issue: Education

Untapped Expertise: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as Charter School Authorizers

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For generations, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been a catalyst for transformation in K-12 through initiatives, including diversifying teaching pipelines, starting new schools, and establishing programs designed to meet the aspirations of students far away from quality opportunities.

And yet, in many ways, we have not yet realized the full potential for how HBCUs can drive educational opportunities for all K-12 students. At a time when parents across the country are demanding new and better schools for their children, HBCUs represent an under-tapped source of expertise. This is especially relevant for Black families because of the disproportionate impact that unfinished learning has on them and the systemic barriers to high-quality education that this community has historically faced. HBCUs have a unique history, legacy, and record of advancing Black achievement and wellness, which makes them ideal partners in redesigning public education for the 21st century.

Elevating HBCUs’ Role in K-12 Education

HBCUs and their alumni have played powerful roles in K-12 public education, including charter schools. Alumni are leading outstanding charter learning institutions with exceptional student outcomes, and some HBCUs have partnered with charter schools in effective ways including integrating charter schools on their campuses. This arrangement provides students with a unique experience in which they are introduced to the promise and prestige of higher education earlier in their educational journey. And we believe it is merely the start of a partnership that can have a profound difference in the lives of underserved communities.

Charter schools have proven to be a powerful tool for boosting student achievement, especially among low-income families and families of color. Charter schools are public schools, free and open to all students. They currently serve nearly four million students across 7,700 schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia. When permitted to thrive, charter schools offer families a variety of educational options from which to choose the best fit for their child. They are the opposite of one-size-fits-all schooling. Their unique blend of parental choice, school autonomy, personalized learning, and strict accountability for results illuminates the way toward higher-performing schools for all U.S. students, regardless of their zip code. They create a healthy mix of different types of public schools that helps improve all of public education.

What makes public charter schools innovative and nimble is how they are governed and overseen. The key is charter school authorizers — governmentally approved and supervised entities that decide who is qualified to start a charter school and receive public funding. They determine each school’s academic, financial, and operational expectations; oversee school performance; enforce contractual performance and compliance expectations; and decide which schools should be given the privilege of continuing to educate students.

A practical barrier to quality public school options is the shortage of effective governance and oversight provided by charter school authorizers.

When done well, authorizing is a catalyst for expanding access to quality educational opportunities for students, families, and communities, especially those that have been overlooked, undervalued, and ignored.

But when done poorly — due to overregulation, insufficient institutional commitment, micromanagement, sheer incompetence, or inherent conflicts of interest — weak authorizing contributes to educational failure.

Authorizing charter schools is a relatively new way of making transformative change in K-12 governance and oversight. HBCUs as authorizers is a means to a critical end and one HBCUs have been doing since their inception: better educational opportunities for all students.

To speed the pace of school improvement and modernization, America needs more strong charter school authorizers. Given their capacities and expertise, the nation’s HBCUs are natural candidates to assume this role.

Recommendations for Policymakers:

NACSA and PPI urge state policymakers to take the following steps to start empowering willing HBCUs to become strong charter school authorizers:

• Query college leaders to determine if there is at least one HBCU interested in becoming a high-quality charter school authorizer (HBCUs can contact state policymakers directly to express interest);

• Examine national best practices on quality authorizing and how other states have structured authoring infrastructures to determine the best fit for your state;

• Determine the scope of HBCU authorizing (e.g. one institution or multiple institutions) and any other limitations (e.g. only HBCUs of a certain size);

• Enact legislation allowing for one or more HBCUs to be authorizers;

• Ensure there is sufficient funding and resources for authorizing functions.

A Stronger Future for Education

By becoming charter school authorizers, HBCUs can build on their historical legacy of transforming K-12 education in at least four ways:

1. Redesigning Public Education: Overseeing and expanding quality public school options to improve the outcomes of all students.

2. Building on educational legacies: Overseeing high-quality and effective K-12 schools can help HBCUs build on their rich legacy by deepening connections with local communities.

