Join the Reinventing America’s Schools Project on Wednesday, September 29th at 1:00 PM EST for a one-hour Zoom webinar on the Science of Reading and its impact on creating effective reading recovery programs.
Tune in to learn strategies for programmatic and policy success to close achievement gaps in literacy exacerbated during the COVID pandemic.
The webinar is part of a series co-sponsored by Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) Project, The 74, and Education Reform Now (ERN) in Washington, DC.
Panelists will include:
Dr. Kymyona Burk, ExcelinEd
Mary Clayman, DC Reading Clinic
Cassandra Gentry, DC PAVE
Dr. Michael Durant, Academy of Hope Adult Charter School
Rep. Allister Chang, DC State Board of Education
Christina Grant, State Superintendent, Washington, DC
Moderator: Curtis Valentine, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.
Join us for an engaging talk on what experts at the national, district, and school levels have learned, and get their advice for other traditional public schools and public charter school districts.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute’s Reinventing America’s Schools project released a new report titled, “Black Minds Matter: What Should Our Leaders Do About Failing Schools?” The report is authored by David Osborne, Director Emeritus of the Reinventing America’s Schools project. To sum up its argument:
“The task for state policymakers is simple: They must give districts a tool they can use, in the form of legislation to allow innovation zones, and incentives to use that tool. If they ignore this opportunity, they will sentence millions of poor children to inadequate educations that, for most, will result in lifetimes of poverty. That is the true civil rights issue of our time,” said David Osborne in the report.
Millions of children — many of them Black or Brown — languish in low-performing schools, where they are less likely to develop the skills or habits necessary to get into college or the military. Since 1989, 29 states have passed legislation allowing state takeovers of failing school districts, but most have not been very successful.
The report urges state leaders to create “innovation zones,” in which schools have the flexibility they need to improve and are held accountable for student learning. Osborne suggests appointing a zone oversight board that can replace schools and/or administrators if they fail or help them replicate their education models if they succeed. He outlines different innovation school models and provides actionable recommendations for zones and local leaders to support learning for all students.
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.
The Reinventing America’s Schools project inspires a 21st century model of public education geared to the knowledge economy. One model, charter 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.
For much of the last two decades, beginning with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, our top political leaders have shown concern about children stuck in failing public schools. NCLB required districts to do something — not enough, but something — about those schools. Presidents George W. Bush and Obama both called education “the civil rights issue of our time.” And President Barrack Obama’s Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants created incentives for states and districts to act.
Some states went further than others. New Jersey and Massachusetts took over entire school districts. Louisiana created a Recovery School District (RSD) to take failing schools from their districts and hand them to charter operators. Indiana passed a law allowing the state Department of Education to do the same. Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina, and Nevada emulated Louisiana’s RSD, to one degree or another.
Predictably, the bureaucracy fought back. School boards, district administrators, and teachers unions all objected. Adult jobs were at risk, after all, and adults vote, while children don’t. In 2015 Congress backed down, replacing NCLB with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which, despite its name, significantly reduced the pressure on districts to do anything meaningful about failing schools. As the teachers unions ramped up their pressure, Michigan killed off its takeover district, Georgia’s governor tried to create a takeover district but was defeated at the polls, Nevada killed off its Achievement School District, and North Carolina’s Innovative School District took over just one school. Just recently, the Indiana legislature repealed its legislation authorizing the state to take over failing schools.
Yet millions of children still languish in low-performing schools, where they are less likely to develop the skills or habits necessary to get into college or the military or succeed in anything but low-paying jobs. Most of them are from low-income families, many of them Black or Brown.
This should be a national scandal. In the era of Black Lives Matter, it should be the civil rights issue of the day. But with the glare of publicity focused on other, equally appalling problems — on police officers who kill unarmed Blacks and legislatures that restrict voting rights — it is not. That’s a tragedy, because Black minds matter, too.
If you are a governor, legislator, education commissioner, or district leader who wants to help low-income and minority children get a decent education, what can you do? We still have far too many schools that fail their students year after year. Is increased “support” of the kind suggested by ESSA enough to generate significantly better outcomes? Not often, according to the research data.
