issue: Education

Community Responsive Rural Charter Schools as a 21st Century Solution to School Consolidation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The West Virginia House of Delegates recently voted against Senate Bill 451, which would have allowed for the creation of public charter schools throughout the state. Critics of charter schools claim that they “drain money” from traditional local public schools. However, West Virginia has been draining money from its local public schools for years.

Since the 1900s, West Virginia has closed thousands of its schools. Smaller, rural schools were consolidated into larger, regional schools to increase efficiency and save money. In 1989, Governor Caperton accelerated school consolidation by forming the School Building Authority (SBA) which only provided funding for school-building maintenance and renovation if a school met SBA’s minimum enrollment requirements. Unsurprisingly, SBA’s one-size-fits all approach predominantly affected small rural schools, forcing them to consolidate. SBA and Governor Caperton claimed that this would save money, increase efficiency, and improve educational quality. What really happened was quite different.

Maintenance and transportation costs increased as thousands of students endured longer bus rides– sometimes up to two hours a day– on rough terrain. Students had less time for extra-curriculars. Grades dropped while student stress and unhappiness rose. School officials promised to offer more course options, including advanced placement, but these courses were eliminated.

Meanwhile, the number of state administrators increased as did their salaries. Ultimately, the consolidation did not save any money. On the contrary, it cost the state 1 billion dollars from 1990 to 2002.

School consolidation is an old solution to the enduring problem of cutting costs in rural areas. However, increases in transportation costs and bureaucratization often offset any savings so consolidation rarely results in lower per-pupil spending. To make matters worse, school consolidation negatively affects communities both socially and economically. Rural schools often act as the center of the community, and losing a school leaves a hole in the community that rarely gets filled.

Many rural communities want to keep their local schools; however, they need innovative 21stcentury solutions to overcome their respective challenges in doing so.

Rural populations are becoming poorer, older, and less white. Unlike in metro areas, rural employment has not recovered since the 2008 recession.The National Center for Education Statistics has labeled more than half of rural districts in the United States as “high poverty,” with nearly half of their students considered economically disadvantaged. Rural schools typically receive less funding and spend less per pupil than suburban or urban schools, and they have been shown to be disadvantaged in Title I funding formulas. They spend twice as much on transportation. They also struggle to recruit and retain skilled teachers because of low salaries, geographical isolation, and poor recruiting incentives.

Charter schools, with their school-level autonomy and increased flexibility, could have been an innovative solution to the problem of consolidation in West Virginia.

Other rural communities have used the flexibility of charter schools to address state-forced consolidation initiatives. For example, the community of Tidioute, PA, with a population of only 654 had success in establishing a charter school when the district proposed closing its school as a part of a consolidation. Because of their remote geography, distance from other communities, and the icy conditions they face in winter, the community members felt it was important to have a school located within Tidioute. Their charter school capitalizes on their tight-knit community and local natural resources to offer their students place-based education and a family-like culture.

Community support, however, is hard won in rural communities. As in urban and suburban areas, traditional local schools are often at the heart of a rural community. Children attend the same school that their parents and grandparents attended, and community members sometimes view a new charter school as an invader. Sometimes, new charter schools in rural areas initially face opposition. That was the case with Upper Carmen Charter School in the remote ranching community of Carmen, Idaho. Carmen had lost its local one-room school in the 1950s after consolidating with neighboring Salmon school district. In 2005, Sue and Jim Smith used Idaho’s charter law to reopen the school as a charter school. Unsurprisingly, Salmon public school district strongly opposed this idea, making the Smiths fight a long uphill battle. However, with persistence and a dedication to understanding Carmen’s needs, the Smiths convinced community members that the charter school was the best option for their children. Sue and Jim’s hard work has paid off. Out of the state’s 490 K-8 public schools, Upper Carmen Charter School is in the 85th percentile for ELA and Math achievement, and Idaho’s State Department of Education recognized the school as a 2018 Top Performer in ELA growth.

Difficult problems require innovative solutions. Rural communities need a system that is flexible and responsive. Letting charters open doors that consolidation closed can bring schools back to the center of a rural community.

Langhorne for Forbes, “Separating Fact From Fiction: Five Important Findings About The Nation’s Charter School Landscape”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Charter schools serve about three million students across 42 states and the District of Columbia. To clarify, charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. Most are schools of choice, and unlike magnet schools in traditional districts, they are not allowed to select their students. If too many students apply, they hold lotteries to see who gets in. Charter schools are freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools. In exchange for increased autonomy, they are held accountable for their performance through contracts with authorizers.

Each state’s charter law empowers a variety of different agencies to authorize charters. The most common types of authorizers are a local school board, a state education agency, higher education institutions, and statewide bodies set up for the sole purpose of overseeing charter schools. Authorizers vet and approve charter school applications, and they also close or replace underperforming schools.

Based on both performance and sustainability, charter schools have been the most successful education improvement strategy of the millennium, and they’ve been particularly effective at educating low-income students. In places like New Orleans, Denver, and Washington, D.C., the charter formula – school-level autonomy, accountability, diversity of school design, and parental choice – has proven far more effective than the centralized, bureaucratic approach inherited from the 20thcentury.