3. Strengthening ties between K-12 and higher education: HBCU authorizers can develop unique partnerships with schools they oversee, providing access to higher education campuses, creating pipelines of new students, opportunities for dual enrollment, mentorship programs between schools and students, and research opportunities between faculty and schools.

4. Creating strong community institutions and wealth: New charter schools create new facilities and jobs, with opportunities for economic growth in communities, such as Black vendors who can provide new charter schools with products and services.

Our country needs stronger educational opportunities that advance the learning of all students, Black students in particular. HBCUs as charter school authorizers is a transformative way of achieving this goal. For HBCUs looking to expand their impact and strengthen their own institutions, becoming a charter school authorizer is an idea whose time has come.

Read the full report. 

Maag for The Hill: With fewer degree requirements, the federal government can break the ‘paper ceiling’

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Taylor Maag and Michael Brickman

Education has become one of America’s most significant dividing lines. Those with bachelor’s and advanced degrees have mostly prospered, while employment prospects, wages and advancement opportunities for those with less education have fallen.

Yet, with so much else dividing our country, there is a growing bipartisan consensus that we must tear “the paper ceiling” that denies opportunities to those without at least a bachelor’s degree.

Early in the 2000s, many employers began adding degree requirements to job descriptions — whether they needed them or not — using the degree as a proxy for job preparedness. As a result, workers without a bachelor’s degree were screened out of opportunities. For example, in 2015, 67 percent of production supervisor job postings asked for a four-year college degree, even though just 16 percent of employed production supervisors had graduated from college.

Research from Opportunity@Work found that because of this “degree inflation,” there is a talent pool of skilled workers being left behind in our economy. The data shows that Americans skilled through alternative routes other than a bachelor’s degree represent 50 percent of the U.S. workforce. Many of them possess skills that should qualify them for jobs with salaries at least 50 percent higher than their current job.

In other words, our current hiring practices systematically underutilize the skills of millions of U.S. workers, deepening the economic divide between those with and without college degrees.

Keep reading in The Hill.

Maag for RealClearEducation: Can Career Learning Bring America’s Young People Back to School?

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Taylor Maag

School absenteeism sky-rocketed post-pandemic: 6.5 million more students missed at least 10% or more of the 2021-22 school year than in 2017-18. This means 14.7 million students were chronically absent even after schools reopened from the pandemic. While preliminary data shows that absentee rates slightly decreased in the 2022-23 school year, truancy remains a serious concern for our nation’s K-12 system.

School absences take a toll on the academic performance and social-emotional development of young people. The National Center for Education Statistics, the organization that administers the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), cited increased student absenteeism as a main factor in recent NAEP score declines. Beyond test scores, irregular attendance can be a predictor of dropping out of high school, which has been linked to poor labor market prospects, diminished health, and increased involvement in the criminal justice system.

If we want to get students back in the classroom and avoid poor outcomes for our nation’s young people, U.S. leaders must rethink how we operate K-12 education. One potential solution is reinventing high school to ensure every young person is exposed to the world of work through career-oriented education and learning. An analysis of international cross-section data found that nations enrolling a large proportion of students in vocational or career-focused programs have significantly higher school attendance rates and higher completion rates than those that don’t.

Read more in RealClearEducation.

 

RAS Webinar: Now What? Historically Underperforming PISA Scores are a Call to Action

Released in December, the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam scores were more-than disappointing. They follow those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which showed that two-thirds of American children are not proficient in reading. The PISA exam, which focused on math, showed an unprecedented drop in math scores from 2018 to 2022, which is three times worse than any other year. American students’ math scores showed students dropped 13 points, which is the equivalent of two-thirds of a year of learning. Only 7% of U.S. students can do advanced math, and affluence is no guarantee of student performance. Wealthier U.S. students were outscored by average-performing students in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, and our students who participated in the 2022 PISA were among the nation’s most advantaged.

