Great Minds creates curricula in math, English language arts, and science for grades PK–12. I’m its founder and CEO, and when Covid-19 hit, we were ill-prepared for digital distance learning, like most everyone else. A RAND survey found that, pre-pandemic, most teachers used digital materials only to supplement their main curricula. We knew schools and districts needed vendors like us to respond to school closures with instructional materials that would help learning continue at home, including students lacking technology. With the support of partner districts, including Baltimore and Syracuse, we dropped everything to pivot from publishing print materials to recording digital lessons. Along the way we learned a few things that may help fellow educators as we all prepare for an uncertain school year this fall.

1. Whether students are in school or at home, content is king. Learning might look different at home, with perhaps fewer hours of study, but it shouldn’t suffer in quality. Wherever they are, students need access to the same kind of comprehensive, coherent, knowledge-building curricula that many use in the classroom.

In her book The Knowledge Gap, Natalie Wexler writes about a fourth grader named Matt who considered himself a member of the “dumb group.” Then his class studied a literacy module about the human heart. He wrote about Clara Barton and became an enthusiastic class participant and reader—and “smart.” Students need something worth writing about. Good content delivers. It also helps students understand and respond to current events. Kyair Butts, 2019 Baltimore teacher of the year, described how his sixth graders’ study of resilience in the Great Depression and the shared human experience of The Odyssey helped them weather the quarantine.

2. In an emergency, organizations must be able to pivot quickly. As of mid-March, we had zero online video lessons. By mid-May, our staff had completed 1,054 free video lessons in what we called Knowledge on the Go. Teachers assigned these lessons to students and parents used them with their children. We saw more than 8 million web views in eight weeks, with users in all fifty states and 188 countries.

Standing up a suite of cohesive, coherent lessons in three subjects wasn’t easy. For weeks, much of the staff worked twelve- to fourteen-hour days on a completely new, technically difficult project that brought a range of challenges, from video quality to complicated recording software. But our employees felt strongly that helping quarantined students, teachers, and parents was the right thing to do. More than 75 percent of our curriculum team consists of current or former teachers. Many are also parents. Both kinds of expertise contributed to their successful delivery of distance learning lessons.  

3. Find partners to amplify your own expertise. We have a website, an email subscriber list, and social media channels. Yet we needed much help in spreading the word about our online lessons to the teachers, parents, and students We asked education associations and think tanks to tell their networks about our lessons. We also worked with school districts to broadcast them on public access and public television channels to reach students who lack computers or internet access at home.

4. Listen to the field and act on feedback. Our teachers recorded lessons of varying lengths, whatever the material required. Some parents told us the initial videos were too long for young children. So we shortened the lessons. Teachers and parents asked for more features. We added more Spanish language materials. We swiftly made our print student editions and assessments available digitally. For our next iteration of online learning, we’re adding more digital tools to help students complete their work and assist teachers in evaluating that work and gauging student progress.

—

Now, more than ever, students need educators who evolve with the times to help them build knowledge, discover new ideas, and set a path for lifetime success. My company succeeded in our new endeavor. We’re here to cheer on others. You can do it, too.

The publication date for this admirable book is Tom Sowell’s ninetieth birthday (June 30, 2020), and I doubt that’s entirely coincidental. Though Jason Riley reported three years ago that Sowell was “putting down his pen,” that obviously didn’t happen. And we’re better off as a result.

With charter schools under more political fire today than we’ve seen in decades, Sowell’s latest book is both timely and compelling. So, too, the excerpt that was featured in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. Although mostly focused on New York City and California—and with the New York saga focused mostly on the successes and tribulations of Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy—the book has national resonance. As Sowell writes, “The stakes are huge—not only for children whose education can be their one clear chance for a better life, but also for a whole society that needs productive members fulfilling themselves while contributing their talents to the progress of the community at large.”

It’s a short, fast read—half the pages are appendices and notes—and the author is a superb writer. His central message is straightforward: Although not all charter schools are successful, the good ones—such as KIPP and Success Academy—are doing a far better job of educating disadvantaged children, particularly children of color, than the district-operated schools those children would otherwise attend. But because charters pose threats, both reputational and fiscal, to those district schools, the powerful interests of teacher unions and others who depend on district schools for their own jobs and reputations are doing their upmost to throttle the charter movement. Sowell estimates, for example, that if all the children currently on waiting lists for New York charters were able to enroll in them, about a billion dollars in public spending would shift from the district to the charters.

