Weekend To-Do List

12/1 - 12/3

and

Dec 01, 2023

1. New Report Finds Educational Gag Orders Impact Millions

READ/LISTEN: Beth Hawkins reported on the rise of legal restrictions impacting roughly 1.3 million K-12 teachers and 100,000 professors in 21 states. New findings from PEN America caution that the gag orders will only continue to grow in popularity – and severity:

This year, for the first time, some of the proposed measures took aim at individuals’ speech, the report notes, with an Oklahoma bill to prohibit students from disclosing their LGBTQ identity and one in Ohio that would mete out “disciplinary sanctions” for college students or faculty who violate the “intellectual diversity rights” of others by discussing topics such as “allyship, diversity, social justice, sustainability, systemic racism, gender identity, equity or inclusion.”

Read more in The 74 here. I also talked with guest co-host Isaac Saul about how the gag orders might impact educators’ willingness to discuss the Israel-Hamas war on this week’s episode of Lost Debate. Listen here.

2. Do Charter Schools Offer a Better Education?

READ/LISTEN: A new report from the University of Arkansas sheds new light on which states get school choice right. In her latest piece for Reason, Emma Camp argues that the findings, which show charter schools produce higher academic outcomes than traditional public schools despite receiving less funding, should come as no surprise:

While it's long been a mantra in progressive politics that increased funding is the key to improving school performance, per-pupil spending actually has a weak relationship with academic results. A 2012 report from Harvard and Stanford researchers found that an additional $1,000 in per-pupil spending was "associated with an annual gain in achievement of one-tenth of 1 percent of a standard deviation," adding that such a small amount "is of no statistical or substantive significance."

Read more here. Rikki and I also discussed the study on yesterday’s episode of Lost Debate. Listen here.

3. Should Better Child Care Start With Higher Pay?

READ: Ariel Gilreath wrote for The Hechinger Report about new efforts to mitigate the country’s ongoing child care crisis. The Early Educator Investment Collaborative, a coalition of philanthropies focused on early childhood initiatives, has made payments totaling $9 million to states such as Louisiana and Colorado as part of an investment in increasing pay equity for child care employees and early childhood educators:

On average, child care employees and early educators earn less than half as much as K-12 teachers. They are more likely than other educators to live in poverty and less likely to have health insurance.

4. From Representative to Substitute: SC Legislator Calls Attention to State’s Teacher Shortages

READ: Skylar Laird at the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported on the state’s efforts to address over 1,6000 teacher and school support vacancies. State Representative Jermaine Johnson is set to propose a new bill requiring legislators to substitute teach or volunteer at least five times a year to help bring them closer to the crisis:

The point isn’t to solve anything, Johnson said. And he recognizes his proposal stands little chance. He will push to at least get a hearing. He wants to spark conversation about what really happens in schools.
“We’ve seen lawmakers come out and say they support teachers, and they want us to do what’s best for teachers. They want to invest in students. They care about students,” said Johnson, who sits on the House Education Committee. “But none of them are actually in the school.”

5. CEO Calls on Southern Republicans To Break Ties With Teachers-Union Allies

READ: American Culture Project CEO John Tillman says it’s time for southern states to replace pro-teachers-union legislators. In a new op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Tillman notes that while ten Republican-led states have passed universal school choice in the past two years, historically red states like Texas, Georgia, and Alabama have been unable to pass similar bills because of nay votes from union-backed legislators:

Republicans are free to receive campaign donations from whomever they want, so long as those donations are within the bounds of the law. But families deserve to know that many of their GOP lawmakers might not be putting students first. Since the mounting demand for school choice hasn’t swayed these politicians, the best path forward is to replace them in primary elections in 2024.

6. Illinois Town Offers Segregated Classes To Support Black and Latino Students

READ: Evanston, Illinois has created race-separated math and writing classes as part of a new effort to address the achievement gap between the town’s Black, Latino, and white students. Current students say the “affinity classes” help them feel more accepted in class, but that doesn't mean the structure is here to stay:

Glenn Singleton, a racial-equity consultant who has worked with Evanston’s high school for more than a decade, said the race-separated classes ideally wouldn’t need to exist. “The ultimate goal is not having an affinity section of algebra,” he said. “It’s to have no disparity.”

The district has yet to share data on the initiative’s impact on student performance. Read more from Sara Randazzo and Douglas Belkin in the Wall Street Journal here.

7. The New White Flight

READ: A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the enrollment of a new Asian American student in high-income suburban school districts is associated with the departure of 1.5 white students from the same district. Qualitative data suggests that the pattern has less to do with anti-Asian racism and is more likely to be motivated by academic competition:

In other words, the new Asian American pupils were bringing stronger academic performance to the schools they enrolled in, but also potentially making their white classmates look somewhat worse by comparison. Boustan said that possibility could be viewed with dread during college admissions season, when high school seniors are often considered on the basis of their class GPA rank.
There's little indication she and others who presided over this disaster will do much else than continue to get paid richly and exchange back pats for their promotions within elite circles.

Read Kevin Mahnken’s interview with study co-author Leah Boustan in The 74 here.

8. Who Should Educate Black Children?

READ/LISTEN: The Citizen Stewart Show’s Chris Stewart says it’s time for Black communities to reclaim ownership over their children’s education through building Black teacher pipelines, investing in charter schools led by Black educators, and embracing the rise of homeschooling:

We don’t need to agree on the particulars of systemic racism and educational philosophies. There is no one best system for all of our children. We only have to honor the one claim central to America reconciling its Negro problem: Black people are not free until they can exercise maximum determination in the most major aspects of their lives.

Read the piece here, and then listen to my co-host Stacey Shells Harvey discuss her response with Chris on the latest episode of Sweat the Technique.

9. Maryland’s Latest Efforts To Address Absenteeism

READ: As ⅔ of the nation’s schools struggle to address chronic absenteeism, Donna St. George profiled Maryland’s new Truancy Prevention Program, which focuses on building relationships to help address the root causes of absenteeism rather than punishing students for truancy. The 10-week program ends with a graduation ceremony at the county courthouse:

“I was one of the kids with the lowest, lowest grades,” one 11-year-old boy told the audience at a graduation this year, according to a recording of the event. The sixth-grader said he wrote goals into a book every week as part of the program. “Every single week I completed every single achievement that I wrote,” he said. His grades rose markedly.
“I appreciate being in this program because it is one of my achievements in my life and will be the first achievement I have ever done,” he said.

Maryland will expand the pilot to 40 schools in 2024. Read more in The Washington Post here.

10. Low-Income Students Priced Out of Youth Sports

READ: The rising cost of youth sports, from uniforms and equipment to fees and travel costs, has made participation unaffordable for many families, and schools that want to increase access in order to prioritize students’ physical and social-emotional development face challenges such as a lack of facilities, coaches, and equipment. The Aspen Institute’s Jon Solomon, editorial director of the Sports & Society Program, encourages educators to get creative:

“You can also just have programming after school that is teaching and exposing kids to the sports. Some of the best ways to do that is by bringing in partners from your community,” Solomon said. “It’s a great opportunity as well for the community programs. Take youth soccer as an example: youth soccer associations that want to grow the sport, why would you not want to come into schools and find ways to subsidize this?”

Less than a quarter of students from low-income families now participate in an organized sport. Read more here.