However, over the last few years, the growth of charter schools across the nation has slowed. In an effort to understand this decline in growth, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) examined charter school proposals and approvals over the last five years, analyzing 3,000 charter school applications to authorizers in the 20 states that oversee nearly two-thirds of charters nationwide. Their new report Reinvigorating the Pipeline: Insights into Proposed and Approved Charter Schools unearths important facts about the nation’s charter school pipeline, facts that also dispel some of the commonly perpetuated myths about charter schools.

Continue reading at Forbes.

Charter Schools in Rural Communities: An Opportunity for Career Preparation through STEM Skills Development

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The West Virginia House of Delegates recently shot down Senate Bill 451, abruptly killing a promising chance for education reform throughout the state. The bill, which would have allowed for creation of public charter schools throughout the state as well as an increase in open enrollment policies, would have created more educational options for all of West Virginia’s children. However, the teachers unions and their allies rallied against the bill, arguing that charter schools would take money away from public schools. This is, of course, nonsense, since charter schools are public schools. Nonetheless, West Virginia teachers walked out of their classrooms last week in protest of the bill, striking for the second time in the last 18 months.

The state’s House of Delegates missed a tremendous opportunity to ensure that all children in West Virginia have the best chance for academic success. Many of the jobs in well-paying industries that rural communities used to rely on, like manufacturing and energy, are no longer available or have adapted to the digital age so that today’s workers need higher-level skills, such as coding, equipment maintenance, or systems knowledge, to enter to the workforce. As a result, there’s an increasing need for the rural workforce to develop STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills for STEM and non-STEM fields such as computer science and coding. Rural areas across the nation have been experiencing significant “brain drain” as young people leave their communities for better academic or economic opportunities elsewhere.

And, in a state where over 50 percent of the population lives in rural areas, the legislature can’t afford to miss opportunities to improve education.

Twenty-first century school systems built upon the pillars of autonomy, accountability, diversity of school design, and parental choice have resulted in dramatic and positive educational change in urban areas such as New Orleans and Denver. Essentially, these systems treat all of their public schools like charter schools. Rural communities can likewise benefit from the creation of public charter schools.

Many rural charters partner with local industry, higher education institutions, and the community to provide students with the skills needed to succeed in the local economy. Many rural charter schools such as North Idaho STEM charter academy in Rathdrum, Idaho offer dual-enrollment courses, which allow for students to earn an associate’s degree while in high school. These students not only save money by earning college credit during high school, but they also improve their skill set by taking career applicable courses. The Academy of Seminole, a public charter school in Seminole, Oklahoma, was founded by the leader of a local aerospace manufacturing company because his company had encountered difficulty in finding skilled local workers to fill their positions. The school has a partnership with the company, and it focuses on career and workforce development. It also offers dual enrollment courses through a partnership with a local community college, vocational certificates, and a business mentoring program that enhances students’ exposure to different types of careers.

Other rural charter schools have also used place-based education to draw upon their existing natural resources to encourage curiosity and teach STEM concepts while enhancing their connection to the community. Through a partnership with Oregon State University, Elkton Charter School in Elkton, Oregon, uses its proximity to the Umpqua River to create a natural resources curriculum where students engage in project-based learning: they study soil samples, mold, fungi, leaves, trees, and estuaries.

STEM-focused charter schools and school choice programs offer a potential solution for communities who wish to retain and adequately prepare their young populations for skilled careers in their community. Considering West Virginia is the third most rural state in the United States, it is a shame that lawmakers are failing to seize the opportunity to address the needs of students in rural communities by allowing for the creation of charter schools.

Langhorne for Forbes, “The Real Faces Behind the ‘Corporate Reform’ of America’s Public Schools”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With 2019 barely underway, the nation has already witnessed another set of highly publicized teacher strikes. Teachers unions and anti-charter activists have wasted no time in painting public charter schools as the culprit, blaming them for “draining money from public schools.”

To clarify, charter schools are public schools. They’re supported by taxpayer money and overseen by public organizations—often school districts. All charter students must participate in state tests and related accountability measures. However, charter schools are operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits, so they’re free from top-down mandates and bureaucratic red tape that often constrain district-operated schools.

In exchange for increased autonomy, charters are held accountable through performance contracts with authorizers, who close or replace them if their students aren’t learning enough. Most charter schools are schools of choice, and unlike magnet schools in traditional districts, they are not allowed to select their students. If too many students apply, they hold a lottery to see who gets in.

Continue reading at Forbes.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 5: Make Rural America’s Higher Education Deserts Bloom

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As many as 41 million Americans live in “higher education deserts” – at least half an hour’s drive from the nearest college or university and with limited access to community college. Many of these deserts are in rural America, which is one reason so much of rural America is less prosperous than it deserves to be.

The lack of higher education access means fewer opportunities for going back to school or improving skills. A less educated workforce in turn means communities have a tougher time attracting businesses and creating new jobs.

Congress should work to eradicate higher education deserts. In particular, it can encourage new models of higher education – such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges – that can fill this gap and bring more opportunity to workers and their communities. Rural higher education innovation grants are one potential way to help states pilot new approaches.

 

THE CHALLENGE: HIGHER EDUCATION “DESERTS” ARE HANDICAPPING RURAL AMERICA

For millions of Americans, distance is as big or bigger a barrier to higher education access as finances. According to the Urban Institute, nearly one in five American adults—as many as 41 million people—lives twenty-five miles or more from the nearest college or university, or in areas where a single community college is the only source of broad-access public higher education within that distance. Three million of the Americans in these so-called “higher education deserts” also lack broadband internet, which means they are cut off from online education opportunities as well (1).