Takeover districts with wholesale replacement of existing schools can work, but the political backlash they unleash makes elected leaders leery of them. In their absence, state leaders should do two things. First, make it painful for districts to let their worst schools stagnate, by closing them, handing them to nonprofit operators, or appointing a new school board. Experience shows that district leaders will scramble to avoid such outcomes. Second, give districts an attractive path to turn those schools around by encouraging them to create “innovation zones,” in which schools have the flexibility they need to change, and ensuring that those schools are accountable for performance by appointing a zone oversight board that can replace them if they fail or help them replicate if they succeed. The zone board’s job would be to do whatever it takes to turn the schools around: bring in new principals, replace staff — replace everyone at the school, if needed — even bring in a proven outside operator, such as a charter management organization, to run the school. States should encourage this with a carrot: roughly $1,000 extra per pupil, per year, for zone schools, for the first three-to-five years.
An independent, appointed zone board, organized as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization, would ensure that when schools continue to struggle, something is done about it. Typically, when this happens, boards replace principals. If failure continues for several years, they should have the authority to replace entire schools. Elected school boards have proven reluctant to replace schools, for fear of the blowback. Turnout at school board elections is often under 10%, which means a few hundred angry voters can defeat a board member. And nothing creates angry voters quite like closing and replacing a familiar neighborhood school, even if it’s doing a poor job.
We have learned, over the past three decades, that with few exceptions, real change will not occur unless it is driven by local leaders. Innovation zones are locally owned: They require approval by the elected school board, their members are usually prominent local civic, community, and philanthropic leaders, and some of the schools remain in the hands of local principals. The zones give local leaders a workable structure, and the carrot and stick give them an incentive to act. Such zones are succeeding in cities as diverse as Springfield, Massachusetts, South Bend, Indiana, Los Angeles, and several Texas cities: Waco, Ft. Worth, and Lubbock. Other places are even using them to help a group of decent schools go from good to great.
Creating effective innovation zones is not necessarily easy. But after decades of trying different strategies to help children trapped in failing schools, it appears to be our best bet.
WHAT HAS NOT WORKED
Between 1989 and 1995, New Jersey pioneered a new strategy to deal with districts full of failing schools: state takeover of school districts in Jersey City, Paterson and Newark. Since 1989, 29 states have passed legislation allowing such takeovers, and at least 22 have tried it. Most have not been very successful. Only in cases where those appointed by the state have a clear improvement strategy and the political power to impose it has takeover yielded significant improvement.
Massachusetts had some success when it helped Boston University take over Chelsea’s school system in the late 1980s. Almost 25 years later, the state took over the Lawrence schools and also produced significant improvement. In contrast, New Jersey’s takeover districts languished for decades. Only when the state embraced rapid expansion of charter schools as its strategy in Newark did that district begin to turn around. New Jersey then pursued the same strategy in Camden, with equally significant results.
But most takeovers come with no coherent strategy and achieve little. Legislators in both parties are pushing to repeal Ohio’s takeover law, and in most states, the current political climate makes takeover a non-starter.
In 2003, Louisiana pioneered another approach. Its legislature created the Recovery School District (RSD), a statewide school district to take over failing schools and hand them to charter operators. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it voted to place more than 100 New Orleans public schools — all those performing below the state average — in the RSD. As I documented in Reinventing America’s Schools, this strategy produced the most rapid improvement of any city in the nation.
Governors and legislators in other states took note, and soon there were bills to emulate the RSD in a handful of other states. In Michigan, the governor created the Educational Achievement Authority in 2011, but he could never persuade the legislature to authorize it or fund it properly, so it remained small and unsuccessful, until the legislature killed it. Virginia passed a bill creating an Opportunity Education Institute in 2013, but the courts ruled it unconstitutional, “because it was created by the general assembly rather than by the state board of education, and because it superseded local district control,” as one analyst summed it up. Nevada passed an Achievement School District in 2015, but it was underfunded and the Democrats abolished it as soon as they took control of the legislature in 2019. North Carolina passed a similar bill in 2016 but limited the new district to five schools, and by 2021 it had taken charge of only one school, amid considerable pushback from districts. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal proposed an “Opportunity School District” and secured a two-thirds vote in the legislature to put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment in 2016. But after an expensive campaign against it by the teachers unions, 60% of voters opposed it.