Sowell is a longtime defender—both impassioned and analytical—of quality schools for minority youngsters. He has never lost his admiration for the outstanding job that D.C.’s Dunbar High School did for its Black pupils back in the bad old days of de jure segregation—or his dismay over its “abrupt destruction” in the 1950’s. Noting that Dunbar still exists today as a shadow of its one-time educational greatness, he warns that perhaps the greatest threat to charters today isn’t their annihilation, but rather a transformation of their basic nature—essentially the loss of their autonomy—in response to the “numerous and intrusive ‘reforms’…being proposed and enacted today, closely following the agenda of the teachers unions.” We could, in other words, end up with a hollow educational shell that’s called “charter schools” but is indistinguishable from the alternative and thus not worth the bother.

Kudos and thanks to Thomas Sowell—and happy ninetieth birthday!

SOURCE: Thomas Sowell, Charter Schools and Their Enemies (Basic Books 2020).

At least we have stopped pretending that we’re making high school more modern.

“Why not eliminate at least one year of high school entirely?,” asks Kalman R. Hettleman. Better yet, “maybe the junior year, too.” “All told, early exit is about as win-win as it gets in big-idea school reform. We should root for the idea to spread nationally—as early as possible,” he adds.

Well, it’s definitely a win for community colleges and struggling private universities, which can access an even larger cohort of young minds and the full purses that come with them. Is it a win for students and communities? We’ve been pushing more and more young people into the hands of over-entrenched college professors and underpaid adjuncts for decades. How has that been working out?

I’ll bet you can hardly wait for your seventeen-year-olds to master Quantum Intersectionality two years earlier than they would have.

Extreme examples aside, this plan of action lacks depth. While the underlying motivations are sound enough, it offers a too-easy way out, and the approach would truly benefit very few teens. Yet we can build on this thinking.

“Transformation would start with the establishment of world-class standards and instructional systems that would enable most students to become college- and career-ready no later than tenth grade,” writes Hettleman. Absolutely. The key here is “instructional systems.” And key to that is that every K–10 teacher fully understand the science of reading. In 2020, there’s no reason to have teenagers wandering through high school with sub-basic literacy. It’s inexcusable. A 2007 West Dunbartonshire study showed that fewer than one in 10,000 students cannot be taught to read. (Compare this to the 3 to 5 percent illiteracy rate currently accepted by the more optimistic reading experts.) Forty years of science have confirmed how brains process text. But our colleges of education have been highly complicit in the systemic denial of literacy to our youth. Solid K–6 curricula are extremely rare.

“The early exit option also means addition by subtraction in the efficiency of high school educators. They would no longer have to spend so much time—much of it futile—trying to capture the interest and curb the conduct of disaffected students,” Hettleman adds. While this dismal portrayal of high school classrooms is not without merit, the solution throws the baby out with the bathwater. The disaffected students are precisely those who most need high school to reach them.

A now-retired friend dropped out of school after a stint of juvenile incarceration. He’s smart, funny, insightful. Fortunately, none of his exploits went very, very wrong. He survived with some good stories to tell; made his way through life mostly as a truck driver; has children, step-children, and grandchildren; and leads a tolerably comfortable life. Would you recommend that path to a sixteen-year-old today? As our friends at Torc Robotics, Daimler, and Uber roll out a future with all-machine drivers?

Nor has my friend been much part of civic society. Unless you count bars, yard sales, and auctions. (Which do serve a great purpose, I grant.) Even highly casual company Christmas parties he’s long considered not for him; just a “rich people’s” diversion. “The students could pick their own paths. Not just higher education or work, but other life experiences…” is Hettleman’s offered solution. What kind of experiences will such teens then encounter?

Eliminating high school learning also fails the Pharoah-Modibo test. I named this after two eighteen-year-olds in two cities who graduated just fine, were bright and compelling, and had interests in well-paying tech careers. But they were left to the whims and caprices of the community college system. Neither felt they were on any path to success. It’s not that high school failed them academically. It just wasn’t effective at giving them directions or connections. And they, and even more especially their friends, didn’t have great room for error.

