School Choice in the Post-Pandemic Era – Webinar Series Recap (Home Education Perspective)

In this article I will be providing a running commentary on the School Choice in the Post-Pandemic Era webinar series hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Education Policy and Governance. Updates will come generally a week after the events as I am not able to watch the sessions live. The commentary I provide is strictly my own and not endorsed or sponsored by any organization. I will be reviewing these webinar sessions for the information that would be most applicable to home educating families; therefore, the quantity of the commentary will vary based on the applicability of the discussion to homeschooling. As always, I present my analysis from my own personal perspective, which I describe as a Christian or biblical worldview. The reviews will be presented in reverse chronological order with the most recent webinars reviewed at the top.

The links to the videos for all sessions reviewed are posted at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/taubman/programs-research/pepg/events/school-choice

November 20, 2021 (Review of the November 5, 2021 session)

This session was intended to answer the questions, “What is driving the demand for digital learning?” and “Is digital learning effective?”

The panelists for this session were 1) Mark Berends, Director, Center for Research on Educational Opportunity, University of Notre Dame, 2) Jennifer Darling-Aduana, Assistant Professor, Georgia State University, and 3) Michael Horn, Distinguished Fellow, Clayton Christensen Institute.

Bottom Line Up Front

As it pertains to the session question, it seems that “the pandemic” was the given context for what is driving virtual learning options, and this was not substantially challenged during the session. The comments of the panelists seemed to be primarily pessimistic about the current implementation of virtual learning, but cautiously optimistic about certain potentials for this type of learning platforms. This session had limited applicability to homeschooling, but it was mentioned several times in passing.

Selected Quotes and/or Comments

It is notable how “home,” “parent(s),” or homeschooling were mentioned in respect to the topic at hand. When Dr. Peterson opened the session by asking “is [the increase in virtual learning] something we should be looking forward to or something we should be worried about.” Dr. Darling-Aduana addressed herself to this question by explaining her recent research with a single district of students. Interestingly, the category of “home” was categorized as a learning environment with “no teacher present” and teacher availability as “never available.” This speaks to the assumption that parents are often not considered part of the student academic achievement equation. Students were considered as “homeschooling” if they were doing school entirely from home, which differs significantly from my definition of home education, which is parent-directed, privately-funded education of children primarily or exclusively in the home.

Dr. Berends briefly discusses the study he co-authored, but as it compared students leaving public school for either virtual or brick-and-mortar charter schools, it had limited applicability to homeschooling.

Mr. Horn reflected on the study presentations of Drs. Darling-Aduana and Berends, and while complementing their findings, he added the potential to expand future studies to include motivations for choosing to change school options, controlling for class size assumptions, and comparing per-student expenditures. He also challenged the studies on the motivations of the school administrations, specifically if they were motivated to increase graduation rates or the actual academic level of the students. He surmised that “the focus has been mandating the inputs and not the outcomes.”

In continuing discussion, Dr. Berends brought up that parental involvement was a critical factor while conceding that there is only so much time in front of a computer that some students can handle. The issue of screen time in relation to virtual learning option, specifically its potentially negative effects, came up again when Dr. Hamlin specifically asked about screen time as a detrimental effect of virtual learning. Mr. Horn addressed himself to this question, stating that for younger students school often send various materials to the students that are intended to be used offline. Although not explicitly stated, this implies parental involvement. Unfortunately, with so much of the system built around seat time, competency may be a secondary priority.

Conclusion and Commentary

As with previous sessions, there was little directed at home education, but the few mentions of homeschooling were more likely than not a jumbling of unsettled definitions for virtual school-at-home and (as I previously defined) traditional homeschooling. ?