The one robust effort to emulate the RSD occurred in Tennessee. In 2010, Tennessee’s legislature created an Achievement School District (ASD), to take over the state’s worst schools. The bill also allowed districts to create innovation zones for low-performing schools and grant them significant flexibilities. Because this strategy showed such promise in its early years, it is worth examining its experience in some detail.
TENNESSEE’S ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL DISTRICT AND INNOVATION ZONES
Tennessee’s strategy was particularly aggressive in Memphis. By 2016 the ASD had taken over 29 of Memphis’s more than 150 district-operated schools. The ASD turned 23 of these schools over to charter operators, recruited from all over the country, and ran six itself. Unlike Memphis’s other charters, ASD charters were neighborhood schools, not schools of choice. Their students were among the poorest in the district, both in terms of finances and academic performance.
Meanwhile Shelby County Schools (SCS), Memphis’ school district, had moved 21 schools into an Innovation Zone, on its own initiative. In its “iZone”, as it quickly became known, the district lengthened the school day by an hour, using federal School Improvement Grant funds to pay for it. After that money ran out before the 2015-16 school year, the district turned to grants, donations, and its regular budget.
District leaders recruited their best principals to take over iZone schools and gave them the authority to hire staff, and those principals recruited the best teachers they knew. Teachers could earn bonuses based on student performance, and their schools provided intensive support and coaching. Principals were not constrained by union contracts, because Tennessee teachers no longer had collective bargaining rights. All teachers had to re-apply for their jobs once their school entered the iZone, a reality that led to hundreds of layoffs. But once a teacher was rehired and had tenure, firing was still difficult.
There were other limits on autonomy: iZone schools had only about half the autonomy a charter school enjoyed. Principals didn’t control most of their budgets, for instance, and they could choose their own curricula and assessments only if their first-year test scores were above a certain threshold.
But both the ASD and the iZone thrived in their first three years. ASD schools struggled during their first year with high student turnover and discipline issues, but later improved. Tennessee uses a Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) to measure student growth, which factors in students’ socioeconomic status. It rates schools on a scale of one (slowest growth) to five (fastest). In 2015, second- and third-year ASD schools averaged level five, while first-year schools averaged level one.
Innovation Zone schools showed faster academic growth than the ASD for their first two years, but in 2014-15 the ASD outpaced them. By 2016, seven iZone schools had improved enough to jump off the “priority list” — the bottom 5% of schools in the state, by performance. Unfortunately, those results came at the expense of district schools that lost talented principals and teachers to the iZone. Predictably, they showed declining performance.
Still, the combination of the iZone and the ASD gave Memphis a more aggressive strategy to deal with its worst public schools than almost any other city. Of the 69 priority schools identified in Memphis in 2012, by 2016 only a handful had escaped some intervention: 28 had been taken over by the ASD, 21 had been moved into the iZone, and 13 had either been closed or consolidated with other schools.
But taking over schools and closing schools generates fierce political resistance, and Memphis was no exception. As a result, according to Chris Barbic, the ASD’s first superintendent, by 2015 Governor Bill Haslem had retreated from his initial support for such aggressive strategies. Disappointed, state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman departed, and his successor, Candice McQueen, was more intent on mollifying superintendents and principals than taking over schools. Reading the tea leaves, Barbic left the ASD in early 2016. The commissioner never allowed Barbic’s replacement to follow through on ASD plans to spin off its direct-run schools into a new charter management organization, nor to replace struggling ASD schools with stronger operators. Nor did the state place any more failing schools in the ASD. Its performance stagnated — some ASD schools excelled, others lagged far behind. Within a few years, many in the state considered it a failure.
It is good to see a pragmatic Democrat following the data. The percentage of total COVID-19 cases represented by children is growing: 14.3% in the week ended Aug. 5, compared with less than 2% for most of 2020. Until the vaccine is available to children under 12, more states should follow California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new requirement that all public school teachers to get fully vaccinated or face frequent testing. The option to remain “unvaccinated but frequently tested” should be limited to school staff with valid medical exemptions. Unvaccinated adults working in public schools, paid with public dollars, have no place contributing to the current public health crisis caused by a rampant variant that not only puts kids in harm’s way, but continues to mutate in the unvaccinated.
