Editor’s note: This commentary from Jay Mathews, an education columnist for the Washington Post and creator of the annual Challenge Index rankings of American high schools, appeared Sunday on washingtonpost.com.

The current debate over schools puzzles me. Much of the talk is about the need for more parent rights and more parent choice. Some people fail to recognize that parental decisions are at least as, if not more, important than anything else going on in schools these days.

Parents want their children to acquire skills that will pay their bills and develop resourcefulness to handle tough times in their lives. Parents look for schools with good teachers who can help with that.

Most make their school choices based not on their politics but on what is going on in those classrooms.

The alleged lessons on race and sex that are being debated don’t matter to them as much as progress in reading and math.

Decades of educational research show that increased achievement in our schools is tied to rising living standards. The fact that parents have been working hard, doing better financially and supporting school improvements helps explain significant gains in U.S. learning from 1971 to 2017, according to researchers M. Danish Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson.

The pandemic has set that back, but there has been no decline in parental eagerness for good teaching. Mothers and fathers will demand that schools recover the gains lost and won’t rest until that happens.

Parents often gravitate to schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, where average test scores are high. But that focus on nice suburbs overlooks what is happening in communities on the other end of the income scale.

The largest and one of the most academically successful public charter school networks in the country is KIPP. It began in 1994 with 49 students in one elementary school classroom in a poor part of Houston. Today, it has 120,000 students, 88% of them low-income.

The similarly high-scoring IDEA public charter network began in 1998 with 75 mostly low-income students in Donna, Tex., near the Mexican border. That network now has 80,000 students, 87% of whom are economically disadvantaged.

How did those students get into those great schools? Their parents enrolled them. Mothers and fathers recognize that KIPP and IDEA are among several charter networks, and some regular public schools far from rich neighborhoods, distinguishing themselves academically.

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Editor’s note: This commentary from Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at The Heritage Foundation and a reimaginED guest blogger, and Madison Marino, research associate and project coordinator at the Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, appeared Wednesday on washingtontimes.com.

Last summer, when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law that made Empowerment Scholarship Accounts an option for all children in the state, special interest groups panicked.

Save Our Schools Arizona launched a referendum campaign, urging citizens to “vote for public schools” and support “our kids and our communities” by opposing the expansion. Yet SOS couldn’t gather enough signatures to put its proposal on the ballot.

It’s not that SOS didn’t have plenty of resources to qualify the measure. It’s just that families across the state think the accounts are what Arizona parents and students need.

“I’ve had so many conversations with neighbors and church friends, and it seems to come up everywhere,” said Annie Meade, mother of four and new account holder. “My neighbors who send their children to public school … are really happy for me to have more choices for my kids,” she said.

With Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, Ms. Meade and other participating families can use a portion of their child’s funds from the state K-12 education funding formula to purchase education products and services for their children. The money may be used to pay for online classes, textbooks, school uniforms, private school tuition, and more.

Ms. Meade will use accounts for three of her children and send her fourth to a charter school. The money will be used to pay tuition and expenses at a microschool, a small private school, along with curricular materials, music lessons and physical education classes.

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PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Danny Villegas knew that if South Florida wanted to develop the kind of elite soccer talent found in Europe, it would have to offer more than the usual part-time coaching and training – and reach more than just the kids from wealthier families.

So five years ago, he joined his friend Djems “DJ” Lima, who had come up with a concept that, in this era of increasingly customized education, is still surprisingly kind of rare: A K-12 school for athletes.

At the soccer-focused Pathway Schools, “We’re making better humans, better students, and better players,” said Villegas, a high school soccer star in Miami who went on to play professional soccer in Mexico, Brazil and the U.S.

The idea for Pathway “came out of me realizing I can’t develop a high-level athlete without working on all the components,” said Lima, who played soccer in college and earned a degree in business management. “With eight hours in a focused environment, we can really cater to the kids’ needs. Not just the athletic aspect, but the academic aspect and the mental aspect.”

A school for athletes can take promising young players to the next level.

School choice can help ensure even more promising young players have that opportunity.

Pathway has three campuses in South Florida that share the brand but have separate owners. Altogether, they serve about 75 students, most of them in middle and high school.

