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FAR ABOVE EQUAL BUT OPPOSITE REACTIONS NATIONWIDE. Perhaps the dam is beginning to break, as there are many hopeful signs around the country.  Jeanne Allen enumerates the good news “reactions” of states pushing back against school closures in Kentucky, West Virginia and South Dakota. Whether called  “Education Opportunity Accounts”, “New Hope Scholarships”, or  “Education Tax Credits”, these states’  programs all have one thing in common. They empower parents to decide what path is best for their kids. These “flyover country” states may be of no interest to folks living in their bubbles on either coast, but as Jeanne points out in Forbes, “they are harbingers of things to come”.

MORE PARENT POWER COMES OUT OF THE PEACH STATE. Not waiting to react to opponents of choice for parents, first-term Democrat legislator Mesha Mainor is working hard to establish “education scholarship accounts”  in Georgia that parents could use anywhere, including private schools. She was moved to action after her daughter remarked, “I think I go to the worst school in America”. Pointing out that some of the schools in her Atlanta district are among Georgia’s worst, she says; “I’m voting yes on this for my district.”  A profile in courage. Find out how your state rates in parent power with our Parent Power Index.

PENNSYLVANIA PUSHBACK. The Keystone State is a prime example of where weak-kneed state and district leaders allowed unions to control reopening and remote education was a failure for most.  Happily, the heroic efforts of many to fight back and educate the kids in spite of the odds stemmed catastrophic learning loss for many.  We explored the rescue efforts in CER’s latest “Action Series”, “Countering COVID with education innovation”. Tune in to hear first-hand war stories – and success stories – from leaders of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, Commonwealth Foundation, Philadelphia Youth Basketball, Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School, and African American Charter School Coalition. True warriors – and heroes.



BLAINE BIGOTRY’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED. It’s been nearly a year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in “Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue” that denying public funds to schools just because they are religious was not allowed under any circumstances. South Carolina is only a few hundred miles from the Supreme Court, but the news apparently hasn’t reached lawmakers in the Palmetto State. Both the Catholic Church and the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities have had to sue the state to get its “Blaine Amendment” removed from its constitution.

GREAT HEARTS BEAT STRONGLY IN ARIZONA. Great things blooming in the desert with the news that Great Hearts Academy, a network of public charter schools, is expanding with new campuses in both Buckeye and Anthem as well as expanding its existing facility in Goodyear. These actions will make it possible for more than one thousand new students to get the quality education that Great Hearts provides.

ACTION AND REACTION IN CHICAGO. Fed-up parents in Chicago have taken to the streets to push back against continued union foot-dragging on school reopening. The union and district agreed weeks ago to reopen schools this week, but the usual subjects are throwing up roadblocks. As this insightful parent writes:

“I’m frustrated and sad to watch kids go more than a year without real contact with friends and classmates or significant relationships with their teachers. Chicago Public School high schoolers, like my daughter, are being left behind in comparison to their private and parochial school counterparts. Why? Three words: Chicago Teachers Union.”

Truly heartbreaking.

COURAGE IN CLEVELAND.  While the current education debates have many Eeyore’s – Winnie the Pooh’s perpetually pessimistic friend – there are also innovative, courageous leaders all across the country who take bold action instead of just sitting back.  Such leaders run schools in two of Cleveland’s poorest neighborhoods.  They stayed open throughout the pandemic with few COVID cases but more learning opportunities. By doing so the schools gave their students’ futures an incredible boost. Do yourself a favor and read how common sense, not rocket science, did the trick.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS GOT THE JOB DONE, and continue to do so for their students. At the start of the pandemic last spring, most Catholic schools reopened in person as soon as they could with multiple safety protocols in place, or they operated under a hybrid model with some students attending classes in person and other students in class virtually.  Sadly these schools won’t get more than a pittance out of the billions being doled out by Congress. That’s an injustice in itself, no matter what your faith. But using innovative approaches and technology, teachers were able to reach students both in-person and at home and they were “completely involved.” Teachers explain how it was done, an important lesson when so many other kids were left high and dry by adult intransigence.

MITIGATING COVID’S IMPACT.  A Bay State diocese is changing it all up to innovate for kids. Arlington Catholic High School will welcome a group of students who will leave their public middle school and head to Arlington Catholic for the first time. They’re not considered freshmen. But they’re also not in eighth grade anymore. They’re “in-between”, so the school has created a special “bridge program” for them.  “The parents are worried because [students] missed out so much on the academics,” said John Graceffa, principal at the school. “So we’re tailoring a program for them. As they have technically completed their eighth-grade year, we aren’t trying to reteach them math or reading they already know but fill in the gaps they missed. In fact, most of their learning isn’t actually about the typical subjects.” Repeat after us – choice leads to innovation which leads to better outcomes for kids.

