Less than three weeks into nationwide school closures because of COVID-19, two narratives have emerged about the role of philanthropy in supporting students through the crisis. The first is the distance-learning narrative and the second is the basic-needs narrative. Most often, they exist as separate entities in our conversations and how we make sense of the world. Together, they tell a story of widening equity gaps. The way philanthropic investments benefit schools with large numbers of students from low-income families in this moment is fundamentally different from how it is benefitting schools in affluent areas.

As we brace for an extended economic downturn, America will face uncomfortable questions about where we put education funds, likely with fewer total dollars available. Philanthropy has a role to play in ensuring we gather critical information on both narratives during the crisis to ensure that when the recovery comes, education is provided equitably to all. A unified education agenda that places the needs of our most vulnerable students at the center depends on merging the lessons of these two distinct narratives.

The distance-learning narrative

Philanthropy is largely responsible for supporting innovation in distance learning that now benefits many students. Students in homes with families that are middle class or affluent have a lifeline to academic growth and social connection. Districts, now compelled to embrace online tools and platforms, had previously been equivocal about how big a role technology could or should play in schooling, and uneven in its use. Tens of millions of students are now participating in an unplanned experiment. As the parent of three public-school teenagers, I hear the potential of remote learning in each dinner conversation, but also get clearer on its limitations.

What can philanthropy do now? Even as grantmakers tackle more dire aspects of the crisis, we must also invest in research into what works and what does not in virtual education. Are there certain subjects, age groups, or group sizes that work better in an online format? Are there skills that are prerequisites to success? Are there topics and populations that we can rule out as most incompatible with a remote approach? Which tools scale and are cost-effective for districts? While deep, in-person relationships with teachers will always be paramount in the learning process, that should not inhibit us from asking questions that can modernize the school experience.

The basic-needs narrative

For millions of American students, distance learning is all distance and no learning. Lack of access to devices, internet plans, and even broadband infrastructure create interlocking obstacles that even the most motivated student cannot overcome alone. More important, connectivity to the online world is the just the tip of the iceberg of need for students living in poverty.

Schools serve a fundamentally different and larger purpose in high-poverty neighborhoods. In the era of the shrinking social safety net, schools are a primary source of food, shelter, medical care, psychological services, and physical safety for many youth. They serve an essential translation and information function for families. School closures shine a light on this reality and allow us to grapple with the actual costs associated with meeting these nonacademic needs.

Supporting students’ basic needs was an area of growing investments by foundations before the crisis and has been the overwhelming focus of the past few weeks. This response is mission critical and needs to continue. Lives are at stake.

What (else) can philanthropy do now? While distributing funds generously and flexibly in this moment is the first priority, tracking how dollars are spent will matter in the near future. There is fierce debate over how to incorporate student poverty into district and state budgets. Grant makers may soon be in a unique position to weigh in on this foundational question. Tracking all donations that foundations make to meet “student basic needs” and understanding the variety of ways dollars get used is the next step.

How to ensure equity

Before the crisis, districts that serve the largest populations of low-income students in the country received 7 percent (or $1,000) per pupil less than districts serving the fewest low-income students. Districts that serve the largest populations of black, Latino, and American Indian students received 13 percent (or $1,800) per pupil less than districts serving the least racially diverse students. This inequity cannot continue in our post-crisis world. What we learn now will be instrumental in making that case.

If philanthropy can work together now, we will soon have critical information on two interrelated questions that can guide education policy and budgeting in the coming era:

• How can we better estimate the real costs of meeting the needs of students in poverty?
• What are the most promising ways technology can play a role in reducing school costs without sacrificing quality?

The current moment is devastating for so many. Those of us who are able must lay the groundwork for a more just society when we emerge from this crisis. That’s why the narrative of distance learning and the narrative of basic needs must converge. The new narrative must be of one education system that is creative with the resources it has to ensure more go to those who have the least.

Editor’s note: This article was first published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

It’s no secret that school choice remains a politically charged issue. Opponents urge policymakers to restrict choice and preserve the status quo, while supporters insist on parents’ right to choose a school that fits their kids’ needs. But outside of Statehouse circles, what do everyday Ohioans think about school choice? Is it as controversial as these tense political debates suggest?

Public opinion surveys usually find strong support for school choice policies. The national EdNext/PEPG survey, for example, reveals solid support for vouchers and charters, especially among African American and Hispanic respondents, and it also finds that private-school parents report the most satisfaction with their schools. A national Associated Press/NORC survey from 2017 finds much greater support for expanding charter schools than opposition. And closer to home, a recent survey of African American adults conducted by the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation and the University of Akron finds that three in five respondents support policies that provide taxpayer funding for charter and private schools. 

A new survey from School Choice Ohio (SCO) and EdChoice (formerly the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice) further reinforces these positive findings. This survey gauges Ohioans’ opinions about choice initiatives such as private-school scholarships and public charter schools. SCO is a nonprofit group that informs families about their education options and advocates for choice-friendly policies here in the Buckeye State, while EdChoice is a national organization based in Indianapolis that focuses on school choice. The online survey, conducted by Braun Research, was fielded in February 2020, garnering responses from a representative sample of 1,265 Ohio adults, good for an 18 percent response rate (above a typical phone survey).

