’s CEO-style academic distress paradigm. (Elyria Chronicle, 6/28/21) For ADC haters, those changes are initially being hailed as an unequivocal “win”. And indeed, it seems that more authority will be returned to the elected school districts in Youngstown, Lorain, and East Cleveland. Initially. For me, it seems that there’s some fine print in there that might not be so “winning” down the line. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 6/29/21)

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Today, the Ohio Senate and House, each with broad bipartisan support, approved the report of the budget conference committee and sent HB 110 (the biennium state budget) to Governor DeWine for his approval. In key education changes, the legislature adopted the House’s school funding framework, while also approving many of the initiatives championed by the Senate that improve Ohio’s parental choice programs.

“K-12 education has rightly been a focal point in this year’s state budget debate. Both chambers should be commended for crafting policies that will greatly strengthen education in this state,” said Chad L. Aldis, Vice President for Ohio Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “Getting a school funding formula in place is critical to driving state dollars to schools that need them, and the House’s school funding plan moves Ohio back to a formula driven system that ties funding to student attendance.”

The approved budget also shifted to a direct funding model, supported by both chambers, which will fund all choice programs directly with state dollars rather than through a system of district deductions. It’s anticipated that this shift will help to ease tensions between districts, charter schools, and private schools. In other school choice-related changes the budget continues funding for the quality charter school program, raises scholarship amounts in the state’s private school choice programs, creates educational savings accounts to help parents secure high quality afterschool and enrichment activities, and for the first time allows charter schools to open in any district in the state.

“The legislature soundly rejected the false choice that Ohio needs to choose between supporting public education and empowering families with educational options,” Aldis added. “This budget proves that policy makers can properly fund public schools and schools of choice, and it’s Ohio families who will benefit.”

The U.S. Department of Labor defines stackable credentials as a “sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time.” Research indicates that they can lead to higher-paying jobs for students and improve talent pipelines for employers. Over the last few years, Ohio has become a national leader in developing stackable credential pipelines. But what kinds of programs are available, and do they actually lead to improved life outcomes?

A new report from the RAND Corporation and the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) seeks to answer these questions by examining the development of stackable programs by Ohio institutions and determining whether individuals who earned and stacked credentials received increases in their yearly earnings as a result. The report examines vertical stacking, when students start with an initial certificate and then stack credentials upward toward the degree level, as well as horizontal stacking, which occurs when students stack either credit or non-credit credentials at the same level. It focuses exclusively on the fields of health care, manufacturing and engineering technology (MET), and information and technology (IT) because they account for more than half of the certificates awarded in Ohio. And it considers three types of credentials:

1. Degrees, which can be earned in two or four years and cover general or field-specific coursework.

2. Certificates, which can be earned in two years or less and cover coursework focused on preparing a student for a specific job. Here, too, there are three types:

a. Clock-hour certificates, which offer no credit toward a degree and are awarded by an Ohio Technical Center (OTC), a community college, or a university.

b. Short-term credit-bearing certificates, which require less than one year of full-time enrollment and are awarded by community colleges and universities. Examples include certifications in welding or becoming an emergency medical technician.

c. Long-term credit-bearing certificates, which require one or more years of full-time enrollment and are awarded by community colleges and universities. Examples include certifications in massage therapy, or heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

3. Certifications or licenses, which are awarded by industry-recognized groups to certify that students have specific knowledge and skills.

The researchers start by taking a close look at the programs offered by Ohio’s public institutions. First, they focused on the 2004–05 and 2018–19 academic years to identify changes over time. After examining administrative records provided by ODHE—a dataset that included 1.3 million credentials awarded over the course of fifteen years—they found that there was rapid growth in the number of certificate-level program offerings in all three fields.

Next, they sought to determine whether these programs were designed to encourage credential stacking. They identified seven key features of a stackable credential program, such as linking them to industry-recognized credentials and embedding certificates into a degree program. ODHE provided data again, this time from the state’s certificate program approval process, which relies on self-reported data. Overall, the percentage of new certificate programs that reported stackable features increased between 2014 and 2019.