PODS GOT THE JOB DONE, TOO…A new twist on a concept that’s been around for years, parents and schools took to podding and microschooling, “buying” the expertise of organizations like Prenda, ACTON, Big Picture Learning, and dozens more.  So it’s not surprising that one of the newest innovators, SchoolHouse has raised $8 million to bring their microschools into the mainstream. With 250 students enrolled across 50 locations in 10 states and an average class size between six and 10 students, the new funds raised will help them create one school in every state by the end of the year. CEO Brian Tobal says “we want to make a great education available to everyone, not just people who can afford it.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT PODS AT EDTECH WEEK. We are hosting a special EdTech Week Master Class Podding and Tech – A Marriage Made in Heaven?  Some say together they have the potential to transform learning in a post-COVID environment.   Will this new normal lead to greater opportunity for all families at every level? Ask those who’ve been in the thick of it.  Ask Edmentum’s Jamie Candee, MYSA Micro School founder Siri Fiske and, Prenda’s Treece Bowman moderated by our very own Jeanne Allen, April 20th, 2:00 PM EDT.
TOMORROW…APRIL 14th at NOON…  NEXT IN THE CER ACTION SERIES. You’ll hear first-hand war stories – and success stories – from leaders of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, Commonwealth Foundation, Philadelphia Youth Basketball, Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School, African American Charter School Coalition, and more! Register for free here.



YOU GO GIRL. “American Girl” co-founder and CEO Pleasant Rowland is making schooling brighter for girls AND boys.  She recently donated $14 million to One City Schools in Madison, Wisconsin, appropriately enough as the Badger state is one of the early pioneers of charter schools, circa 1993. Fast-growing One City predominantly educates disadvantaged kids, like many charters, and will use Rowland’s generosity to buy a 157,000-square-foot office building and transform it into a school. By 2024 the school plans to teach at least 950 students.

COUNTERING COVID’s IMPACT ON EDUCATION.  Well Randi Weingarten can say she’s “not convinced” the CDC guidance is good enough all day long…and she can continue to fly around the country claiming – FALSELY – that she and her union have tried oh-so-very-hard to open schools since last year (that link right there is a must read), but thankfully some people haven’t waited for more complaints, delays or problems, or are waiting on new fresh billions of dollars to start flowing to do the right, the moral, the just thing.

LAST YEAR AT THIS TIME. We had pivoted virtually and began to share the extraordinary work of so many schools, systems and innovators who were able to turn on a dime to provide continual learning. The extraordinary efforts of these organizations and individuals proved the art of the possible — especially when you’re willing to put kids first:

SETON EDUCATION PARTNERS – The New York based network that partners with charter and catholic schools in underserved communities nationwide immediately created an Emergency Task Force and sent students home with learning materials before governors announced school closures. When they transitioned to remote learning, clear expectations were set that teachers must call every student for daily 30-minute deep learning sessions and wellbeing checks; and any child that didn’t login for class received a phone call home that same day. To ensure continued learning, Seton secured internet access for 1/3 of their families, issued devices to students, and created a tech help line. On day one, 85% of students were logged on.

PHOENIX UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT – The umbrella high school district for the city of Phoenix switched 30,000 students and 4,000 staff almost overnight to a virtual school setting by providing instant and comprehensive virtual teaching training for all employees, and deploying devices and hotspots to all students without laptops and connectivity. The district realized that digital integration is one of the most important assets of a school system and made an immediate decision to create a Digital Content and Integration Department. Phoenix Union High School District is now a 1:1 school district to ensure high quality learning for all students.

ACADEMICA – The global network of charter schools built upon their virtual model to pivot 100,000 students to remote live instruction in three-days by distributing thousands of devices and training teachers prior to school closures on March 13. Their platform Colēgia provided secure authentication to ensure video conferencing had proper security protocols in place. By April 2020, attendance was better than pre-COVID; with most schools having 90%+ attendance, and some at 100%.

FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS – in Washington DC deployed all of their teammates to locate and check in with students. Within one week they had made contact with all but 23 of 4,500 students, and ensured they all had devices to mitigate learning interruptions.



ONE YEAR LATER… It’s clear that nothing short of policy change is needed to ensure that never again do we allow so much loss and neglect to occur simply because we are tied to one way of doing things. Where are the lessons? We look to Pennsylvania next week, where while state and district leaders allowed unions to control reopening and remote education was largely a failure for most, many heroic efforts to educate despite the odds stemmed learning loss for thousands.

KENTUCKY DERBY FOR KIDS. The winners in the most important race in Kentucky lawmaking are the kids and families who will now have access to a new state tax credit program that will increase access to educational options. After some horsing around in the executive mansion, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s veto of the lifesaving program was overridden in both KY chambers. Advocates on the ground and national groups, like EdChoice and AFC, have worked long and hard to give parents and kids a voice in whether and how they are educated. It was a Secretariat level win.

TAKE UP YOUR SWORD. Rather than congratulate the victors, Beshear immediately proclaimed – wrongly – that the program is unconstitutional. Never have we been so happy to hear a governor say something so stupid – and so wrong, because the jurisprudence is now unequivocally on our side – and the fight will be short lived.