First up, the findings about private-school scholarships, i.e., vouchers. A solid majority of Ohioans express support (69 percent), while just 31 percent oppose them. Support increases among African Americans, with 83 percent saying they favor vouchers, while 67 percent of white and Asian adults voice support, and 55 percent of Hispanics do so. Low-income respondents are more apt to say they support vouchers (72 versus 63 percent for high-income), as do people without college degrees (74 versus 61 percent for degree holders). No major differences are found by geographic region, age, or—surprisingly—party identification. When asked more specifically about support for Ohio’s two main voucher programs, similar results emerge. Seventy-four percent of Ohioans say they favor the performance-based EdChoice model and 70 percent express support for income-based EdChoice. Once again, favorable opinions for Ohio’s scholarship programs rise among African American, low-income, and non-college-educated adults.

Next, the survey gauges opinions about public charter schools and educational savings accounts (ESA). Akin to vouchers, a strong majority of respondents support charters: 65 percent say they favor charter schools, while just 35 percent oppose them. Favorable opinions increase among African Americans (74 percent) and Hispanics (79 percent), with a somewhat smaller majority of white (64 percent) and half of Asian adults voicing support for charters. The survey also finds stronger support among low-income and non-college-educated adults (72 percent for each group). Although Ohio doesn’t have an ESA program, the concept garnered strong support among respondents with 82 percent saying they’d support a program that provides public aid directly to parents who can use those funds for educational purposes.

Last, Ohio parents are asked about satisfaction with their children’s schools and the type of school to which they’d prefer to send their kids. In terms of parental satisfaction, a whopping 92 percent of private school parents say they’re satisfied with their school, with somewhat smaller majorities of charter (79 percent) and district parents (66 percent) expressing satisfaction. As for which type of school would be parents’ first choice—were there no financial or transportation considerations—56 percent choose private schools, 27 percent select district schools, 10 percent prefer charters, and 7 percent opt for homeschool. As the report authors note, these results indicate a “glaring disconnect” between school preferences and actual enrollments. While most Ohio parents say they’d prefer to enroll their child in a private school, only 11 percent actually do so.  

Much of the discourse around school choice is dominated by critics with an interest in curbing educational options. Yet their views are out-of-step with the broader public—particularly of less advantaged parents—who express support for choice initiatives such as vouchers and charter schools. As the debates continue, policymakers should be mindful that the loudest voices calling for limits on school choice don’t reflect the views of most Ohioans.

I’m succeeding in my goal of running a B-minus Daddy Home School. Specifically I wanted:

1. Something low prep, and sorta fun, for me. Two strong check marks.
2. Kids remember it fondly five years from now. Jury's still out, but no picket lines to date.
3. Kids learn a little. More on that below.

Meanwhile, my friend Jal Mehta shared some ideas on running an A+ Daddy School: “How to Deliver Deeper Learning During the Coronavirus Shutdown.”

Jal writes:

Apprenticeship learning feels less like school….[I]f parents have a skill or passion—like graphic design, chess, cooking, basketball, or computer programming—this would be a good time to invite their children into learning how to do it.

I’m not much at graphic design, but I do have a passion for… watching TV. I’m not sure if my kids needed any more apprenticing here. But they've gamely joined in.

We watched a season of “Jack Ryan.” We learned about geopolitics, Yemen, Navy SEALS, sarin gas, and Doctors Without Borders. I think E.D. Hirsch would give me half a checkmark for Core Knowledge progress.  

We watched a few episodes of “Mad Money.” Jim Cramer taught us that, even though Apache Corporation has fallen from $30 to $4, it is not a buy because you don’t want to own oil right now. Our family doesn’t really buy individual stocks, but we discussed that if we did, maybe buy Six Flags, down 80 percent on the year, because per my son: “Everyone is going to want to go there this summer once this is all over and we’re allowed back outside.” He may have a point there. I’ll buy it for his college fund. If he’s wrong, he can go to whatever disruptive online college costs $100 per year at that point.

We watched “Bar Rescue.” Jon Taffer, we learned, doesn’t embrace excuses. You should not coddle your bad employees. You should yell at them and fire them and maybe train them. Also most bars are filthy.

Okay, I’m half joking. We have actually watched all these shows, and honestly, the kids are learning a ton that way. With the right mix of shows and Q & A, there is real learning. But I’m not counting this time as “Daddy School.”

Here’s our updated story.

The sixth grader today: “Oy! I have a class Zoom meeting in two minutes.” (Races to change out of pajamas. It is 11:30 a.m.) His teachers do the thirty-minute get-togethers twice a week, so the kids can socialize a bit. Otherwise, he has daily assignments that mostly keep him occupied.

My fourth grader got her school’s whole week of assignments done in a single day, however. So for her, I’m still the “Curriculum Director” of “Daddy School.”

9:00 to 9:30 a.m.: Oversimplified history videos Read news together

We finished the Oversimplified series, so we turned to Robert Pondiscio for advice, who wrote: “The juiciest bit of low-hanging educational fruit might be cultivating children’s interest in news and reviving current events.”

He’s right! Today we read “A Million N95 Masks Are Coming From China”—on board the New England Patriots’ plane. We’ve alternated between newspaper and TV. We flick between MSNBC and FOX to discuss two totally different versions of our world.

9:30 to 10:00 a.m.: Math

Khan Academy Math continues to productively occupy my sixth grader, which frees me to work alongside my fourth grader. She and I continue to bang away on fractions, decimals, percentages. Huge gains since last week.  

I am bummed that the state exams will be cancelled because I’d love her to notice her math gains and realize she is a “math person.”

The gains come from what every teacher dreams of: lots of relaxed one-on-one time with a kid, so you can kinda “reach into the brain” and pull out misunderstandings. Software alone can’t do that well, not yet. Even as some nonprofits provide precisely this sort of high-dosage math tutoring—with insanely large results in randomized trials—most districts refuse to provide it.