The two years of high school set to be tossed should be the most precious asset we have as a nation. We should turn to their repair as a national grand challenge. Our very brightest minds should laser on this task. We should stop turning those two years over to the colleges and their excess Ph.D. corps. We should stop forcing all teens to learn math I never used as an aerospace system-of-systems analyst/engineer. We should stop holding them in the same small rooms they inhabited as first graders. We should stop treating them as children and start treating them as budding adults. And we should help them confront soundly the issues that have them and their older peers today marching in the streets.

While we still have them, we should help them learn civics. And not just court cases and rights. We should help them learn civic engagement of the kind that ordinary citizens have done daily, in their neighborhoods, for generations.

While we still have them, we should intensify the pace at which they grow literate in the new economy, and in the old stories and traditions.

If you’re unfamiliar with the full suite of tools we now have at our disposal, the following will sound impossible. It is not. If we act—if we use those tools, and apply our initiative, this is all within the range of reality.

While we still have them, we should diversify their learning to better reflect the world’s exploding base of knowledge. To know what knowledge is out there and where—even as we raise the bar on the quality, pace, and coherence of their daily learning experiences.

While we still have them, we should help them meet—and be known to—leaders in professions and in society.

While we still have them, we should help them connect with their peers beyond school.

While we still have them, we should help them begin efforts they will later complete.

While we still have them, we should help them learn the real languages of privilege.

While we still have them, we should introduce them to the language and habits of leadership.

While we still have them, we should help them grow in love.

1. Quick: What was the subject of the universally-reviled HB 70 out of the 131st General Assembly? Buzzzzz. It was NOT Academic Distress Commissions, but thanks for playing! It was a bill allowing school districts to create community learning centers. That is, establishing extensive wraparound services for students and families. But it was also a “vehicle”—to use the vernacular—to which ADC changes were amended prior to passage. Something similar may play out in the future with this GA’s HB 164, but in reverse. Amending HB 164 gave a financial windfall to many school districts previously in line for coronavirus-related funding cuts – very popular in some quarters – while its main topic was allowing public school students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school in the same manner that students are allowed to engage in secular activities. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/19/20)
    
2. As if that sweet green pill was not enough to garner the needed votes for passage of HB 164, consider that the amendment process also gave us an extension of special education services via telecommunications, allowed school bus drivers to become certified over the internet, and made sure that third-graders wouldn’t need to repeat the grade due to their scores on the state reading test. Among other things. Talk about consolation prizes. (Cleveland.com, 6/19/20)

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Approximately nine million students across the nation lack access to the internet or to internet-connected devices. Lawmakers and educators have known for years that this disparity, often referred to as the “digital divide,” can contribute to achievement and attainment gaps based on race and income. But the sudden and large-scale transition to full-time remote learning brought about by the coronavirus has sparked renewed concerns.

A recently published white paper from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) aims to shed additional light on the digital divide by exploring how many charter school students have limited internet connectivity and device availability. Because charter schools generally serve a higher percentage of low-income students than districts, it stands to reason that they would have a higher rate of students with limited access.

Very little data exist at the school level. But the authors were able to approximate connectivity and device access by using the American Community Survey (ACS), which provides household data at the census tract level. Connectivity data indicate the type of internet present in each household, including broadband and dial-up. Low-access homes are those that have dial-up or no internet. Device data indicate whether a household has digital devices such as computers, smartphones, or tablets.

To determine whether students at a specific school lack access, the authors geolocated schools to a census tract. Census tracts contain anywhere from 4,000 to 9,000 people, making it reasonable to assume that a significant portion of a school’s students live in the census tract where the school is located. The authors then used the 2018 ACS data to estimate digital access by multiplying the percentage of low-access households by school enrollment. Virtual charter schools were excluded from the calculations because their students are not tied to a specific geographical location, and because they need devices and connectivity in order to enroll.

The results indicate that although student-level gaps exist in both the traditional public and charter sector, they are likely somewhat larger for charter schools. More than 22 percent of charter students are estimated to lack connectivity, compared to 19 percent of district students. An estimated 13 percent of charter students lack devices, compared to 11 percent of district students. The device results are less compelling, since smartphones—which are typically considered unsuitable for schoolwork—are included in the ACS count of devices.

