This is the sixth in a series on doing educational equity right. See the introductory post, as well as ones on school finance, student discipline, advanced education, school closures, grading, effective teachers, and a concluding post on doing educational equity wrong.

The casual observer might be surprised that there’s much controversy about homework. A common sense, man-on-the-street view would be straightforward: Teachers should assign homework, and students should do it. After all, practice makes perfect, and kids can’t learn without exerting effort.

But alas, in this domain, as in others, there is indeed robust debate (and not just among bellyaching students). Some of it springs from “hothouse” schools in upper-middle-class suburbs where parents fret that too much homework is stressing out their sons and daughters. Some of it stems from scholars, who have questioned whether homework actually boosts learning. But much of it comes from concerns about “the homework gap”—the longstanding finding that kids from low-income households spend significantly less time on homework than their more advantaged peers. And therefore, some argue, we should limit homework or eliminate it altogether.

Figure 1. The high school homework gap: Average hours spent doing homework, by student poverty level, 2019

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys. (This table was prepared April 2021.) Note: Poor children are those whose family incomes were below the Census Bureau’s poverty threshold in the year prior to data collection. Near-poor children are those whose family incomes ranged from the poverty threshold to 199 percent of the poverty threshold. Nonpoor children are those whose family incomes were at or above 200 percent of the poverty threshold.

You won’t be surprised that I disagree. That certainly is no way to “do educational equity right.” Instead of leveling down, Harrison Bergeron style, we should level up. Our goal when it comes to homework should be to get more students to do more of it—at least the valuable, productive kind, which loads of research studies demonstrate is related to increased academic achievement.

And that means addressing the barriers that some low-income students face when it comes to doing homework—either at home or at school.

The most obvious one relates to technology. Though the “digital divide” has largely been closed, low-income families are still less likely to have high-speed internet access in their homes. And while schools dramatically ramped up their one-to-one laptop initiatives during the pandemic, there are still locales where not all students have access to workable devices. As reported by Education Week, a recent Pew survey found that 22 percent of U.S. teens said they often or sometimes have to do their homework on a cellphone, 12 percent said that “at least sometimes” they are unable to complete homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection, and 6 percent said they have to use public Wi-Fi to do their homework “at least sometimes” because they don’t have an internet connection at home. To the extent that schools are assigning homework that must be done online, that’s an issue.

Low-income students are also less likely to report having a quiet place to do homework, not surprising given that their homes tend to be smaller and that they often are tasked with taking care of younger siblings. Their parents may also be less capable of helping with homework, given that, within lower-income families, parents and other caregivers are much more likely to have dropped out of high school themselves.

But the answer to these challenges can’t be simply to throw up our hands and say it’s unfair to assign homework to kids from low-income families, so we just won’t assign any homework to anyone. It’s to overcome the challenges!

That entails addressing the technology gaps, such as by providing laptops or Chromebooks to all students, as well as Wi-Fi hotspots. An even better approach might be to make such technology available at the school, by keeping media centers open and staffed before school, after school, and on the weekends. That turns “homework” into “out of class work”—but the benefits are the same. The marginal costs of keeping public school facilities open longer are minimal, but the benefits could be substantial.

If that creates new challenges—for example, providing transportation to students for these “extended learning time” opportunities—then study halls and the like could be built into the regular school day itself. Just make the day longer and adjust the transportation schedule accordingly. Or team up with other community organizations that could provide homework help and quiet environments, from public libraries to Boys & Girls Clubs to churches.

None of this is rocket science. Indeed, KIPP charter schools have been doing versions of this for a quarter century—including giving students their teachers’ cell-phone numbers so they can get help with homework at night. That’s because KIPP and other great high-poverty schools have always felt a sense of urgency around helping their students catch up to their more affluent peers. And they’ve always known that means working harder and longer—not just to close the homework gap, but to reverse it.

I know what some might be saying: Getting traditional public schools to do things like this is going to be hard. Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hotspots cost money. So does keeping school libraries open after school or on weekends. Not all teachers will be crazy about giving kids access to their phone numbers.

All true. But if we care about doing educational equity right, we need to call the bluff of those who want to lower expectations for students’ work and effort “because equity.” Those so-called advocates need to do some of their own homework—and penance—as well.

Fights over books, an exodus from public schools, politically obsessed adolescents, the need for civics education—Horace Mann predicted it all back in 1848. Thankfully, this education luminary also provided wisdom and insight in the common school era for how we can turn down the culture war heat in modern times.

In case anyone reading this doesn’t already know it, Horace Mann is considered the founder of modern American public schools. A rising star in Massachusetts politics, back in 1837 he shocked his peers by accepting a then-insignificant role as secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Education. With little money or power, he began crafting what became widely circulated and influential annual reports, detailing the need for publicly funded, publicly run, universally attended schools. And in his final report, he spilled much ink warning his readers exactly what would happen if we allowed politics into our classrooms.

Today, as is well known, our public schools are struggling. They have always been a place of contention in America, but the fights have been distinctly acrimonious of late. Once sleepy affairs, school boards resemble raucous, fiery, even violent battlegrounds—as both conservatives and liberals contend over value-laden debates over books, curricula, and other topics of instruction.

Schools cannot help but inculcate some sort of worldview. What books are read, what behavior is rewarded or punished, who selects curricula, offhand remarks from teachers, uniform rules—everything a school does communicates to students implicit ethical messages and political encouragements. If this philosophy veers too far in any direction from the broader zeitgeist, parents will rightly take umbrage and look elsewhere.