Now with that said, sometimes I fall short as a tutor and struggle to hold her attention. Like today:

Me: Okay, so you convert this to an improper fraction…

She: Dad, you hair is so white. (Starts pulling on it).

Me: Pay attention, hon.

She: This part in the back is so infected with white hair. It’s hard to find a single strand that is not at least partially infected.

Me: I wouldn’t use the word “infected.”

She: Almost no brown is left…

10:00 to 10:30 a.m.: Nonfiction book club Silent reading 

Jal writes in his article: “Pick a topic about which they have some interest (and you have some interest!), and then have them make a list of questions that they have. We picked evolution.”

Jal's kids picked evolution. They will undoubtedly one day join him at Harvard.

My daughter picked “I want a dog.” So she’s read two books raising puppies in the last six days. The good news is this productively soaks up an hour each day of the three-hour Daddy School. The bad news is there is so much Dog Momentum that I think my next fourteen years probably includes a nightly 10:30 p.m. walk in my pajamas.

10:30 to 10:45 a.m.: Snack and nerf basketball

I’ll just say it: I don’t think my fourth grader’s defense is legal. She gets “under me,” Patrick Beverly style, so I am immobilized. My sixth grader has perfected a Kemba Walker style floater.

10:45 to 11:15 a.m.: Ted Talks Zoom Interviews

We’re experimenting with something more active that watching Ted Talks. Yesterday we tried a webinar—“Cartoon Workshop with Pulitzer Prize Winning Matt Wuerker”—and it was a hit. Today we did our own “journalism.” She interviewed my buddy Geordie, from Philly, who is getting a dog this weekend.

Why are you getting a dog now? 

Did you consider getting a puppy instead of a rescue?

What breed?

What kind of supplies are you getting?

One thing that surprised us: Because his dog is from a puppy mill, where she just lived in a cage with no human attention besides food, she is four years old but was never given a name! That was hard for us to comprehend—that old with no name. Geordie is considering “Alberta,” but it’s still pending girlfriend approval.

We’ll check back next week to meet Alberta and see how it’s going.

11:15 to 11:45 a.m.: Science videos COVID-19 Learning

Tuesday was a discussion of whether we should take up my Chinese friend Weiqi on his offer to ship us 500 masks from Shanghai, so Pru can donate to the nurses at the Boston hospital where she works.  

Wednesday’s lesson was about medicines.

Part 1: "Go to the pantry and find two medicines that you know and one that you don’t." And from that, prescriptions versus over-the-counter medication, generic versus brand-name, proactive versus reactive. Good stuff. Also we found an unopened bottle of gummy vitamins long thought to be lost.

Part 2: This video on Drug Trials was good. Just three minutes. Covered the basics. Of course, the risk of YouTube is you can easily click to a new video that you haven’t pre-screened. That’s what happened. Instead of a smooth explanation about drugs —“dream up a possible drug, try it on mice, then if it works, try it on humans in phases one, two, three, etc.—we ended up on “The Problem With Lab Mice” by Adam Ruins Everything. The video did, indeed, muddy the kids’ understanding. They didn’t have the basics down when we introduced a complication. That said, the video raised some good ethical issues, particularly for kids who own gerbils named Puff and Tuff, so the detour was a net positive.

Part 3: Hydroxychloroquine discussion. Should doctors use it now even though they’re not 100 percent sure it helps treat this coronavirus? What if using it now for COVID-19 creates shortages? Would you take it now if you were infected?

11:45 to 11:55 a.m.: “Test for treats”

What started as “fun” two weeks ago has turned into an “Entitlement.” The kids now demand the right to earn candy by answering questions. I suspect the authors of How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools warn about this unintended consequence. I probably should read that book.

Important considerations

The Ohio Department of Education has published and is updating its Frequently Asked Questions page related to coronavirus-mandated school closures. But they are aware that there are some questions that “require more explanation, specifically for community schools and their sponsors.” Thus, the department has created a document specifically to provide additional information to assist sponsors, governing authorities, staff and administrators in charter schools across the state as they navigate the closure and its effects.

Assistance on federal assistance

In a similar vein, the National Association of Public Charter Schools has posted information on its website regarding the low- or no-cost lending programs for charter schools that were contained in the recently-passed federal CARES Act.

Charter schools leading the way in distance learning

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, published a commentary piece in Forbes this week in which she highlights some of the bad actors in the school closure situation in states and cities across the country. However, she is buoyed by some very positive efforts at distance learning put forth by the school district in Miami and other cities and by charter schools in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere.

The view from Cleveland

The Plain Dealer is tackling the same topic, including a detailed look at efforts by Breakthrough Schools in Cleveland to help their students get reliable access to the Internet. An earlier piece from the PD highlighted Breakthrough’s efforts to make sure their students and their families had access to food during the enforced school closures.

Lifting up

NAPCS also recently collected a large list of positive stories from charter schools and networks across the country, lifting up the work of teachers, administrators, staff, and communities to support students during this troubling time.

