Education Policies are Back to "Normal"
Governors across our nation have felt the pressure to speak about the post-COVID transition as a call to “back to better” rather than just “back to normal.” We all have. Yet despite this optimism, we are left with the harsh reality that during COVID we saw escalating homelessness, working families in crisis, food insecurities, decreases in college going rates, increases in empty commercial real estate, local eateries shut down, and crisis-level mental health needs among our families. Back to better is going to take a lot of work in the public sector. So what’s really happening at the policy level during the current legislative season??
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) recently held their annual session on Education Trends in State of the State Addresses. I love these policy summaries. This birds-eye view of what’s in the minds of our state Governors around education policy matters says a lot about where we are as a nation on behalf of our children. The lens I use each year to listen in on this report is to consider: which priorities are new and what has caused the change; which priorities have not changed across and within states;? and which pressing national issues do not show up on the top six trend list. So let’s take a look!??
According to the ECS our nation’s Governors prioritized the following six education policies in their 2022 State of the State addresses:
With the exception of mental health, which is a new national priority, the rest of the list is familiar to us. These policy issues are the same ones noted in State of the State speeches year over year, pre-pandemic.? Yet, it is what’s missing from the list that should catch our attention.? Despite the many national conversations about the insufficient early childhood access, and the subsequent impact on women’s ability to return to the workforce post COVID at the rate of men, it is starkly absent from the top six list. This policy agenda that disproportionately impacts women, particularly working class women, was a hot topic in the middle of the pandemic, giving us great hope, and has quickly disappeared.? The Annie E Casey Foundation 2021 Kids Count Data shows that over 50% of our nation’s preschool aged children are not in school, which is at the same rate that it was ten years earlier in 2009-2010. Six states have no public preschool, and some states barely make a dent on demand, such as Hawaii that is meeting only 4% of preschool seat needs.?
Secondly, racial and gender equity in education has become a policy issue hijacked by politicians themselves. The important conversation about racial and gender equity went from discussions about inclusivity and access, to a set of divisive policy proposals meant to impede conversations led by teachers and erase our student’s identity and history from curriculum. Public school teachers have unfortunately been accused of “indoctrinating” children, as if they had time in between sanitizing tables, checking temperatures, providing support to families in crisis, teaching, and protecting their own families from the health pandemic, to run some underground indoctrination! Interestingly private school teachers were not accused of the same. So while education policy priorities continue to be at the forefront of Governors’ State of the State addresses, the reality is that we will likely transition out of the crisis with the same biased policies that leave the academic access needs of historically marginalized students unaddressed.?
The back-to-normal policy priorities both avoid the tough conversations and the innovations needed for inclusivity and success for all students. And at a time when we know that diversity produces the kinds of economic and equity outcomes that matter to society.
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While some Governors are attempting to lead needed changes in education policies that focus on needed tools and services for children, across the nation, we don’t see bold, across-the-board ground-breaking changes in policy voice or actions. So perhaps we need to look closely at who is at the policy table.?
Interestingly, forty-one of our nation’s Governors are men; two-thirds of our legislators are men; 73% of our nation’s Superintendents are men, and yet we claim that we don’t want to go back to normal. Looks pretty status quo to me.
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