The paper also estimates digital access at the school level. Schools are considered low access if they are located within a census tract where one third or more of households lack devices or high speed connectivity. In terms of connectivity, approximately one in five charter students and one in eight district students attend a school located in a low-access tract. Charter students are around 60 percent more likely than their district peers to attend a school located in one of these tracts. They are also more than twice as likely as their district peers to be enrolled in a school located in a tract with low access to devices.

The paper also presented student connectivity by state and city. There is considerable variation between states, but of the forty-four with charter sectors, thirty-one have an estimated 20 percent or more of charter students lacking connectivity. Tennessee (nearly 37 percent) and Arkansas (nearly 34 percent) have the highest rates. In terms of total numbers, six states have more than 30,000 charter students who lack connectivity. California and Texas have the largest numbers, at 102,447 and 90,558, respectively.

The fifty cities with the largest number of charter students who have low access account for more than 51 percent of all charter students who likely face connectivity challenges. The top five are Los Angeles (22,150 students), Houston (21,896 students), Philadelphia (19,417 students), Chicago (18,655 students), and Detroit (14,565 students). Four Ohio cities made the top fifty: Cleveland (6,880 students), Columbus (5,643 students), Cincinnati (2,720 students), and Toledo (2,053 students). In all four of these cities, the share of charter students with low access is 25 percent or higher. In Cincinnati, the share is a whopping 39 percent.

The paper estimates that closing the digital divide for charters would cost around $243 million during the first year. Arriving at this dollar amount required making several assumptions, including the type of connection needed (wired versus wireless) and the total cost of devices, support, and insurance for each student. Given the current economic crisis, $243 million seems like a big chunk of change. But even with widespread funding cuts, it’s still a drop in the bucket. There’s a ton of uncertainty around reopening schools in the fall, but many leaders are leaning toward the possibility of hybrid schedules, with plenty of remote learning still happening from home. That means students will need device and connectivity access—and lawmakers will need to decide if paying to close the digital divide is a necessary expense.

Source: Nathan Barrett and Adam Gerstenfeld, “Closing the Digital Divide,” National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (June 2020).

First, the bad news

The New York Times took a sledgehammer to charter schools this week, stating that “some [of them] with healthy cash balances and billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, have quietly accepted millions of dollars in emergency coronavirus relief from a fund created to help struggling small businesses stay afloat.” It only gets worse from there.

Second, more bad news

In the Public Interest, a California think tank, released a policy brief looking in detail at charter schools in Oakland, which have received at least $18,909,300 in loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. It concludes that, as charters are also receiving funds to educate students, “taxpayers are left covering what appears to be the same bill twice.”

Meanwhile, in Ohio

A group of Horizon Science Academy schools across Ohio are suing the state over what they reckon to be an ex post facto change in the application rules for the state’s new Quality Community Schools Support Grant.

At last, some good news

The National Association of Elementary School Principals this week ran an article, written by NAPCS head Nina Rees, delving into the remote learning strategies used by Columbus’ United Schools Network during the pandemic-mitigation school shutdown. Their detailed and thoughtful efforts are being shared—and lauded—widely.

And finally, some more good news

Huge congratulations to Debbie Grashin, teacher at KIPP Columbus, who was one of ten nationwide winners of the inaugural Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year awards announced this week. The award recognizes educators helping students in underserved and underrepresented communities build life-changing skills to propel their futures in computer science.

Stackable credentials are coordinated pathways of two or more occupation-specific educational credentials—up to and including an associate degree—designed to share coursework and to build upon one another toward greater competency in a job field. Those pathways can be vertical (such as earning a certificate in medical coding followed by an associate degree to administer and manage health IT systems), horizontal (such as a certificate program for energy technology fundamentals that then branches out into related specializations in solar systems and energy efficiency), or lattice (which combines aspects of both). Ohio was a pioneer in developing stackable credential programs, passing its first legislation in 2006. This paved the way for local and statewide initiatives aimed at boosting the program’s effectiveness by creating multiple entry points, establishing credit transfer agreements across institutions, and aligning programs with employer needs.

After more than a decade of effort, very little is known about which pathways students pursue, their completion rates, and outcomes by program. To shed some light on these important questions, RAND researchers partnered with the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) to examine enrollment and completion data in credential programs from three prominent and high-demand fields: health care, manufacturing and engineering technology (MET), and information technology (IT).