1. How are Ohio schools—in all their variety—adapting to the long and getting longer school closure sitch? Let’s see what the news says. First up, the 200 Amish schools in Ohio have complied with the shutdown, but without electricity distance learning is impossible. Instead, families are visiting their school buildings in person a couple of days a week (observing proper social distance requirements) to pick up and return lessons on paper. (Wooster Daily Record, 3/31/20) A mixed bag of adaptations for schools in the Dayton area, including one suburban district sticking with printed work packets for the foreseeable future. It is interesting to note Dayton City Schools’ concrete plans to reteach next year’s students this year’s lessons. To wit: “all the standards missed since March 16,” said Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli. “Curriculum is working with teachers that will create these units for the district to use,” she added. (Dayton Daily News, 4/2/20) Teachers in Youngstown City Schools are said here to be “getting creative” to deliver their lessons during the shutdown. While there is talk of puppets, the medium that keeps cropping up in discussion is the very un-creative Facebook. Personally, I found this quote from a district teacher very interesting: “This year we started seeing the most growth we have ever seen in kindergarten, and we couldn't help but try to continue to reach our scholars despite the school shutdown.” For a couple of reasons. (Mahoning Matters, 4/2/20) Speaking of districts operating under the aegis—at least officially—of an Academic Distress Commission, it seems Lorain City Schools has yet to start any distance learning. Students in K-8 should receive a learning packet in the mail on Monday to get the ball rolling. District seniors will get a portion of the district’s website dedicated to them as they attempt to clear whatever bar there is remaining to them to be given a diploma. No word on what’s up with grades 9-11. (The Morning Journal, 4/2/20) Olmstead Falls City Schools is said to be heading into “Round Two” of remote learning, during which some actual remote learning may happen. District officials spent the first three weeks of closure (“Round One”, I guess) surveying local families as to their internet connectivity and in making sure those without were provided with—on the district’s dime ultimately—before starting online learning at some point next week. (Cleveland.com, 4/3/20) There is a widespread disdain for online education evinced in this piece looking at several schools and districts in Richland County. “No one got into teaching to teach online, but we're making the best of it,” said one teacher. “I've been speaking with a lot of friends at several districts. They've said they think teaching online is more work than teaching in the classroom, because it takes more steps to put it online.” And yet, another district seems to have known something that the rest of us didn’t: Shelby City Schools some time ago formed a posse of tech-savvy teachers (one in each building), whose super nerd powers came in handy just ahead of in the nick of time. “We saw the writing on the wall,” said the district supe, speaking of distance learning caused by the pandemic. “We got the [tech-savvy] teachers to teach educators over about two-and-half weeks before our buildings closed.” What they lack in interest, they make up in clairvoyance it seems. (Richland Source, 4/3/20)
   
   

2. The headline for this piece from Patrick O’Donnell—looking at remote learning efforts for district, charter, and Catholic schools in Northeast Ohio—really says it all: “Some schools embrace online lessons, others mired in Internet obstacles during coronavirus shutdown.” For the record, CMSD seems to have no plans for any learning at all, relying on outside academic resources posted on its website. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/3/20)
    
3. The state has made changes to its College Credit Plus program due to all this chaos, including an extension of the application date for next year’s classes and, most importantly, the ability for high schoolers to get credit for pass/fail classes. Because a lot of colleges are going that route. (Columbus Dispatch, 4/1/20)
    
4. Speaking of colleges, Ohio State University students have lost their on-campus summer semester. All classes will be online instead. They are probably not the last ones. Link (The Lantern, 4/1/20) Finally today, here’s a look at the lives of the nearly 200 college students still living on empty campuses in Stark and Summit counties. They are still here because they didn’t have anywhere—or anywhere safer—to go when their colleges shut down. Stark indeed. (Canton Repository, 4/2/20)

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As a veteran education advocate who prides himself on paying attention, I missed the boat on trying to inform the federal government’s $2 trillion CARES Act, the third and largest stimulus bill so far. I shouldn’t have.

The COVID-19 crisis had loomed since January, but by the time I got on the phone with a staffer from Delaware’s U.S. delegation, the bones of the package were already being debated in the Senate. By the time I zoomed out to some of my friends nationally and kicked some ideas around with my team, the debate was nearly over.

But before the ink was dry on the CARES Act, Speaker Pelosi was already talking about the Phase 4.0 stimulus. (See here for a good summary of this package and the ones that preceded it.)

So, housebound though we may be, let’s shake off our COVID malaise and get busy.

The need is obvious. Currently, more than half of the nation’s 50 million kids are not attending traditional K–12 schools, many of them poor, homeless, not speaking English, and/or requiring special services. As the virus spreads, there’s a good chance the entire public school system will go remote. Come autumn, without intervention, many will have gone the better part of six months with little to no structured academic support. (See CRPE’s survey of districts moving to online.) Our already-wide achievement gaps will expand. (See Rotherham’s argument for why our schools should stay open this summer.)

Beyond K–12, there’s a high likelihood another 40 million young people will either not be in our early childhood centers (around 20 million) or not be in our colleges and universities (another approximately 20 million), and they are equally vulnerable. While, collectively, this group—ranging from babies to young adults—represents about 90 million people, or more than a quarter of our entire population, they received only about 1 percent of the resources in CARES.

CARES is understandably focused on helping the unemployed and their employers, as well as addressing pressing healthcare needs. The final package dedicated about $30.75 billion to education out of $2.2 trillion. A significant sum, yes, but far less than the nearly $77 billion in the 2009 ARRA stimulus. (For additional detail, see here.)

As in 2009, “State Fiscal Stabilization Funds” will be critical in filling gaping holes in education budgets that will be crushed going into 2020–21. (See this webinar by Margurite Roza, Director of the Edunomics Lab and a Research Associate Professor at Georgetown University.) This is a much-needed effort to keep the current system afloat. (See the recommendations of Rodel, of which I’m president and CEO, on CARES.)