Last June, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Montana’s Blaine Amendment, a decision which condemned similar Blaine Amendments in 36 other state constitutions, and removed the only perceived legal impediment to greater freedom for many families. In a paper authored for CER,  Former Solicitor General Paul Clement argued that “Proponents of school choice should not just welcome but capitalize upon the Court’s increasingly skeptical view of efforts to stymie evenhanded state funding measures by invoking outdated state provisions irreconcilable with federal law.”  Get it here

MORE STATES FOLLOWING SUIT. Did the unions really think that state legislators were going to sit back and let them monopolize school decisions for another year, another decade? Did the Biden Administration, failing to hear the cries of children and families in this tumultuous year really think that trillions of dollars and union favoritism would kill off the hope and need of millions?

As this Wall Street Journal piece makes clear, the floodgates are open. In the last few months alone CER has seen a flurry of school choice legislative activity in the following states:

ARIZONA has moved a massive expansion of its voucher program, GEORGIA is working on expanding its special needs scholarship program. NEBRASKA House Education Committee members advanced a bill benefiting low income families and SOUTH DAKOTA Governor Kristi Noem signed into law a Freedom Scholarship Bill that creates a $200 million endowment for needs-based scholarships.

And don’t forget the lesson of the MOUNTAINEERS, which as the state’s motto proclaims ARE ALWAYS FREE, and their path breaking reforms just signed into law last week. WEST VIRGINIA kids will never be confined again to schools by their zip code.

GOT PARENT POWER? When traditional education works for families, everyone wins. But when it fails parents, as it has miserably this year, they take action.  If you’re not in-the-know on what level of  education opportunity and innovation is provided by your state, and you are ready to act, now is the time to check back in with  CER’s Parent Power! Index (PPI), the most comprehensive analysis of states’ structural and behavioral policies that inform parents and allow them to make decisions regarding the education of their children, within or outside any crisis. Discover the best tool for parents looking to make the best choice for their children’s education.

THE ESSENTIAL DATABASE. And if you’re like most parents who are doing it yourself now, or teachers who are having to create their own programs to help students, you’ll want to check out this unparalleled database for learning tools on anything your students need for virtual and online learning – or even to create your own microschools.

BLAINE BIGOTRY LIVES. The news item seems like it belonged in an episode of “The Walking Dead”. A “Strong Students Scholarship Program” which would have given 90% of the state money spent per-student to parents to use on non-public education for their children was shelved – largely because a couple of retired judges said it violated the “Blaine Amendment” still in the Idaho constitution! Color us flabbergasted, as the United States Supreme Court ruled almost a year ago that Blaine Amendments are unconstitutional. Let’s rectify this injustice in Idaho.

NEW HOPE IN WEST VIRGINIA. The Mountaineer State just went from one of the few with no charter schools in it to one that gives new hope and opportunity to all the state’s students. An expanded charter law, allowing for an independent authorizer ala CERs’ National Model, along with more diverse charters allowed, tell us that WVA lawmakers know how to put families first. On top of that, just yesterday Governor Jim Justice signed into law the Hope Scholarship Fund providing for  educational savings accounts that allow families to access up to $4,600 of state funds to educate their child at home, in a private school, learning pods or however they think best. This ensures the state will escape it’s “F” grade in our Parent Power Index.Bravo to one and all.

LITTLE HOPE IN CALIFORNIA, and little following “the science”. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) just reduced it’s classroom desk spacing recommendation from 6 ft, to 3 ft, making it dramatically easier to get kids back in schools. Not good enough for the Los Angeles School District or the California Teachers Association, both of whom…wait for it…oppose the plan, because it would “stuff more kids into classrooms” and be “cramming young adults into classrooms”. Apparently not all science has to be followed.

Okay maybe that’s a wee-bit much, but it is widely conceded that our kids are getting snake-bit. And parents aren’t believin’ the blarney any longer.

AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW? It was always there. No, not the pot of gold, but the Science, of which virtually 100% of the data supports opening classrooms full time with measures achievable with changes that don’t require billions to be spent, even before we vaccinate all school personnel. 

As prize winning New York Times columnist Nick Kristof put it last month

“Yes, it’s hard to open schools during a pandemic. But private schools mostly managed to, and that’s true not only of rich boarding schools but also of strapped Catholic schools. As a nation, we fought to keep restaurants and malls open — but we didn’t make schools a similar priority, so needy children were left behind.”

His article also quotes Brown University economist Emily Oster who has studied this issue more than anyone else: “I think we’ve deprioritized children in a way that will do long-term damage.”  An AEI report examining the results of over 130 studies concludes that, “Attending school does not increase risk to children.” Oh, and the data says only 3 feet distance is needed now, not 6 feet.

SLITHERING AROUND THE SCIENCE however has become an art form for the unions.  In North Carolina teachers refuse to support reopening in spite of unanimous votes in both houses of the legislature approving a bi-partisan opening plan. And in Los Angeles the teachers’ “reopening” plan is staying virtual only. Middle and high school students will be in a homeroom 2 days per week with headphones on, learning virtually, while the teacher Zooms her own separate class. Teachers would not have to return to work until achieving “maximum immunity” after vaccinations, “a period of up to six weeks.”