But did this increase in programs with stackable features benefit Ohio students? To find out, the researchers used several statewide data sources—enrollment and completion records from OTCs, public community colleges, and universities, as well as unemployment records—to identify individuals who earned an initial certificate from an Ohio postsecondary institution between 2004–05 and 2012–13. After controlling for economic trends, college enrollment status, age, and other characteristics, they found that, on average, Ohioans who earned a postsecondary certificate saw a 16 percent increase in their annual earnings. Those who stacked multiple credentials, meanwhile, saw a 37 percent increase in earnings, which is equivalent to approximately $9,000 annually. But it wasn’t just stacking that gave students a boost—the type of stacking also mattered. Individuals who started with long-term certificates, stacked credentials vertically, and earned their credentials in the health care field saw the largest increase in earnings.

Results also varied depending on demographics. For instance, after obtaining an initial certificate, Hispanic students benefited from significantly larger earnings gains than White and Black students. When it came to stacking, however, Hispanic students had overall returns that were similar to White students. Overall earnings gains from stacking were much higher for younger students—those who completed initial certificates before the age of twenty-five—than for their older peers. And women saw higher earnings gains than men after obtaining an initial certificate and after stacking. Women who stacked credentials saw a 47 percent overall increase in earnings compared to a 22 percent increase for men. This difference, however, could be explained by the fact that women were overrepresented in the health care field, where returns for credentials are higher.

The report’s authors are careful to note that more data and research are needed to truly understand credential stacking in Ohio. But the results of this study should be welcome news to institutions who have invested heavily in stacked credential pipelines, as well as to individuals who are looking for a way to boost their earnings.

Source: Lindsay Daugherty and Drew M. Anderson, “Stackable Credential Pipelines in Ohio: Evidence on Programs and Earnings Outcomes,” RAND Corporation (June 2021).

1. In case you missed it late in the day on Friday, House Bill 82 passed out of the General Assembly. Among other things, the bill contains a serious revamp of school and district report cards. Our own Chad Aldis weighed in on the implications of the changes in electronic pages of Gongwer. “The new report card,” he said in part, “will allow Ohio to successfully reboot its school accountability system after pandemic-related pauses, drive academic improvements in schools for the benefit of students, and ensure that Ohio parents have honest, accurate information.” Sounds good to me! (Gongwer Ohio, 6/25/21) Fordham is namechecked in this report card piece, the first one I believe I've ever clipped from The Scioto Post, as one of the organizations who had worked together to come up with the new report card format. The bill is now on to Governor DeWine for a signature. Should be farewell A-F grades and hello five stars very soon! (Scioto Post, 6/27/21)
    
2. The Blade takes a further look at the two new charter schools opening their doors in Toledo soon, about which we have already talked thanks to some previous local news coverage. While the major daily newspaper’s coverage is ultimately positive by my reckoning (YMMV), there’s no doubt that the discussion of sponsors and management companies and the dreaded “f word” (for-profit, that is), is intended to throw some typical Blade shade. (Toledo Blade, 6/26/21) Meanwhile, a proud representative of the private sector opined on Cleveland.com this weekend that, “We have shown you can turn around failing schools.” This statement, and his concrete data thereto, is in the context of his preferred version of a school funding revamp, I believe. But if so, I don’t think he is making quite the point that he thinks he is making. (Cleveland.com, 6/27/21)
   
   

3. I’m a little late to this story, but it’s definitely worth a moment of your time if you haven’t yet seen it. Quadruplet brothers who graduated from Lakota East High School in southwest Ohio announced on The Today Show four years ago (covered here in the Bites, I feel sure) that they would be attending Yale together after choosing among nearly sixty college offers. Well, fast-forward to 2021 and the Wade brothers have now graduated from that institution. We get a little insight into how much they were able to separate from each other despite being at the same college, as well as the dizzying variety of majors they pursued. The Wades are heading off on separate paths now, but I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of any of them. Kudos to that amazing family! (The Today Show, 6/18/21)

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As we await final decisions from the General Assembly on important matters of school funding, report cards, vouchers, and more here in Ohio, we have a bumper crop of charter news from around the country that’s holding our attention.

New Jersey

This week, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of a group of seven charter schools’ expansion efforts. The 2016 decision rejected the argument that charter school expansion would harm the Newark School District financially. However, the Supreme Court did express concern that new or expanded charters might promote racial segregation in the future.

Rhode Island

The Rhode Island House of Representatives this week approved an innovative bill that would automatically enter all public school students into charter school lotteries. If enacted, families would be required to opt out of the lotteries if they did not want to participate or to affirmatively decline any seat(s) offered to them as a result of the lotteries from which they did not opt out. The bill now goes to the state Senate.  

