issue: Education

“Ever Rising: The Renaissance of HBCUs and K12 Education” and the UNCF UNITE Summit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“Don’t let the term ‘charter school’ fool you.” My words rang out through Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency at the 2023 UNCF UNITE Summit to a room of students, alumni, and senior officials from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU).

The summit gave me the platform to discuss the historical connections between the HBCUs and public education on our “Ever Rising: The Renaissance of HBCUs and K-12 Education” panel. The panel also was an opportunity to highlight the potential impact a revival of the connections between HBCUs and K-12 schools could have on dramatically improving educational opportunities for African-American families and students.

The debate over the expansion of public charter schools has divided African-Americans along the lines of those HBCU alumni who’ve attended, served, founded, voted for, or donated to a public charter schools and those African-Americans who characterize public charters as “selective,” “non-public,” and a financial strain on public schools.

UNCF UNITE is the nation’s premier annual gathering for accelerating strategies for African-American higher education and support for the institutional transformation of African-American colleges and universities. UNITE is founded by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

The annual gathering is organized by UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building, whose mission is to partner with Historically Black Colleges & Universities and Predominately Black Institutions to help propel student success, community impact, and the advancement of educational equity and racial justice.

HBCUs punch above their weight. While HBCUs educate only 10% of African-American college students, they produce 50% of African-American Teachers, 85% of African-American Doctors, 80% of African-American Federal Judges, 75% of African-American Veterinarians, and 75% of African-American Military Officers.

The panel created an opportunity to discuss the role HBCUs played in producing an army of educators during the post-Reconstruction era, but also the connection HBCUs had with local K-12 schools. Over 5,000 Rosenwald schools were funded by the Rosenwald Fund, local African-American residents, and local tax dollars during this era. Rosenwald schools were African-American run and located in close proximity to HBCUs, establishing a pipeline of African-American students into HBCUs starving for a pool of capable applicants.

The panel also gave me the opportunity to participant in a rhetorical exercise highlighting how the opposition to public charters has less to do with the actual tenets of model and more to do with the false narratives about school choice. “Do you support autonomy for school leaders to make the best decisions for schools? Do you agree schools should be accountable for results and penalized if they don’t meet expectations? Do you agree parents should have choice in the schools that meet their kids’ needs? If you answered yes to these questions, you support charters…you just don’t like the term.”

HBCUs could and should play a greater role in starting, funding, and holding K-12 school accountable for performance. The most feasible way for HBCUs to improve outcomes for African-American students is to become authorizers for public charter schools.

The panel highlighted the controversy surrounding charter schools and the reluctant adoption by African-American politicians. I made the point that the term “charter” has distracted from the discussion on the importance of the key tenets of charter schools, notably accountability, accountability, and choice that most African-Americans support.

The panel was sponsored by the National Charter Collaborative (NCC) and included:

 

NCC supports single-site charter school leaders of color whose schools reflect the hopes and dreams of their students and cultural fabric of their communities.

NCC believes charter school leaders of color are a critical, yet overlooked, collective representing an estimated one-fourth of charter schools impacting over 335,000 students across the U.S.

UNITE 2023 included pre-conferences, plenaries and breakout sessions focused on institutional transformation, executive leadership, enrollment management, STEM initiatives, mental health, climate action, community empowerment, federal programming, industry collaboration, fundraising and advancement, K-12 partnerships, and career pathways.

To learn more, go to UNITE 2023 and 2022 on our YouTube channel.

Curtis Valentine is the Co-Director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

The Belief Gap: 2023 National Education Summit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“We have a Belief Gap in education.” I uttered those exact words from the main stage of the Smithsonian’s Institute’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for the 2023 Smithsonian National Education Summit.

The summit came at a time when the country was becoming more and more divided along political lines on the topic of education and the teaching of American history. In states like Florida and Texas, elected and appointed leaders in the governor’s office, state legislature, and state board of education introduced and passed laws restricting the teaching of parts of American History that tell the full story of the experiences of marginalized groups like African-Americans, Jewish Americans, and members of the LGBTQ community.

Joining the first African-American Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute to keynote the National Education Summit was an extreme honor for me, especially at a time when educators and parents grapple with the teaching of American history…the good and the bad.

