A new set of dire warnings have emerged about the wave of new policies allowing families to direct public education funding to private schools or other alternatives chosen by their parents.
A Supreme Court case weighing whether states can mandate religious schools accept students who don’t share their convictions has spawned a new wave of concerns about Balkanization.
“Public education, including public charter schools, is one of the few things that holds our society together,” said Richard Kahlenberg, who directs the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank. “It’s the common experience for 90% of American schoolchildren.”
“If you suddenly have … Christian students going to their schools, Jewish students going to theirs, Muslim students going to theirs, that means fewer Christian students come to know Jewish and Muslim students as classmates and friends,” Kahlenberg said in a panel discussion prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Oklahoma case. “Our public schools are already highly segregated by race and class, and this would just layer on religion as a new source of balkanization.”
Meanwhile, Kahlenberg’s Progressive Policy Institute colleague argues that allowing parents to direct public education funding will fuel a growing divide between haves and have-nots.
These grim predictions are possible to test in the real world, and researchers are doing so. Their work shows that private education options are surprisingly effective at promoting tolerance and civic participation. And credible studies show that expanded scholarship programs spur measurable improvements in public schools, thanks to increased competition—suggesting broad benefits beyond students who participate directly.
At some point, those who keep claiming the sky is falling are going to need to produce some evidence it actually is—or at least reckon with the evidence suggesting it isn’t.
In Brief
As Americans grow more skeptical of conventional college degrees, a raft of alternative credentials is flooding the market. A sweeping new report says: Buyer beware.
But even as momentum builds, a troubling reality looms in the bewildering volume and wildly inconsistent quality of non-degree credentials flooding the market. With over 1.1 million credentials available—from Big Tech certifications to community college programs—learners lack clear guidance on which programs will pay off. Without better data and transparency, countless Americans risk wasting time and money on credentials that lead nowhere. Indeed, here’s a sobering truth: Most credentials fail to deliver. Only about 12 percent produce significant wage gains beyond what peers achieve without them.
An analysis of parent spending in the first year of the Utah Fits All scholarships finds a small share of expenses (the $2 million of the $80 million total budget that was spent on activities and field drips) drives an outsize share of political controversy.
A major study of math achievement finds the gap between boys and girls emerges in the first year of school.
“This paper suggests that the gender inequalities in children’s maths performance aren’t innate or inevitable,” says psychologist Jillian Lauer at the University of Cambridge, UK. “If we want to stop girls from falling behind, we need to focus on their early experiences at school.”
More than half of students say they aren’t math people. Girls are slightly more likely to disengage with math class, but big new survey from RAND suggests this is a problem across the demographic spectrum.
Culture may play a large role in the growing red state-blue state divide in education outcomes.
Pre-K teachers struggle with low morale on par with their K-12 counterparts.
It’s often understood that teachers increase their impact over the first few years on the job, and then improvements start to fade. But a new study challenges this conventional wisdom, showing professional growth continues among veteran teachers.
Parent Corner
It’s a growing debate in parent circles: Whether to load up a kid’s summer with camps and structured activities or allow them to “rot.”
Summer boredom can create space in students’ lives for generative aimlessness or productive endeavors, but there’s an elephant in the room: screens. If children are left alone all summer, will they do anything other than immerse themselves in digital entertainment?
A new parent survey suggests the majority of students get cellphones, tablets or both before age 12. And their parents are far more likely to regret providing these devices too early. Almost none felt they withheld the devices too late.
Delaying smartphones and tablets may be the key to saving summer.