Rural students have lower rates of college-going and completion.

More than four in five people in higher education deserts – 82 percent – live in rural areas. This could be one reason why fewer rural Americans attend or finish college.

In 2016, 61 percent of rural public school seniors went on to college the following year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, compared to 67 percent for suburban students (2). Only 20 percent of rural young adults between 25 and 34 have four-year degrees, says the USDA’s Economic Research Service, compared to 37 percent of young adults in urban areas (3). Moreover, the urban-rural gap in college degree attainment is growing. From 2000 to 2015, the share of college-educated adults rose by 7-points in urban locales compared to 4-points in rural areas.

Less-educated rural areas are falling behind while better educated cities leap ahead.

With more and more jobs demanding ever higher levels of skill, disparities in access to higher education are translating to vast disparities in the distribution of jobs and opportunity throughout the United States, including a widening urban-rural divide. Wealthy urban areas are getting richer, while rural areas are increasingly lagging.

The Economic Innovation Group (EIG), for instance, reports that of the 6.8 million net new jobs created between 2000 and 2015, 6.5 million were created in the top 20 percent of zip codes, which were predominantly urban (4). These prosperous, job-creating zip codes are also the best-educated. EIG further finds that 43 percent of residents in the top 10 percent of zip codes has a bachelor’s degree or better, compared to just 11 percent in the bottom 10 percent. While a four-year degree is of course not a prerequisite for a good living, the heavy concentration of highly-educated workers is indicative of the imbalance in economic opportunities between rural and urban areas.

Most of the nation’s least educated and most impoverished counties are rural. 

If education and prosperity are linked, so conversely are poverty and the lack of educational attainment.

Out of 467 U.S. counties identified by the USDA as “low education” counties – places where 20 percent or more of the population has less than a high school diploma – 79 percent are rural (5). These counties tend to be clustered in the rural South, Appalachia, along the Texas border and in Native American reservations and also suffer from higher rates of poverty, child poverty and unemployment.

 

THE GOAL: ERADICATE HIGHER EDUCATION DESERTS AND ENSURE EVERY RURAL AMERICAN HAS HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS

Better access to higher education in rural areas, especially for the many millions of “nontraditional” students who are now increasingly the norm (6), can help close the gulf in opportunity between urban and rural areas. Greater opportunities for convenient, affordable higher education would allow more rural Americans to finish their degrees or pursue occupational credentials, qualifying them for higher-skilled, better-paid jobs. Rural students would also benefit by not being forced to leave home for school – not only lowering costs for students but potentially slowing or even reversing the population declines plaguing rural areas. Institutions of higher education can also serve as engines of economic development in the communities they serve. They can work with businesses to turn out the skilled talent they need and provide research or other support.

 

THE PLAN: CREATE RURAL HIGHER EDUCATION INNOVATION GRANTS TO ENCOURAGE NEW MODELS OF HIGHER EDUCATION REACHING RURAL AMERICA

While it’s unrealistic to establish a new college, community college or university in every rural area that needs one, emerging models for delivering higher education potentially offer a creative, cost-effective and effective alternative. These new models can also expand the ability of workers to obtain high-quality occupational credentials, which in many instances are likely to be more practical, affordable and desirable than pursuing a two-year or four-year degree.

Some states, such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, are pioneering new approaches, such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges, that use technology to broaden students’ options for both traditional college education and occupational training (7). The Northern Pennsylvania Regional College, for instance, operates six different “hubs” scattered throughout the 7,000 square miles it serves, plus numerous “classrooms” using borrowed space from local high schools, public libraries and other community buildings. In addition to conferring its own degrees, it provides the infrastructure for other accredited institutions to extend their reach through “blended” offerings combining virtual and in-person teaching.

Similarly, Virginia’s five higher education centers provide physical infrastructure for colleges and community colleges offering classes as well as occupational training in fields such as welding, mechatronics and IT certification. In Maryland, the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center offers specific courses from ten different institutions, including Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. Though relatively new, these institutions are already establishing a track record of success. In South Boston, Virginia, for instance, the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center worked with more than 30 area industries and entrepreneurs in 2017, developed customized training for nearly 150 workers in local companies and placed 173 students into new jobs (8).

Congress should encourage all states to make rural higher education a priority and help more states experiment with new models for accessing higher education in remote areas. One way to do this is to provide seed money in the form of Rural Higher Education Innovation Grants so that states can stand up pilots, evaluate the effectiveness of new models and scale up promising approaches. These grants moreover do not need to be large – the Pennsylvania legislature initially appropriated just $1.2 million to launch what is now NPRC.

As a start, Congress should set aside $10 million in competitive grant funding for states. Funding for these grants could come from an earmark of the money collected from the 1.4 percent excise tax on large university endowments included in the 2017 tax legislation (9).

 

Read Here: New Ideas For a Do Something Congress No. 5

A Look Inside Monument Academy, a D.C. Public Charter School Designed to Serve Students in Foster Care

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The industrial-era public education system that America inherited from the last century no longer works for the majority of students. Because it is highly centralized and assigns students to schools based on their home address, it produces cookie-cutter schools that treat all children the same.  However, that educational model is profoundly unfair to the majority of America’s children. Kids come from different backgrounds. They speak different languages. They have different interests and different learning styles. They arrive at school on different academic levels.