Children — even the vast majority who have remained physically healthy — have suffered too much in this this pandemic. With schools shuttered for significant periods spanning two school years, they have been isolated from teachers, friends, and other role models. They have been barred from sports and extracurricular activities. Some have missed meals usually provided by their school. Many have been unsupervised in households where parents are required to work in person; they have suffered through COVID-caused deaths of older relatives, and so on. We may not know the full extent of the trauma for years.
The safest and healthiest place for students to be is in school — even before academics are taken into consideration. Learning loss is real — and it exacerbates existing inequities in our public education systems. Using the imperfect but best data available, McKinsey & Company translated 2021’s spring in-school test scores of more than 1.6 million elementary school students across 40 states into “months of lost learning.” It found, compared to similar students in previous years, students on average were five months behind in math and four months behind in reading. Students in majority-Black and predominantly low-income schools were even further behind their higher-income and suburban peers, as were younger students. When considering the huge strides first and second graders usually make in learning to read, and the importance of literacy to future school work, recent reports putting those 2021 students’ average two grade levels or more behind schedule are alarming.
Newsom — unlike a handful of Republican governors who are kicking and screaming in opposition to common sense safety measures — recognizes our urgent national imperative: Ensuring our public schools open, remain open, and operate as safely as possible this fall. His decision follows the Biden administration and Congress’ leadership on this enormous task. They have sent almost $200 billion in aid to the nation’s public schools to help them rise to the challenge. Those dollars flow through the states before reaching districts and schools. The stakes are far too high to leave districts free to take the money, but ignore science and common sense.
We applaud California’s governor for being the adult in his state on this issue. The other 49 should waste no time following suit.
Tressa Pankovits is Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools Project at Progressive Policy Institute.
As the delta variant drives up infection rates in every state in the nation, Americans face an urgent national imperative: Making sure our public schools open and operate safely this fall. We can’t allow our children to suffer another round of large-scale learning losses as they did the previous two school years.
Learning loss is real — and it exacerbates existing inequities in our public education systems. Using the imperfect but best data available, McKinsey & Company translated 2021’s spring in-school test scores of more than 1.6 million elementary school students across 40 states into “months of lost learning.” It found, compared to similar students in previous years, students on average were five months behind in math and four months behind in reading. Students in majority-Black and predominantly low-income schools were even further behind their higher-income and suburban peers, as were younger students. When considering the huge strides first and second graders usually make in learning to read, and the importance of literacy to future school work, recent reports putting those 2021 students’ average two grade levels or more behind schedule are alarming.
To avoid compounding such losses, schools must safely reopen their classrooms for in-person instruction for students of all ages. At the onset of the pandemic, in their haste to slow the spread of the virus, state and local governments too frequently closed public schools for prolonged periods as a first resort, rather than as a last measure. The second back-to-school under COVID must be different.
Join us on Wednesday, August 4th at 1:00 PM EST for a one-hour Zoom webinar with the leaders who will shape the next chapter in the fight for educational equity in America. In a follow-up to our celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the passage of the first charter school law in America, we look forward 30 years. What will America’s public school system look like in 2050? What should we be fighting for? Who should be at the table driving change? Tune in to learn from experts who are taking steps to shape the future of Black & Brown students in America.
The webinar is the first in a series co-sponsored by Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) Project and The 74.
Panelists will include:
Alisha Thomas Morgan, Former State Representative, Georgia
Dr. Charles Cole, Founder, Energy Convertors
Naomi Shelton,CEO, National Charter Collaborative
Jada Bolar, Executive Producer, National Parents Union
Patrick Jones, Senior Vice President, The Mind Trust
Moderator: Curtis Valentine, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.
Join us for an engaging talk on what these experts have learned, and get their advice for other public schools and districts.
Save the date for our important conversation on Wednesday, August 4th at 1:00 PM EST.
This week, the Progressive Policy Instituteand the Reinventing America’s Schools Projecthosted a webinar celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first charter school legislation. The event featured a panel of charter school advocates, experts, and trailblazers. Former President Bill Clinton, a longtime advocate of charters, provided a special video message for the event.