Florida

While the percentage of Florida third graders scoring at grade level or above on the Florida Standards Assessment in English and language arts decreased slightly across all student demographics this year, charter school student performance bucked that trend. Data released this week show charter school student performance was higher than non-charter student performance by eight percentage points – 61 percent versus 53 percent, respectively. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, scores were down across the board this year as compared to 2019 (no tests were given in 2020) due to pandemic-disruption learning loss.

Nevada

Las Vegas is getting serious about its plans to open the first city-run charter school in the state, an effort to expand its preschool programming to higher grades and to boost educational achievement for boys and girls in the city. Earlier this month, city council approved bylaws for a proposed nonprofit corporation, called CLV Strong Start Academy Elementary School Inc., which will formally apply for the charter school license and be charged with operating the school.

EdSec speaks

In case you missed it, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was the keynote speaker at this week’s National Charter School Conference. He took the opportunity to make the case to school leaders that building a diverse teaching force should be a key component of pandemic recovery efforts. He also expressed concerns over for-profit charter operators, saying that “it’s important that we also take steps to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the charter school sector,” in order to facilitate student success.

*****

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1. Fordham-provided stats are referenced in the piece on the status of a school funding revamp currently included in the state budget bill. But other than that one reference, the rest of the piece is discussing the school funding revamp plan NOT currently included in the state budget bill and is informed in its entirety by the blobby entity that we might generously term “not-Fordham”. You know what I mean. (Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, 6/23/21)
    
2. Speaking of revamps, Fordham’s Chad Aldis is quoted here on the topic of a school and district report card revamp, which as we noted on Wednesday is currently included in House Bill 82. Quoth the boss: “The most important thing is – if this bill becomes law – Ohio parents and communities will have a much improved report card.” (Gongwer Ohio, 6/23/21) HB 82 passed the Senate by a vote of 31-1 on Wednesday. Jeremy Kelley says it will likely pass the House today and, if signed by the governor, would go into effect for the upcoming 2021-22 school year. (Dayton Daily News, 6/25/21)
   
   

3. Speaking of far-reaching legislation (were we?), did you know that it’s been six years since the passage of HB 70? You know—the one that created the tougher, CEO-style academic distress paradigm to help turn around persistently low-performing school districts. While HB 70 is still,  nominally, the law of the land, it is clear from this Youngstown story that whatever changes it wrought at the start, the gravitational pull of a garbage-filled status quo cannot be overcome by mere words—however sternly written—that exist in the Ohio Revised Code. It seems that a former member of the elected Youngstown School Board is suing the board for violations of the open meetings law going back several years. (So…he’s actually suing his younger self?) This is actually an opinion piece so who even knows what’s really going on—something about meeting minutes and format and access—but there is a huge irony here instructive of this entire saga. We learn that at some point in 2019, the beefing board actually “demanded” that the district’s CEO ensure minutes were maintained. That’s right: the guy who was being actively sued by the elected school board so that that his position would be eliminated was “ordered” to keep minutes of meetings he didn’t attend! You can’t make this stuff up, people. (Vindy.com, 6/23/21)
    
4. And finally this week, following up on my paean to summer school on Wednesday, we learn that some families in the Toledo area are seeking whatever academic boost they can get over the summer due to learning loss during Covid school disruptions. Wonder which families we might be talking about? (13ABC News, Toledo, 6/24/21)

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Today, the General Assembly passed House Bill 82, legislation that contains comprehensive reforms to the state’s school report card system. In recent years, education groups (including Fordham) have urged the legislature to make improvements to the report card that would make it fairer to schools and easier for Ohioans to understand.

“For two decades, Ohio has provided valuable information about school quality through its report card system,” said Chad L. Aldis, Vice President for Ohio Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “Despite some important strengths, the current model became unwieldy and less useful with fifteen different ratings and an overemphasis on measures that tracked closely with demographics. The reforms found in this bill greatly improve the report card framework by streamlining its format and creating a more even playing field that gives all schools opportunities to demonstrate success.”

Among the key reforms included in HB 82:

• Decreases the number of rated measures from 15 to 6;

• Shifts Ohio from the controversial A-F grading system to five-star ratings;

• Adds context to star ratings by including supplemental descriptors and trend arrows;

• Maintains a clear, user-friendly “overall” rating that summarizes performance across the various components of the report card;

• Ensures that students’ year-to-year academic progress counts more heavily in the overall rating (progress measures are more poverty-neutral); and

• With the exception of the graduation rate component, makes important structural improvements to every component of the report card (see next page for an overview).