Whereas traditional public schools attempt to treat most students the same, public charter schools attempt to create best-fit learning environments that meet the specific needs and interest of their students.

When children land in the right school, they flourish in surprising ways.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Washington, D.C. The District has a universal enrollment, and nearly 50 percent of the public school students attend charter schools whose leaders have the autonomy to control their school designs and influence school culture. As a result, the District’s charter sector has an extraordinary number of innovative learning models– STEM, Classics-based, dual-language immersion, Montessori, etc.–  creating a variety of educational options so that each student can find a best-fit school.

Reinventing America’s Schools and The 74 recently highlighted some of these unique schools in our Schools of the Future series. However, because D.C. has so many innovative schools, we simply couldn’t cover them all. As such, we encourage you to read Harvard Ed. Magazine’s piece on Monument Academy, a D.C. public charter school designed to serve kids in foster care.

Read the story here.

Valentine for BlackPressUSA, “Developing a universal enrollment system for all Memphis public schools”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On any given day, you can find Sarah Carpenter organizing parents in the Memphis area. A single mother of four daughters and 13 grandchildren, Carpenter was an advocate long before becoming co-founder and CEO of The Memphis Lift, which she describes as “a parent organization run by parents, for parents.”

Born and raised in North Memphis, Carpenter says her experience as a single parent prepared her to lead The Memphis Lift. “I have always been an advocate for my daughters and for other’s kids,” she says. “I started in 1995 when I was asked to help open a Family Resource Center in a high school and students without involved parents in their lives took to me. Parents would stop me and say, ‘They are passing my son on to High School and he can’t even read.”

Carpenter and her fellow co-founders met during the training component of a public advocate fellowship funded by the Memphis Education Fund, which educated parents about the landscape in Shelby County Schools (SCS). At the time, SCS had the highest number of “priority schools” –those in which student scores on state exams ranked in the bottom five percent – in Tennessee.

Carpenter and her colleagues have since visited more than 10,000 homes to educate others on the state of Memphis’s schools. SCS students can attend four categories of schools: traditional neighborhood schools, charter schools, charter schools in the state-run Achievement Schools District, and schools in the district’s Innovation Zone.

For Carpenter and her organization, ensuring that all parents – regardless of income – have access to all the options SCS has to offer is paramount.

Continue reading at BlackPressUSA. 

Langhorne for The 74, “At D.C.’s Ingenuity Prep, Personalized Learning Hasn’t Replaced Teacher Time; It’s Put the Focus Back on Small Groups”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When Aaron Cuny and Will Stoetzer were thinking about how they wanted to structure their own D.C. charter school back in 2012, they kept returning to the same question: “When were we doing the best work for kids?”

“For both of us, it came down to teaching in a small group setting, where you could think about how to reach kids individually rather than spending the majority of time and mental energy thinking about classroom management,” says Stoetzer.

Stoetzer was a special education teacher and Cuny a resident principal-in-training at D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School, a top-ranked elementary school in one of Washington’s middle-income neighborhoods. Both felt the city lacked quality educational options for kids in the neighborhoods that needed them most.

“In pockets across D.C., some schools had shown that when adults got it right, there was success at educating low-income kids,” says Stoetzer. “Schools like KIPP and D.C. Prep have been very purposeful about producing academic results for low-income kids. Their success inspired us, but we had differences in perspective about how that success might be accomplished.”

When they opened Ingenuity Prep a year later with Cuny as CEO and Stoetzer as COO, they located it in Ward 8, Washington’s poorest neighborhood, and built two essential components into the school’s design so that small group learning could be its main focus: co-teaching and computer-based learning.

Continue reading at The 74.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 3: “End The Federal Bias Against Career Education”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As many as 4.4 million U.S. jobs are going unfilled due to shortages of workers with the right skills. Many of these opportunities are in so-called “middle-skill” occupations, such as IT or advanced manufacturing, where workers need some sort of post-secondary credential but not a four-year degree.

Expanding access to high-quality career education and training is one way to help close this “skills gap.” Under current law, however, many students pursuing short-term career programs are ineligible for federal financial aid that could help them afford their education. Pell grants, for instance, are geared primarily toward traditional college, which means older and displaced workers – for whom college is neither practicable nor desirable – lose out. Broadening the scope of the Pell grant program to shorter-term, high-quality career education would help more Americans afford the chance to upgrade their skills and grow the number of highly trained workers U.S. businesses need.

 

THE CHALLENGE: THE AMERICAN ECONOMY DESPERATELY NEEDS MORE SKILLED TALENT.

For years, U.S. businesses have complained of a “skills gap” – the inability to find the right talent for the positions they are seeking to fill. Though some have questioned the existence of these shortages, new research finds that, while some lower-skilled sectors have a surfeit of workers, other industries do indeed face a real – and dire – need for skilled employees.

Healthcare, finance, and information technology are among the fields with the
greatest shortages of skilled workers.
A study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Burning Glass Technologies finds that as many as 4.4 million American jobs are going vacant because companies can’t find the right employees. More than 1.1 million of these openings are in healthcare, followed by business and financial operations, office and administrative support, sales, and computers and math.