Horace Mann foresaw this risk. He asked, “If parents find that their children are indoctrinated into what they call political heresies, will they not withdraw them from the school?” Astutely, he predicted that, in a politicized education, a central issue would be curriculum wars over what books kids should read: “What better could be expected, than that one set of school books should be expelled, and another introduced, as they might be supposed, however remotely, to favor one party or the other?”

In perhaps the most amusing passage, he describes schoolrooms that could become “a miniature political club-room” full of political addresses “prepared by beardless boys, in scarcely legible hand-writing, and in worse grammar.” As action civics replaces studying the Constitution, students partake in mock rallies, high schoolers have become international talking heads, and both cursive and grammar instruction fall out of favor, I can’t decide if I should laugh or weep at Mann’s caricature.

Thankfully, Mann didn’t leave us without recourse. He acknowledged that squabbles over public education are inevitable. Get a few hundred families together to collectively educate their children, and conflicts will arise almost necessarily. But to keep such conflicts productive and civil, he recommended a few essential topics for instruction:

The constitution of the United States, and of our own State, should be made a study in our Public Schools. The partition of the powers of government into the three co-ordinate branches—legislative, judicial, and executive—with the duties appropriately devolving upon each; the mode of electing or of appointing all officers, with the reason on which it was founded; and, especially, the duty of every citizen, in a government of laws, to appeal to the courts for redress, in all cases of alleged wrong, instead of undertaking to vindicate his own rights by his own arm; and, in a government where the people are the acknowledged sources of power, the duty of changing laws and rulers by an appeal to the ballot, and not by rebellion, should be taught to all the children until they are fully understood.

Not a bad civics curriculum: We should read the Constitution with our students, teach them how our government functions, and impress upon them their duties as citizens. More enlightening than a list of topics to cover, though, is Mann’s explanation for how learning about the proper functioning of our government will facilitate healthy disagreement. The reasons are two.

First, very practically, civics education will help people understand that there are proper and effective mechanisms to enact political changes, such as “the machinery of the ballot” or the court system. When we have a means to influence policy, political passions can vent without the need to resort to “violence.” Without a proper understanding of political processes, anger manifests in unruly school board meetings or the needless harassing of school officials instead of productive political engagement.

Second, civics education unifies through the creation of shared experiences, a shared cultural knowledge, and shared civic values—inculcating a common valorization of, for instance, equality before the law and religious toleration. These common beliefs, really a form of civil religion, form “the only common ground, whence the arguments of the disputants can be drawn.” With shared civic dogmas about the rights of man, the nature of government, and the purpose of society, we shared a common set of beliefs—a common language and rules of disputation—through which we can hash through our disagreements.

Now, I’m no fan of needless vitriol or baseless name-calling, but many of the arguments undergirding the so-called culture wars—what should our kids learn, how should we frame our history, who has authority to determine which policies—are inevitable, healthy even. The question of what values get taught in schools is an important one, and one that should be decided in the public square. But these arguments will prove productive and keep from descending into needless mud throwing only if we begin with a common ground. Without that, political impasse results.

Horace Mann brought public education mainstream, and this achievement warrants adulation. But if we go back and read his arguments, we find that they changed the nation precisely because they were powerful, convincing polemics, full of wisdom that can and should influence our politics and policy today.

In their FUSION essay “The Past and Future of Education Reform,” drawing heavily on their worthy new book, Rick Hess and Mike McShane are reasonably clear-eyed about the past, but the lessons they draw from it are a bit blurrier and their vision of the future is long on aspiration but slightly dimmed by ideology.

Looking back, the authors intentionally skip from the progressive era to A Nation at Risk, which has the unfortunate effect of eliding many relevant changes that occurred between World War II and Ronald Reagan’s arrival in the Oval Office, including much that implicates conservatives along with progressives.

Some wise folks have noted that everything in education at the federal level that’s had any real impact or staying power has been bipartisan, and at least until the current era, I’m pretty sure that’s correct. The GI Bill, for example, was drafted by former American Legion commander Harry Colmery and passed both houses of Congress with solid support from R’s as well as D’s. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 originated in the Eisenhower White House. Though both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act (both 1965) were pushed mainly by LBJ and his fellow Democrats, both were expanded by the Nixon and Ford Administrations. And—as Rick and Mike note—much that followed A Nation at Risk owed its initiation and momentum to the two Bushes and such other GOP stalwarts as Lamar Alexander.

Hess and McShane are well aware of this bipartisan legacy, which they correctly note began to unravel during the Obama administration, but they’re not quite right in saying that “those on the right have mostly played defense, sat on their hands, or gone along for the ride.” It would be more accurate to say “those on the right were major instigators of much that happened—and certainly the twin pushes for school choice and results-based school accountability owe a great deal to conservative thinkers and Republican leaders.”

They’re certainly correct that “the contemporary left has yet to find a limiting principle it’s willing to embrace” and that this reality will bedevil future efforts at bipartisan education policy (much less education reform), but they’re not quite right when they charge conservatives with having “capitulated” to progressives in the education realm during previous decades. There were certainly instances when conservatives were defeated by progressive—at least Republicans were outvoted by Democrats—such as when Bush 41 and Education Secretary Lamar Alexander sought (through their “America 2000” initiative) to foster progress toward the new—and assuredly bipartisan—“national education goals” that the governors and President had set, only to be shunned by a Democratic Congress, a defeat that opened the door for Clinton’s bigger-government version called “Goals 2000,” which in turn opened the door for Bush 43’s No Child Left Behind Act.