To establish a trendline, the researchers use ODHE data to identify students who completed a first certificate (any credential below an associate degree) in those chosen fields from 2005 to 2013. In 2005, before the stacking push, they find over 2,700 first-time certificate-earners, with the vast majority of those in the health care field. The IT field is at the bottom with just 185 certificates earned. That breakdown continues—and widens—over the years, as the overall number of certificate-earners nearly doubles to over 5,200 by 2013. The IT field shows the fewest number of certificates earned in every year observed, and MET typically records between double and triple the number of IT certificate earners over the years.

However, in looking specifically at stacking, the picture turns upside down. In all but two years, IT certificate-earners lead the stack pack, with 50 percent or more stacking one or more additional credentials (up to and including an associate degree) within two years. By 2013, 59 percent of the individuals who earn a first-time IT certificate go on to stack additional credentials within two years. Meanwhile, only 33 percent of the health care certificate-earners in 2013 do the same. MET certificate-earners are in the middle at 43 percent.

Efforts to make sure that stacking benefits populations traditionally underrepresented in these fields show mixed results. Overall, Black men and women make up just 9 percent of first-time certificate-earners over the observation period; Hispanics, just 6 percent. The racial breakdown of stackers is more even, however: 27 percent of stackers over the observation period are Black, 29 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent are White. Hispanic stackers predominate in both the IT and MET fields. Demographic variation in stacking is not fully explained by the data, although the researchers note that credential-earners attending Ohio Technical Centers (OTC) are less likely to stack future credentials than are those attending community colleges or universities. They speculate that better access to the latter institutions for minority students could help raise the percentage of stackers in those demographic groups even more.

Within four years of earning their first certificate, 71 percent of stackers top out at the associate degree level, indicating a fairly robust vertical stacking framework. Twenty percent top out at the certificate level—horizontal stackers—and a not-insignificant 9 percent top out with a bachelor’s degree. It should be noted that more than double the percentage of IT stackers top out at a bachelor’s compared to the other two fields. Additionally, a majority of stackers complete their multiple credentials at the same institution, bolstering the notion that Ohio would be well-served by increasing certificate programs—and access to them—at community colleges and universities rather than at OTCs.

As a first look at the data on credential stacking, this report is a helpful starting point. For many individuals, Ohio’s efforts to help build a ladder of credentials appears to be working. But without employment and income data, the analysis is limited to a rough snapshot of who earns credentials, how, and in what fields. It’s also critical for policymakers to know if increased competency also leads to better, higher paying jobs. That’s a question for a future study.

SOURCE: Lindsay Daugherty, et. al., “Stacking Educational Credentials in Ohio: Pathways Through Postsecondary Education in Health Care, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology, and Information Technology,” RAND Corporation (May 2020).

1. In case you missed it, Fordham released a new report last week that aimed to provide practical recommendations for restarting—and reshaping—educational accountability in Ohio over the next two school years. Editors in Columbus seem to be all on board with those recommendations per yesterday’s editorial, although your humble clips compiler has a sneaking suspicion they may have some specific favorites among the lot. (Columbus Dispatch, 6/18/20)
    
2. Dispatch editors are specifically focused on the double play of “accountability and choice” as a great plan for improving education. Wonder how that stuff is going around Ohio these days? The expansion of Partnership Schools into Cleveland seems like a big boost for choice to me. This piece looks at how that endeavor came to be. “They are high performing schools academically. These schools are the beacon of education,” says Rich Clark, one of the Cleveland-based stalwarts of the endeavor, of the two schools new to the Partnership. “They are supported by public money,” he adds, meaning Ohio’s voucher programs. So…choice good. (Partnership NYC, 6/17/20) Meanwhile, following our notice on Wednesday regarding Canton City Schools, public media in Cleveland tell us of “a growing number of school districts” joining the putative legal suit against the EdChoice voucher program. So…choice bad. (IdeaStream, 6/18/20)
   
   