Many openings are in so-called “middle-skilled” jobs that require specialized training or education but not a four-year degree.
The vast majority of in-demand positions require some sort of post-secondary education beyond high school. In fact, the economy is shedding low-skill jobs even as demand for higher-skill occupations is rising. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, for instance, estimates that as many as 6.3 million jobs for workers without a high school diploma have permanently disappeared since the recession (2).

While some of the fastest-growing occupations require advanced schooling and extensive training – such as occupational therapy, physician’s assistant, and nurse practitioner – many well-paying jobs don’t require a four-year degree (3). These so-called “middle-skill” jobs currently account for more than half of all U.S. jobs (4) and include such fields as cybersecurity, welding and machining, truck driving, and home health (5). These jobs might demand an associates’ degree, but, in many cases, instead require a certificate, certification, license, or other industry-recognized credential attainable without attending a traditional college.

Federal financial aid for higher education is largely unavailable for career education and training.
Despite the need for middle-skill workers, current federal policy is tilted heavily in favor of traditional college over career and occupational education. In 2016, for instance, the federal government spent more than $139 billion on post-secondary education, including loans, grants and other financial aid for students. Yet, of this amount, just $19 billion went toward career education and training (6).

THE GOAL: EXPAND AFFORDABLE ACCESS TO HIGH-QUALITY CAREER EDUCATION – ESPECIALLY FOR OLDER AND NONTRADITIONAL STUDENTS
Restrictions in federal financial aid programs – that shut out many career-focused programs – are a major source of the disparity in federal support for traditional college versus career education and training. Federal Pell grants for low-income students, for example, can be used only for credit-bearing programs offered by accredited schools that last over 600 clock hours and run at least 15 weeks (7). Many high-quality coding “boot camps,” for instance, often don’t meet this standard; nor do many other occupational courses, such as programs aimed at helping students earn a welding certification or a commercial drivers’ license.

For example, Delaware’s Zip Code Wilmington, a non-profit coding school, offers an intensive computer skills program that has helped students’ salaries jump from an average of $30,173 to $63,071. Yet, because Zip Code Wilmington is not a college or university and the coursework is only 12 weeks long, the $3,000 course is ineligible for Pell funding – which could it make it unaffordable for many students (8).

 

THE PLAN: BROADEN THE AVAILABILITY OF PELL GRANTS TO INCLUDE HIGH-QUALITY SHORTER-TERM CAREER EDUCATION
Congress should expand the federal Pell grant program to include high-quality career education and training programs in fields with demonstrated demand for workers. Making career education more affordable through so-called “workforce Pell” would increase the pipeline for skilled talent, thereby diminishing the “skills gap” among U.S. companies. It would also open new opportunities for older and displaced workers for whom going to college or returning to school is neither practicable nor desirable. And, given the growing recognition that higher education is a lifelong endeavor (rather than one limited to the young adult years), this shift would help modernize federal higher education policy to better suit the needs of students, workers and businesses.

One promising approach is the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students (JOBS) Act, proposed in the 115th Congress by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), which would shorten the number of course hours required for Pell eligibility to 150 clock hours over eight weeks but also require that programs lead to an industry-recognized credential and meet other requirements for quality (9). Quality safeguards would help ensure that fly-by-night credential providers cannot exploit students – helping steer students toward top-flight programs.

Growing the Pell grant program need not come at the expense of higher education funding more broadly; potential sources for funding a Pell expansion include earmarking revenues from the excise tax on large university endowments (included in the 2017 tax bill), or limiting tax-preferred 529 college savings accounts, whose benefits overwhelmingly accrue to the upper middle class (10).

Although expanding Pell grants to more career education could ultimately make the program more costly, occupational credentials are typically much cheaper to acquire than college degrees, and the ultimate return – more workers in better jobs with better wages – makes the investment worthwhile.

 

[gview file=”[gview file=”https://www.progressivepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/PPI_NewIdeas_FederalStudentAid_V4.pdf”]

 

ENDNOTES

1) Restuccia, Dan, Bledi Taska, and Scott Bittle, Different Skills, Different Gaps, Burning Glass Technologies, 2018, available at https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/Skills_Gap_Different_Skills_Different_Gaps_FINAL.pdf.

2) Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera and Artem Gulish, Six Million Missing Jobs: The Lingering Pain of the Great Recession, Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, December 2015, https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Six-Million-Missing-Jobs.pdf.

3) Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Burning Glass Technologies.

4) National Skills Coalition, United States’ Forgotten Middle, available at https://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/resources/publications/2017-middle-skills-fact-sheets/file/United-States-MiddleSkills.pdf.

5) Burning Glass Technologies, “Which Middle Skill Jobs Will Last a Lifetime?” June 20, 2018, available at https://www.burning-glass.com/blog/which-middle-skill-jobs-will-last-lifetime/. See also Anthony P. Carnevale, Jeff Strohl, Neil Ridley, and Artem Gulish, Three
Educational Pathways to Good Jobs: High School, Middle Skills and Bachelor’s Degree, Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, 2018, available at https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/3ways-FR.pdf.

6) Opportunity America/AEI/Brookings Working Class Study Group, Work, Skills, Community: Restoring Opportunity for the Working Class, Opportunity America, 2018, available at https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/3ways-FR.pdf.

7) 20 U.S. Code § 1088, accessed at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1088.