Going forward, Hess and McShane mostly make sense. I second their assertion that “the right must...unapologetically sketch an agenda that speaks to the needs of all families,” yet they don’t quite acknowledge an obvious and worrying reality: Most of today’s policy leaders on the right seem to forget that the overwhelming majority of American families still send their children to district-operated public schools, much as they have for a century and a half, and this is pretty sure to continue. Today’s obsession on the right with private-school choice and seeming obliviousness to whether kids actually learn anything in school is scarcely calculated to win the approbation or support of “all families.” Most families’ “needs” are for better curricula, better teachers, better discipline, and more learning in the schools they’ve got, not for different schools or access to education savings accounts. I wish our distinguished co-authors had hit that one hard.

But they do set forth a modest agenda of reform initiatives that they say have the potential to unite “populists and traditionalists,” and they seem to appreciate the importance of trying once again to do so. Mostly, it’s familiar, small-bore stuff, like “promote curricula rich in content and rigor,” “help parents find affordable early education that reflects their needs and their values,” and “insist that schools honor hard work, kindness, and mutual respect.” I’m all for trying, though I’m mindful that lurking within these seemingly vanilla ideas is the potential for political and cultural conflict. For example, the left today wants “early education” to be attached to public schools and unionized, while the right wants it voucherized and privatized—and the latter may be necessary if what’s on offer is indeed structured to align with differing parental values. The seemingly vanilla suggestion that American history teaching be both “inclusive and devoid of political agendas” is an invitation to big fights over what exactly should be included and whether it’s even possible to insulate history from politics.

In other words, while it’s a fact that (as noted above) pretty much everything of lasting value in the ed-reform space has been bipartisan, and while it’s surely worth striving for that kind of unity going forward, it’s not going to be simple. Yet if America heads down the path of separate education policies for red and blue states (and districts), each side may score some short-term wins, but the country will continue to come apart, even as we know that education of the young should be part of the glue that holds us together.

Editor’s note: This essay was first published in slightly different form by FUSION.

A new report from PEN America claims that 1.3 million teachers, roughly a third of full-time classroom staff in the United States, are now forced to work under “educational gag orders.” PEN tallies forty pieces of legislation restricting teacher speech across twenty-two states as of November 1, 2023. The report warns darkly that political conservatives “have learned from past mistakes and have new and more insidious strategies for silencing America’s educators,” particular shifting their emphasis from bills banning the teaching of critical race theory to “bills that restrict speech about LGBTQ+ topics and identities, including numerous copycats of last year’s HB 1557 in Florida, known to critics as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law.”

First and foremost, it’s important to recognize PEN America for what it is—an advocacy group concerned with protecting writers’ free expression, not an education organization. While its commitment to free speech is commendable in most contexts, PEN’s advocacy doesn’t translate seamlessly to the complex dynamics of K–12 public education, where states and school districts commonly and uncontroversially impose restrictions on teacher speech and conduct in the service of protecting minors, running safe and orderly schools, and advancing academic standards, while being mindful of often complex community sensibilities. 

Tendentiously describing restrictions on teacher speech as “educational gag orders” is on par with equally hyperbolic claims about “book bans,” which, needless to say, do not and cannot co-exist with robust First Amendment protections. When bookstores proudly display tables of “banned books” for sale with (thank goodness) no fear of prosecution, it’s self-evident (and vaguely comical) that no such “bans” exist.

More pertinently, restrictions on K–12 teacher speech are not intrinsically intolerable, even to those on the political left. At least one major poll found that when presented with the actual language of the Florida’s much maligned “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through the third grade, even Democrats supported it by a better than two-to-one margin.

If teachers are under the impression they are or ought to be free to hold forth on any topic they wish in front of a captive audience of other people’s children, that official interference is intolerable, or that the principle of academic freedom entitles them an unfettered hand to teach what they wish and how they like, they have been misled and poorly served by schools of education and others responsible for their professional development.

The concept of “academic freedom,” common and appropriate to higher education, simply doesn’t apply to K–12 public education, which, at least in theory, is focused on delivering a comprehensive curriculum aligned with state standards and educational goals, rather than on fostering open-ended inquiry or academic exploration. Public school teachers’ classroom speech is governed by school boards, district policies, state regulations, and curriculum standards. Any number of court decisions have affirmed that teachers are not independent professionals with unlimited free speech; functionally they are “hired speech” generally considered to speak for the school district when at work in a public school classroom—a crucial point seldom made in many teacher preparation programs, which explicitly encourage degree candidates to view their work as a form of activism. While K–12 educators certainly have, of necessity, professional discretion in how they deliver instruction, meet standards, and engage with students, the culture of teaching at least tacitly encourages something of a free agent mindset.

That being said, it’s crucial for all stakeholders, particularly conservatives and others with reasonable and appropriate concerns about classroom content and overt classroom activism, to exercise restraint and nuance in addressing issues related to teacher speech. When conservative activists sue school systems or try to get entire curricula thrown out over trivialities, they risk seeming unreasonable and forfeit the moral high ground and public sentiment.

Public school classrooms are not personal domains for unrestrained expression, but rather professional spaces where pedagogy and curriculum align with broader educational goals and community expectations. When lawmakers, parents, and others seek to rein in classroom activism and curricular excesses, that’s not a gag order. It’s a gag reflex.