“State legislators should be commended for making these smart, commonsense course corrections,” Aldis added. “The new report card will allow Ohio to successfully reboot its school accountability system after pandemic-related pauses, drive academic improvements in schools for the benefit of students, and ensure that Ohio parents have honest, accurate information that helps them choose great schools that work for their kids.”

An overview of the major structural changes to Ohio school report card

​

* Ohio will release component ratings in 2021-22 but no overall rating will be assigned—it will be introduced in 2022-23. Note that, due to covid-related pauses in school accountability, no ratings will be published for the 2020-21 school year.

** The College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness component would not be rated (though data would be reported) for the 2021-22 through 2023-24 school years. During that timeframe, ODE will examine these readiness data and create a method that, if approved by the legislature, would introduce a rating for this component starting in 2024-25.

Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Or both or neither or some of each?

For the sake of our children’s education (and any number of other reasons), we need a more thoughtful and balanced starting point for conversations about such matters—one that leaves space for nuance, mutual understanding, and hope for the future. Our union is not perfect, but will become more so if its citizens understand, value, and engage productively with the constitutional democracy in which we all live.

Sadly, far too many young (and not-so-young) Americans have only the haziest grasp of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are essential to informed citizenship, in part because we have systematically failed for decades to impart them to our children. Culpability for that failure goes far beyond our formal education system, to be sure, but a considerable portion of it does belong there: on our schools, our school systems, and our state K–12 systems, which have focused—and been pressed by Washington to focus—on other priorities.

The consequences of that neglect are now painfully apparent on all sides, including the sorry state of American politics and the sordid behavior of many who would lead us.

Rectifying the situation is an enormous project to be pursued on multiple fronts, but schools are an obvious starting point. That’s where we can best begin to inculcate the next generation of Americans with a solid grasp of their country’s past and present, its core principles, and the obligations of responsible citizenship.

Ground zero for getting this right is the quality of the academic standards for civics and U.S. history that have been adopted by the fifty states and the District of Columbia. That’s because our federal system ensures that states and their subdivisions bear primary responsibility for education, which includes establishing academic standards that spell out the content and skills they want their public schools to teach and their students to learn. These standards are typically organized by subject, though in the realms of civics and history they are sometimes organized under “social studies.”

We at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have been evaluating states’ academic standards for more than two decades. Consequently, we’re well aware that they’re just the starting point—statements of aspirations, desired outcomes, and intentions. To get real traction, they must be joined by high-quality instructional materials and pedagogy, sufficient time and effort, and some form of results-based accountability. We understand, in other words, that standards aren’t self-implementing. But we also understand that, like any other road map, instruction manual, or recipe, they cannot be vague, badly organized, or misleading if those who rely on them for guidance are to succeed.

Fordham has reviewed states’ history standards four times before (in 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2011). Yet nobody, to our knowledge, has ever reviewed these jurisdictions’ civics standards—a lamentable oversight that we seek to rectify in our new study, The State of State Standards for Civics and U.S. History in 2021.

We do so at an especially opportune moment, given the mounting interest in these subjects that we see on all sides.

Our dual review yielded results that might be compared to a cloudy sky in which one can still glimpse a handful of twinkling stars. Sixteen jurisdictions made our reviewers’ honor roll with grades in the A or B range for their standards in both civics and U.S. history. Encouragingly, these states run the gamut from deep red to deep blue. Collectively, they serve over 25 million K–12 students—roughly half the country’s total public-school enrollment. Still, that leaves thirty-five states that earned C’s or worse, including twenty that got unsatisfactory marks (i.e., D’s or F’s) in both subjects.

That distribution roughly mirrors what the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) has shown about students’ knowledge and understanding: as of 2018, not quite a quarter of eighth graders were proficient in civics, and even fewer—a meager 15 percent— were proficient in U.S. history. This lackluster showing suggests an enormous challenge for the future of American citizenship. Why are so many states—and students—doing so poorly?

Part of the explanation is simple, if painful: Faced with so many other demands, including NCLB- and ESSA-driven accountability requirements imposed by the federal government, states just haven’t paid enough attention to ensuring that their standards for civics and U.S. history are strong, that teachers are well prepared in these subjects, that districts and schools give them their due, and that students actually learn them. But another—and fast-growing—part of the explanation is more fundamental and worrisome: basic disagreement about how to tell the American story and determine what’s most important for young people to learn.