The panel discussed the most pressing issues facing charter schools, including what’s next for charter schools in America. The event was co-hosted by The 74 Million.
“Thank you to President Clinton for his leadership in supporting charter schools, and our esteemed panel of leaders and trailblazers for working to provide opportunities to generations of students. It’s because of these advocates that we can celebrate 30 years of charter schools, and look forward to many more years to come,” said Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project.
“Our panel discussion centered on educational equity because providing high quality school options to families of color, especially in America’s urban centers, is an enduring element of the legacy of the past 30 years,” continued Pankovits.
The event was moderated by Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools project, and opening remarks were provided by PPI President Will Marshall. The Panelists for this event included:
Myrna Castrejón, President, California Charter Schools Association
Karega Rausch, President & CEO, NACSA
Ember Reichgott Junge, Former Minnesota State Senator
Paul G. Vallas, Founder, Vallas Group
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.
The Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) project inspires a 21st century model of public education geared to the knowledge economy. One model, charter 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. Learn more about RAS here.
Famed “Reinventing Government” author led PPI’s school reform work
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today announced the retirement of David Osborne, who has directed PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) project since 2014.
“David Osborne has long been one of America’s preeminent thinkers about how to modernize and strengthen progressive governance,” said PPI President Will Marshall. “Under his visionary leadership, PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project has documented the emergence of a new way of organizing public education in the 21st Century.”
As reported in his seminal 2017 book, “Reinventing America’s Schools,” the new model has evolved from the most successful public charter and “innovation” schools that are delivering high-quality learning to children in disadvantaged and minority communities in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, Denver and other U.S. cities. Its hallmarks are school autonomy, customized rather than standardized learning programs, and strong public accountability for results.
Osborne is the author or co-author of many influential books, notably “Reinventing Government”, the 1992 best-seller that inspired the Clinton-Gore administration’s “rego” initiative to create higher performing public agencies.
“I’ve known David since the early 1990s, when we worked together to craft new themes and ideas that defined the “New Democrat” movement of progressive policy, “ said Marshall. “David has a rare talent for combining analytical rigor with compelling story-telling that enables him to reach a wider audience.”
David Osborne provided the following statement on his retirement from the Reinventing America’s Schools project:
“I’m going to miss my colleagues at the Progressive Policy Institute, but I plan to stay involved even as I retire. I will chair our Advisory Council, I’m sure I will continue to write, if less often, and I will continue to work on a documentary on New Orleans’ remarkable education reforms of the past 15 years, which produced the fastest improvement in the nation for a decade. But as I turn 70, I will not miss the eight-hour days at the computer.
“I want to thank PPI President Will Marshall for all his support over the years. Though I only started working at PPI in 2014, our collaboration goes back more than 30 years, and it has been not only a joy but a source of inspiration. I like to think we have nudged the country in the right direction.
“I also want to thank my Reinventing America’s Schools team, which has done yeoman’s work these past years. I have full confidence that they will continue their great work, and I promise to be there to help when needed. Finally, I am deeply grateful to our two largest funders, the Walton Family Foundation and The City Fund. They have done so much over the years to create real opportunity for low-income children, and without them we would never have been able to get this project off the ground.”
Following David’s June 1 retirement, the Reinventing America’s Schools Project will be co-led by Curtis Valentine and Tressa Pankovits. They will be supported by Veronica Goodman, who is adding a new focus on career pathways and school-to-work transitions, as well as Sloane Hurst. Will Marshall will continue to serve in an advisory role.
If you would like to send David your well wishes for his retirement, please send an email by clicking here. You can also tweet out your message and tag @RAS_Education.
About PPI:
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.
Only 7% of high school students and 12% of middle school students have returned to reopened campuses in the Los Angeles school district, sounding alarms about what these figures portend for next fall and highlighting the need for intense intervention when more traditional in-person schooling resumes.
As the school year winds down with the vast majority of students at home online, an uncertain summer and fall back-to-school future is emerging: How soon will families be ready to return children to campus? Will many demand an online option? Will students attend summer school to stem learning loss?
For state Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach), the return data denote a crisis.