3. On the accountability front, editors at Vindy.com opined this week in support of the “truce agreement” hammered out by the elected board of Youngstown City Schools and the city’s mayor. You know what I mean. (Your humble clips compiler is even less of a legal scholar than the sages of Youngstown, but I’m reasonably certain this circumvents the intent of HB 70. Since this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened during the sad saga of Ohio’s Academic Distress Commission—you know what I mean here too—it probably shouldn’t bother me at all.) But even more than that, the editors are dead certain that “social and educational experts should agree that this system created under HB 70 is not working.” (Anyone know what a “social expert” is? I sure don’t.) I realize that this is a different Vindy than the one whose editors stood by former CEO Krish Mohip against the most egregious of obstruction, undermining, and attack, but the public turn against this form of educational accountability seems pretty complete to me. I suppose it makes sense then that their reasoning here is: “local elections must be honored”. I think I might term it “You get what you vote for” but that type of thing probably won’t rally the faithful very well.  (Vindy.com, 6/17/20)
    
4. School districts are apparently reeling with understandable confusion over a new state law requiring them file a “remote learning plan” with the state for next school year. State Senator Peggy Lehner says, despite the bill making “perfect sense”, the point of confusion for district supes is obvious. While she says that the state doesn’t need to “hold the hands of…districts,” she does say that the Ohio Department of Education will need to clarify the situation. (Cleveland.com, 6/17/20)
    
5. I’m not sure the analogy works here, but just to provide an example of the complexity of thought going into the shape of K-12 education for the next school year, I give you Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools’ various plans and contingencies. (Cleveland.com, 6/18/20) One of the issues raised in Chagrin Falls is that of kids possibly moving into or out of online learning during the year, rather than choosing one option at the start and sticking to it. Chardon Local Schools expresses the same worry here, and more besides. “There is some question in some circles about whether or not a full 100-percent virtual program can be delivered by a public school district, or if you need to have some face-to-face component with that,” the district supe told his board this week. Online school hard! “So we’re still waiting for some clarification, but I don’t think the hurdles will be terrible.” Online school not so hard! I can’t keep up. (Geauga Maple Leaf, 6/18/20)
    
6. Finally this week, we have a non-rona story courtesy of The 74, which is trying to clear its decks of pieces written before the pandemic. This look at Heartland High School in Columbus hails from October, 2019. Heartland is one of the first recovery high schools in the country, designed solely to support students overcoming addiction—to stay clean, to complete their education, to build a support system, and to move forward. It is a complicated endeavor, from the sound of it, but one that seems to hold great promise for its students. Take a look. (The 74, 6/16/20)
   

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The growth of private school choice programs in Ohio has clearly struck a nerve with the education bureaucracy. After rapid expansion in the number of schools slated to be deemed “low-performing” in 2020–21, which ballooned the number of students eligible for vouchers, choice opponents pushed for massive changes in Ohio’s EdChoice program. Their goal was to shrink the program, and before Covid-19 burst upon the scene, this effort dominated Statehouse debate. 

In January and March, a couple of temporary measures passed that essentially kicked the can six months down the road without settling anything. Perhaps unsure of its legislative prospects and seeking to widen the battle, one prominent voucher critic, the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, announced last month that it will take to the courts to challenge the legality of EdChoice itself. No word yet on whether the suit will be based on state or federal law, though voucher advocates, mindful of the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as past precedent, notably the Zelman decision arising from an Ohio voucher program!—are surely hoping to fight this suit in the federal courts.

Why the renewed opposition to vouchers, which have been part of the Ohio education landscape for more than two decades? A part, but I think just part, was certainly the expansion of "voucher-eligible" public schools to 1200-plus, now all across the state, including some well-regarded suburbs. But it's not just kids getting EdChoice vouchers by virtue of attending ill-performing public schools. As we see in Figure 1, voucher use has been growing, year after year, tripling the number of participants over the last decade. The education establishment can't really be blamed for getting a little antsy.

Figure 1. Ohio voucher usage by program

​

The establishment arguments against vouchers, however, fall flat, at least as viewed by this public-school graduate and public-school parent. Here’s why.

First and foremost, when the government requires something of its citizens, as with compulsory education, as a matter of principle it should provide a wide variety of ways to meet the requirement. Between homeschooling, public charter schools, and open enrollment, there are more options available than ever before. Still, many of the options depend on where you live, and the open enrollment options are closed to many of our most disadvantaged students. Ohio has a vast array of private schools, some of which have served students for more than a century. Providing expanded access to them will give many families another way to comply with the state’s compulsory attendance requirements.