In my opinion, the key takeaways for traditional home educators (especially those new to the homeschooling communities) is to be wary of virtual learning options, especially given the unproven track record of academic achievement in virtual setting. Also, parental involvement is commonly noted as a significant factor in academic achievement and this has been the case since long before homeschooling was mainstream and before the pandemic forced thousands of families to implement a clearly unproven pedagogical methodology on their children. Therefore, as traditional homeschooling parents, by nature of the fact that they chose to home educate, puts them anecdotally at the high parental involvement level from the start. My encouragement is that parents maximize their involvement in their children’s education, regardless of the manner in which they chose to do this. ?

November 6, 2021 (Review of the October 29, 2021 session)

This session was intended to answer the question, “Does the Constitution require school choice?” The panelists for this session were 1) Michael Bindas, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice, 2) Joshua Dunn, Professor, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and 3) Daniel Suhr, Managing Attorney, Liberty Justice Center. This seminar was moderated by Dr. Daniel Hamlin, Professor, University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Hamlin gave a background on why this question is significant and he briefly reviewed the Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue Case, in which the Supreme Court ruled (in 2018) that the state’s tax credit scholarship program could not exclude religious school from participating in the program. The court said the no-aid clause in the state constitution that prohibits aids to religious schools was unconstitutional. No-aid clauses, sometimes called Blane Amendments, are considered to be a relic of anti-Catholic prejudice in the nineteenth century. What is a Blane amendment and does the ruling in Montana apply to other state bans on aid to religious schools?

To answer Dr. Hamlin’s question, attorney Michael Bindas laid out the history of Blane Amendment. He said, Blane amends exist in 37 state constitutions, and though they vary in their scope, they generally prohibit government from funding sectarian institutions (including religious schools). When James Blane was a federal legislator, he proposed a federal constitutional amendment, which would have preserved the religious (Protestant) nature of public schools but prohibit funding of sectarian schools (specifically aimed at Catholic parochial schools). Although, the federal amendment failed, proponents of this concepts were successful at getting it added to state constitutions as additional states were added to the Union. ?

Both the background of “Espinoza” and “Blane Amendments” are important contextually for the discussion that ensued, as both were referenced frequently.

Bottom Line Up Font:

Did the panelist answer the question? In short, the panelists clearly indicated that current federal law does not require school choice, but some distinction was made between requiring and allowing. The legal cases presented by the panelists lend credence to the idea that school choice is constitutionally permissible, and their advocacy efforts are clearly intent on making sure that school choice is expanded.

Select Comments by Theme:

School Choice:

Attorney Daniel Suhr noted an amazing opposition to their case trying to get the South Carolina Blane amendment overturned (bolstering school choice as an end goal), which would have opened funding for Catholic schools and traditionally black colleges. Joining the governor as defendants in the case were Catholic-supported organizations and the NAACP. His surprise that these organizations would seems to be fighting against support for their own constituents was that the hate school choice so much, that they are willing to fight against efforts that are of obvious benefit to their own causes.

Attorney Michael Bindas explained the Carson case in Maine, whereby parents in rural areas where public schools are not available could receive a stipend to cover educational cost. In a response to this case the First Circuit Court attempted to make a distinction between schools that were religiously affiliated and those that practiced or applied religion in their schools as a way to claim that the Espinoza case in Montana did not establish legal president. Mr. Bindas considered this conclusion ridiculous.

Questions from the chat regarding discrimination or equality were broadly dismissed by the panelists as not applicable to the question at hand or the cases being discussed in this session. Also, in response to a question about religious charter schools, the panelists seemed to be dismissive that the legal cases in question would have significant effect in allowing or prohibiting them. ?

In response to a question by Dr. Hamlin (I believe this was also a chat question) as to whether or not school choice might have a detrimental effect on democracy, Mr. Bindas responded, “I find it ironic that school choice opponents argue that in order to promote diversity and tolerance you have to have a uniform government monopoly, I don’t buy it.”