Dr. Lonnie Bunch is not only the first African-American to serve as Secretary of the Smithsonian, he’s also the first historian. As Secretary, Dr. Bunch oversees 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers and several education units and centers. Dr. Bunch’s is most famous for founding the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Dr. Bunch and I were joined by Jermar Rountree, the D.C. Teacher of the Year, on the panel. Rountree is a health and physical education teacher at Center City Public Charter School, Brightwood Campus. In the Center City network, Rountree serves as the District teacher lead for the physical education and health department.

This year’s Summit focused on the theme “Together We Thrive: Fostering a Sense of Belonging” and included four learning tracks: Life on a Sustainable Planet, STEAM Education, Reckoning with Our Racial Past, and An Integrated Arts Education.

The panel was moderated by Monique M. Chism, PhD, Under Secretary for Education for the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Chism’s questions centered on the importance of diversity in teaching and its impact on “fostering belonging” for students.

The Summit attracted thousands of educators from across the nation, including teachers, curriculum specialists, librarians, state education agencies, administrators, and museum and cultural educators. The debate over how to teach American history and when certain parts should be taught is one these summit participants came to Washington to better understand.

The Summit was also an opportunity for me to discuss new research highlighting the impact of teacher diversity but also Collective Teacher Efficacy or the power of a teacher’s belief in their student’s ability and that impact that belief has on student achievement.

I used the summit to highlight the relationship between the teaching of American history and America’s belief gap in education when I said, “teachers don’t believe Black students can succeed and parents don’t believe White students are capable of learning the entirety of American history without internalizing the wrongs of the worst of us. Believe in our students.”

The laws passed in Florida and Texas to restrict the teachings of America history, laws that would criminalize teachers and villainize parents, also subjugate students to an inferior education and make them less prepared for full citizenship.

I take pride in my knowledge of my own history and the impact access to a quality education meant to my family and life outcomes for my relatives. The panel gave me an opportunity to share the story of my great-grandparents, Beverly and Martha Valentine. As co-founders of the Carroll-Boyd Rosenwald School in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, my great-grandparents joined a long line of African-Americans who partnered with the Julius Rosenwald Fund to create nearly 5,000 schools throughout the South.

The historical significance and impact of Rosenwald schools is showcased in not one, but two, exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture where artifacts from The Hope School in Pomaria, South Carolina are displayed.

The legacy of Rosenwald schools live on in schools today that give school leaders more autonomy in how they are run…charter schools. Stephanie Deutsch, granddaughter in-law to Rosenwald and author of “You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South,” was asked about the modern-day equivalent of Rosenwald schools and she replied “charter schools.”

Sessions from this year’s summit were produced in collaboration with the Council for Chief State School Officers, D.C. Public Schools, Ford’s Theatre, the Library of Congress, National Council for Teachers of English, National Council for the Social Studies, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Teaching Association, North American Association for Environmental Education, and The Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School.

Video of full session can be viewed on Smithsonian Education YouTube Channel.

Curtis Valentine is the Co-Director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Weinstein for Forbes: Administrative Bloat At U.S. Colleges Is Skyrocketing

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Paul Weinstein Jr.

Basic economics tells us that when demand goes down, suppliers must reduce costs, cut supply, or lower prices to survive. That is the choice facing many U.S. colleges and universities starting in 2025, when the so-called “enrollment cliff,” begins. Between 2025 to 2029, undergraduate headcount will drop by over 575,000 students (15 percent) and, if recent history is an indicator, many schools will end up closing their doors rather than streamlining their operations.

The reason is that most institutions of higher learning are dependent on tuition revenue for survival. While a handful of elite universities (think Harvard, Stanford, Princeton) have endowments large enough to cover the cost of attendance for any student in need, the rest require undergrads to borrow on average over $30,000 to earn a bachelors.

In the past, when faced with funding shortfalls, colleges and universities attempted to “grow their way” out of the problem by opening up new sources of revenue. Many launched new graduate programs, including terminal master’s degrees (no doctoral option) and certificates. Others increased their online offerings to expand their access to part-time students beyond the gates of their campuses. And almost all opened their doors to international students who could afford to pay full price.