Villegas owns the one in the city of Pembroke Pines, in the vast patchwork of semi-tropical suburbia that is Broward County. It’s hard to imagine how he could have secured a better facility.

Pathway rents space on the south campus of Broward College, a state college that decided in 2020 to end its athletic programs. Pathway students have access to the college’s academic and athletic facilities, including its gym, locker rooms and soccer field.

Thanks to school choice, Pathway Schools will be financially accessible to a broad range of students.

Sixteen of the 24 students at the Pembroke site use income-based school choice scholarships. (Those scholarships are administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.) The other two campuses are in the process of meeting state regulations for educational facilities so they can accept scholarship students next year.

Having those students “will make our impact that much greater,” Villegas said. “Some of the most talented soccer kids often don’t have the money.”

Marilyn Hawthorne said without a choice scholarship, she probably wouldn’t have been able to enroll her 16-year-old son, Emerson Butcher. Hawthorne is a nurse and single mom with two other children, both of them in college.

Pathway is perfect for Emerson, she said, and not only because he’s getting expert coaching. The 11^th-grader is also getting the preparation and motivation he needs to excel academically, something he wasn’t doing at his prior school.

“My son is very bright, but he didn’t have much interest in school,” Hawthorne said. Pathway turned out to be “the right place at the right time. He has 100 percent turned it around.”

For its core academic curriculum, Pathway relies on Florida Virtual School. FLVS is the nation’s largest state-run virtual school, and it has long enjoyed an excellent reputation for academic quality. Pathway supplements FLVS with a team of on-site instructors who can offer one-on-one help.

The typical day’s schedule is soccer training in the morning, followed by four hours of academics, followed by soccer training in the afternoon. The school does not field its own club or travel teams – “We’re club neutral,” Villegas said – but all of its students play on top teams in soccer-rich South Florida.

The goal for Pathway students is to play at least at the college level – and to earn college scholarships in order to do that. To that end, Pathway students can’t participate in soccer training unless they maintain As and Bs in every class.

“When they’re motivated by what they love, which is soccer, they’ll do what they need to do,” Villegas said. “They realize, ‘Whoa, they’re holding me accountable.’ We’re a soccer school. But grades are important.”

Pathway Schools also put a lot of focus on non-academic skills, including self-discipline, emotional maturity, and mental toughness. At his campus in another Broward city, Coconut Creek, Lima has his students read Angela Duckworth’s “Grit,” about resolve and resilience, and the motivational business classic “Who Moved My Cheese?”

The schools are not only proving popular with hard-core soccer players in South Florida. They may be a template for education entrepreneurs in Florida and other choice-rich states who want to cater to their own athletic niches.

“When we meet kids where they’re at, and we align with their passions, it’s their dream school,” Villegas said. “They never thought this could be a reality.”

Eleventh-grader Zoe Burger was in a traditional private school before she enrolled in Pathway last year. She recently traveled to Peru after getting an invitation to play with the 17-year-old-and-younger Peruvian national team. She has also traveled to Europe to watch top-tier soccer there. She said she loves the training and competition at Pathway, and the flexibility that comes with FLVS.

“I don’t have to stress about assignments being done the same day,” Zoe said. “If I was in a regular school, I would get kicked out.” (To be clear, Zoe is no slacker. She’s already taken two Advanced Placement classes and plans to take more her senior year.)

Ninth-grader Madison Stewart was in a district school two years ago, and in FLVS full time last year. The latter was good academically but left a void. “I missed the social aspect,” she said. “It was hard doing school alone.”

When her mom told her about Pathway, Madison thought it was too good to be true. “I want to go as far with soccer as I can,” she said. “If there’s a school for it, why would I not go there?”

Emerson Butcher said the atmosphere at Pathway has been especially good for him.

His grades weren’t the best in his prior public school, he said. But now he has no choice but to make A’s and B’s.

“I’m going to be honest: I’m a class clown. But here, I’m more focused,” Emerson said. “There’s a lot of motivation because I love playing soccer.”