8) Anne Kim, Forget free college. How about free credentials? Progressive Policy Institute, October 2017, https://www.progressivepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PPI_FreeCredentials_2017.pdf.

9) Office of Sen. Tim Kaine, “Kaine, Portman Introduce Bipartisan JOBS Act to Help Workers Access Training for In-Demand Career Fields,” Jan. 25, 2017, https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-portman-introduce-bipartisan-jobs-act-to-help-workers-access-training-for-in-demand-career-fields.

10) Kim.

Osborne for The Los Angeles Times, “Striking Teachers Scapegoated Charter Schools, But They’re Not The Problem”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Listening to the rhetoric of the teachers unions, one might have thought the teachers’ strike in Los Angeles was about charter schools. “When someone says there’s no money, why isn’t there money?” National Education Assn. President Lily Eskelsen García asked on MSNBC the first day of the strike.

“A big reason is because they’ve given it away to for-profit charters. If you’re in the charter industry, what do you want to do? You want to create horrible public schools…. The billionaires who are behind this, the venture capitalists, the Wall Street guys, are out to make money on public schools.”

This was nonsense: California never had many for-profit charters, and last year the legislature banned them entirely. Most of the people “behind” L.A.’s 277 charter schools are dedicated educators who work 60 hours a week to help low-income children. They’re more like Peace Corps volunteers than “Wall Street guys.”

But Garcia’s comments were illuminating. Clearly the unions saw the strike as an opportunity to discredit charters.

Continue reading at The Los Angeles Times.

Langhorne for The 74, “A, B, C, F: Why This High School Never Gives Ds and Teaches Its Students to Think Like Lawyers”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“Coats off, scarves off, hats off! Belts on; shirts tucked,” Stacey Stewart, Thurgood Marshall Academy’s director of student affairs, yells at the two lines of students waiting to check-in and begin the school day.

“Ms. Stewart, I’m early today,” a student says as he approaches check-in.

“It’s 8:29. You are not early; you are on time,” she says, exasperated and amused. Check-in runs from 8 to 8:30 a.m. After students check in, they head downstairs for breakfast.

Nothing about morning check-in at Thurgood Marshall Academy (TMA) hints that there’s anything exceptional about the school, but a glass case near Stewart, filled with academic awards, reveals the truth: this is an extraordinary school.

Consistently ranked as a top-tier public charter school in Washington, D.C., Thurgood Marshall Academy is a law-themed school that serves about 400 students in 9th through 12th grade. Over 90 percent of students live in Wards 7 and 8, the city’s two poorest neighborhoods. Nearly 100 percent are African American, and 61 percent are designated “at-risk” by the Office of the State Superintendent, meaning they are at greater risk of dropping out based on their receipt of public assistance, food stamps, involvement with the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, homeless status, or being older than expected for their grade.

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Osborne for The 74, “Public School Choice – Charters – Boosts Equal Educational Opportunity. Private School Choice – Vouchers – Destroys It. Which Do We Want?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As a wise person once said, our words think our thoughts for us. A quarter-century ago, then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich taught the Republican Party to be very deliberate in its choice of words. Ever since, Republicans have carefully avoided the word “vouchers” — which are not terribly popular — in favor of the phrase “school choice.”

Who can be against giving families a choice of schools? We all know that children learn differently, have different temperaments, and come from different backgrounds. So it’s only logical that different children need different types of schools. On top of that, families that get to choose are usually more committed to their schools, their children more serious about learning.

But there are different kinds of school choice, and the type most Republicans favor would dramatically accelerate inequality in American society.

 

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Langhorne for The 74, “A D.C. School Meant to Inspire Teachers and Students”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Artwork and projects decorate the light blue walls of Inspired Teaching Demonstration School, an inquiry-based learning public charter school now in its eighth year.

A colorful “body map,” with the organs labeled, covers the door of one prekindergarten classroom. On the wall outside the other pre-K classroom hang drawings of guitars because the class read a picture book about the childhood of Jimi Hendrix when learning about musical instruments. Down the hall, the 3-year-old class has been experimenting with paints, both watercolors and temperas.

Everything displayed on the walls of the three-story building on Douglas Street NE in D.C.’s Ward 5 is student-made.

“Teachers really value our creativity here,” says Takhari Millner, a seventh-grader who has been attending ITDS since kindergarten.

Ranked a tier-one public charter school by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, ITDS opened in 2011 and serves 472 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. There’s two classes per grade, except for seventh and eighth grade, which will each expand from one class to two when the school reaches its roughly 525-student capacity in 2020. For the 2018-19 school year, ITDS received 1,745 applications for 125 spots. Its waiting list currently has 913 students.

ITDS students have consistently outperformed their peers in both the public charter school sector and District of Columbia Public Schools on state exams, yet test prep and standardization are the antithesis of the school’s model. Born out of a partnership with the Center for Inspired Teaching, ITDS operates a demonstration school for the best practices in inquiry-based teaching and active learning methods.

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PPI Launches Series of New Ideas for a ‘Do-Something’ Congress

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Dear Democratic Class of 2018,

Congratulations on your election to the U.S. House of Representatives! In addition to winning your own race, you are part of something larger – the first wave of a progressive resurgence in U.S. politics.

The midterm elections gave U.S. voters their first opportunity to react to the way Donald Trump has conducted himself in America’s highest office. Their verdict was an emphatic thumbs down. That’s an encouraging sign that our democracy’s antibodies are working to suppress the populist virus of demagoguery and extremism.