But unlike Purdue University—who used this new source of revenue to hold undergraduate tuition flat for a decade—most schools went on a hiring spree; one that massively expanded the ranks of all types of employees, with one notable exception—full-time faculty.

Keep reading in Forbes.

Pankovits for Colorado Springs Gazette: Assessments vindicate Denver’s innovation schools

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Tressa Pankovits

Denver Public Schools (DPS) was once a national model for school innovation and reform. District leadership focused on student learning and giving parents choices to find the best fit for their children.

Now, the DPS board is stacked with directors beholden to the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. It’s so ideologically married to the union’s self-interests — and so incompetent — that it continually tests the city’s capacity for outrage.

Keep reading in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Pankovits for WisPolitics: On Wisconsin: Democrats listening to parents advance equal school funding

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Tressa Pankovits

Students may not realize it, but when they head back to school next week, public education will be funded at the highest level in Wisconsin history. It’s important to recognize a handful of Democrats, all from blue, blue Milwaukee, who courageously cast a hard vote this legislative session. As a result, Wisconsin will also provide more equal state funding for non-traditional K-12 schools.

Despite pressure from teachers unions, five Democrats supported increasing public charter school funding. The bill, Act 11, was an unexpected, complicated, bipartisan compromise that Democratic Governor Tony Evers hammered out with Wisconsin’s Republican legislative majority in order to pass the state budget. The charter school funding provision represents a concession for Evers, whose record on charter schools is lukewarm and, at times, antagonistic.

In addition to providing a historic level of K-12 education funding across the state’s education sectors, Wisconsin’s new two-year budget will eventually bring state spending on Milwaukee’s public charter school students to within 90% of what it spends on district school students. Specifically, public charter schools will get an extra $2,121 per child, increasing per pupil funding to $11,385.

Read more in WisPolitics.

New Report: How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

As America’s students are heading back to school in the coming weeks, non-instructional spending at colleges and universities — which includes spending on administration and student services — have been skyrocketing over the last several decades. Yet, there is little evidence that this massive expansion in administration and services has improved students’ academic experience.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report “How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges” detailing how administrative positions and spending at colleges and universities have grown disproportionately over the last several decades. Report author Paul Weinstein Jr., Senior Fellow at PPI, outlines the reasons administrative expenses and personnel at post-secondary institutions are rising and specifically reviewed faculty versus non-faculty positions at the top 50 universities in the country.

The report finds that on average, the top universities have only 1 faculty member per 11 students and by contrast, the same institutions have 1 non-faculty employee per 4 students. In fact, Weinstein finds that three universities on the list, California Institute of Technology, Duke University, and the University of California at San Diego have more non-faculty employees than students.

“The results of this research underscore that non-faculty employees at universities, both public and private, have grown considerably and without necessary oversight, under college presidents and their boards,” said Paul Weinstein Jr. “While some of this growth may have been necessary, there is no doubt that much of it has not.”

To address this growing issue and encourage universities to pass some of the savings on to students, Weinstein proposes to trim the number of non-faculty positions by 1% per year over the next five years. He also suggests that the federal government should shift its focus from increasing financial aid to using its leverage to encourage colleges and universities to reduce costs and lower tuition. Weinstein recommends that the government should be given the authority to negotiate the costs of tuition and fees with any post-secondary institution that accepts students who have received either grants, loans, or tax incentives from the federal government.

Read and download the report. 

 

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION

America’s colleges and universities are at a crossroads. The number of schools closing their doors continues to grow driven by the declining number of students pursuing a bachelor’s. This situation is expected to worsen because of a number of factors.

• Starting in 2025 the U.S. will face the so-called “enrollment cliff,” in which the population of college aid students will drop by 15% over four years. Colleges can expect to lose over 575,000 students over that four-year time span.

• The strong labor market has led more high school graduates to delay indefinitely their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree.

• Young Americans have become increasingly skeptical of the value of a college degree. The rising cost of college and the amount of debt students are required to take in order to graduate has re-enforced this viewpoint.