“It’s tragic for the future of those students and tragic for the future of California,” said O’Donnell, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. “It means students are not receiving in-classroom instruction — where they learn best. What does this mean for the fall?”
Although officials insist they will act aggressively to help students, the low return rate could intensify pressure on the school district.
Even after L.A. Unified instituted some of the most extensive safety measures in the nation, it was not enough for many families still fearful of the pandemic. Others, especially high school students, rejected the strict limitations on movement, instruction, enrichment activities and socializing and opted to stay with distance learning. For many, the gradual reopenings from mid- to late April were too little, too late — and families chose not to disrupt schedules and obligations so late in the school year, which ends June 11.
The L.A. Unified reopening plan offers both middle and high school students a half-time, on-campus academic schedule that includes no in-person instruction. Instead, students must remain in one classroom, from which they log into their classes. The teacher in the room is instructing other students online in various places. Twice a day for 30 minutes, that teacher will engage directly with the students in the room for an activity to support their social and emotional needs.
The district adopted this approach to limit the mixing of students as they move from class to class, something that many other districts have allowed.
This format was a miscalculation, said Tressa Pankovits, associate director for Reinventing America’s Schools at Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
“If a kid is miserable doing Zoom lessons, why force them to do it in an unfamiliar classroom with a teacher whose attention is on students in another class? It’s a ridiculous proposition, really,” Pankovits said. “It’s inarguable that LAUSD tried too hard to balance the demands from the adults, clearly at the expense of its students.”
Last week, the White House unveiled President Biden’s American Families Plan, which includes $109 billion for two years of free community college with the aim that more Americans have access to a degree or certification. Americans generally support making public colleges and universities tuition free, with the bulk of support coming from women, young people, and Black and Hispanic adults. Already, there are reports from states like Michigan, which launched a free community college program last year, and was inundated with applications and interest. However, policymakers need to ensure that we do not just increase the quantity of degrees, but their quality and how schools help match students with high-value, in-demand credentials linked to the labor market.
The package recognizes that access alone will not improve low completion rates, and alongside the community college expansion, it calls for a $62 billion investment in “evidence-based strategies to strengthen completion and retention rates at community colleges and institutions that serve students” who have historically been unlikely to complete a postsecondary degree. Many community college students do not complete their degrees or end up with credentials with “low labor market value” that can leave students with significant debt and set up to default on their loans.
For decades, community colleges have educated a significant portion of low- and middle-income Americans, yet have historically been underfunded and overlooked compared to public and private four-year colleges. For millions, community colleges have served as their pathway to the middle class and this proposal by the Administration is fulfilling President Biden’s campaign promise to expand economic opportunity for Americans across the distribution. Experts have suggested that with extra funding, community colleges could spur economic mobility if investments go toward career counselors, mental health resources, and academic coaching which would increase enrollment and completion of degrees.
Yet, completion rates alone should not be the measure of success. A key goal of community colleges, and postsecondary education generally, should be the labor market outcomes of their graduating classes. If there is to be an education expansion in community colleges, it should be paired with accountability systems that track outcomes and link funding to programs that are seeing results. Additionally, there needs to be more communication across the network of community colleges as to what practices are working so that evidence can be shared and disseminated widely.
Community colleges in particular are well-poised to build robust partnerships with local employers to place students in high-demand industries with good wages, such as healthcare and information technology. Programs that have apprenticeships, job training, or work-based learning as part of the curriculum have been shown to better set up students for economic success. The American Jobs Plan also proposes a $100 billion investment in workforce development to help connect workers to jobs in the ongoing post-pandemic recovery. These efforts should be coordinated to ensure that U.S. job training and placement programs work much more effectively and reach dislocated workers and those who stand to benefit the most, such as women and Black and Hispanic workers.
Lastly, schools and policymakers should also be thinking outside of the box for how to meet students where they are and community colleges are not always the answer for every student. Many students face challenges at home or at work that make it difficult for them to complete their degrees. New initiatives, such as Degrees of Freedom in Vermont, are experimenting with innovative models to reach low-income and first-generation college students with hybrid late high school, early college experiences. These capitalize on lessons learned from the pandemic, such as virtual learning experiences, to pioneer new approaches.