Yet we can do far more with the next round of stimulus, which could come as early as May. While some of that round will surely be needed to fill budgetary holes, it’s also an opportunity to think bigger. This, coupled with presidential campaigns framing their transition plans over the summer, is an opportunity for the education community to engage our local, state, and national partners to advance bold strategies that could help address some of the inequalities baked into our current system.

Here are three ideas that would improve Phase 4, some of which are included in CARES or could be supported by CARES funds if pushed further.

Prepare for remote learning at scale. Our schools were caught flat-footed by COVID-19, especially in districts with large numbers of historically underserved students. (See CRPE’s helpful report). Given how many kids will be woefully behind by September, isn’t this a great time to migrate to competency-based, technology-enabled, personalized learning systems? We don’t even know when children will be going back to school, and this might not be the last viral epidemic. While our schools have experimented with online and remote learning for more than a decade (and there are exemplars, on which CRPE, New Schools and Next Gen Learning have more), we are far from accomplishing this well at scale. Wi-Fi deserts still exist, and many kids lack workable devices. Delaware’s public and private sector leaders, as in many other states, have envisioned a world in which every child has a digital portfolio that highlights their work and mastery, as well as access to broadband and online learning platforms. (See Student Success 2025). This, however, also requires a massive investment to ensure that our teachers can work with these tools and systems to deliver inspired instruction. Now might be our moment to make this a reality.

Expand economic on-ramps for youth and adults. Astronomical unemployment numbers await. How can we ramp up what many governors are already doing to advance CTE and open career pathways for all kids so that, besides giving the next generation a leg up, we also assist newly unemployed adults to get back on their feet? “Career pathways,” like the ones in Delaware, are being built across the U.S. and consist of new partnerships among high schools, higher education, and business. These pathways encompass the full range of careers, and they enable young people to acquire meaningful work experiences, as well as college credit and certifications that they can take anywhere in the country and make a good starting wage. Existing federal funding streams like Perkins and WIOA support this work. Why not expand those investments and embed them in an audacious plan to rebuild our infrastructure and support emerging industries? (See more on how this could impact IT from Zoe Baird.)

Strengthen pre-K and early learning. The research is clear: Most brain development occurs before age five. (See here for more on brain science.) But throughout the U.S., Delaware included, early childhood providers make barely more than minimum wage and education quality varies widely, with low-income students and students of color much less likely to be in high-quality settings.

As we struggle to get the nation back to school and work, parents will need a strong early childhood support system. How about we envision high-quality, full-day pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds; greater subsidies and quality improvement dollars in early learning centers; and a childcare workforce that makes a living wage, so they can come off public assistance and have a career path?

That needn’t be the end of it. We should also—for example—work to create a much better prepared and more diverse teaching force and design data systems that link across education, health, housing, and labor outcomes. The immediate point is to get the ideas on the table fast, initiate the debates, and flesh out the ones that stick. The goal ought to be that, by May, House and Senate leaders have in hand thoughtful, concise briefs informed by an equity lens and backed up by legislative language, sound budget projections, broad coalitions, and solid data.

This will be a long haul. There could very well be Phases 5, 6, and 7. In the next couple of months, however, I hope we can get ready for Phase 4. As the country gets back on its feet, we needn’t simply rebuild what was. We can, and should, reimagine what could be. This is our way to play a role. Our children and our nation need us to do more than shelter in place.

Paul Herdman is president and CEO of Rodel, a nonprofit organization that partners with Delawareans and educational innovators from around the world to transform public education in the First State.

The debate on how schools will provide special education in the near term has generated its fair share of extreme arguments. From coast to coast, districts have claimed that their inability to remotely provide accommodations for students with disabilities risks their federal funding and exposes them to potential legal action from parents and disability rights advocates. For their part, some activists sounded equally ridiculous in insisting the reins be pulled in on distance learning so they too could virtue signal their concerns about equity. The shorthand being if we can’t educate one child, then no child can be educated.

The ensuing hubbub led to a spirited round of finger pointing. Like many, I was initially pleased when the U.S. Department of Education stepped in to help quell the fray. As my colleague Mike Petrilli recently wrote, “[Betsy DeVos] and her team acted swiftly to clarify that federal civil rights and special education laws need not stand in the way of distance learning while schools are closed.” Chalk one up for the good guys, right? After thinking about it some more, I’m having second thoughts. While federal disability laws can certainly be an obstacle, the far bigger barrier in all of this is the erosion of trust between school districts and parents of special education students.

For decades, public officials and special education advocates have been at loggerheads over the quality of education provided to students with disabilities. These disputes are often bitter and complicated, come with exorbitant litigation costs, and have clumsily typecast advocates as intransigent and adversarial when it comes to fighting for the rights of their kids. So when schools were suddenly thrust last month into the spotlight of virtual instruction—a role that many school officials and local union leaders were loath to embrace—it was a useful reminder that special education families have not been well served.

Think about it. Since the inception of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997—which requires that all students be provided a free and appropriate public education—and before that, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, school districts have failed to satisfactorily educate many of the nation’s 7 million students with disabilities. Twenty years ago, my colleague Checker Finn, along with Andy Rotherham, described the state of play this way:

Academic progress is scant. Too few disabled youngsters graduate from high school and, for many that do, the diploma is more a mark of persistence than a certificate of attainment. Special education, moreover, has become a one-way street. It’s relatively easy to send children down this street, but they rarely return.

Not much has changed in the intervening period. Is it no wonder then that many special education advocates didn’t understand what the fuss was all about as districts struggled to get their jury-rigged remote learning programs off the ground? The problems didn’t suddenly emerge as a result of the pandemic. Indeed, IDEA has always been poorly enforced and state mandarins have often failed to take their responsibility seriously. Now everyone is supposed to believe that these same officials have magically seen the light on equity and access simply because their brick-and-mortar buildings are shuttered?