In the past when faced with funding shortfalls, colleges and universities have attempted to “grow their way” out of the problem. Many offered new graduate programs, including terminal master’s degrees (no doctoral option) and certificates. Purdue University, under former President Mitch Daniels, purchased the mostly for-profit Kaplan University in 2017 and turned it into Purdue Global, with approximately 30,000 online students paying full price. Other colleges and universities also began increasing their online offerings to expand their access to a larger number of part-time graduate students. But unlike Daniels and Purdue — who used the revenue to hold undergraduate tuition flat for a decade — most schools simply used the funds to avoid making tough choices such as cutting expenses.

Other approaches included the recruitment of international students interested in pursuing a degree at an elite American college, particularly wealthy Chinese students. At present, there are around 290,086 Chinese students attending university in the U.S., with another 199,182 from India.

But growth strategies won’t work as effectively going forward. Most leading universities now have extensive online programs and in recent years the number of international students coming to study in the U.S. has begun to recede as more options become available elsewhere. While some elite universities can increase the number of undergraduates they enroll, others, particularly those that are more tuition-dependent, will be forced to close or merge with other institutions.

There is another alternative, however, which is for schools to streamline their costs and pass some of the savings on to students in the form of increased scholarships, lower tuition, or a combination of both. Specifically, colleges could cut non-faculty positions by 1% per year over the next five years and use the savings to reduce tuition.

For several decades, higher education has experienced a significant upswing in administrative spending and it is projected to continue to grow by seven percent over the next 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Non-instructional spending, which includes spending on administration and student services, outpaced instructional spending from 2010 to 2018, according to the Council of Trustees and Alumni. During that period spending on student services rose a sizable 29% and administrative costs increased 19%, while instructional spending only rose 17% by comparison.

Not only did spending for administration and student services increase, so too did the number of employees in those areas. Between 1976 and 2018, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by 92%, during which time total student enrollment increased by 78%. During this same period, however, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively.

There is little evidence that the dramatic expansion in staffing for administrative and student services improved students’ academic experience. In fact, some observers contend that the explosion in non-faculty has made it harder for faculty to educate students. In part, because many of these administrators have to justify their existence by creating more regulations and processes. As Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University has noted, “The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is, literally, nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing.

READ THE FULL REPORT.

 

Pankovits for The Messenger: How Democrats Can Turn the Tables on Republicans’ Education Politics

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Tressa Pankovits

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965. It’s one of the most important education-related pieces of legislation ever passed, in no small part because of its Title I provision.

House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee just voted to gut Title I. Specifically, they want to slash an astonishing 80% of its budget. With a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden’s veto pen ready, House Republicans have zero chance of enacting this funding cut. Democrats should waste no time making hay out of their maleficence.

Johnson designed Title I as “the” federal funding vehicle to help close skill gaps in reading, writing and math between urban and rural children from low-income households, and middle or upper-class children in suburban school systems. Johnson considered the U.S. poverty level a national disgrace that demanded a national response. He understood that poor children were not at fault for their socioeconomic status and, without resources dedicated to equalizing educational opportunity, many would be condemned to a life of hardship and want.

Now, without the safeguard of a Democratic Senate and White House, Republicans’ proposed Title I budget would kick 220,000 teachers out of classrooms and kneecap learning for millions of children. House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), while arguing in favor of the bill, acknowledged, “While Title I funds are distributed to school districts everywhere, including rural schools in districts like my own, these funds disproportionally support big-city public schools, the same public schools that failed to educate the most vulnerable children entrusted to them by closing their doors for almost two years.”

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on July 31, 2023.

RAS Reports Podcast Series Lands at Essence Fest!

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Beyoncé is right. Who runs the world? Girls!

Black women are the decision makers at home and a driving force in educational advocacy in our communities so it’s only right that Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) — a project housed at the Progressive Policy Institute — and our RAS Reports podcast traveled to New Orleans to immerse ourselves in the largest collection of Black women in America…Essence Fest.

Black women have always been leaders in the fight for educational equity from the classroom to the courtroom. From educator and school founder Mary McLeod Bethune to attorney and advocate Constance Baker Motley, Black women have led the way in the age-old fight for the right to education in America.