Editor’s note: This article appeared Wednesday on the74million.org. To read an analysis of the survey from Patrick Gibbons, manager of policy and public affairs at Step Up For Students, click here.

More than half of the 3,115 parents who participated in a spring survey said they prefer to direct and curate their child’s education rather than rely entirely on their local school system, results showed.

Conducted by Tyton Partners, an investment banking and consulting firm that examines pandemic-related shifts in education, and funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Trust, the survey was released Oct. 26. It comes after parents had courtside seats to various aspects of their children’s learning during the pandemic, prompting many — from myriad backgrounds and political affiliations — to push for change.

“What we’re hearing from parents loud and clear is they feel a greater sense of ownership over their child’s education,” said Christian Lehr, a senior principal in Tyton’s strategy consulting practice. “The last two years have been incredibly difficult. Now, parents are actively searching for new experiences that will deliver on academic promises, yes, but also bring joy and delight.”

Fifty-nine percent of participants said their educational preferences changed post-pandemic: 51% said personal interest and needs should drive a child’s education rather than grade-level requirements.

Nearly 80% said learning can and should happen anywhere.

Some parent groups, frustrated by underperforming schools, have advocated for the types of change they feel will propel children of color and other marginalized groups. Many don’t have a political agenda while others are openly partisan: Conservative parents are driving change from within the public school system, pushing for certain texts — often those that concern issues of race and gender — to be pulled from the classroom. Left-leaning suburban families have organized against this trend.

Others still, unhappy with districts’ remote learning options during the pandemic, removed their children from the public school system entirely. And while some have returned to campus, virtual school enrollment figures remain high.

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MIAMI – Louise Janvier uses the word “environment” often when talking about education choice and how it can rescue a child.

“Sometimes, when a kid is going to go through things in life, they have to be in the right environment in order to pull through,” she said. “Some of them don’t pull through because they weren’t in the right environment and didn’t have the right support.”

As examples, Louise offers her daughter, Jahiara Jones, and her nephew, Guycelo Robert. Both found themselves surrounded by peers who were leading them away from the values they were taught at home. Both, Louise thought, where in danger of making decisions that could have a negative impact on their future.

They needed to be in the right environment.

With the help of a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students, Jahiara and Guycelo were able to land in that environment at Greater Miami Academy (GMA), a pre-K through 12 private school not far from their Miami home.

“I’m grateful for it, because without it, I’d probably would not have been at GMA,” Jahiara said. “The school introduced me to many different opportunities and allowed me to develop more as a person.”

Guycelo, who graduated from GMA in 2020, graduated last spring from Miami Dade College as a member of the Dean’s List while carrying a 4.0 GPA. A computer science major, Guycelo is entering his first semester at Florida International University. He plans on a career in coding.

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Editor’s note: This commentary from Jeff Murray, formerly employed at School Choice Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, appeared today on the Fordham Institute’s website.

What parents are looking for in an ideal school choice scenario is often very different from what they settle for in the real world. Cost, distance, academic quality, safety, extracurricular options, and a host of other factors are all at play, meaning trade-offs are unavoidable.

Recently published research findings try to capture the matrix of compromises being made. Data come from Kansas City, Missouri, from fall 2016 to spring 2017.

School options were widespread in the city, including intradistrict opt-in among all 26 of Kansas City Public Schools’ general education buildings and nine magnet schools, along with 20 public charter schools and 24 private schools.

At the time of the study, more than 8,500 students (23% of all K–12 students) attended private schools, over 6,500 students (18%) attended charters, and more than 4,100 (11%) attended magnets. Around 70% of the remaining students attending general education KCPS buildings opted for a school outside their neighborhood assignment zone.

Aiding parents in their choices: a single application for any KCPS building, including magnets, and a second single application that covered nearly all of the city’s charters.

The Kansas City Area Education Research Consortium recruited parents through multiple avenues in 2016 and 2017 to answer survey questions regarding school preferences. The sample comprised 436 individuals, proportionally representing district attendance zones, racial makeup of the population, and socioeconomic distribution around the city.

Approximately 33% of respondents had a college degree. While no breakdown exists for how many students attended which school type, all types were represented.