To be sure, I came across some hardheaded folks when I was a school administrator responsible for adjudicating IEP meetings, but my school district could be just as obstinate and obtuse. I heard many heartbreaking stories from my special education families—most of who were non-English or non-native English speakers—about being mistreated and disrespected as well as being patronized and taken advantage of. I didn’t have a solution to all of their grievances, but the relationships I forged with many of them helped establish a foundation of trust that has been sorely lacking between school administrators and parents of special education students. We can and must do better.

Unlike the public health crisis, which was largely out of our hands, the recent distance learning dustup was a smokescreen that focused our energy and attention on the vagaries and limitations of the law rather than the underlying place of deep frustration and disillusionment rightfully felt by many special education families. I agree with Petrilli that, when all of this is over, we should put “reforming IDEA” on the to-do list. But in the meantime, let’s not be fooled by attempts to distract us from a discomfiting truth: Special education has never been an education priority in the United States. It is incumbent upon all of us to listen to the special education community during this crisis as well as when we’re on the other side of it. And while school districts do have to worry about lawsuits, their poor track record in educating students with disabilities, regardless of the setting, remains inexcusable.

At about the same time last year that the College Board was letting go of its previously-announced plans to add an “adversity index score” to its test result reporting to colleges, the journal Educational Policy published a research paper describing the results of an experiment which simulated a similar idea. Evidence indicates that backing down from the original idea was probably wise.

That research, conducted by a group of professors from the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa, utilizes a randomized-controlled trial using four simulated admissions packets to see if showing how students perform relative to their school and neighborhood peers influences colleges’ decisions to admit students, as well as whether including a personal essay that conveys “grit” influences admission decisions. The researchers were mainly interested in whether that additional information would increase the likelihood that applicants of low socioeconomic status (SES) would be admitted.

The sample was drawn from a pool of admission officers working at selective colleges and universities, defined as the top three tiers in Barron’s competitive rankings. Recruitment emails were sent to 960 admissions officers who met this criteria; 321 clicked on the online invitation to participate. Two experiments were tested—one where treatment participants’ applications all included median SAT test scores for the applicant’s high school and zip code (very similar to the College Board’s previously stated goal to “place students’ SAT scores in the context of their socioeconomic advantages or disadvantages.”), and the control condition where admission officers saw applicants’ own SAT test scores without the additional context. Applicant characteristics were kept constant (i.e., a white female majoring in the social sciences from the northeast). Officers were supplied with applications tailored to their university tier (1–3). The simulated files for low-SES students had more modest SAT scores assigned relative to high-SES applicants, as they tend to have lower scores on average, and also had raw SAT scores that exceeded their median high school and zip code test scores.

The second experiment tested the impact of a personal essay that portrayed grit. Each participant reviewed two applications (one high SES and one low SES) with “grit essays” and two applications (high and low SES again) with a standard personal statement. One grit essay described what it was like growing up in a home without a father and with a mother who worked long hours to support her family; the second was about growing up as the daughter of an alcoholic. Both conveyed how the student had overcome adversity, highlighting the skills she had developed because of her experiences. The researchers used a variety of analytic methods, including multilevel logistic regression with acceptance recommendations nested within participants.

Their key finding was that admissions officers in the treatment condition were significantly more likely to accept both the low SES and high SES applicants than were those officers not provided with the additional context around SAT scores. In fact, the magnitude of the marginal effects (ranging from 9–11 percentage points) was roughly the same across applicants, such that the low-SES students did not differentially benefit. So even though the intervention may have helped low-SES students be admitted, it did not level the playing field.

Moreover, admissions officers were not more likely to accept the applicants who conveyed grit in their essays. Overall, those essays were not significantly related to the probability of acceptance. The research team suggests that perhaps first-person essays simply aren’t the best way to convey non-cognitive traits such as perseverance; they posit that letters of recommendation or a record of extracurricular activities may be more informative in that regard.

Efforts to identify high school graduates coming from poverty who could succeed and thrive in selective institutions are laudable. But providing comparative peer data alone won’t do it. The means to make more of these youngsters stand out stem largely from a high-quality K–12 education: high expectations, terrific instruction, and rigorous content delivered from the earliest grades possible.

SOURCE: Michael N. Bastedo, et. al., “Contextualizing the SAT: Experimental Evidence on College Admission Recommendations for Low-SES Applicants,” Educational Policy (September 2019).

The education reform world is beset by many constant refrains. “Give schools more money,” for example, “recruit more highly-trained teachers,” or “schools need more autonomy.” But what do these things actually mean when put into practice? If reform is as easy as that, then why hasn’t someone done it already?

In a report from Bellwether Education Partners, Kelly Robson, Jennifer O’Neal Schiess, and Phillip Burgoyne-Allen examine the design of autonomous schools in four states to give us an answer: It’s not that easy. Autonomous schools are public schools that exchange more school-level decision-making power for greater accountability, and they vary greatly in their design, making it difficult to say if they “work” or “don’t work” for improving student outcomes. The report analyzes different components—school autonomy and governance structure, accountability measures, and implementation—and gives recommendations to policymakers and school leaders.