Book banning, anti-diversity training legislation, and the rolling back of Affirmative Action in higher education threatens to reverse much of the progress Black women fought and died for a generation ago. And yet, Black women persist.

The fight continues for women like former DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. Henderson recently founded Reconstruction, an effort to help students see history and education in a broader context that resonates with their culture and identity. For Steph Walters, leading Team Yellow — the brainchild of artist and producer Pharrell Williams — and their Engagement and Communication work is key to growing their network of micro-schools.

It’s no surprise to those who’ve been paying attention…Black women are winning.

Naomi Shelton is no different. As CEO of the National Charter Collaborative, Naomi is changing the game in how to grow a new generation of charter school leaders of color. And for Crystal Gilliam and Tracey Clark of 4.0, the work can’t wait. At 4.0, Gilliam and Clark are a driving force in providing coaching, curriculum, community, and cash to women leaders with the imagination to create a more equitable education ecosystem.

Started in 1995 by Essence Magazine to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the magazine’s first publication, Essence Fest is the single largest festival in America…period! In 2022, Essence Fest recorded a daily attendance rate of 176,000 attendees and welcomed over 500,000 attendees over the course of the 3-day event. In comparison, South by Southwest (SXSW) welcomed less than 300,000 attendees over a five-day period in 2022.

The energy and impact of Essence Fest was the perfect location for our latest podcast series, titled The Future is Woman. The line-up of guests included some of the brightest and most innovative minds in education discussing their organizations, their ideas, and the tremendous impact Black women play in driving their work.

The Future of Woman series is a must for those who need to hear from those at the forefront of innovation in education or for those leading organizations seeking new ideas to the same old issues.

Famed Capital Prep Charter School founder Dr. Steve Perry said it best, “I could not do what I do without Black women.” After listening to our five-part series, I’ll believe you’ll agree.

Guests include:

  • Episode 1: Steve Perry, Capital Prep Charter Schools
  • Episode 2: Steph Walters, Team Yellow
  • Episode 3: Crystal Gilliam and Tracey Clark, 4.0
  • Episode 4: Naomi Shelton, National Charter Collaborative
  • Episode 5: Kaya Henderson, Reconstruction

 

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST SERIES HERE!

Ritz for Forbes: College Affordability Requires Cutting Costs, Not Canceling More Debt

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Ben Ritz

The past two months have made clear that President Biden’s approach to making higher education more affordable isn’t working. First, bipartisan majorities of both the U.S. House and Senate voted to block his debt cancellation policies. Then, shortly after Biden thwarted that effort with his veto pen, the Supreme Court ruled that his attempt to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower was an illegal overreach of executive authority.

Biden responded to the setback by announcing two debt-cancellation schemes shortly after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The first was the finalization of a new income-driven repayment (IDR) plan known as the SAVE plan. Biden also announced he would start a new process under the Higher Education Act to cancel more debt “for as many borrowers as possible, as fast as possible” through executive action.

Read more in Forbes.

Marshall for NYDN: Colleges without affirmative action: What the schools must do now

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Will Marshall

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has brushed aside its own precedents to achieve a long-sought conservative goal — banning race-conscious college admissions. Unlike last year’s inflammatory decision overturning abortion rights, however, this ruling is likely to be popular.

Americans have been leery of race, ethnic and gender preferences since the Nixon administration first introduced them in 1969. According to a recent YouGov poll, two-thirds of the public say colleges shouldn’t factor race into their admissions decisions. Majorities of whites, Hispanics and women take that view, as does a plurality of Blacks, Democrats and liberals.

But polls don’t quite settle the issue. Neither will the court’s ruling that the University of North Carolina violated the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause and Harvard violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by using race as one of several factors in deciding which students to admit.

The court’s ruling only applies to affirmative action in college admissions. Programs that put a thumb on the scale for women and minorities seeking jobs as cops or firefighters, in competition for government contracts and radio licenses, and for private sector jobs are pervasive — and remain controversial.

Keep reading in the New York Daily News.