Homeschooling:

Little was stated about homeschooling during this session but is was directly addressed by Dr. Hamlin toward the end of the session. Dr. Hamlin ask, “What are your thoughts on the state’s ability to regulate homeschooling?” Attorney Daniel Suhr, addressed himself to this question by noting that the Supreme Court has been fairly strong in its stance on the right of parents to chose homeschooling, but that the emerging education models of the recent past (i.e. learning pods, expanded cooperative, etc.) have created a “fuzzy” line between homeschooling and unregulated schools. He expressed amazement that there have not been more of a “crackdown,” or attempts to regulate these hybrid models of learning.

Professor Joshua Dunn did briefly mention homeschooling in the context of the Espinoza case, stating that it would not be likely for the case to be an effective support of the use of vouchers by homeschoolers.

Conclusion and Commentary:

As with previous sessions, this session may have the appearance of being not applicable to homeschooling families and homeschooling communities. However, as the issue of school choice is becoming one of greater interest in state legislatures (and the subsequent legal battles that are almost certain to come if/when laws are enacted), so I would encourage homeschool families and communities to maintain vigilance. I suspect that this may have been the impetus for the question Dr. Hamlin asked towards the end of the session.

School choice issues can easily and subtly envelop homeschooling with the addition (or perhaps the omission) of a word or phrase in a piece of legislation. Also, legislation that does appear to apply to homeschooling can be amended with little effort by legislators of subsequent sessions. It is my opinion, that homeschoolers as a community, would be better off to fight these battles in the legislatures than in the courts. However, I believe we must also be prepared to engage in court battles also, as not every legislative one is likely to be successful.

October 30, 2021 (Review of the October 22, 2021 Session)

This session was intended to answer the question, “Is the school choice movement a house divided?” Dr. Peterson restated this question as, “Can charter schools, private schools and homeschooling communities cooperate or not?”

The panelists for this session were 1) Jim Blew, Co-founder, Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI), 2) Derrell Bradford, President 50Can, and 3) Robert Enlow, President and CEO, EdChoice.

Bottom Line Up Front: As expected the overall focus of this session was not on homeschooling but there were several comments regarding homeschooling on which I will comment. The overall position of all the panelists was supportive of school choice and critical of the existing system of schooling on several fronts. As far as the question at hand, regarding school choice being a house divided, the panelist all presented dual perspectives on that question, which is to say both yes and no, but they were also united in their assessment that the way schooling was handled during the pandemic left children damages emotionally, socially, physically, and/or academically.

Select comments by theme

A House Divided

A blending of what the panelists discussed indicated a house united on the idea that there needs to be more school choice, but a house divided by those whose passionate advocacy seems to intimate that their way is the only way, or at least a significantly superior way. Dr. Peterson asked the participants strongly what exactly they would have done given that the situation was not something that anyone anticipated. Mr. Blew indicated that focusing on returning to in-person instruction quicker would have been optimal. Mr. Enlow stated that anything that could have been done, should have been done, but he was short on exactly what those things were. Mr. Bradford postulated that we needed a fast track to effective virtual education, but that the teacher’s unions were a serious impediment noting, “it was about extracting the maximum amount of money from the federal government by keeping schools closed” which was a “deliberate” choice.

On the Existing System

On several occasions the existing schooling systems were referred to as the “industrialized” model of education, which didn’t seem to need an explanation among the panelists in that it referred to the cookie cutter approach which provided nearly every student a regardless of an identical pattern of instruction regardless of aptitudes or challenges. On more than one occasion, the panelists pointed to failures in the system long before the pandemic had a chance to expose and exacerbate them. Mr. Bradford pointed out that the system is built on the priority of the teacher, not the student.

Solutions to the problems of the existing system included a focus on “entrepreneurial educators” (Mr. Blew), trusting parents (Mr. Enlow), and getting out from under the thumb of the teacher’s unions (Mr. Bradford).

Parents Knowing Best

A question from the chat, which almost seems a bit tongue-in-cheek (questioner identified as Patrick Wolf), asked, “what empirical evidence do we have that parents know what is best for their children educationally?” Mr. Bradford fielded this question by stating that it is not good policy to deprive 80% of the people of their rights because of a presumption that 20% of the people might not care to exercise their right to choose.

