With the newly won power and a clear mandate, Democrats should get back to the issues that used to define the party starting with education.
Recent election results were not necessarily a preference for Democrats; rather, it was a demand for government to tackle social needs like the affordability crisis and other kitchen table issues like healthcare and education. The country is hurting and people came out in record numbers to demand change. While there are discussions about rebuilding or at least slowing the destruction of the Education Department, Democrats should take the initiative to create a new vision for the federal role in education.
Moving Beyond Compliance-Driven Federal Education Policy
Currently, much of the federal involvement in education is through accountability systems that have turned into exercises of compliance. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal law governing school accountability, requires states to set academic standards, develop state assessment systems, and establish measures of student and school performance. This system is used for federal identification of schools in need of improvement and aims to address inequities in educational opportunity.
In practice, ESSA promotes a compliance-driven process for schools and districts to “check the box” on requirements rather than making transformational change. This is in part due to the narrow focus on math and English language art scores at the detriment of addressing the root causes impacting under achievement such as belonging, agency, and other relational aspects of education. Furthermore, ESSA continues to promote a narrow set of evidence-based interventions that were largely designed and tested for the average student and not those with learning differences, multilingual students, or those experiencing economic insecurity.
Instead, the federal role in education should be to promote equity in education through innovation specific to underserved student needs. To do this, there needs to be more flexibility in accountability systems that move beyond student test scores to a nuanced evaluation of schools and the ways they support student learning.
Compliance-Driven Accountability Deters Innovative School Models
There are many innovative school models that are closing equity gaps in education for historically underserved students. Manhattan International High School is one of 16 Internationals Network Schools in New York City that is designed to serve recently arrived immigrant students who are learning English. The school only accepts students who have been in the U.S. for less than four years and who scored in the lowest twenty percent on the local language assessment. Because of this, the school has only 358 students and is able to tailor the curriculum and provide services specific to their student population. Within five years, 80 percent of their students have mastered English and graduated with the same standards as their non-EL peers in the state.
In another example, Provident Charter Schools in Pittsburgh Public Schools are designed for children in grades second through eighth with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and other language-based learning differences. Students receive multisensory reading instruction designed for language learning differences, small class sizes, and push-in literacy support. This school is offering a public education that many families with special education needs pay thousands of dollars a year in private tuition to obtain, making specialized education accessible to more students with learning differences.
The common thread in both schools is that they exclusively serve students who do not perform well on standardized assessments. As a result, schools serving higher percentages of English learners and students with learning differences typically are dinged in accountability systems. This puts schools using innovative models and serving students typically not well-served by traditional schools at risk of federal identification. As a result, it disincentivizes districts and states from supporting schools that work for underserved student populations.
Implications for Virginia
If Democrats initiate a federal accountability system that encourages serving diverse learners, state and local leaders will have more flexibility to think innovatively about education. With more school options tailored to the specific needs of students, districts could better serve all students by providing the curriculum and attention that students need and deserve.
To my knowledge, there is not a public option for language learning differences in the entire state of Virginia. Yet, 32 percent of students receiving special education services in Virginia have a language learning disability such as dyslexia, which totals nearly 54,000 students in the state.
As for English learners, Alexandria City Public Schools offers specialized programs for recently arrived immigrant students. These are designed as schools within a school at a local middle and high school. These schools use the same curriculum and model as the international schools in New York City. However, nearly 10 percent of students in Virginia’s public schools are English learners, many of whom could benefit from a specialized school to learn English and to support their transition to the U.S. school system.
New, Not Cancelled, Accountability Systems
If state and district leaders in Virginia and across the country were not afraid of federal accountability systems, more schools like the ones described above would exist. Families would have more choices as to the schools that best serve their students, and students who historically have tested poorly, and by no fault of their own, would be in an educational space where they could thrive and feel good about their learning.
I do not think Democrats should use their new power to end oversight and accountability systems in education as these are still needed to address long standing racial and economic inequities in this country. However, we can change the way that we uphold accountability so that states and districts can be innovative in school models and design schools for all students.
BETH DAVIS is a Postdoctoral Fellow at EdPolicyForward: The Center for Education Policy at George Mason University.