PPI Urges Dems to Pursue More Responsible Higher Ed Policy After SCOTUS Cancels Debt Cancellation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Ben Ritz, Director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future, released the following statement in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Biden administration’s attempt to unilaterally cancel up to $20,000 per borrower:

“The Supreme Court has officially ruled what we have known for some time now: U.S. presidents have no constitutional authority to unilaterally spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars without Congressional approval. The Court’s decision comes after bipartisan majorities in both the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate voted to overturn the president’s attempt to unilaterally cancel over $400 billion of student debt.

“The message to the president from his co-equal branches of government couldn’t be clearer: it is time to move on from this misguided effort. Even if the president’s action were constitutional, there is no sound policy justification for asking Americans who don’t get the benefits of a college education to pay for the debts of those who do.

“We hope the White House will work with Congress on comprehensive solutions to ensure pathways to well-paying jobs are affordable and accessible for all. That means making real reforms to curtail the skyrocketing cost of college rather than using taxpayer funds to paper over the problem, expanding skills-based training options for non-degree students, and offering limited debt relief targeted only toward those most in need.”

PPI recently published a data-driven report on why the far left’s obsession with canceling student debt is deeply misguided and worsens the “diploma divide” in America.

PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future works to promote a fiscally responsible public investment agenda that fosters robust and inclusive economic growth. It tackles issues of public finance in the United States and offers innovative proposals to strengthen public investments in the foundation of our economy, modernize health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society, and transform our tax code to reward work over wealth.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

Marshall for The Hill: Red states take aim at public schools

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Will Marshall

The states, said Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, are America’s “laboratories of democracy.” Today’s red-state Republicans see them differently — as staging grounds for cultural revolution.

Despite polls showing that most Americans favor legal abortion, 15 Republican-controlled states have passed laws depriving women of their reproductive rights. They are also targeting the nation’s public schools.

So far this year, 10 red states have enacted laws expanding school vouchers and similar subsidies to private schools. Arizona, Iowa, Utah, Oklahoma and Florida have gone farther, passing “universal voucher” bills that allow even the wealthiest families to collect public dollars for private schooling.

Republican support for vouchers isn’t new, of course. In the past, however, conservatives at least pretended to be concerned about low-income and minority parents whose children are trapped in bad urban schools. Now it’s clear their idea of “school choice” is to give all U.S. families with children financial incentives to exit public schools.

Read more in The Hill.

From Innovative Schools to State Law: PPI’s RAS Project Hosts Event, Releases Report Highlighting Success of the RSIZ and its Rural Students

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

A first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation high school model is making such a tremendous impact in Texas that the Texas State Legislature has just passed a bill to incentivize its replication in rural school districts statewide. The “Rural Schools Innovation Zone” (RSIZ) is a formal collaboration between three rural school districts. Focused on college attainment and career pathways for the 21st-century job market, the RSIZ is opening doors to postsecondary opportunities for rural students in ways previously impossible.

In an effort to amplify the success of this groundbreaking, rural school collaborative ⎯ and to bring the RSIZ to the attention of state and federal policymakers nationwide who represent rural families and industries ⎯ Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) Reinventing America’s Schools Project (RAS) today released a detailed report titled “Reinventing Rural Education: The Rural Schools Innovation Zone,” specifying the unique challenges rural schools face and how the RSIZ meets those challenges while expanding career pathways and workforce preparation for students. Report author Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools, outlines designing and implementing RSIZ and discusses how this model could be successful in other rural parts of the country.

“Traveling to southern Texas, I saw firsthand how the Rural Schools Innovation Zone prepared its students for success, said Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools. “The RSIZ collaboration in Texas should be a blueprint for other rural school districts across the country that aspire to give their students the opportunity to graduate with college credits and industry certifications that qualify them for jobs with family-sustaining wages. The RSIZ model is also designed to help rural communities keep up with the demand for skilled workers and revitalize rural communities.”

Nearly one in five U.S. students attend a rural school, but rural schools are often left behind in policy discussions due to their unique challenges. Seeking to rectify that, the Reinventing America’s Schools Project today hosted a delegation of students, educators, and administrators from the RSIZ to travel to Capitol Hill and host a panel discussion where the students shared their experiences possible through the RSIZ. The panel also included Alyssa Morton, CEO and Partner at Empower Schools, who discussed how her organization has played a vital role in launching and continuing to support ongoing success at the RSIZ. 