Bi-partisan Support for School Choice

Dr. Peterson asked about how to make school choice a bipartisan issue and Dr. Hamlin question weather or not it even needed to be. Mr. Bradford laid the blame at the feet of the teacher’s unions and their control of the democratic “policy making machine.” Mr. Enlow stated that this was a matter of leadership and that the “only way to get to bipartisanship is by recognizing that what we want is what is best for the kids.” Mr. Bradford stated that education choice is both and experience and a policy. He stated, “people have incredible support for the experience, but don’t articulate that support to policy.”

Conclusion and commentary

There were a couple other points, which I do not believe warrant reflection here, including a discussion on a current gubernatorial election where school choice has been an issue.

The only panelist to mention homeschooling was Mr. Enlow, who stated “the curtain has been pulled back when [parents were] sitting in on virtual sessions.” He also claimed that more families are now trust homeschooling, and that for policy makers. trusting parents and educators to do the right thing was the best course of action.

Implications for home educators are limited from this discussion, yet it is important for home educating families and homeschool support organizations to be aware of school choice advocacy actions which might drive policy. Policy decisions can inadvertently (or perhaps intentionally) affect home educators given that the primary opponent of school choice are the teacher’s unions, which were mentioned multiple times during this session. As evidence that home educators and school choice advocates have a common opponent, the National Education Association makes an impotent annual declaration disparaging the efficacy of homeschooling. ??

This session did not have anything earth-shattering for home educator to act on, but some minor things to consider.

October 21, 2021 (Review of the October 15, 2021 Session)

This session was a spirited debate between Attorney Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation for Teachers (1.7 million-member teachers union), and Dr. Jay Greene, the Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation.

The basic question of the session was: What school options should families have in the post-pandemic era?

Bottom Line Up Front: The comments of the participants reflect diametrically opposed worldviews. Even when discussing “school choice,” the participants did not even start from a common frame of reference. Dr. Greene’s perspective was that of parental choice, which Ms. Weingarten’s was that of choice within the existing public school system. This led to some apples to oranges commentary rather than apples to apples. Perhaps there could have been an established definition of school choice prior to the session which might have brought this discussion into greater relevance.

Select Exchanges:

Ms. Weingarten’s opening comments touted the positive perspective of school children and her engagements with parents who were gleeful at being able to resume in-person training. She indicated “strong majorities” (no citation) not only wanted their children to be back in school but wanted health protections such as masks and vaccines. She emphasized more than once in this session that this year is a year for “recovery and revival” of children’s school/community experience. She flatly stated, “Most parents want kids back in school five days a week.” She stated that great choice already exists in public school and for those who really want school choice, the best staring point to be to strengthen existing public schools. “Schools are a public good.”

Dr. Greene’s opening comment began with an aggressive denouncement of public schools, specifically as it related to ongoing segregation. He claimed (no citation) that wealthier families had driven the maintenance of the status quo despite significant disadvantages to minority students. He claimed that pandemic schooling helped enlighten these parents to the poor quality of the education their children were receiving as well as the radical content of some of the instruction.

He also set the stage for what would be the mantra of his comments by saying, “Education is an extension of parenting…parents are best situation to raise their own children.”?He claimed that now that people have experienced options, they are not likely to want those options to go way.

Ms. Weingarten’s rebuttal stated that her organization was ahead of the game in putting out document relating to the re-opening of schools and that what they had “begged the Trump administration to do” has been accomplished by the Biden administration. She pointed out that her opening statement was not aggressive against any position, and then she went out of her way to describe how her organization had worked with parent groups (NAACP and others). She cited polling that her organization had done showing that 85% of parents were satisfied with what public schools had done through the pandemic (up from the previous year’s data by an unstated amount), and that 81% of parents thought their children’s school were providing “good instruction.” Nevertheless, she stated that health and safety were a great concern.