These distinct components create a wide range in what’s considered an “autonomous school.” Governance structure refers to which entities oversee decision making and to whom schools are held accountable. A school may be managed by a district, an independent organization, or some combination of the two. In a tightly managed school, oversight decisions are made by a school board and district leaders or by an independent board, such as a charter management organization. In an autonomous school, school leaders have the liberty to make certain (or all) decisions. The areas over which they have control—including curriculum, length of school day, staff, etc.—vary according to what schools wants to accomplish. To make sure it’s working, a relevant, data-based accountability system is essential to understanding which aspects of autonomy are supporting the school’s goals and which are not.

To create a successful autonomous school, the report contends that policymakers and school leaders must be conscious of the purpose for increased autonomy, how the specific aspects of autonomy will be designed to address that purpose, and how accountability structures will determine which autonomous features are successful in that design. For the school to reach its intended goals, coherence among all these elements is crucial. “Autonomy is not a single thing,” the authors write, so there isn’t a single “what works” solution. Establishing and running an autonomous school must be a mindful and purposeful process.

Navigating all these nuances to design an effective autonomous school is difficult enough. Ensuring that school leaders and teachers are prepared to implement autonomous policies is an additional challenge. It’s not safe to assume that, for example, principals given budgetary autonomy will know how to leverage this to reach their schools’ goals. For school leaders to manage an autonomous school, the report points out, they will likely need additional training and support to prepare them to make pertinent decisions. It’s also important to consider how autonomous policies could affect teaching and instruction. What supports will there be to help teachers use data systems to inform and adjust their decision making? Is asking them to do this feasible or overburdening? Being cognizant of capacity building in school staff is essential to ensuring the successful implementation of autonomous school policies, the report notes.

It also describes some autonomous schools as uniquely able to involve local communities in school decision-making, saying, “Autonomous school policies are one way that policymakers are attempting to return to a truer sense of local control while also focusing on improving student outcomes.” While this could potentially increase buy-in, it could also affect consistency and quality if schools are trying to appease the needs of a variety of non-professional stakeholders. But it could also be beneficial if autonomous schools were liberated from the often highly-bureaucratic school systems that don’t necessarily prioritize the needs of families and were instead more responsive to those whose children are being served by the school.

The biggest takeaways from this report are ones that can be applied to all education policy matters: intention, coherence, and follow-through. Autonomous schools shouldn’t be instituted just because it seems like it’s “what works.” Policymakers and school leaders should be intentional about what their goals are and tailor specific aspects of autonomy to reach those goals. School leaders and teachers must be supported in the capacity-building necessary to implement autonomous policies, and to partner effectively with community members. Relevant accountability structures should be in place to ensure autonomy is working. And if it isn’t, data systems should be utilized to adjust what’s not. Intention, coherence, and follow-through are important to the success of any policy, but especially so when our end goal is to improve the lives of the students we serve.

SOURCE: Kelly Robson, Jennifer O’Neal Schiess, and Phillip Burgoyne-Allen, “Staking Out the Middle Ground: Policy Design for Autonomous Schools,” Bellwether Education (February 2020).

New York City has been brought to a halt; only the sirens of ambulances pierce the fateful silence. But for Success Academy students, learning continues. One week after the network launched distance learning at all forty-five schools enrolling 18,000 New York City students, I embedded in two days of classes.

At Success Academy High School for the Liberal Arts, small groups of students come together at 9:00 each morning via video for Advisory, an unstructured conversation to strengthen their community and begin their day. Their work will continue until 5:30.

I clicked into my first class via Bluejeans, a video conferencing platform. I’m glad I wasn’t late, for precisely on schedule appears Francis Keating, a young ninth-grade geometry teacher with a brisk but warm manner. No longer constrained by the physical classroom, Keating is simultaneously teaching 112 students from seven sections. “Alexa, what time is it?” he asks, turning to his digital assistant. “It’s 9:35 am in New York,” she replies. “That means it’s time to get started,” Keating adds, “so good morning and welcome!” As the pandemic raged across the city, the gesture underscored continuity—to punctuality, to the exacting use of time, to learning and opportunity.

He reminds them that at the end of the ninety-minute class, they’ll take a quiz that will count for 15 percent of their course grade. “All of you have the ability to rock it today,” he encourages, as he dives into a review problem set. Every student is expected to jot down their mathematical reasoning. “Remember to show your thinking work!” he urges.

Keating and his two co-teachers can see exactly how each of their students, sitting at their dining room tables or sprawled on their sofas, are faring because on their Chromebooks they’re using an on-screen stylus in Kami to mark up the problem. Gathered on Slack as the class proceeds, the teachers together identify emerging misconceptions and choose which student’s work to share. Within minutes, Kaitlyn is welcomed as a “guest” to present her thinking to the class. (To protect the privacy of Success’s students, I refer to them by pseudonyms.)

As she gets underway, I’m hooked, but it’s time for ninth grade pre-AP world history class with Amanda Levy. Class begins with an engaging online poll on the investiture controversy in medieval Europe. Who would prevail, the poll asks, in the installation of high church officials: the nobility or the papacy? Within seconds, seventy-two students have cast their votes. As in Keating’s class, students quickly turn to working independently, preparing brief explorations of the causes of the peasant rebellions or the erasure of Viking society as what is now Scandinavia Christianized. Levy calls on one student, Tiana, who with one click appears on screen and presents her work. It’s impeccable: “When empires failed to unify their land and people, violence, instability, and conflict arose,” Tiana had written. But even she is pushed by Levy to extend her reasoning. Tiana proposes to compare and contrast the turmoil of these times with the stability of the Roman Empire.

I caught up with Levy for a few minutes to ask her about her experience with distance learning. The first day was rough, she allowed. “A lot of students were trying to turn on their camera and mics and message all their friends.” This was an easy fix, she explained. Success quickly moved from a Bluejeans video call to a webinar mode where such interactions can better be controlled. 