Respondents were first asked to rate, on a scale of one to five, how important each of 19 school attributes was to them in choosing a school for their oldest child. Attributes included academic performance, afterschool programs, teacher and student diversity, curriculum, facilities, leadership, parent involvement, and safety.

Most importantly, respondents were asked to rate their preferences “in the context of an ideal world where they were not bound by social, economic, or logistical constraints and concerns.” They were then asked to choose their top three based on their current real-world circumstances and with “personal constraints,” as well as any “systemic obstacles” they have encountered in mind.

Finally, they were asked to rate on a scale from one to five how satisfied they were with their child’s school, and, on a reverse scale, to what extent their child’s school “[fell] short in things that would otherwise make a difference” in their education.

So how far was the ideal from the reality? It depended on the family. No one got everything they wanted because everyone’s ideal ratings put almost every school feature at the top of the list. While teacher quality was highest and social/medical services lowest, there were less than 1.5 ratings points separating them (4.82 out of five vs. 3.37) and all 17 other features were crammed in between.

Parents who were white, who had any education level above high school, and earned over $50,000 per year were more likely to rank their child’s school very highly on their top three attributes than were their peers, marking what the researchers deem a state of lowest “preference compromise.” That is, their children were more likely to attend schools in the real world that ranked highly on the attributes that mattered most to them in an ideal condition.

Parents outside those demographic categories were more likely to report attending schools where their highest-rated attributes are not present or present at a lower level than their peers, indicating a less-than-ideal choice. Hispanic parents were most likely to report compromising on their highest-rated attributes, with Black parents close behind.

Parental satisfaction scores track with level of compromise—the bigger the gap between ideal attributes and real experience, the lower the reported satisfaction level. The researchers thus concluded that these families are least well-served by school choice in Kansas City, but that leap owes more to the ideal than to the real.

On the upside here, all families’ preferences were considered equal in the analysis, with no leeway to consider that parents with lower education or income levels might lack knowledge of important school attributes or available options. This is extremely positive and a better approach than many previous such studies.

On the downside, the methodology assumes that all parents have already chosen—and are reporting their satisfaction with—their best possible option. This is nominally true, but the universe of options for a family with one working parent and two cars is likely to be different—and much larger in the real world—than for a family with two working parents and a single vehicle, even if their incomes are the same and even if they live in the same zip code.

Given modern residential patterns and school zone boundaries’ correlation with historic redlining efforts, the gap between the ideal and the real is already baked into school choice infrastructure in many cities—especially for families with fewer resources. It is true that lower-income families or Hispanic families have less access to school choice, but the researchers’ conclusion that such a fact renders school choice problematic does not logically follow.

While not giving more families a free ticket into the ideal school of their dreams, KC did offer a fairly robust choice environment in 2017. The sheer number of students attending non-assigned district schools at the time is evidence enough of that.

A majority of parents—from all walks of life—likely found for their children a choice they liked better than they would if they had been forced to send their child to their zoned school with no alternatives. And that’s a win.

The Covid-19 pandemic proved that K-12 education was ripe for disruption. A new report from Tyton Partners finds that a majority of parents “prefer to direct and curate their child’s education rather than rely on local school systems.”

With many families educating their children at home during the crisis, parents discovered learning and personal growth can happen everywhere, not just in the classroom. Not only are parents choosing where, and how, their children are educated; they also are making choices on extracurricular activities like camp, tutoring, cultural enrichment and sports.

Could educational choice and extracurricular choice coexist, and how might it work?

Tyton Partners, with the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Trust, set out to find answers to these questions with a new report, “Choose To Learn: Connecting In- And Out-Of-School Learning In A Post-Pandemic World.”

Researchers surveyed more than 3,000 parents and nearly 150 organizational leaders who offer in-school and out-of-school educational programs.

According to the survey, the pandemic fundamentally changed the way parents view K-12 education.

Parents’ values and beliefs toward K-12 learning

While parents still believe in-school learning is the greatest means of improving a child’s intellectual opportunity, Tyton Partners found that parents viewed out-of-school activities to be far better at supporting a child’s passions of interest and developing a child’s sense of self-worth.