She started talking about history, slavery, and violence, but I lost track of the point of her conversation to the end of this segment.

Dr. Greene didn’t really rebut Ms. Weingarten’s opening statement but was defensive about his previously stated position.?

Dr. Peterson asked Ms. Weingarten about the change in momentum on school choice, from a slow down before the pandemic to a ramp up during, and he asked, “What is the best way for school districts to respond?”

Ms. Weingarten stated that she had four points, but I could not discern with clarity exactly what those four points were. She started talking about a court case and then digressed into pointing out something about states with a “Republican Trifecta” (presumably a Republican governor and both houses of their legislature). She acknowledged that homeschooling and virtual schooling had grown, but then asked, “Where are the parents going to be on the reintegration of their into society.” After acknowledging evidence for opposing claims, she clearly stated “more funding actually works” (improves education) and she pointed to “broad public-school choice” as evidence. What seemed to be a talking point of her discussion was that a primary need is neighborhood schools where parents want to send their children, where teachers want to teach, and where children are inspired to learn.

Dr. Greene responded that the preponderance of evidence pointed to private schools being better at achieving their goal than public schools. New results show a significant decline in NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. the nation’s report card) scores despite huge increases in spending. He claimed, “the aggregate outcomes are disappointing.” In a sarcastic question he asked, “How much would be enough to achieve the desired outcome.”

Dr. Peterson changed the discussion to online learning and directed a question to Dr. Green, noting that it was not clear students were learning as much through online learning, so he asked, “What is the place of online learning” in the post pandemic era.

Dr. Greene responded that it was good for some, and bad for others. He made a positive note that people get to find what works, but that because almost all schools were forced into the online realm, we found out that many were not good at it.

Ms. Weingarten responded that some parents are going to choose homeschooling or virtual programs because that is what they want. She cast doubt on the performance of such programs as K-12 (Stride), saying that their results are not something that “most investors would want to invest in.” She tried to make another point about this “huge experiment,” but I’m not sure the point she was trying to make.

She bragged about “walking our own talk” regarding in-person activities by having vaccine mandates, test, and even exemptions.

She called strongly for and “accountability system,” that would move away from a “20-year fixation on testing,” and move more toward project-based instruction, specifically in terms of “action civics.” She lamented that private schools have more time to engage in civic learning, and that “we [public schools] need that kind of space and time.”

Dr. Hamlin posed a question compiled from chat comments about managing school choice.

Dr. Greene indicated that he did not believe it would be wise for government to manage school choice, “we don’t want a single entity to tell parents how to raise their children.” He continued, “that is what choice facilitates. You undercut it when you manage it. The more you increase centralized management the more you discriminate against minority operators of schools. The more we increase barriers to entry the more we undercut minorities.”

Ms. Weingarten reiterated, “We need to have lots of public options.” She emphasized that public choices have to be fully funded first and foremost and she discounted that education could be synonymous with markets because, “public education is a public good.”

There were other exchanges, but the dialogue was relatively predictable.

Conclusion and commentary:

All-in-all the is conversations was a showcase of differing educational worldviews. Ms. Weingarten was convinced that school choice means more choice inside the public school system, while Dr. Greene was clearly a proponent of parental authority in matters of education. From a debate perspective, Ms. Weingarten stared out the conversation with an amiable attitude, but Dr. Greene was abrasive from the onset, but he did temper his demeanor by the end of the session. Ms. Weingarten’s responses were sometimes incoherent in that she seemed to lose track of the point in hand but kept coming back her prime talking point of expanding school choice within the public schooling system. Dr. Greene was more logical in his responses, but also came back to his position about parental authority. Ms. Weingarten clearly assumed that children in non-schooling options were at a deficit when it comes to social-emotional growth. Dr. Greene made no comments on social impacts of home or virtual schooling except to say that private school children were noted to be more civically engaged than their public school counterparts.