One potential response to this challenge is to abandon the quest for consensus, plunge into schismatic politics and culture wars, and just duke it out. (See, for example, President Trump’s 1776 Commission and the New York Times’s 1619 Project.) Alternatively, we can paper over differences, avoid specifics, and settle for vague generalities that everyone can pay lip service to but that convey no useful guidance to teachers. (Why argue about the three-fifths clause when it’s so much easier to say that “students should study the Constitution?”) Or states might simply delegate all responsibility for selecting civics and U.S. history content—if any—to districts, schools, or teachers.

In our view, none of these responses will do. Every young American needs and deserves a rich and balanced civics and U.S. history education. Informed citizenship is impossible if you don’t know how a bill becomes a law or why many African Americans were denied suffrage even after passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. Many skills and dispositions that are commonly associated with civics education, such as respecting other persons and their opinions, are also part of character education.

Furthermore, the broader social purpose of civics education is to provide a common framework for resolving our differences even as we respect them—that is, to manage peacefully and constructively the eternal balancing and rebalancing of pluribus and unum—and ultimately, that calls for shared allegiance to a common set of ideas and core principles that is grounded in a common understanding. In other words, there is no such thing as “progressive civics” or “conservative civics,” because if you have to put an adjective in front of it, it isn’t really civics.

Hence our insistence throughout these reviews that civics and U.S. history standards both give America’s core principles and many achievements the respect they are due and that they not whitewash, downplay, or neglect the many painful chapters in our nation’s history. Quality standards neither falter under obsessive wokeness nor avoid the threats posed to present-day civil discourse by gerrymandering, closed primaries, and echo-chamber media (among other forces).

No, it’s not easy. But the actual proves the possible, and the sixteen jurisdictions with honors grades—and the awesome five with A’s in both subjects—demonstrate that it has been and can be done.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s review of state standards for U.S. history and civics comes at a critical moment in American civic life. As a nation, we are failing to maintain a high functioning democratic society on multiple fronts. This sorry state of affairs has everything to do with the polarization of our politics, which is partly due to the fact that we have little sense of shared identity as Americans. And that lack of shared identity, in turn, owes substantially to the fact that we lack a reliably shared sense of American history, the workings of our government, and—perhaps most importantly—the expectations associated with a culture of citizenship.

In its outstanding report, the Fordham Institute identifies the ways in which state standards successfully articulate, or fail to put forward, pathways for developing these shared areas of knowledge and civic character development in American students. In so doing, it does a great service by advancing both our general and our specific awareness (in the context of primary and secondary education) of the need for a better roadmap.

In particular, the ideal vision of civics and U.S. history put forward in this report is appropriately rooted in the outline of an age-appropriate, sufficiently comprehensive curriculum (with attention to the elementary school years) that helps students understand what it means to be an American while also developing the skills and dispositions that are essential to fulfilling the responsibilities of citizenship. Toward those ends, the report takes solid inventory not just of the spread of topics and themes that states currently cover but of their narrative consistency. Civic education cannot be about checking the boxes of required topics outside of the necessary historical context. The development of civic skill and character rests most firmly upon the bedrock of historical understanding, which is why the report’s attention to the arc of history is so important to our understanding of the care (or lack thereof) that states currently take in cultivating civic understanding and awareness in our students.

The report focuses on the need for us to find a balance between the unum and the pluribus in American civic life. Therefore part of what it rightly demands is that sufficient attention be paid to the histories of America’s various ethnic groups in a way that weaves these histories into the broader flow of American history. Per the sidebar on page 26, it’s encouraging to read that many states have made real progress when it comes to giving more considerable attention to the rich and complex history of African Americans and other groups within their standards. But the report also makes clear that there is significant work left to be done.

In practice, any attempt to weave the histories of particular groups into a balanced overview of our shared history is an invitation to controversy, and completely eliminating bias can seem an impossible task. But the best corrective that is available to students and educators when it comes to this and other matters of politics and historical interpretation is a civic disposition rooted firmly in respect for the views of our fellow citizens and the expectation that there will be serious and valid disputes in a pluralistic society. So it’s a great stride forward that this report analyzes the attention paid to this, as well as other civic virtues and dispositions, in state standards.