She’s thrilled that she can peruse each student’s production in real time. “Truthfully, I love it. It’s similar to walking around. Yes, I can’t use the tone of my voice. But it is the most written feedback on student work I’ve ever given.” Work is due from students at 10:59 every evening; they’ll all get it back with comments within twenty-four hours. “A lot of students are commenting on my comments, whereas in the past I wouldn’t have been sure if they had read them,” she enthused. The accountability, she said, “is super important. Parents have reached out to me to tell me how much they appreciate that their kids are working so hard and being held to a high bar.”

Her early findings from distance learning are fascinating. Some students seem to be faring better than in the traditional classroom, she told me. “One student told me that’s because he’s focused on the deadlines, and in class he’s sometimes distracted.” But some high-achieving students seem to be coasting.

Next up was eighth-grade math with Robert Sellers at Harlem East Middle School. The class, which explores linear and exponential functions, begins promptly with a succession of “do now” problems, thrusting students into the work. Sellers could see on Google Classroom a rolling count of exactly how many students are working on each problem. “Malik, move on! Jordan, move on,” he exhorts good naturedly. He begins to cold-call students, not relying on those who virtually raise their hands, ensuring that everyone is on their toes. “Kevin, can you tell us why your exponent is n divided by 4?” Kevin instantly comes on the screen and ably defends his thinking.

Soon, Sellers asks the students to develop an imaginary real-world scenario that matches the equation y=3(0.85)x. On screen, he watches their creativity take flight. “I can see a lot of students describing money situations. Love that. Keep in mind some of the vocabulary we’ve learned about, like depreciation—see if you incorporate that. Madison, could you read us your story for the exponential situation?” Her work appears on screen. “I said that Mario was taking Ibuprofen,” Madison says. “And 300 milliliters of Ibuprofen was in his system in the beginning, and the amount of Ibuprofen in a person’s system decreases 15 percent every hour.” 

Sellers closes out the class with an exit ticket, this time a rapid-fire on-screen competition using Kahoot. As a math function appears on screen, his ninety-fix students have just seconds to choose from among four statements characterizing the function—and accumulate game points along the way. “Yes, it is y=-3 for our asymptote!” he cries. “All right,” he narrates, his tone turning to showman, “Zion moves to first place, Jeffrey takes second, Laila takes third, and Kiara is still on the board in fifth!” I struggle to keep up and win a single point.

In these virtual classes, I see all the components of what we know moves students forward, and fast. Teachers are intellectually prepared; Keating told me he plans with his colleagues for ninety minutes each day and the entire staff huddles at day’s end. Teaching follows an ambitious, coherent, and cumulative curricula that builds knowledge. There is an almost fetishistic respect for time; every minute is put to use, learning is not lost to foolish and condescending “hooks” at the start of class (the material is itself the hook), on-screen stopwatches are ubiquitous. Teachers cold-call unhesitatingly. There is an unrelenting focus on what students are producing and what their in-class work reveals about their misconceptions and mastery, allowing for real-time course corrections. And student accountability has not been suspended.

“It feels like everyone is on board,” Levy told me. In the pandemic, her colleagues understand their charge. “OK, so this is what we have to do,” she said. “If we don’t all work together, we’re not doing right by our students.”

—

Success Academy won’t be every parent’s choice; the program is, by American standards, demanding. But how many urban districts and networks can claim, as Success, near-universal student proficiency—that, by the state’s measure, nearly every child remains firmly on the path to college? And now, with the city shut down and schools shuttered, how many have a viable plan to prevent their students, already at grave risk, from losing ground?

Success’s teachers understand that their students—93 percent of color, and 78 percent from low-income households—are there to learn, and their schools’ solemn responsibility must be fulfilled. Especially in a time of crisis, schools must continue to offer structure and continuity. And love: the love that is high academic expectations for their students.

Yet there are growing calls for eliminating expectations altogether, in the name of compassion.

A Columbia English professor proposed this month to give all students A grades as a default, strip down work expectations to the bare minimum, and wrap up classes as quickly as possible. Another professor has counseled her colleagues to “please do a bad job putting your courses online,” and to “release yourself from high expectations right now because that’s the best way to help your students learn.”

I suspect the Success teachers I spoke with be would be horrified by this thinking. Of course schools must show grace and recognize their students’ staggering hardships. For instance, in normal times, one Success high school teacher explained to me, “We frowned on make-up work.” But if now a student needs to make up an assignment, they’ll gladly arrange for it. Similarly, elementary teachers schedule their daily FaceTime calls with each of their students at the convenience of families. But learning continues.

It will be said, foremost, that Success is privileged to have “motivated parents,” as though motivation were a finite resource, like gold in the ground, extracted and hoarded by Success. No, parent and student motivation is forged in a network’s culture—an infinitely expandable asset that effective schools mint as much as tap. Distinctive schools boldly shape culture; they present new models of engagement that other families would in time gladly emulate. Too few urban schools invite their families to truly join in the school’s mission or speak candidly about how they can best support their children’s studies. Might such expectations create new burdens for parents? Yes, but it releases them of others. In this moment, for instance, Success’s meticulously planned classes and sustained expectations for students’ work will come as a relief to many parents.

I left my virtual visit to Success impressed—and saddened. As my CRPE colleagues’ own research has found, vanishingly few urban districts yet offer synchronous learning at all, and many leave families to scour online for learning resources.

Editor’s note: This essay was first published by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.