In my opinion, there wasn’t a lot to be learned from this dialogue. Ms. Weingarten was clearly on the left side of the political spectrum, and Dr. Greene on the right. Both agreed in the end that having the dialogue was a good thing, but I still found little useful that could be gleaned from their exchanges.

October 14, 2021 (Review of the October 8, 2021 Session)

I reviewed the first webinar recording of this conference series, which began with an introduction by Dr. Paul Peterson and had former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as a keynote speaker. Dr. Daniel Hamlin moderating duties with Dr. Peterson.

Bottom Line Up Front: This session has some interesting quotes and comments that were not directly focus on homeschooling (with a few exception), but are ones of which homeschoolers should be aware. Of course, Governor Bush was not speaking on behalf of any government entity, so his position is not one of specific policy influence except through the advocacy of his organization Foundation for Excellence in Education. Nevertheless, I believe the session was informative for homeschooling communities.

Selected quotes and commentary by the moderators and participant (all quotations are those of Governor Bush and are rendered verbatim):

“The learning losses that took place in the last 18 months is tragic, but I think we can…if we move to a more open system with more choices for parents, I think we can see a renaissance in learning.”

Daniel Hamlin asked the governor about regulation of homeschool and his initial response was that “it shouldn’t be over-regulated,” which he followed with the statement “Parents are ultimately responsible for the life of their kids.”

“When I was governor, I spent a lot of time with homeschool parents because they are the ones that actually came to the capital…they would take field trips and learn, and these were smart, really well-adjusted kids.”?

Dr. Peterson brought up the argument that school choice initiatives were taking money away from public schools. Gov. Bush called this a “false narrative,” and he emphasized that the money wasn’t the school systems money, but he was emphatic that it was taxpayer money. “It is an argument of protecting the status quo, at the expense in my mind of thousands and thousands of kids not getting…reaching their ultimate capacity to achieve success in their lives.”

“If you have higher expectations for a child at the earliest age, they’re going to deliver. The idea that somehow poor kids can’t succeed in life, it’s a joke, its not true, but the system around them may not be the one they need.”

Dr. Hamlin asked about local regulatory systems, and the governor flatly stated “no” in response to whether he was in favor of such things. Although this comment was rendered in the context of private/charter schools it seems that the governor was not in favor of over-regulation in general, which would likely extend to homeschooling.

“[For] the great majority of parents, I would trust them to make choices for their children, far more than me doing it, or you doing it, Paul, or a superintendent of schools doing it, or a governor, or a legislator. You’ve got to trust parents to make these choices. If we don’t, we are actually creating the actual problem that exists which is some children have the privilege to get a high-quality education and some don’t.”

“More choices create better outcomes across the board…parental choice yields rising student achievement.”

The governor concluded that he was optimistic about the future possibilities in education, but “not as optimistic with the existing system, I think it needs to be transformed completely.”

Conclusion and commentary:

Governor Bush’s key words in this seminar were “informed consumers” speaking of parents. I understand that his intent was to encourage parents to know about educational options, but the idea of parents as consumers assumes that the state is the benevolent provider of the service consumed, in this case, education. I believe most homeschoolers would deviate from this concept in that anything claimed as a responsibility of government will inevitably come under greater control as bureaucracies have a penchant for never-ending expansion. Homeschoolers would certainly like to “unpack,” as Governor Bush said, education from government control and move to more, if not complete, parental control over education.?

In line with this assessment, it is clear from several comments that Governor Bush was supportive of parental involvement, perhaps even parental control of education (although he did not use the word control). Again, the discussion did not center on homeschooling, but I believe his principle of parental authority over educational decisions would carry over to issues of homeschooling.

Governor Bush did make some marks hinting at some support for regulation, which could be extrapolated as something that might affect homeschooling, but a more specific discussion as it relates to homeschooling would be required to draw any inferences from these quotes.