Join PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project for a webinar that will review the underperforming scores and dissect the data that should guide the nation on how to reverse this terrible trend. We are honored to present the foremost PISA and education assessment experts on our panel:

Our expert panelists include:

  • Dr. Peggy G. Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
  • Andreas Schleicher, Director of the Directorate of Education and Skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
  • Jonathan A. Supovitz, Professor Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division At University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education; Director, Consortium for Policy Research in Education

 

Moderator: Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools, PPI

Join us for an engaging conversation that will put our PISA outcomes into perspective and offer answers to the inevitable, “Now what?” moment of reckoning.

This webinar is in partnership with The 74.

Register for the webinar here.

Pankovits for Medium: Chicago Mayor Does Democrats No Favors by Catering to the Teachers Union New Policy Flies in the Face of Public Opinion at Every Level

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Tressa Pankovits

In eight months, Chicago will host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where delegates will nominate for re-election the most union-friendly U.S. president in recent memory. President Biden’s support for union workers is laudable when applied to the private sector where profits and the bottom line are the raison d’etre. Collective bargaining agreements ensure employers don’t mistreat workers in their quest for cash.

The picture changes, however, when public sector unions are taken into account. Public organizations — schools, police departments, post offices, and so on — exist to serve taxpayers and their families, not to build investors’ wealth. That mission doesn’t always neatly dovetail with unions’ eternal goal of increasing membership, and subsequently, the union dues that flow into their coffers.

When it comes to public sector unions, none are as powerful as the two national teachers unions and their local affiliates. Just four public unions together spent almost $709 million on politics in the 2021–2022 election cycle. One was the National Education Association (NEA); another was the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Combined, the NEA and the AFT spend more money for the sake of political power in Illinois than any other state.

A just-released study just released by the Commonwealth Foundation found that public sector unions spent almost $30 million in Illinois’ 2021–2022 election cycle. Larger and more populous California trailed Illinois in second place; no other state even comes close.

Read more in Medium.

Students Learn Construction Skills as They Build Homes for Low-Income Families

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Khalique Rogers, Joe Nathan, and Tressa Pankovits

Earlier this year, with strong bipartisan support, Minnesota legislators passed a pair of bills that they call “triple win” legislation. The new laws are designed to address three critical issues: ensuring public school students graduate with marketable skills, the shortage of certified construction workers, and a pervasive lack of affordable housing.

Minnesota’s forward-thinking initiative is the subject of a Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) webinar on Tuesday, December 5. The 74 Million, Progressive Policy Institute, and Minnesota’s Center for School Change are co-sponsoring the webinar, which is the latest in RAS’ series on reinventing high schools.

The successful passage of these laws provides funding to replicate programs like the one at GAP School, which is an alternative school in St Paul, MN, serving students aged 16-24. The school’s director, Jody Nelson, will participate in the webinar. GAP’s program:

• Enables students to learn marketable construction skills, thus giving a head start into a well-paying career;
• Constructs homes for low-income families, thus helping meet Minnesotan’s need for more deeply affordable permanent housing;
• Helps provide workers for construction and related fields, which are encountering significant shortages.

Khalique Rogers, co-director of Minnesota’s Center for School Change (CSC), helped lead the legislative effort, with good reason. Rogers, who is featured in the webinar, personally experienced homelessness.

Rogers explained that after moving from Chicago to what they hoped would be a better life in Minneapolis, his family’s meager resources were soon exhausted by hotel bills and by landlords who demanded rental application fees, even when they secretly already had another renter identified. Resources exhausted, the family was forced to sleep in their car.  Finally, they found a shelter, but it only welcomed his mother and siblings. His father wasn’t allowed to stay because all of the shelters were for single parents — mothers and children only. Rogers describes the experience as “dehumanizing.”