States with inconsistent approaches to the transmission of historical and civic understanding may need to revisit their understanding of the purposes of these subjects. It is tempting, with limited resources and any number of competing educational imperatives, to stick them wherever they seem to fit in our current K–12 system. Likewise, ignoring or glossing over difficult concepts or parts of our history may seem like the safe thing to do. But if we truly care about the long-term sustainability (or even the medium-term stability) of our democratic society, then we must invest the requisite thought and resources.

The cultivation of a deeper appreciation of our shared history as the foundation for an ever-strengthening relationship with the sacred concept of citizenship isn’t a self-executing project. It requires state standards that actually hold us to such standards. Fordham’s report is a vital step forward in the struggle to focus American attention on this duty. May we rise to its call.

John Wood, Jr. is the National Ambassador of Braver Angels.

A crisis like a pandemic can spark unpredictable changes in trends and behavior, like widespread mask wearing in the United States. But it also can accelerate changes that were already underway but otherwise would have taken root much more slowly. For example, working remotely was a relative rarity in early 2020; now many organizations may never again expect all employees in the office five days a week. And outdoor eating spaces, an occasional curiosity in some cities, have popped up nearly everywhere. Lots of cities and small towns have made it clear that they would like to keep this innovation even after the crisis recedes.

So too in the world of K–12 education, where some new pandemic-era practices are likely to persist for the long term. Some of these are simple and straightforward. Using Zoom for parent-teacher conferences and PTA meetings makes life easier for working parents. Online curriculum materials rather than printed textbooks may also have staying power, since so many students have Chromebooks or other internet-connected devices. Others are more complicated, such as recording a school’s or district’s best teacher giving key lessons and using those videos in multiple classrooms. That frees up other teachers to provide support and individualized instruction—a nimble, but politically sensitive, way to rework teachers’ roles and use technology to improve instruction (see “How Big Charter Networks Made the Switch to Remote Learning,” feature, Spring 2021).

But as both common sense and classic conservatism would submit, not all of the changes that have occurred in education during the pandemic are positive. And just as there are some innovations that we should strive to maintain in the post-Covid era, there are others we should leave behind.

Here are my top five—including several that are close cousins (perhaps evil cousins?) of more promising ideas.

1. Roomies and zoomies simultaneously

First, and perhaps most obviously, we should never again ask teachers to instruct half of their students in person and the other half remotely at the same time. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called it “not humanly possible”—and she’s right.

This hugely unpopular “concurrent” model is surely the worst of both worlds, just like a videoconference with half the participants in person and half logging in from afar is particularly unworkable. We know that, done right, remote instruction can work well for some teachers and students. But not when teachers are also trying to engage students in person at the same time. There’s little doubt that this approach has created an enormous amount of stress for teachers and a subpar learning experience for kids.

Careful readers might wonder how I can square this with my previous advocacy for keeping teachers’ cameras turned on once everybody returns to the classroom (see “A Post-Covid Case for Classroom Cameras,” Spring 2021). And that’s a fair question. As I (and others) see it, it’s much more manageable for teachers working in a live classroom to have a handful of students following along at home, or even watching later via a recorded lesson, than try to engage what the Center for Teaching Quality calls “zoomies and roomies” in real time. If kids are home sick or down the hall because of in-school suspension, administrators can make it clear that teachers are not expected to call on them or otherwise engage them. But allowing absent students to watch what’s happening in class is better than nothing at all.

There may be some enduring need for remote learning in the months and years ahead, especially for medically fragile students. In addition, as New York City has decided, districts may do away with “snow days” and keep school virtually open when buildings are closed due to snow. Districts should offer robust online-learning options to families that want it—either by partnering with companies who specialize in this or by standing up their own programs. But this should be separate from in-person instruction.

2. Waiving seat-time requirements

We need to make similar distinctions with the second item on my list: the cancellation of so-called “seat-time” requirements, which award course credit based on a minimum amount of instructional time. Given the need for social distancing, and the public-health priority of keeping adults and kids safe, many states understandably waived requirements that schools hold session for a certain number of hours or days in 2020 and 2021, while allowing students to progress through their classes. Likewise, states temporarily let go of many or all mandates dictating the number of hours allocated to particular subjects.