Second, we know that one size doesn’t fit all in education (or really much of anything). Yet we continue to assign most students to cookie-cutter schools based on their home address. We expect every local school to be all things to all kids. Then we act surprised when some students struggle. Despite the mounting number of such students, custodians of the current system seek to limit families’ alternatives, most especially when they include private schools.

Third, voucher opponents have spent more time inflaming public sympathies than making substantive arguments against vouchers. Consider the rallying cry that seeks to tie school choice to billionaires. With income inequality what it is, that naturally gets attention. But there’s no evidence that billionaires benefit from other families’ kids attending private schools. So why scapegoat them?

Fourth, opponents contend that vouchers don’t improve academic performance and that they sap traditional public schools of the capacity to serve the students who remain. It’s a powerful argument with obvious appeal. Yet there’s scant evidence that it’s true. Most rigorous analyses suggest that vouchers’ competitive effects—the impact on students who remain in public school—are positive. Participant effects—how voucher users fare academically—are more mixed but still mostly positive, especially if you consider long-term outcomes. If opponents are going to convince policymakers, they’re going to need data that actually support their assertion. Otherwise, erring on the side of liberty in the form of more educational options should continue to win the day.

Finally, when it comes to supporting students to attend private schools, the U.S. is a bit of an outlier—and not in the way you may think. In her report The Case for Education Pluralism, Ashley Berner noted many countries around the world that routinely fund private school education.[1] These countries often surpass the U.S. on international achievement tests. Thus, there’s every reason to think the U.S., if it chose, could devise a framework similar to that used in other countries getting strong results with both public and private schools.

***

While summer may provide a respite, the campaign against vouchers in general and EdChoice in particular will inevitably resume this fall. As we contemplate the claims and contentions of voucher opponents, let’s match them against these inconvenient truths.

Much newsprint, airtime, and social media discourse in recent days have been consumed by the question of whether the awful George Floyd murder and its voluminous aftermath on the world’s streets will yield fundamental transformations of policing, of the justice system, of race relations, bias, inequality, and opportunity denied.

A week earlier, those same venues were paying lots of attention to whether the Covid-19 pandemic would yield a fundamental transformation of the American economy, of our public health system, perhaps of federalism itself. And, of course, whether and when a functional vaccine might be developed—and what nation will win that epic competition.

In the more specialized realm that I mostly inhabit, similar questions were (and still are) being asked about schooling. Will we find ourselves educating kids in fundamentally different ways, not only in September 2020, but also over the long run with, for example, much more learning outside the traditional school setting? Is a breakthrough coming, one that would finally separate American K–12 education from the “factory model” and long-summer-break calendar? Serious people in the field are talking and writing seriously about “reinventing” schooling in the United States. But what would that require? And what does it portend for teachers, institutional structures, budgets, technology, and much more?

The three challenges—law enforcement, pandemic, schooling—have several common elements, starting with the revelation of major shortcomings and system failures in how we have traditionally done things, followed by widening recognition that big-time changes are sorely needed, including extraordinary breakthroughs. Which realization is inevitably followed by the glum apprehension that the present systems are deeply entrenched, that change requires extraordinary leadership, that breakthroughs are few and far between, that powerful interests will work to keep things pretty much the way they have been for so long, and that American institutions and political arrangements may have lost the capacity to rise to big challenges in the big ways that the times require.

The phrase “Sputnik moment” has grown hackneyed—a development that I and many other would-be pundits have contributed to. So far as I can tell, in the three quarters of a century since World War II, we’ve really had just one such moment, triggered by that little beeping ball that the Soviets put into orbit back when I was thirteen. The Cold War was upon us and Americans suddenly feared that our big arch-enemy was surpassing us, not only with ground forces, conventional weapons, and nuclear armaments—but now even in space. So Congress passed some laws and schools and colleges made some changes and pretty soon JFK announced that America was headed to the moon. (In case you weren’t watching, we’re supposedly headed there again except now NASA’s goals include Mars.)