Out-of-school activities were viewed as being better at helping students develop relationships with peers and adults and reinforcing key family values and beliefs. These out-of-school style activities may even be blended into non-traditional educational models, such as microschools or other alternative educational programs.

Top aspirations for child’s learning

Given the positive benefits of these out-of-school activities, researchers reviewed concerns over equitable access to extracurricular activities and alternative schools by minorities or low-income families. Alternative school options and extracurricular activities also remain unaffordable to most families, regardless of race or income.

Researchers provide two solutions to making alternative educational models and extracurricular activities more affordable: education savings accounts (ESAs) and public microgrants.

ESAs would provide funds directly to parents to pay for tuition, tutoring and other afterschool activities like camps, museum trips, sports and more. Microgrants include programs like VELA Education Fund  offering grants to educational entrepreneurs, or Boston Public Schools’ “Opportunity Portfolio,” which provides grants to community organizations and enrichment programs to serve local students.

In addition to resolving equity issues, the researchers examined accessibility and quality issues as well.

Overall, the research launched to gain a better understanding of issues impacting every family, including the more than 40 million parents who send their children to public school, according to Christian Lehr, senior principal at Tyton Partners and lead author of the report.

“Relative to issues of equity and access, our local public districts play a crucial role for K-12 families,” Lehr said. “At the same time, families crave a wide variety of learning experiences. It is in this spirit that we examined parents’ aspirations at the intersection of in- and out-of-school learning, and ask: How can the K-12 sector deliver a stronger union of academic, extracurricular, and personal outcomes for all families, regardless of life or economic circumstances?”

Editor’s note: This article appeared Sunday on bradenton.com.

On break in the hallway between St. Marcus Lutheran Church and its attached school, eighth grader Annii Kinepoway had no hesitation in explaining what she’s learned to love best here — the good Lord and good grades.

“I like knowing there’s somebody you can ask for help if you need it. Somebody is there and looking over you,” she said of her newly found faith, while proudly wearing the tie indicating her academic honors.

Annii’s mother could only afford this educational opportunity because of school choice programs, which 94% of St. Marcus’ 1,160 students in Milwaukee also use.

“It has changed our lives for the better,” said Wishkub Kinepoway, a Native American and African American single mom. “She says, ‘I really love St. Marcus because I don’t have to pretend I’m not smart.’”

School choice is one of many education issues that have become a partisan battleground, bringing parents to the polls this fall. One core question is how widely, if at all, taxpayer money should pay for bradprivate school tuition, instead of only financing public schools. Critics say such programs weaken public schools, whose costs remain high even if students transfer, taking some state funding with them.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated tensions. Public schools often were closed longer than private ones, and extended online learning has been linked to major learning losses.

But many low-income parents in neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s predominantly African American north side or Latino south side say voucher programs — introduced here three decades ago — are the only way their children can attend faith-based institutions. They say those schools teach structure and values in ways public ones are often too overwhelmed to do.

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Editor’s note: This opinion piece from Michael J. Petrilli, president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Nathaniel Grossman, editorial and program associate at the Institute, appeared on coalvalleynews.com.

Public education in West Virginia looks and feels a little different this fall, thanks to the history-making arrival of the state’s first charter school.

Charter schools are public schools that operate with greater flexibility than traditional schools. They offer all families, regardless of income, a choice in which schools to send their children. While affluent families have long been able to move into neighborhoods that boast high-quality public schools or send their children to expensive private schools, lower-income families are often stuck with their neighborhood school, regardless of the quality of education it provides.

Encouragingly, when West Virginia officials passed House Bill 206 in 2019, they created a new system that allowed for the creation of charter schools for the first time in the state’s history. This year, there are four new public charter schools overseen by the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board, whose primary goal is to ensure that each school provides a quality education to its students. And under this new law, the state may authorize an additional 10 schools every three years beginning in 2023.

To be sure, these four schools represent a small fraction of West Virginia’s roughly 750 K-12 schools, but they represent a sea change or the 1,500 students who choose to attend them.

And following on the awful NAEP scores recently released, it is good news that should be celebrated. Despite political backlash to public charter schools, research suggests choice in education options, and charter schools specifically, benefit students.