Education reformers who have been advocating for mastery- or competency-based learning were excited about that development, as moving away from seat-time rules was something they have advocated for years. But during the pandemic, many states simply got rid of seat-time requirements without substituting anything else in return. They did not ask schools to make sure that their students demonstrated competency in critical subject areas, as adopting mastery-based learning standards would require. Nor did they make sure the kids were getting the comprehensive educational experience that states are morally and legally obligated to provide.

By all means, let us continue to experiment with ways to move towards competency-based programs, especially for older students. But while we work towards that vision, we need to put those seat-time requirements back in place.

3. “Asynchronous” days

The reason is related to my third item on the list of “innovations” that should go away: so-called “asynchronous” learning days, which are school days without live, or “synchronous,” instruction. In Montgomery County, Maryland, where my two sons attend traditional public schools, every Wednesday is asynchronous. The idea, as far as I can figure it out, is that custodians would spend Wednesdays doing deep cleaning (which is now understood to be “hygiene theater”), while teachers would provide individualized instruction to the kids who need it most. Meanwhile, the majority of students would do independent work at home.

I don’t think I am ratting out my sons by reporting, though, that very little independent work was happening on Wednesdays, beyond some regular homework that would and should be expected any day of the week. Without a clear plan, “asynchronous” days are just extra time off.

I am broadly in favor of allowing schools to experiment with new schedules. For example, “half-time high school” could include having kids learn from home several days a week, or several hours a day, or even shift to a college-like schedule, with more time for independent work. But that’s not what happened during the pandemic. In that case, some school districts simply gave up on providing a five-day-a-week educational experience to their students and expecting students to put in effort every day, as well. A recent study found that, even before the pandemic, districts and schools that downshifted to a four-day school week rarely offered meaningful learning opportunities for students on the fifth, out-of-school-day, and student test scores in math and reading declined (see “The Shrinking School Week,” research, Spring 2021). There is no reason to keep asynchronous learning days once the pandemic is over.

4. Grade inflation

The fourth big change that isn’t worth celebrating is the rampant rise in grade inflation. When the school shutdowns struck in the spring of 2020, many districts decided that it would be unfair to apply normal grading policies for the fourth quarter, given the unevenness of access to remote learning. Some simply assigned students the grades they had already earned by mid-March or, like my home district of Montgomery County, rounded up their mid-March scores to the next highest letter grade. Others shifted to pass-fail systems.

Those policies could be defended during an emergency, but the downside is obvious. It sends a clear message that kids will not be held accountable for paying attention, doing their homework, and learning new material. Until we reach the day when intrinsic motivation is enough to get most kids and teenagers to prioritize their schoolwork (in other words, never), or when we’ve transitioned to a system focused on mastery, we’re going to need grades to get kids to put in the necessary effort (see “The Case for Holding Students Accountable,” feature, Spring 2018).

5. Diploma devaluation

Finally, let us never again decide to graduate tens of thousands of students from high school regardless of whether they mastered learning expectations or not. A cynic might say that high schools and school systems have been doing that for years, and in some parts of the country, that is probably true. But before the pandemic, in about twenty states, students were expected to pass some sort of exit exam or end-of-course exam to graduate (though that number has been trending down). And in the others, students had to pass a certain number of courses in order to earn that diploma.

States canceled those examination mandates in 2020 and 2021, for obvious reasons. But school districts waved the white flag as well, patting themselves on the back for graduating kids regardless of whether the students had even come close to meeting standards. In Chicago Public Schools, for example, officials celebrated a record-high graduation rate after easing graduation requirements and shifting to a pass/incomplete grading system. It was essentially impossible for students to fail.

To be sure, helping more students graduate high school is an urgent goal. But it also urgently important to make sure they graduate well prepared for what’s ahead. It does students little good to pass them along and give out diplomas without ensuring the kids can read, write, and do math at an accomplished high-school level. Consider Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where a recent review of high-school achievement found a majority of students failed state tests in English, math, and science, despite the district’s graduation rate of 85 percent.

Let’s return to common sense: if a high-school diploma does not reliably guarantee a minimum base of knowledge and skills, then we have created a policy that punishes graduates who earned their diplomas but now have no way to signify to employers that they achieved something worth paying attention to. We are also signifying to students who have not fully earned their diplomas that they are ready for life after high school, and they are not.

It’s become a cliché to say that, post-pandemic, American schools shouldn’t try to go back to normal. That’s true in many respects. But in some cases, back to normal is exactly where we need to go—the sooner, the better.

Editor’s note: This was first published by Education Next.