Cheers

• The L.A. Times editorial board rightfully condemns a new anti-charter policy in the City of Angels. —Los Angeles Times
• “A child didn’t have pajamas for pajama day. His bus driver bought him some.” —Washington Post
• Low-performing and under-enrolled schools should be closed. —Editorial Board, Bloomberg

Jeers

• On college campuses and society more generally, the world’s oldest hatred, antisemitism, is winning. —Dara Horn, The Atlantic
• Many companies have eliminated degree requirements but still predominantly hire traditionally credentialed workers. —Wall Street Journal
• One professor offers a Pollyannaish view of American education. —Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Education Week

• Seemingly positive daily attendance data can mask the realities of chronic absenteeism. —Jill Barshay, Hechinger Report
• With the recent influx of immigrants, many Denver schools are at capacity, struggling to get necessary resources. —Chalkbeat
• A focus on practical policy and sensible reform could win both Democrats and Republicans public trust on the issue of American education. —Rick Hess, Mike McShane, and Ruy Teixeira, Education Next
• There’s a strong case, one that can appeal to conservatives and liberals, for raising base teacher salaries to $100,000. —Daniel Pink, Washington Post
• We should re-engage business leaders and bring them back into education reform. —James A. Peyser, Education Next
• Despite recent papers arguing otherwise, the evidence is clear that education has a positive return on investment. —Noahpinion

Ohio’s superintendents and principals are ostensibly in charge of managing the operations of public schools. But, in reality, they typically have little latitude to do so. For many, their chief managerial constraint is that they are bound by the terms of collective bargaining agreements between school boards and district employees (“employee contracts”). These contracts, which can reach 300 pages in length, prescribe in exacting detail whom district leaders can consider for employment, what salaries and benefits they must offer, what workloads they can assign, how they must evaluate employees, and under what circumstances and in what manner they can attempt employee dismissals. They also often dictate far more than personnel management practices, imposing rules and procedures that prescribe how district administrators must make decisions on matters such as curriculum, student discipline, school closure, resource allocation, and testing.

Research (and common sense) tells us that binding the hands of public-school leaders in this way undermines their ability to meet the varied and evolving needs of students. If they lack the authority to manage personnel and make important decisions, then how much should we expect them to accomplish? It’s remarkable that superintendents and principals can move the needle at all when it comes to students’ academic outcomes. Indeed, research indicates that superintendents typically have a small impact on student achievement. A handful of rigorous studies reveal that principals can have a substantial impact on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes through their leadership and management of personnel and resources, but these studies draw primarily on data from a few states (especially Florida, North Carolina, and Texas) that were near the bottom in terms of union strength (and the likely restrictiveness of teacher contracts) around the time the data were collected.

The impact of superintendents and principals may be more muted in states that have strong public-sector collective-bargaining laws. But there is also significant variation in managerial discretion across states with strong bargaining laws. Research on teacher contracts in states with strong unions (California, Michigan, and Washington) indicates that the restrictiveness of teacher contracts varies significantly, even across districts within each state. Thus, regardless of whether schools operate in states with strong employee unions, the extent to which employee contracts restrict managerial discretion varies significantly.

How oppressive are districts’ employee contracts and how much does their managerial restrictiveness vary? Answering this question precisely is labor intensive. The most careful research on the topic coded 334 potential contract provisions for a sample of California districts, including 140 items related to benefits (e.g., do teachers get a bonus for having a doctorate?), 120 related to working conditions (e.g., the extent to which senior teachers control their building assignments), 46 regarding evaluations and grievances (e.g., whether teachers are exempt from performance evaluations), and 28 items related to association rights (e.g., the extent to which employees can take a leave of absence to conduct union business).

Fortunately, there is a more efficient way to code the restrictiveness of Ohio districts’ employee contracts. One can simply count the number of statements indicating that district personnel “shall” or “will” perform some action. After demonstrating that this proxy of contract restrictiveness is informative, I use the results of my analysis (which includes recently negotiated and currently active teacher contracts across 556 of Ohio’s 609 districts) to identify the fifteen districts with the most oppressive contracts. I conclude with a real-world illustration (courtesy of the Akron Education Association) of how such managerial constraints continue to directly harm Ohio’s most vulnerable students, as well as some hope that we can use this knowledge to push back and put kids’ interests first.

Measuring the restrictiveness of Ohio districts’ employee contracts

Scholars have tried a number of strategies to measure the extent to which laws and union-negotiated contracts restrict managerial discretion. The total number of pages or words in a contract are common proxies. The problem with these approaches, however, is that variation in word or page counts may be unrelated to contract restrictiveness. For example, contracts may have narrow margins (like a pamphlet), advertisements from union sponsors, introductory remarks from union representatives, and extensive appendices that provide forms or other information—all of which might drive up word or page counts without affecting a contract’s restrictiveness. Indeed, some scholars have expressed concern that word counts and length may largely reflect the idiosyncrasies of the legal and leadership teams that draft contracts, such as the language conventions that they use and their inclination to regurgitate state law. Finally, not all contract language is equally restrictive. A provision that describes employee dental benefits may not impede management as much as a provision that prescribes exactly how administrators must fill teaching vacancies.   