A college degree will also not be the path to a successful career for every American. In fact, among recent high school graduates ages 16 to 24, 30 percent do not enroll in any postsecondary education, and only 60 percent of students in two- or four-year programs graduate within six years. To that end, President Biden has repeatedly stated that 90 percent of the opportunities created by the American Jobs Plan, a major public investment in expanding apprenticeships and job training programs, do not require a college degree. These are proven non-college career pathways that give more students a path to the middle class. Policymakers will need to consider these in tandem with free community college if we are to offer options to a vast majority of America’s workers.
The Biden administration is right to call for major national investment in educating and training young workers, many of whom have lost a year of their lives to the pandemic. But now it’s time for the administration and Congress to think harder about how to maximize the impact of whatever lawmakers eventually pass. The kind of transformative change that the President is prioritizing requires that we think beyond the old systems of workforce development and education to a more diverse set of career pathways. The focus should be on effective, evidence-based approaches paired with innovation and accountability for results.
On Tuesday, April 27th, PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project hosted a webinar with special guest Rep. Chris Pappas on creating more school-to-work pathways for our students and young adults.
Keynote Speakers:
Rep. Chris Pappas (NH-01)
Jennifer Kemp, Director of Youth Services, U.S. Department of Labor; Office of Workforce Investment
Panel:
Veronica Goodman, Director of Social Policy at PPI
Tressa Pankovits, Associate Director of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project
Jeanne Russell, Executive Director of the Centers for Applied Science and Technology
Cate Swinburn, President of YouthForce NOLA
Ryan Craig, Managing Director of Achieve Partners
On Tuesday, April 27th, PPI hosted a webinar with special guest Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on policies to help women return to the workforce following the devastating effect of the pandemic on women’s labor force participation. Our panel included policy experts on labor, child care, and gender equity.
Keynote Speaker:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Moderator:
Veronica Goodman, Social Policy Director, Progressive Policy Institute
Panel:
Chandra Childers, Study Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research
Elliot Haspel, Author of Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It
Rhonda V. Sharpe, founder & president, Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute and PPI’s Mosaic Economic Project hosted a webinar with special guest Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on policies to help women return to the workforce following the devastating effect of the pandemic on women’s labor force participation.
The panel included esteemed policy experts on labor, child care, and gender and racial equity, including Chandra Childers, Study Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Elliot Haspel, Author of Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It, and Rhonda V. Sharpe, founder & president, Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race.
“The pandemic recession threatens to erase decades of progress in women’s labor force participation, which hasn’t been this low since the 1980s. But we know that even before the pandemic, women and working mothers were not adequately supported and struggling to thrive. That’s especially true of Black and Hispanic female workers. As the White House and President Biden unveil the American Family Plan this week, we hope that policies to support women and working families are top of mind. We also thank Senator Gillibrand for being a tireless advocate for women and families throughout her time in Congress,” said Veronica Goodman, Director of Social Policy at PPI and moderator of the event.
The event covered a wide variety of roadblocks women face when returning to the workforce, including access to paid family leave, affordable child care, workforce development, and expanding apprenticeships and other educational and job training opportunities.
According to the Department of Labor, Black and Hispanic women workers were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, as they are overrepresented in low-paying service sector jobs, which were slower to hire workers back as communities reopen and recover from the pandemic. As of March 2021, almost 1.5 million fewer moms of school-aged children were actively working than in February 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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.
The Mosaic Economic Projectbrings together a network of diverse women who are experts in economics and technology – fields where women’s perspectives are grossly underrepresented. Mosaic trains, connects, hosts and advocates for the network’s participation in meaningful policy influencing conversations, with a particular focus on Congress and the media.
Today, the Progressive Policy Instituteand the Reinventing America’s Schools Projecthosted a webinar with special guest Rep. Chris Pappas (NH-01) on creating more school-to-work pathways for our students and young adults. Congressman Pappas was joined by Jennifer Kemp, Director of Youth Services at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workforce Investment, and an esteemed panel of experts in the subject.
Today’s high school students and young adults face a difficult job market. The COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly hard on less educated workers without a college degree. The 10 million jobs lost by Americans at the pandemic’s onset disproportionately impacted young adults between the ages of 16-24 – especially Black and Hispanic workers. Some estimate that as many as 25% of our youth will neither be in school nor working when the pandemic ends.