Though no one wants anyone to freeze in Minnesota’s severe winters, Rogers continues to challenge what he and other youth see as Minnesota’s over-reliance on temporary shelters. After interviewing more than 30 youth who also experienced homelessness, he shared his findings in an online Minnesota publication, and a Minnesota Public Radio interview, explaining “It’s important to hear and learn from youth experiencing homelessness in the Twin Cities.”  As he testified at the Minnesota legislature, “Many students find shelters to be dangerous places — we need to provide permanent housing options.”

To help challenge that over-reliance, CSC has completed four case studies of schools that currently have home-building programs. These include GAP, two schools building “tiny-homes”: Exploration Charter High School, and  Hutchinson High School, and a collaboration between GAP and Good Will/Easter Seals Minnesota that is constructing housing for low-income veterans and vets experiencing homelessness.

Now a graduate of St. Paul College and a student at the University of Minnesota, Rogers convened 40 advocates, including 12 students already learning construction skills and building homes. Under Roger’s leadership, their activism during the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions convinced lawmakers legislators to spend $20 million per year over the next six years, much of it on permanent deeply affordable housing. In 2023, Minnesota lawmakers doubled funding for Youthbuild, a program for “at-risk” youth that helps them earn a high school degree as they develop marketable construction skills and knowledge. Lawmakers also agreed to modify existing legislation so that public schools can apply for up to $100,000 from a pool of more than $40 million to help construct permanent affordable housing.

Minnesota Democratic State Representative Matt Norris, lead sponsor of HF 1310 and HF 2492 in the Minnesota House, is also on the webinar’s panel. Norris said he authored the bills because, in addition to addressing the shortage of much-need, deeply affordable housing and ensuring students graduate with marketable skills, the high school construction training programs already in operation have proven cost-effective and should be scaled. He calls the state’s positive response to the urgent need for more young people to enter construction and related fields a “win-win-win.”

The success of schools with home-building career pathways helped convince lawmakers that the money to scale the model would be well spent. “Our students have renovated four houses and built two new homes,” said Jody Nelson, executive director of Change Inc., which runs GAP School.  For years, the school’s construction career pathway has been affiliated with the national YouthBuild USA, as well as Minnesota’s own YouthBuild program.

“Lots of our students are immigrants and refugees,” Nelson said. “It’s a great way into high-wage, high-demand jobs.

GAP alumni Hser Pwe was born in Burma and grew up in a Thailand prison-like refugee camp after his family fled murderous Burmese soldiers. He testified to the legislature that the YouthBuild program at GAP not only taught him construction skills, but also helped improve his English and realize that he really “did” have opportunities. When he graduated from GAP in 2014, GAP helped him find a job installing floor covering. Eight years later, he’s been promoted to foreman, loves his career, and makes more than $44 per hour.

Pwe told lawmakers, “Because of this program I can speak English and support my wife and children. I have even become a U.S. citizen. Without YouthBuild, I do not know where I would be today.”

Thanks in part to this collaboration of legislators, educators, students, and people who’ve experienced homelessness, Minnesota is now on the path to simultaneously providing dignified affordable housing options and livable-wage careers for high school graduates (even those who may also be college-bound).

RAS has strongly promoted reinventing public schools.  Its work at Progressive Policy Institute has included a series of online discussions offering practical examples, for policymakers, educators, and community members. Register here for the webinar on December 5 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. (EST).

Khalique Rogers and Joe Nathan are Co-Directors of the Center for School Change, and Tressa Pankovits is Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools at Progressive Policy Institute.

PPI & The 74’s Future of High School Series: Minnesota’s GAP School & State Policies to Support Youth Career Development

 

PPI & The 74’s Future of High School Series:

Minnesota’s GAP School & State Policies to Support Youth Career Development

Tuesday, December 5th at 12:30 p.m. ET

Via Zoom! 