During their visit to Capitol Hill with PPI, the attendees from the RSIZ also had the opportunity to directly engage with members and staff from their local congressional delegation. Alicia Seagraves, Senior Legislative Assistant for U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28), attended the event and provided welcoming remarks on behalf of the Congressman’s office. After the event, the RSIZ group and PPI met with U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34). Both Representatives Cuellar and Gonzalez represent areas of the RSIZ in Congress.

Read the full report here.

Educators, students, and administrators from the RSIZ, along with report author Tressa Pankovits, stand with U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34).

The Reinventing America’s Schools Project inspires a 21st century model of public education geared to the knowledge economy. Two models, public charter schools and public innovation schools, are showing the way by providing autonomy for schools, accountability for results, and parental choice among schools tailored to the diverse learning styles of children. The project is co-led by Curtis Valentine and Tressa Pankovits.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org 

Reinventing Rural Education: The Rural Schools Innovation Zone

Posted on by Alyssa Brown
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS WORKING TOGETHER TO MAXIMIZE STUDENTS’ COLLEGE AND CAREER PATHWAYS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. students attend rural schools. That’s about 9.3 million kids. Yet, during policy discussions, rural schools’ unique challenges are often eclipsed by those of their urban and suburban counterparts. This report is a case study of an innovative, replicable public education experiment at three rural Texas high schools called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ). This first-of-its-kind experiment is a collaboration between three rural school districts focusing on college attainment and career pathways for the 21st-century job market.

It is proving so successful that the Texas state legislature passed a bill designating funding to incentivize more school districts to adopt the model. The bill became law on June 2, 2023. Texas’ significant step forward for equity and rural workforce development deserves national attention.

By raw numbers, Texas is responsible for educating more rural students than any other state, given its vast metropolises, but it isn’t even among the top 10 states with the largest percentage of rural students. The 2018-2019 Report of the Rural Schools and Community Trust found that rural public schools account for more than half of schools in 12 states. In Vermont (55%) and Maine (54%), more than half of students live in non-metro areas. In 18 other states, rural students account for 30% to 49% of the student population. Those states are spread through every geographic region in the country. More American students attend rural schools than the largest 85 school districts combined.

And, rural schools are becoming more diverse, gaining more English as a second language (ESL) and special education students in recent years, while seeing White rural students decrease by 3%. Today, nearly one-in-three rural students are non-White.

While rural demographics are changing, rural poverty is stubborn. According to the most recent estimates from the 2019 American Community Survey, the non-metro poverty rate was 15.4% in 2019, compared with 11.9% in metro areas. Poverty is more severe for rural children and minorities. Almost 23% of rural children under the age of 18 live in poverty, compared to just under 17.7% of non-rural children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30.7% of rural Black Americans, 29.6% of American Indian/Alaska natives, and 21.7% of rural Hispanic Americans live in poverty, compared to 12.7% of White rural citizens. The Rural School and Community Trust report found that nationwide, the communities surrounding schools in rural districts on average had a household income of just 2.68 times the poverty line.

Those statistics point to the urgency of the need to improve school systems that serve rural students. Providing regionally relevant career and technical education (CTE) is especially important, as 42% of rural Americans say finding a job is a major concern, while only 39% of them are willing to move from home to find work. Innovating to provide rural high school students with equitable access to college and/or career readiness opportunities for regionally available jobs is a national imperative that requires us to think in new ways and to try new things. Traditional, one-size-fits-all school districts must yield to more flexible programming.

This is why it is worthy to discuss the successful experiment just codified into state law in Texas. The goal of this case study is to explain and publicize the initiative, called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ), in the hopes that other states with significant rural populations may consider it as a tool for combating challenges, including institutional stagnation, isolation, underfunding, and generational poverty, that prevent rural school students from graduating college or career ready.