It is for these reasons that two renowned scholars, Katherine Struck and Sean Reardon, precisely coded how each California contract they reviewed addressed 334 separate potential contract provisions. Due to resource constraints, in subsequent studies they coded a subset of forty-three provisions that explained the bulk of the variation in California contracts’ restrictiveness. Yet these resource-intensive studies revealed two important facts: 1) contract length can be a reasonable proxy for contract restrictiveness (at least when irrelevant text is removed); and 2) contract restrictiveness, if measured correctly, correlates with district size, as both are strongly tied to the strength of districts’ employee unions. I use these facts to generate and validate my easier-to-code measure of contract restrictiveness.

I requested from the Ohio State Employment Relations Board (SERB) every contract (for teaching and non-teaching employees) that Ohio boards of education agreed to between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2023.[1] Among these 2,000+ contracts, I identified all contracts that were active as of January 1, 2024; scanned them using Adobe’s optical character recognition (OCR) software; and wrote code that cycled through each contract and counted the number of times the words “shall” or “will” appeared.[2] These counts should roughly capture the number of provisions that restrict managerial discretion while sidestepping some of the drawbacks of using word or page counts, such as varying margins and the inclusion of text unrelated to contract restrictiveness.   

Based on the contracts SERB shared, I was able to generate measures of restrictiveness for the primary teacher contract (i.e., excluding contracts for particular types of teachers or for non-teaching employees) across 556 Ohio districts.[3] Table 1 (below) reveals that the typical Ohio district had two active employee contracts that contained 38,632 words and 898 instances of the words “shall” or “will.” In other words, the typical Ohio district’s contracts contain nearly 900 statements that likely restrict the managerial discretion of district leaders and administrators. The table also reveals that there is tremendous variation across Ohio districts in terms of the restrictiveness of the contracts they signed between 2019 and 2023.

Table 1. Number and length of active labor contracts in Ohio public school districts

To validate this measure of contract restrictiveness, I spot-checked a sample of contracts to confirm that these words primarily capture prescriptive statements, examined their frequency distribution compared to other words (like words such as “the,” “and,” and “a,” “will” and “shall” are often in the top ten of a contract’s most frequently used words), and correlated these counts with measures of district size, such as a district’s total residential population and student enrollment (correlations of 0.64 and 0.59, respectively). These correlations are comparable to those reported in the Strunk-Reardon study that coded 334 potential contract provisions.

The figure below illustrates just how strong the relationship is between district enrollment and the count of “shall” and “will” in districts’ primary teacher contract. Although the axes are hard to interpret because the counts of restrictive provisions and district enrollments are logged (something that statisticians do so that very large districts with exceptionally restrictive contracts do not dominate the estimated relationship), the important takeaway is that there is a positive relationship between district size and my measure of contract restrictiveness. This fits the conventional wisdom among scholars that larger districts have more powerful unions and, thus, more restrictive contracts. Like the multi-state study I cite above, I found only a modest relationship between child poverty rates and contract restrictiveness. This suggests that restrictive contracts burden large districts regardless of wealth.

Figure 1. The relationship between district enrollments and the number of times a district’s primary teacher contract uses the words “shall” or “will” (restrictiveness proxy)

Which districts’ primary teacher contracts are the most oppressive?

In addition to demonstrating the relationship between district size and contract restrictiveness, Figure 1 reveals that some districts stand out. At the top righthand corner are the largest Ohio districts for which I coded contract data (Columbus City, Cleveland Metropolitan, Cincinnati Public, and Toledo Public). They have by far the most restrictive contracts. But some smaller districts (Mansfield City and New Albany-Plain Local) also jump out for having especially restrictive contracts.

Table 2 provides a list of the top fifteen districts in terms of the restrictiveness of their primary teacher contracts, and it provides simple counts of restrictive statements containing “shall” or “will” (instead of hard-to-comprehend logged counts). By my measure, these districts’ primary teacher contracts are approximately 2–5 times as restrictive as the typical Ohio district’s contract. The gap is even bigger among the larger districts when one considers the total restrictiveness of all employee contracts combined (covering teaching and non-teaching staff).

Table 2. Ohio districts with the most restrictive active teacher contracts signed since 2019

Those concerned about strengthening our public schools should skim the Toledo Public Schools contract to get a sense for how impossibly difficult (and likely soul-crushing) it must be to try to manage districts operating under such constraints. To provide an example, I simply scrolled to a random page (truly!) in Toledo Public’s contract and ended up on page thirty-six. I then selected the first paragraph just below the primary subheading on that page (to provide a bit of context as to the topic at hand). I have highlighted mentions of “shall” and “will” in yellow (bolded text is from the original):

These words may not capture every directive in the paragraph—particularly since the paragraph references content that is delineated elsewhere in the document—but the frequency with which “will” and “shall” appear suggests to me that those words serve as a reasonable proxy for how restrictive these sentences are for the leadership of Toledo Public Schools. Now, consider that these leaders are subjected to over 250 pages of this type of language. How large of an administrative staff does one need to even keep track of these rules and procedures?

The excerpt above reminds me of an old stereotype about government bureaucrats being primarily concerned with following rules and routines, as opposed to prioritizing the pursuit of public goals. Such rule-following is understandable, as it means that district leadership is less likely to be bogged down by employee grievances and political battles for having violated some contract provisions (perhaps inadvertently), but it also implies that they are likely less focused on the primary goals of public education.