Join us on Tuesday, December 5 at 12:30 p.m. EST for a one-hour Zoom webinar to learn about an innovative school model and bold state policies that support youth career learning and development in Minnesota.This webinar will focus on The Guadalupe Alternative Programs (GAP), a community-based middle and high school serving grades 7-12, and their work expanding career opportunities in residential construction for their students. Panelists will speak about the career opportunities for which this program is preparing students, and how the program provides much needed housing support for the community. Additionally, we’ll hear from state policymakers on how Minnesota’s new state policy is encouraging these career pathways and ways other states and the federal government could facilitate replication and scale.

This conversation is critically important as it will help inform the education reforms needed to ensure the U.S. education system adapts to meet current workforce needs, with a focus on programs that will lead to greater economic opportunity for our nation’s young people, and, in this instance, is tackling the lack of affordable housing

This webinar is in collaboration between PPI’s New Skills for a New Economy Project, Reinventing America’s Schools Project, and The 74.

Our expert panelists include:

  • Jody Nelson, Ed.D., LMFT, Executive Director of Change Inc., a community based social service agency
  • Matt Norris, MN House of Representatives (District 32B) representing the communities of Blaine and Lexington
  • Khalique Rogers, founder of Good Riddance Consulting and Co-Director of the Center for School Change
  • Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools, PPI
Moderator: Taylor Maag, Director of PPI’s New Skills for a New Economy Project
RSVP HERE!

Revisiting Super Pell: Empowering Students to Earn the Skills They Need to Succeed

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

A decade ago, a majority of Americans felt positive about higher education but today these feelings have shifted. Americans, even across party lines, are increasingly concerned about affordability, access, and the overall payoff of a college degree. Combined with technological advances that have altered the credentials and skills needed for a successful career, many Americans have come to believe that traditional four-year degree programs do not meet our nation’s industry demands.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report “Revisiting Super Pell: Empowering Students to Earn the Skills They Need to Succeed,” detailing an innovative policy proposal to expand the existing Pell Grant program and allow it to cover short-term industry-aligned programs. PPI recommends consolidating existing assistance for higher education — tax incentives, the Pell Grant and other programs — into a new Super Pell Grant.

Report author Taylor Maag, Director of Workforce Development Policy and the New Skills for a New Economy Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, outlines how a Super Pell grant would reach roughly 5 million more students from middle and low-income backgrounds, increase the average Pell award by at least $500, and allow all eligible individuals to use their aid for non-degree programs that are not currently covered by federal financial aid.

“As we stand at the intersection of technological advancements, shifting workforce demands, and a growing desire for accessible career education, America’s degree-centric model for higher education must evolve. A Super Pell Grant would consolidate federal higher education spending to expand the reach of the Pell Grant while also expanding its ability to cover shorter-term, more workforce-oriented programs. This expansion would enable millions of Americans to pursue quicker and more affordable ways to acquire higher skills and higher-wage jobs. The result will be a societal win-win: a more adaptable and competitive workforce and less economic inequality,” said Taylor Maag.

By enacting Super Pell, policymakers would be simplifying federal aid and expanding access to postsecondary education. The expansion of this grant and the inclusion of short-term workforce training will not only meet the needs of today’s students — those who are older and more diverse — but also ensure employers have the talent they need to remain competitive.

Read and download the full report here.

New Skills for a New Economy, a project of PPI, seeks to promote workforce development policies that level the playing field for degree and non-degree workers. This project plays a critical role in shaping federal and state workforce policy, weighing in on important debates, key legislation, and helping to lift up new ideas and best practices happening across the country.

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

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org

 

Revisiting Super Pell: Empowering Students to Earn the Skills They Need to Succeed

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION

A decade ago, Americans felt positively about higher education — over 95% of parents (across political parties) said they expected their kids to go to college. Today, these feelings have shifted. Fewer young adults believe college is important, only about one-third of the American public has confidence in higher education, and, in contrast to the college-oriented parents of 10 years ago, almost half now say they’d prefer their children pursue something other than a bachelor’s degree upon their high school graduation.

