A New School Year

I’m back from an extended absence. What was supposed to be an August full of rest and relaxation beside a northern Minnesota lake turned out to be way different.

I was scheduled for an angiogram in early August after results from an electrocardiogram came back irregular. During the angiogram the doctors found 99% blockage in my left anterior descending artery. After exploring options, the decision was made to have a coronary artery bypass graft. That surgery happened three weeks ago today. Currently I’m getting my strength back, working on building my lung capacity, and waiting for clearance in a week to start or so to start doing things that can put me back to a more normal life – things like driving and sleeping on my side.

I’m a lucky man to be alive.

Meanwhile, while I was spending two weeks of my life in a hospital room, another school year started for millions of young learners. That means it’s time for ABPTL to take the pulse of what America thinks about its public schools. In mid-August, EducationWeek published the following in answer to that question:

“While confidence in public schools continues to decline, Americans are still more likely to give a high grade to their local schools than to the nation’s education system as a whole, a new poll finds.”

“Yet despite their mixed opinions about schools, the annual PDK Poll on Public Attitudes Toward Public Education also found that a majority of Americans think teachers are underpaid, and they oppose shutting down the U.S. Department of Education.”

“Meanwhile, parents are growing more open to private school choice programs. Among parent respondents, 59% said they would probably send their child to a private or religious school if they ‘were offered public funds to cover at least a portion of the cost.’”

“The findings come after Republicans have passed private school choice programs, like tax-credit scholarships, at the state and national level. They also come amid a surge of concern about how schools engage parents in their children’s education.”

“’I don’t think a lot of this is surprising to us, frankly,’ said Keri Rodrigues, the president of the National Parents Union, an organization that advocates for parents’ involvement in education. ‘We have long said that parents are deeply frustrated and growing even more frustrated by the fact that we are not adequately communicated with [by schools]. Our concerns and priorities are often dismissed.’”

“The poll of 1,005 U.S. adults was conducted from June 24 to June 30 by the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at Christopher Newport University. Previous years’ PDK Polls were conducted by Gallup.”

“Americans are more satisfied with their local schools than the system as a whole – Asked to grade schools, 43% of poll respondents gave their ‘own community’s schools’ an A or B, down from 53% in 2013. Only 13% of respondents gave the nation’s public schools an A or B rating, down from 26% in 2004.”

“Eroding confidence in public schools can be seen across a few different sets of responses to questions,’ said Sarah Reckhow, a political science professor at Michigan State University. ‘But I don’t think the causes of that are entirely clear.’”

…

“Divides in parents’ satisfaction with input in their children’s education – Seventy percent of parent respondents said they were very or somewhat satisfied with ‘the amount of say they have in their child’s education,’ the poll found.”

“Responses were sharply divided along demographic and political lines. Fifty percent of Republican parents said they were very or somewhat satisfied, compared to 80% of Democrats and 73% of independents.”

“One hundred percent of parents with students in private schools said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their say in their children’s education, compared to 61% of public school parents.”

…

“Americans want to keep the Education Department and give teachers a raise – President Donald Trump has cut federal education programs, dramatically downsized staff at the U.S. Department of Education, and pledge to fully eliminate the agency. But 66% of poll respondents opposed or strongly opposed eliminating the Education Department. Among Republican respondents, 46% support or strongly support eliminating the agency, but no Democrats do.”

…

“Asked about a variety of policies ands priorities, school safety, student belonging, career and technical education, and addressing teacher shortages, had the highest levels of support. Between 97 and 99% of respondents said those four priorities are somewhat or very important. Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives had the lowest support; 61% of respondents said they are very or somewhat important.”

“While 92% of respondents called teacher pay an important issue, a clear partisan divide emerged. While 73% of Democrats and 62% of independents said teacher pay in their own communities was too low, just 39% of Republicans did.”

“The poll results point to a continued need for schools to build trust with parents, Reckhow said. And, as a declining birthrate leads to fewer school-aged children, schools need to communicate their priorities and successes to the general public, even those without current students, she said.”

Last week I participated in a Zoom meeting hosted by the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI). Iowa CCI is a progressive group focused on using community to improve life across Iowa, including public education. But Iowa CCI has a problem. They think that the way to improve public schools in this country is a double-down on spending more money on public schooling, putting a stop to vouchers and education savings accounts that move resources away from public schools to primarily private schools, hiring better teachers, identifying improved school leadership, adopting better curriculum, and placing faith in teachers instead of testing when it comes to deciding whether kids are learning or not.

At the end of the session, I think it would be fair to say that the Zoom host was exasperated with my skepticism and outright cynicism when it came to Iowa CCI’s solutions.

I wish I would have shared some of the data I shared in this column.

Here is a fact – parents across the country are not happy with the way our current public school system operates. Now, our K-12 system can continue to ignore the data around that point, or leadership can get busy designing a learning system that works better for kids and their parents. If that doesn’t happen soon, those parents will continue to question how effective our K-12 system is, and will continue to look for alternatives to that tired, broken system.

Til tomorrow. SVB