Panelists for this event included: Veronica Goodman, Director of Social Policy at PPI; Tressa Pankovits, Associate Director of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project; Jeanne Russell, Executive Director of the Centers for Applied Science and Technology; Cate Swinburn, President of YouthForce NOLA; and Ryan Craig, Managing Director of Achieve Partners.
“The Biden administration, Congress, state and local policymakers have the opportunity to revamp our education system for a 21st-century workforce by creating a more diverse set of career pathways for today’s students. Connecting students to work — such as through career and technical education and work-based learning opportunities — before they graduate high school can be key to their future economic success. We thank Congressman Chris Pappas and Jennifer Kemp of the Department of Labor for all of their work to connect America’s youth to employment,” said Veronica Goodman and Tressa Pankovits of PPI.
This event builds off of PPI’s new report, Preventing Failure to Launch: Creating More School-to-Work Pathways for Young Adults, which argues schools across the country should be incorporating school−to−work models into their curriculums in order to ensure that teens and young adults are set up for success in the workforce. Report authors Veronica Goodman, Tressa Pankovits, and Tess Murphy analyze a number of case studies to provide evidence showing that there are better models for helping students find their economic footing as they transition to jobs and adulthood.
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.
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project inspires a 21st century model of public education geared to the knowledge economy. One model, charter 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.
Can charter schools help improve America’s education system? Tressa Pankovits and Curtis Valentine from the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at PPI join the show to discuss charter schools and school choice. What’s the value in having local autonomy and experimentation in schools? How do you guard against potential downsides to charter schools? Ultimately, how can charter schools help improve outcomes for students?
Find more about the RAS Project here – https://www.progressivepolicy.org/category/projects/reinventing-americas-schools/
Learn more about the Neoliberal Project here – https://neoliberalproject.org/
On Tuesday, April 27, theProgressive Policy Institute will host two events with Members of Congress and diverse panels of experts on supporting women in the workforce and creating more opportunities for students and young workers.
In the morning, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) will keynote an event focused on policies that help women return to the workforce as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later that day, Rep. Chris Pappas (NH-01) will keynote an event with PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project on creating more school-to-work pathways for our students and young adults. Recently, PPI’s Veronica Goodman, Tressa Pankovits, and Tess Murphy published a report titled Preventing Failure to Launch: Creating More School-to-Work Pathways for Young Adults, which focused on four key themes across school-to-work models, including the importance of work-based learning that connects students to employers, re-designing curriculums to emphasize soft skills and social capital, increasing supportive or wraparound services to help students get across the finish line, and helping high-school students earn credits toward postsecondary education.
Information and registration links for both events are below:
Helping Women Return to the Workforce with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Terri Sewell
On Tuesday, April 27th, PPI is hosting a webinar with special guests Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Terri Sewell on policies to help the women return to the workforce following the devastating effect of the pandemic on women’s labor force participation. Our panel includes policy experts on labor, child care, and gender and racial equity.
Date/Time:
April 27, 2021 at 10:30AM ET
Keynote Speakers:
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Panel:
Veronica Goodman, Director of Social Policy at PPI
Chandra Childers, Study Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research
Elliot Haspel, Author of Crawling Behind: America’s Childcare Crisis and How to Fix It
Rhonda V. Sharpe, founder & president, Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race
Kate Bahn, Director of Labor Market Policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Preventing Failure to Launch: Creating More School-to-Work Pathways with Rep. Chris Pappas
On Tuesday, April 27th, PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project is hosting a webinar with special guest Rep. Chris Pappas on creating more school-to-work pathways for our students and young adults.
Date/Time:
April 27, 2021 at 1:00PM ET
Keynote Speakers:
Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH)
Jennifer Kemp, Director of Youth Services, U.S. Department of Labor; Office of Workforce Investment
Panel:
Veronica Goodman, Director of Social Policy at PPI
Tressa Pankovits, Associate Director of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project
Jeanne Russell, Executive Director of the Centers for Applied Science and Technology
Cate Swinburn, President of YouthForce NOLA
Ryan Craig, Managing Director of Achieve Partners