So, what has changed in the last decade? A recent study from Pew Research Center revealed that Americans are increasingly concerned about affordability, access, and the overall payoff of a college degree. Meanwhile, technological advances and AI have begun to change the world of work, altering the credentials and skills needed for success. Many Americans have come to believe that traditional degree programs do not meet these new industry demands.

Additionally, a half-century ago, many workers could earn a family-sustaining wage with just a high school diploma. Today, most workers need at least some postsecondary education or specified skill set to succeed in our economy. According to an analysis from the National Skills Coalition, 52% of jobs today require more education and training than high schools provide, but less than typically included with a four-year college degree. Unfortunately, only 43% of workers have access to the skills training needed to fill those jobs.

Public policy has not kept up with these changing demands. While dramatically expanding financial support for college students, Washington has chronically underinvested in workforce development and the ability for non-degree workers and learners to acquire in-demand skills. Left in the lurch are individuals who need and want workforce training that does not require two- or four-year degrees, as well as U.S. employers trying to fill skills gaps. In essence, federal policy has opened a chasm between the educational establishment and the nation’s labor market.

PPI believes “Super Pell” grants aimed at helping future and current workers acquire valuable in-demand skills can help bridge that gap.

The federal Pell Grant program, authorized by Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA), is the single largest source of federal grant aid supporting postsecondary students from low-income families. Total federal spending on the program last year was around $27.6 billion and in 2021/22, the number of Pell Grant recipients grew to 6.1 million or 34% of undergraduate students. But Pell Grants can’t be used for all postsecondary programs. The aid can only be used in educational institutions that are accredited and approved by the Department of Education (ED) and for programs that meet certain seat time and credit criteria. These requirements exclude many shorter-term, workforce-oriented programs — limiting the postsecondary opportunities individuals can choose from.

In 2014, PPI scholar Paul Weinstein proposed reforming Pell to establish a single higher education grant that would be more generous, easier to access, and financed by folding the myriad of existing tax incentives and higher education spending programs into one offering.10 He later renamed it “Super Pell” and PPI added to the idea in 2019 in our progressive budget for equitable growth.11 The proposal not only ensures more Americans can draw down on this aid but also includes high-quality workforce programs — giving America’s current and future workers the opportunity to use federal aid for educational opportunities best poised to meet their needs and the needs of the labor market. This policy brief dives into why Super Pell is needed now, why this proposal is different than what’s out there and action that has been done to date.

READ THE FULL REPORT.

Pankovits for Medium: Senate Democrats Find Their Voice on School Reform

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Tressa Pankovits

A colleague recently observed: “Parents have spoken: The school choice debate is over! Now, the debate is about ‘what’ school choice will look like ¾ will it be truly public, or will taxpayer dollars universally fund selective private schools?”

At PPI, we believe that public school options should be just that: public, free, and open to all. Only public schools can ensure that students do not suffer discrimination or exclusion based on race, religion or any other protected categories.

That’s why we were heartened to see a cadre of U.S. Senate Democrats join Republican Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) in sponsoring a bill that would encourage school choice that is truly public ¾ and proven.

Keep reading on Medium.

Pankovits for Real Clear Education: Why Are We Cheating Public Charter Schools Out of Funding?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Tressa Pankovits

You wouldn’t pay steakhouse prices for a fast-food burger, would you? Didn’t think so.

So, why do we send the lion’s share of our public K-12 education dollars to schools that can’t keep up with the financially lean education machines that outperform them?

I’m talking about public charter schools, of course. These free, public schools that disproportionately serve low-income and minority children are the subject of two recently released independent studies. Taking the studies together, pragmatic thinkers might wonder how we could be so indifferent to blatant discrimination against our most marginalized students.

Keep reading in Real Clear Education.

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

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

The Belief Gap: 2023 National Education Summit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Paul Weinstein Jr.

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

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

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

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

Keep reading in Forbes.

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

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Tressa Pankovits

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

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

Keep reading in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

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

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Tressa Pankovits

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

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

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

Read more in WisPolitics.