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Editor’s note: In a two-part series last week, Tom Greene, national legislative director for ExcelinEd in Action, reflected that the release of NAEP scores in late October came with a nationwide lament about the failings of the country’s K-12 education system, long-term pandemic disruptions, school closures and other challenges.

Those in the education policy space, Greene noted, know that the relentless push for improvement has never wavered, and that actions were ongoing long before the release of NAEP scores. Here are 10 policy changes already in the works that Greene says are offering foundational and innovative solutions that can help modernize education and turn around low student performance confirmed by NAEP.

Early literacy

With learning loss front and center, state policymakers invested hundreds of millions of dollars in early literacy improvements. They created or expanded programs such as teacher trainings, specialized supports for struggling readers and updated classroom resources to help close learning gaps.

Fifteen states passed comprehensive early literacy policies grounded in the science of reading: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and—notably—Alaska, which passed its landmark Alaska Reads Act with bipartisan support after a nearly decade-long effort.

Sweeping education funding reform

Tennessee took the lead in transforming per-pupil spending by passing sweeping reforms to the state’s overall school funding system. Under this plan, money follows the student to all public schools and includes substantial funding weights for low-income students.

The plan also provides funding for early literacy, financial rewards for school excellence and incentives to districts that offer high-value career and technical education.

Strengthening education to workforce pathways

Many states in 2022, most noticeably Mississippi, had strong bipartisan support to help students build skills for postsecondary achievement, especially in high-demand industries. State policymakers unanimously passed the Comprehensive Career and Technical Education (CTE) Reform Act to improve CTE programs and streamline industry-recognized certification.

It includes a workforce audit, career coaching for students and an annual CTE program inventory with return-on-investment analysis to align offerings with business and industry needs. Other states are already taking note.

Rethinking the teacher pipeline

In a groundbreaking action, Indiana became the first state in the nation this year to adopt a policy to give more instructional options to teachers. This new law creates a study to develop a first-of-its-kind chartered teachers policy, which allows parents to enter into agreements with public school teachers to provide customized learning environments for students.

Several other states, including Arizona, Idaho and Oklahoma, took actions to help fill teacher shortages by providing improvements in training, licensing flexibility and adjunct teacher support.

Modernizing education with 21st century skills

Florida adopted financial literacy as a high school graduation requirement, with all high school students required to pass a financial literacy course to receive a diploma. The legislation will empower an estimated 190,000 students a year with 21st-century life skills, starting with students who enter high school in the 2023-24 school year.

Equal funding for charter schools

State leaders are taking action to ensure all public schools are treated equally when it comes to funding. For the first time, Missouri charter schools will receive the same per-pupil funding as traditional public schools. The new funding model directs districts to allocate more funding to each charter school within their jurisdiction to bring them up to the level of traditional public schools. Florida and Georgia increased funding to charter schools to support their facility needs, and Kentucky created a new funding system to direct federal, state and local dollars to charter schools.

Empowering parents through microgrants Microgrants continue to grow in popularity to provide direct funding to parents for a range of academic and enrichment activities that support the educational needs of their children. This year, Indiana and Idaho stepped up with microgrant and scholarship programs. Together, the two states have invested $75 million in microgrants and scholarships to provide students with tutoring, devices, connectivity and other resources for learning. Establishing universal school choice In groundbreaking action, Arizona became the first state in the nation to pass legislation to create a universal Education Scholarship Account program, making more than 1.1 million students eligible to use a scholarship toward tuition or fees, supplemental education materials, tutoring and other educational services. Closing the transportation gap Arizona again became a model for states expanding an innovative program that modernizes transportation options and provides more flexibility to transport students to and from the public school of their choice. Florida and Indiana also passed laws to expand transportation options for students, and Colorado established a targeted microgrant program for parents to help with school transportation. Expanding flexibility for learners Kansas passed legislation to create new enrollment options for schools and students, allowing public and charter schools to serve more children, including those in home school and private school. Students can now enroll part-time in any public school to access courses they need. Read more in ExcelinEd in Action’s 2022 Legislative Impact-In Brief highlighting student-centered programs in states around the nation.