Alleviating contract restrictiveness requires limiting union power

The “top fifteen” districts above are, by my measure, forced to operate under the most oppressive managerial constraints. But it is important to remember that contract restrictiveness is essentially a proxy for union strength. Larger districts have stronger unions (more dues-paying members means more resources and political power), and districts with stronger unions tend to negotiate contracts that are more restrictive (as Figure 1 illustrates). In other words, administrators who work in districts with restrictive teacher contracts are likely constrained by broader political dynamics, even if those constraints are not explicitly stated in teacher contracts. Indeed, research has documented how union strength—as captured by contract length, union revenue, district size, or the presence of collective bargaining agreements—is a key predictor of the sustained school closures that seriously harmed Ohio’s most disadvantaged students.

Remarkably, in spite of widespread awareness of teachers unions’ culpability in undermining the education of low-income kids during the pandemic and, therefore, contributing to expanding student achievement gaps, unions continue to exact harm on these students. For example, Akron Public Schools recently received a grant of $156,000 from the state to contract with a firm that would provide one-on-one tutoring to struggling readers—one of the few effective remedies for pandemic-induced learning loss. Because of union pressure, however, the superintendent felt compelled to ask the Akron Board of Education to rescind that contract. And how did the Akron Education Association exert this influence? By claiming unfair labor practices and filing grievances and lawsuits based in part on the terms of their collective bargaining agreement. (Unfortunately, Akron is one of the districts that had no active collective bargaining agreement in the files SERB pulled on December 31. I’ll try to have a full accounting of Ohio school districts in my next set of rankings. In the meantime, Akron Public’s seven employee contracts are available here.)

To alleviate the burden of oppressive union contracts, one must address unions’ political clout. One way to do so is for the state to limit what unions can bargain over. For example, as I discuss in a prior post, research suggests that prohibiting unions from negotiating rigid salary schedules (“step and lane” systems based on academic degrees and seniority) led to measurable gains in the effectiveness of Wisconsin districts, as district leadership was better able to recruit and retain effective teachers. Lawmakers could also prevent districts from waiving their management rights in collective bargaining negotiations, as my colleague Aaron Churchill recommends in his recent Fordham report.

Another way to address oppressive contracts is to limit more fundamental sources of union bargaining power in contract negotiations, such as their right to strike, their ability to raise money from district employees, and their ability to mobilize district resources for political gain. These sources of broad-based political power effectively enable unions to influence the election of school board members (and, thus, who will be on the other side of the table during contract negotiations), the outcomes of districts’ tax elections, and even the outcomes of state and federal elections and policymaking. As Terry Moe and Michael Hartney have convincingly and painstakingly documented, teachers unions have accumulated considerable political power and, using that power, in turn have secured policy changes that allowed them to amass yet more power.

Ultimately, countering teachers unions’ sweeping political influence is the best way to limit their hold on district management and provide district leaders some space to manage. But parents, taxpayers, district leaders, and other concerned citizens can only push back if they are aware of the problem. My simple measure of contract restrictiveness is meant to enhance this awareness by shining a light on just how oppressive union contracts can be and who the most egregious offenders are.

Stéphane Lavertu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Professor at The Ohio State University’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs. The opinions and recommendations presented in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policy positions or views of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs or The Ohio State University.

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1. In a surprise to no one, apparently, Dayton City Schools’ pricey national search for a new superintendent landed on the candidate right under their noses. Again. (Dayton Daily News, 2/20/24)
   
   

2. It is noted in the piece above that former interim and now proper Superintendent David Lawrence has already had a positive impact on Dayton City Schools’ ongoing student absenteeism problem. There’s no information on how he’s managed this, but I’m sure the data and the details will come to us in time. In this piece, we learn that Delaware City Schools reduced its chronic absence rate for students by nearly 9 percent during the 2021-2022 school year. It’s a short piece, but there are a couple of things to note: First, this feels like old data. How was it last year? This year so far? Still going good? Second, while we do get a little detail on how it was done way back then, those details seem somewhat contradictory to me. The superintendent says that family involvement is key (“Ensuring that they know they're not in trouble, that we want to work together, and we want to partner. And the most important piece is their students and their child being successful in school.”). The bottom line is to “eliminate barriers” to attendance, which is great, but it is “largely driven by the juvenile court mediation process with families.” Seems like a mixed message to me. (Public News Service, 2/20/24)

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Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist. Research also suggests that these “opportunity” and “excellence” gaps—nearly ubiquitous in elementary, middle, and high schools—are worsening post-pandemic due to learning interruptions that were experienced unequally by low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American children.

RAND Corporation’s multi-year American Mathematics Educator Study (AMES) recently shed further light on these problems. Although focused on the entire spectrum of math achievement, not specifically the high end, its findings are highly relevant to advanced education—and plenty depressing. The study was announced in October 2023 with the goal of finding and explaining “key factors that shape equitable, high-quality mathematics teaching and learning,” to be used as baseline data necessary to remediate the stark declines in student math achievement witnessed as a result of pandemic-era school disruptions. The very first research findings were released this month, looking at school “structures” that may facilitate or limit access to math learning opportunities for students in elementary and middle schools. (A high school report is coming in the near future.)

The research team, led by Julia H. Kaufman, defines “school opportunity structures” as the systems and resources in place to support students in their mathematics education. Specifically, the three structures studied are: grouping of students by achievement, and their subsequent access to rigorous mathematics courses; whether students have access to certified, knowledgeable math teachers and principals; and the availability of and access to additional supports for struggling students beyond standard classroom instruction. Most of the findings center on the existence (or not) of these structures, with a lesser focus on utilization. And the first two areas, especially—achievement grouping and knowledgeable teachers and principals—are relevant to opportunity and excellence gaps in advanced education.