Now that Democrats have reclaimed the people’s House, what should they do with it? Some are tempted to use it mainly as a platform for resisting Trump and airing “unapologetically progressive” ideas that have no chance of advancing before the 2020 elections. We here at the Progressive Policy Institute think that would be huge missed opportunity.

If the voters increasingly are disgusted with their dissembling and divisive president, they seem even more fed up with Washington’s tribalism and broken politics. For pragmatic progressives, the urgent matter at hand is not to impeach Trump or to embroil the House in multiple and endless investigations. It’s to show Democrats are determined to put the federal government back in the business of helping Americans solve their problems.

We think the House Democratic Class of 2018 should adopt this simple mantra: “Get things done.” Tackle the backlog of big national problems that Washington has ignored: exploding deficits and debt; run-down, second-rate infrastructure; soaring health and retirement costs; climate change and more. And yes, getting things done should include slamming the brakes on Trump’s reckless trade wars, blocking GOP efforts to strip Americans of health care, as well as repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

PPI, a leading center for policy analysis and innovation, stands ready to help. We’re developing an extensive “Do Something” Agenda. Today, we are releasing the first in a series of concrete, actionable ideas designed expressly for Democrats who come to Washington to solve problems, not just to raise money and smite political enemies.

As you get settled into your new office, we’ll look for opportunities to acquaint you and your staff with these pragmatic, common-sense initiatives, and to discuss other ways we might be of service to you. That’s what we’re here for.

Regards,

 

 

Will Marshall
President
Progressive Policy Institute

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 1: “A Check on Trump’s Reckless Tariffs”

First and foremost, it’s time for Congress to start doing its job on trade. A key step is enacting the Trade Authority Protection (TAP) Act. This balanced legislation would rein in Trump’s abuse of delegated trade powers, require greater presidential accountability, and enable Congress to nullify irresponsible tariffs and trade restrictions.

A Radically Pragmatic Idea for the 116th Congress: Take “Yes” for an Answer on Net Neutrality

For the last two decades, different versions of net neutrality have bounced between Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, the courts – and most recently the states – but the issue remains unresolved.

It is time for Congress to solve this problem for good by enacting a strong, pro-consumer net neutrality law – an outcome that is politically possible even in this era of maximalist gridlock and deeply divided government, given the broad consensus that has formed around the vital issue of ensuring an open internet.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 2: “Jumpstart a New Generation of Manufacturing Entrepreneurs”

The number of large U.S. manufacturing facilities has dropped by more than a third since 2000, devastating many communities where factories were the lifeblood of the local economy.

One promising way to revive America’s manufacturing might is not by going big but by going small – and going local. Digitally-assisted manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, have the potential to launch a new generation of manufacturing startups producing customized, locally-designed goods in a way overseas mega-factories can’t match. To jumpstart this revolution, we need to provide local manufacturing entrepreneurs with access to the latest technologies to test out their ideas. The Grassroots Manufacturing Act would create federally-supported centers offering budding entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized firms access to the latest 3D printing and robotics equipment.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 3: “End The Federal Bias Against Career Education”

As many as 4.4 million U.S. jobs are going unfilled due to shortages of workers with the right skills. Many of these opportunities are in so-called “middle-skill” occupations, such as IT or advanced manufacturing, where workers need some sort of post-secondary credential but not a four-year degree.

Expanding access to high-quality career education and training is one way to help close this “skills gap.” Under current law, however, many students pursuing short-term career programs are ineligible for federal financial aid that could help them afford their education. Pell grants, for instance, are geared primarily toward traditional college, which means older and displaced workers – for whom college is neither practicable nor desirable – lose out. Broadening the scope of the Pell grant program to shorter-term, high-quality career education would help more Americans afford the chance to upgrade their skills and grow the number of highly trained workers U.S. businesses need.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 4: “Expand Access to Telehealth Services in Medicare”

America’s massive health care industry faces three major challenges: how to cover everyone, reduce costs, and increase productivity. Telehealth – the use of technology to help treat patients remotely – may help address all three. Telehealth reduces the need for expensive real estate and enables providers to better leverage their current medical personnel to provide improved care to more people.

Despite its enormous potential, however, telehealth has hit legal snags over basic questions: who can practice it, what services can be delivered, and how it should be reimbursed. As is the case with any innovation, policymakers are looking to find the right balance between encouraging new technologies and protecting consumers – or, in this case, the health of patients.

Telehealth policy has come a long way in recent years, with major advances in the kinds of services that are delivered. Yet a simple change in Medicare policy could take the next step to increase access and encourage adoption of telehealth services. Currently, there are strict rules around where the patient and provider must be located at the time of service – these are known as “originating site” requirements – and patients are not allowed to be treated in their homes except in very special circumstances. To expand access to Telehealth, Congress could add the patient’s home as an originating site and allow Medicare beneficiaries in both urban and rural settings to access telehealth services in their homes.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 5: Make Rural America’s “Higher Education Deserts” Bloom

As many as 41 million Americans live in “higher education deserts” – at least half an hour’s drive from the nearest college or university and with limited access to community college. Many of these deserts are in rural America, which is one reason so much of rural America is less prosperous than it deserves to be.