The report is organized into the following sections:

• Presenting the Rural Schools Innovations Zone (RSIZ) as a 21st-century model for expanding career pathways and preparation, including early credit and industry certification components;

• Quantifying the challenges rural schools experience;

• Understanding the RSIZ career pathways and early college “academies”;

• Designing and implementing the RSIZ collaboration between three independent school districts:

– Structuring the governance and leadership framework;
– Aligning career pathways to the local economy;
– Student recruitment;
– Student outcomes

• Operating the RSIZ:

– Finance and funding streams;
– Human capital;
– Scheduling and transportation;
– Data sharing;

• Codifying the RSIZ collaborative and conclusion.

Read the full report.

How Student Debt Forgiveness Widens the Diploma Divide

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION

In August of last year, President Biden announced an ambitious plan to wipe out more than $400 billion of student loan debt for the nation’s borrowers. Individuals with incomes below $125,000 (and couples with combined incomes below $250,000) could receive up to $10,000 of loan forgiveness, with former Pell Grant recipients receiving up to $20,000. Speaking about his plan less than a week before the midterm elections, the president made it clear who he was trying to help.

“I want to state again who will benefit most: working people and middle-class folks,” he declared in a speech at Central New Mexico Community College (CNMCC).

Given the skyrocketing costs of higher education, some borrowers — particularly those with low incomes and those who were scammed by for-profit colleges — genuinely need assistance. But portraying student loan forgiveness as a working-class issue is highly misleading. In fact, data on student borrowing shows that debt relief benefits few working-class families, most of whom never attended college in the first place.

This paper dives deeply into the evidence on the economic impact of student loan forgiveness. As the paper shows, proposals from political progressives to forgive all student loan debt (or large amounts such as $50,000 of debt) overwhelmingly benefit affluent Americans. President Biden departed from these more elitist proposals, yet his decision to forgive even a more limited amount is still puzzling. At a time when the economic returns to education are rising and the Democratic Party is losing noncollege voters, it makes little sense to target government aid to people who attended college.

The noncollege workers who do not benefit from the President’s plan are certainly in greater need of support than student loan borrowers.

The paper goes on to examine the question of why the Democratic Party — traditionally the party of working-class people — has become so focused on canceling student loans. One possibility is that Democratic lawmakers are ensconced in a D.C. bubble. The nation’s highest student loan balances are found in Washington, and these borrowers would benefit more from President Biden’s forgiveness plan than borrowers in 49 out of 50 states. In short, many in the party establishment seem to be conflating the problems of highly educated college graduates — an elite class of Americans — with those of working-class people.

This is not to deny that the cost of college has become a significant problem in recent decades. Over the past 19 years, consumer prices have risen 59%, and per capita personal incomes have doubled (in nominal dollars). By contrast, prices for college textbooks have risen 122%, and college tuition (net of grant aid) has gone up 124%.6 This means that a typical family would have found it more difficult to finance a college education in 2022 than in 2003. Some students understandably forego college entirely, while those who attend are stuck with high bills.

Unsurprisingly, many households have turned to the student loan system. Between the first quarter of 2003 and the fourth quarter of 2022, student loan debt held by consumers increased from $392 billion to $1.6 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars).7 Student loans also rose from 3.3% of all consumer debt to 9.4% over the same period.

However, the financial burdens of college do not justify widespread student debt relief. If funded through higher taxes, the costs of student loan cancellation will be borne by taxpayers; if funded through higher borrowing, loan cancellation will increase economic demand, thereby raising prices for consumers. Either way, the cost of student debt cancellation will fall on members of the general public, most of whom do not have four-year degrees.

There are better ways of helping working-class Americans. As the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has advocated, the government should invest more in apprenticeships, job training, and career pathways for noncollege workers, who generally have lower wages than college-educated workers. Lawmakers should also dramatically increase the size of the Pell Grant (thus helping students from low-income families) and craft policies aimed at reducing administrative bloat at universities (which would reduce expenses and thus tuition). These policies would boost the employment and wages of noncollege workers while also making college more affordable for ordinary families.

It’s no secret that Democrats have lost support among working-class voters in recent elections. Forgiving student debt only reifies the image of Democrats as beholden to the interests of the educational elite. Until the party puts forth pragmatic solutions to the pocketbook issues facing ordinary people, they are likely to continue losing ground among the exact voters Democrats claim to support.

READ THE FULL REPORT.