Data come from a spring 2023 survey given to nationally representative samples of teachers and principals from RAND’s American Teacher Panel and American School Leader Panel. The present report is based on responses from 2,505 teachers of mathematics (including elementary teachers of all subjects) and 2,293 principals across all grades K–12 (but including answers specific to K–8 grade bands only). Responses are weighted to be representative of the national population of K–12 teachers and school leaders. However, the researchers also oversampled teachers and principals in the four largest states—California, Florida, New York, and Texas—to provide some state-level comparisons.

They report that a majority of principals nationwide (59 percent) say their schools do not group students by math achievement in the elementary grades. That percentage effectively flips in middle school (grades 6–8), which still means that more than one-third of schools aren’t doing this. Among middle schools that do, principals report an almost even split between students grouped by achievement within their math classes (that is, several smaller groups within a single classroom) and those grouped into their mathematics classes (students of different achievement levels learning in different classrooms).

The most commonly reported means by which students are assigned to groups are diagnostic or benchmark assessment (reported by 85 percent of principals) and teacher recommendation (83 percent). Principal recommendation is the least commonly reported means (15 percent), with parent/guardian request in the middle at 42 percent. Relevant to opportunity gaps: Parental requests for math class assignment are reported by 50 percent of principals in low-poverty schools versus just 30 percent in high-poverty schools.

The research team also zeroed in on Algebra I offerings in middle school, as introductory algebra has long been considered a “gateway” course to participation in higher level math in high school—provided students can take and pass it by the end of eighth grade. Eighty-five percent of middle school principals reported that Algebra I was offered in their schools—meaning one in every six schools did not offer the course—while 65 percent of them said they offer the course but restrict it to certain students. This latter group of schools likely gatekeeps enrollment via prerequisites like course completion, letter grades, test scores, teacher or principal approval, parental pressure, or a combination of these. This can be a good thing if the students excluded truly aren’t yet capable of success. But too often, schools rely on inequitable metrics that are biased against marginalized subgroups and therefore leave out otherwise prepared students and contribute to the opportunity and excellence gaps they should be trying to narrow. (Here’s where the report’s lack of utilization information is a small weakness.) Worse, however, are California-specific data that echo other research showing the “unambiguously harmful” impacts of the state’s Algebra for All initiative, which had the main effect of moving Algebra access to ninth grade (at the earliest) for a majority of students.

Also concerning is that too few math teachers report being certified to actually teach their subject. This is true of one-third of middle school math educators and nine out of ten in the elementary grades. This likely reflects different licensure requirements for those grade bands in various states—and, indeed, most states only require generic elementary education certification in grades K–5. But it combines to call into question schools’ ability to offer rigorous, high-quality math instruction that provide students with the sort of solid early-grade foundations necessary to prepare more of them for advanced courses in later years.

All of this together adds up to poor prospects for narrowing opportunity and excellence gaps in advanced education. Research tells us that the structures that the RAND study found lacking in schools across the country—accelerated classes like Algebra 1 in middle school and achievement grouping—significantly improve the learning outcomes of advanced learners. Acceleration is “one of the most-studied intervention strategies in all of education, with overwhelming evidence of positive effects on student achievement,” as scholar Jonathan Plucker puts it. Numerous high-quality studies have found that arranging students by academic achievement in the same or separate classrooms is a net positive for advanced students and isn’t detrimental to their peers. And as another RAND resource puts it, “teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling,” so having such a large number of K–8 math educators lack certification in the subject may also be negatively impacting achievement—no matter how standard this practice is across states and school systems in the elementary grades.

The structural problems laid bare here are significant, but they’re also, of course, fixable. We know what works. Build the structures! Doing so would help improve achievement for all students, as well as narrow excellence gaps in advanced education. Consider, for example, the thirty-six recommendations put forth by The National Working Group on Advanced Education (of which one of us was a member) in its final report, Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners. That may seem like a large number of steps, but the core principle is simple: Become a champion for excellence and equity. As this RAND study shows, too many schools are failing at both.

SOURCE: Julia H. Kaufman, Lauren Covelli, and Pierrce Holmes, “Elementary and Middle School Opportunity Structures That Factor into Students’ Math Learning Findings from the American Mathematics Educator Study,” RAND Corporation (February 2024).

When it comes to facilities, Ohio’s public charter schools have long gotten the short end of the stick. They’re excluded from the state’s main school construction program, which has sent billions to school districts for high end facility upgrades over the past couple decades. Unlike districts, charters don’t receive any local taxpayer support for capital improvements either. Thankfully, the state does provide a per-pupil facility allowance that covers a portion of charters’ building expenses (e.g., rent and utilities). But their meager resources overall thwart more ambitious building projects that would allow them to occupy more suitable educational spaces and expand to serve additional students.

Recognizing these challenges, Ohio policymakers have made efforts to help charters access vacant or underutilized district-owned buildings via right of first refusal laws.[1] As outlined in statute, districts must offer to charters[2] buildings that meet one of two conditions: (1) any type of facility (e.g., instructional or administrative) that has not been used for one year or (2) an instructional-use facility in which less than 60 percent was used for “direct academic instruction” during the previous year. When a building meets one of these conditions, it’s deemed “unused” and the district must offer it to charters located within its territory for lease or purchase (the district decides which one).