The lack of higher education access means fewer opportunities for going back to school or improving skills. A less educated workforce in turn means communities have a tougher time attracting businesses and creating new jobs. Congress should work to eradicate higher education deserts. In particular, it can encourage new models of higher education – such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges – that can fill this gap and bring more opportunity to workers and their communities. Rural higher education innovation grants are one potential way to help states pilot new approaches.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 6: Break America’s Regulatory Log-jam

Regulation plays a critical role in refereeing competition in a free market economy. But there’s a problem: Each year, Congress piles new rules upon old, creating a thick sludge of regulations – some obsolete, repetitive, and even contradictory – that weighs down citizens and businesses. In 2017, the Code of Federal Regulations swelled to a record 186,374 pages, up 19 percent from just a decade before. PPI proposes a Regulatory Improvement Commission (RIC), modeled on the highly successful Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process for closing obsolete military installations. Like the BRAC process, the proposed RIC would examine old rules and present Congress with a package of recommendations for an up-or-down vote to eliminate or modify outdated rules.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 7: Winning the Global Race on Electric Cars

Jumpstarting U.S. production and purchase of Electric Vehicles (EVs) would produce an unprecedented set of benefits, including cleaner air and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; a resurgence of the U.S. auto industry and American manufacturing; the creation of millions of new, good, middle class manufacturing jobs; lower consumer costs for owning and operating vehicles; and the elimination of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. U.S. automakers are already moving toward EVs, but the pace of this transition is lagging behind our foreign competitors. A dramatic expansion of tax credits for EV purchases could go a long way toward boosting the U.S. EV industry as part of a broader agenda to promote the evolution of the transportation industry away from carbon-intensive fuels.

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 8: Enable More Workers to Become Owners through Employee Stock Ownership

More American workers would benefit directly from economic growth if they had an ownership in the companies where they work. To help achieve this goal, Congress should encourage more companies to adopt employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), which provide opportunities for workers to participate in a company’s profits and share in its growth. Firms with ESOPs enjoy higher productivity growth and stronger resilience during downturns, and employees enjoy a direct stake in that growth. ESOP firms also generate higher levels of retirement savings for workers, thereby addressing another crucial priority for American workers.

 

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 9: Reserve corporate tax cuts for the companies that deserve it

Americans are fed up seeing corporate profits soaring even as their paychecks inch upward by comparison. Companies need stronger incentives to share their prosperity with workers – something the 2017 GOP tax package should have included.

Though President Donald Trump promised higher wages as one result of his corporate tax cuts, the biggest winners were executives and shareholders, not workers. Nevertheless, a growing number of firms are doing right by their workers, taking the high road as “triple-bottom line” concerns committed to worker welfare, environmental stewardship and responsible corporate governance. Many of these are so-called “benefit corporations,” legally chartered to pursue goals beyond maximizing profits and often “certified” as living up to their multiple missions. Congress should encourage more companies to follow this example. One way is to offer tax breaks only for high-road companies with a proven track record of good corporate citizenship, including better wages and benefits for their workers.

Langhorne for The 74, “Inside One of America’s First Catholic-to-Charter School Conversions: ‘Intentionally Small,’ Built Around Character & Thriving”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Three rows of second-graders stand facing the front of the classroom. A speaker emits sounds. First, a door creaking. Then, footsteps thudding and a wolf howling, all followed by the unmistakable opening riff of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

The students put their hands on their knees and take four big steps forward before swinging their arms quickly from side to side. When they’ve finished performing this simplified version of Jackson’s choreography, many fall to the floor, giggling.

Jordan Daugherty teaches dance at Center City Public Charter School’s Petworth campus. Today, her second-grade class is learning the difference between improv and choreography.

“That’s great,” Daugherty says. “Now face me upstage. That was choreography. Remember, improv is when you feel the music and move with it. Choreography is when you make up the moves in advance to match the song.”

At Center City Petworth, all students take dance year-round as a part of their regular schedule. It’s an enrichment course, along with STEM and physical education, all components of the school’s commitment to providing every student with a comprehensive education.

“We believe that we need to develop good citizens and well-rounded people, as well as scholars,” says Principal Nazo Burgy. “To do that, our students need to be socially and emotionally healthy. Play is really important to early childhood, and this is a place where kids can be kids. We have schedules, procedures, and routines, but our hallways are not silent.”

Center City Petworth is part of Center Public Charter Schools, a network of six intentionally small schools operating in four of D.C.’s eight wards. Each school has between 200 and 270 students in grades pre-K through eight and only one class of about 25 students per grade.

The Center City network began when a group of private Catholic schools, experiencing financial problems, was on the verge of being shuttered. Many of these schools, like Petworth, had occupied an important place in the community for nearly a century.

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The Need For Equal Funding For Indiana Charter Schools

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Charter schools are tuition-free public schools operated by independent organizations. Freed from many rules and topdown policies constraining district-operated schools, charter school leaders have direct control over most school-level decisions.

Indiana has the best charter school law in the country, according to the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, because it allows full operational flexibility and provides true accountability for school performance.

Indiana’s brick-and-mortar K-12 charter schools serve a higher percentage of students of color and low-income students than the traditional public schools. Yet, on state standardized tests, these charter school students outperform their peers at traditional public schools. In both 2016 and 2017, the state rated a higher percentage of charters as “A” schools and a lower percentage as “D” or “F” schools than traditional public schools serving similar student populations.