In the years since, we’ve had many other high-profile, change-creating events, some connected with civil rights, some with the economy, some caused by Mother Nature. And those have nearly always brought some response, an effort to solve the problem and keep it from happening again. These efforts have usually been constructive, if sometimes overwrought.

Some of the resulting changes have been widespread and lasting. Public schools are no longer segregated by law. Banks are no longer as free as they were to make bad loans. The dikes and levees around New Orleans are stronger. Cigarette smoking is widely suppressed. American kids aren’t getting polio.

Transformative or no? Depends on your perspective. Plenty of de facto segregation remains, and by some measures it’s worsening, as are innumerable other forms of prejudice, bias, and inequity. And there’s been backsliding, too. Banks have undone parts of Dodd-Frank. New Orleans may be more secure, but much of the nearby delta keeps flooding. Vaping is in vogue. And parental opposition to vaccination means some once-vanished childhood diseases are enjoying a bit of a comeback (not to mention the Covid-19 plague).

Meanwhile, other huge problems have barely been addressed. Crumbling infrastructure, for example. Climate change. Fatherless children. Kids not learning nearly enough. Unfixed high schools with flat achievement. Out-of-control college costs. The stalling escalator of social mobility. That list could easily get longer.

What distinguishes problems we tackle in a serious way from those we mostly just wring our hands and protest over? What distinguishes those we merely tackle from those we more-or-less solve? And what distinguishes those we “sorta solve” from those that transform society in lasting ways?

Mostly, it appears to me, the push for significant change can originate from either of two directions. In the end, however, both are needed. From the top must come sustained leadership combined with bipartisan, or at least “centrist,” consensus that we’re looking at a major problem overdue for solving, that we’re ready to make big changes to do that, that we have the fortitude to stare down some vested interests, and that we’ll stick with it no matter who wins the next election. From the bottom comes popular understanding and acceptance, even ardor, for such changes. Either may come first, but both will be required. 

Today in America, we’re seeing some pushes from each direction. The impulse for fairer law enforcement is clearly coming from below but has been attracting leaders, while the push to address climate change started with elites but has drawn considerable popular support. Doing something about health care in general and grappling with Covid-19 in particular derives its energy from both. None of those, however, has reached bipartisan or centrist consensus, nor can be we confident of long-lasting commitment.

In K–12 education, where I mostly reside, the pandemic-connected shutdown has brought much anxiety about schools reopening, and we’ve already seen myriad “plans” for how that should be done. But only among pundits and think-tankers am I yet seeing much appetite for large and lasting change in how education gets delivered.

So let me ask again: What would it take for that to come about—and for this opportunity not to go to waste? I believe three ingredients would be key. In order of increasing difficulty, they are: (1) successful examples, (2) sustained leadership with a modicum of centrism or bipartisanship, and (3) a culture shift on the part of parents—or at least policy changes that enable those who can and want to shift to do so. 

Since one of the biggest deterrents to successful education innovation is people’s inability to imagine something they can’t actually see in action, examples matter—and they’re beginning to show up in a handful of foresighted districts and charter networks that were already savvy about technology, adroitly led, and (for the most part) small enough to be nimble.

By autumn I trust there will be more worthy examples.

As for leadership from the top, in a one-party community or state, that may not require bipartisanship. Thus we’ve seen sustained education reform in places like Florida and—in its way—California. But in most of America, including bellwether Massachusetts, big education change has required a commitment on both sides of the aisle to keep a reform agenda moving forward even when the governor or legislative leaders change. That’s not impossible today. It’s just harder than ever to achieve.

Yet culture shift will be the biggest challenge, and it goes beyond habits and attitudes to include the basic rhythms of family life in America. Sputnik, let’s recall, held big implications (or so we thought) for the country’s welfare but didn’t much affect the John and Jane Doe family.

So long as the overwhelming majority of parents view brick-and-mortar schools as the essential place both to educate and to look after their children five days a week, and so long as many parents find it difficult or impossible to materially assist their kids with learning at home, we’ll find ourselves loath to shift to a different form of education, no matter how superior it could turn out to be. Which brings us back to successful demonstrations, to leadership, and if I may, to the principle of school choice. For if and when the virus threat is vanquished by a vaccine or cure, it may turn out that transformed education is craved and valued by some families but rejected by others. Enabling and accommodating that kind of structural transformation may turn out to be the best available path to the future.