High-performing charters[3] are first in line for an unused facility. If more than one is interested, an auction (for a sale) or lottery (for a lease) is held to determine the buyer. When no high-performers are interested, other local charters are next in line (with the same auction or lottery process if multiple entities are interested). Should there be no interest whatsoever in the facility, the district may either auction it to other entities or retain ownership. The facility must be sold or leased for at least “appraised fair market value.”

Having these provisions on the books is an important first step. Yet questions have emerged about just how accessible unused facilities are for charters in practice. For one, there are concerns that districts, which are loathe to compete with charters, are sidestepping these requirements and withholding buildings. Back in 2016, nearly half of charter leaders reported that districts were “generally uncooperative” in making facilities available. In 2019, former Auditor of State Dave Yost noted in a report that “efforts by school districts to prevent charter schools from employing unused district school buildings is an issue.” In 2020, the Columbus Dispatch ran a troubling story about the city’s school district giving the high-performing United Schools Network (whose schools Fordham authorizes) the runaround after it expressed interest in purchasing a vacant school.

A look at recent enrollment data also raises questions. In Youngstown, for example, East High School enrolled just 522 students in 2022–23, while it enrolled more than 1,300 students eight years ago. In Cleveland, Collingwood High School enrolled just 304 students last year, but enrolled 600 students a decade ago. And in Columbus, Innis Elementary School enrolled 214 students last year but served more than 400 students in 2014–15. These aren’t the only underenrolled schools, of course, and others could fall into that category if district enrollments continue to slide. How many schools operate at less than 60 percent capacity, but haven’t been offered for lease or purchase?

Finally, cost issues remain for charters seeking to purchase an unused facility. In some circumstances, the market value of a school building can run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, making a purchase—plus possible repair and renovation expenses—cost-prohibitive. This, along with the restrictive language allowing only local charters to vie for the facility, may be why districts often end up selling unused facilities to other entities. It may also explain why only a handful of charters are located in former district buildings.  

To address these issues, state lawmakers should work to strengthen the right of first refusal law in the following ways.

1. Require districts to report unused facilities to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, and then require the department to publish a list of such facilities and verify that they’ve been offered first to charters. Currently, there is no centralized record of which facilities are “unused” or confirmation that districts have indeed offered them to charters. Increased transparency and a verification process would help confirm that districts are following the law. A regularly updated list of unused facilities would allow charter leaders to know which buildings are available at a given time.
    
2. Tighten the language around what it means for a building to be operating at less than 60 percent capacity. Current statute that designates a severely underutilized building as “unused” is too vague and could allow districts to avoid offering such schools to charters based on technicalities.[4] For instance, a district could claim that 65 percent of the classrooms in a building are in use even if classrooms meant for twenty-five students are being used for just five. To make the capacity provision more concrete and enforceable, legislators should create a clearer enrollment- or occupancy-based standard (e.g., building enrollment is below 60 percent of its designed enrollment capacity).[5]
    
3. Allow all Ohio charter schools—no matter their location—to seek an unused district facility. As noted above, only charters located within a district’s boundary can purchase or lease an unused facility. To be sure, high-performing charters located in the district should continue to have first priority. But should no local high-performers express interest, all charters in the state and out-of-state charters that received approval to open should be able to buy or lease the building. This would allow Columbus-based charters to more easily expand into Cleveland (and vice-versa). It would also give existing charters an avenue to secure facility space in districts where charters have never had a significant (or any) presence. 
    
4. Require districts to sell or lease the building for an amount less than the “appraised fair market value.” This would make acquiring a facility more affordable for charters, especially in areas with higher real estate values. Remember, taxpayers have already paid for these facilities, so providing them to charters at low cost isn’t a financial loss to the district. As for what the value should be, legislators could follow the Indiana model, which requires unused buildings to be offered for $1. If that isn’t politically workable, they could require sale or lease at half the building’s market value, or an appraised value as an educational facility (not private development). Lowering the price point would encourage more interest from charters and better ensure that school buildings retain their original purpose—to educate a community’s students.
    
5. Move to a lottery system to determine which charter (whether among high-performers or all charters) may purchase an unused facility. This shift, which would follow the current process for determining a lessee, would avoid an auction in which the price could get bid up beyond the fair market value (or some percentage of it, if recommendation four is adopted). An auction likely advantages more established charters over smaller startups that operate on tighter budgets, even if both are well-positioned to put the facility to good use. A lottery would put charters on equal footing when multiple parties have interest in the building.
    
6. Create a credit enhancement and/or revolving loan fund to support facility purchases. Expensive capital projects typically require charters to seek financing, as they aren’t likely to have saved enough for such projects. Legislators can defray financing costs for charter schools by creating a credit enhancement and/or revolving loan program. This would make the purchase of an unused district facility that needs major repairs more financially viable (as well as purchases and renovations of other types of properties—e.g., a commercial building). It would also allow charters to keep more money in the classroom instead of paying debt service.

Ohio’s right of first refusal law provides an avenue for charter schools to obtain purpose-built educational facilities often at more reasonable cost than other building options. It also helps ensure that districts are not hoarding vacant properties, perhaps letting them deteriorate from neglect, or spending inefficiently by operating half-empty buildings. However, the policy has not opened access to unused district buildings in quite the way that one might hope. With some modifications to this section of law, more charters—whose enrollments are swelling—will be able to breathe new life into buildings that have long served students in their communities.