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Dear John,

It is week 224 and we are thinking about which students have access to extra help when they need it and which students do not.

“Our study is to our knowledge the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of the growth and prevalence of private tutoring in the United States,” Professors Edward Kim, Joshua Goodman and Marty West write in a new EdWorking Paper ([link removed]) that is getting a lot of buzz from education advocates. “According to our data, private tutoring in the U.S. has grown precipitously in the last two decades, tripling the number of firms between 2000 and 2020.”

But it is not just the growth of tutoring centers in the US that is striking but where they are growing: “the number and growth of private tutoring centers is heavily concentrated in geographic areas with high income and parental education. More than half of tutoring centers are in areas in the top quintile of income.” As high-income families double-down on education by supplementing high-performing schools with additional tutoring time, the playing field is increasingly titled against the working class.

What should we do?

As we argue in Believe in Better ([link removed]) , we need to think bigger about what public education means and what opportunities all families get access to regardless of where they live or how much money they make. That means making good on the promise of “access to free, high-quality tutoring. Not just during the school year, but year-round.” We have made tremendous progress on that goal over the past three years, establishing new tutoring programs in states from New Jersey to Tennessee and launching the country’s first ever universal tutoring program in Louisiana, but we will have to aim even higher to reach the full equality our children deserve.

Last week ([link removed]) , we documented our wins on tutoring to date and released a new AdvocacyLabs video. This week, we look at open enrollment, a form of school choice that often goes unnoticed, and check in on the next phase of work for the Carnegie Foundation in shifting to mastery-based assessments.
Best,

Marc Porter Magee, PhD
50CAN Founder and CEO

@marcportermagee ([link removed])

End zip-code education

“If I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you’re going to get a good education, we’ve got a real problem,” Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said ([link removed]) in 2012, echoing a common sentiment that was at the heart of the last wave of education reform in the early 2000s. Now, more than a decade later, there’s further evidence that the country is ready to move on from zip code-based education.

Writing ([link removed]) for Education Next, Jude Schwalbach documents the changing landscape: “K–12 open enrollment is rising in popularity across the nation, and 73 percent of school parents support it. As of 2023, 43 states permit or mandate some degree of open enrollment, but only 16 states have strong open-enrollment laws. Since 2021, 10 states have significantly improved their open-enrollment laws. For example, Idaho’s new law requires all school districts to participate in open enrollment and also establishes better program transparency.”

One potential reason why this intriguing trend isn’t being widely reported? A lack of open data. Schwalbach found that only three states–Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida–are transparently sharing the number of students and families selecting a different school from their assigned one. Even with a limited data set, however, the results are striking: the number of families that are choosing different districts or schools through open enrollment matches the number of families choosing charters or ESA-enabled private schools, and students tend to move to the best performing districts and leave the worst.

Moving forward, Schwalbach suggests that policymakers focus on transportation, arguing that the “big yellow school bus” needs to be replaced with passenger vans, based on successful pilots in Arizona. There’s also consistent and troubling data on districts rejecting transfer applications from students with disabilities, despite this being against the law, with loopholes that need to be closed.
* The task this week is to advocate for states transparently sharing their open enrollment numbers and to encourage policymakers to examine the Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin models to see what’s possible.

Invest in a new generation of assessments

Last autumn ([link removed]) , we covered the efforts of Carnegie Foundation President Tim Knowles’ efforts to usher in a new era of teaching and learning by shifting the acquisition of the Carnegie Unit from “seat time” to a demonstration of mastery and competence. It’s a shift that sounds small but will have far-reaching implications for new approaches to schooling that will allow families to build the education their children receive from a menu of options–a policy package the team at Bellwether refers to as Assembly ([link removed]) .

Now, the next strategic step in the process is on the horizon, with the 74 Million reporting ([link removed]) on a partnership between Carnegie and ETS, which manages the GRE and PRAXIS exams, on creating new competency-based assessments. A multi-state pilot, utilizing the new tests, is set to begin early next year.

The assessments themselves could be part of a big change to the student experience. Markhar also surmises that mastery-based assessments could affect not just the K-12 experience, but the college experience as well: “The ETS-Carnegie proposal is also emerging at a time when traditional high school admissions exams, such as the SAT and ACT, have lost significant market share. Both the aftereffects of the pandemic and concerns about inequitable outcomes from standardized testing have led thousands of colleges and universities to go test-optional in the last few school years. With those leading indicators of secondary achievement potentially passing from the scene, demand is expected to rise for measures that could take their place.”
* The task this week is to prepare for an education system that measures teaching and learning in a significantly different way than in the past.


DelawareCAN closed their legislative session on a win, securing $3 million for the recruitment and training of literacy instructors.

ConnCAN Executive Director Steve Hernández has been appointed by the Connecticut State Board of Education to the Reading Council, the key decision-making body for implementing the state’s transition to literacy instruction grounded in the science of reading. The move places ConnCAN at the center of a big push to deliver on the promise of universal literacy in the Constitution State.

Amanda Aragon, executive director of NewMexicoKidsCAN, was featured ([link removed]) on the Brandon Vogt Show on KKOB Radio to discuss New Mexico’s state assessment results.

Ophelia Nnorom, a GeorgiaCAN parent fellow from Clayton County, contributed her voice to a Journal-Constitution piece ([link removed]) examining school choice as an emerging political priority for the upcoming collection.

The Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, a build in the 50CAN network, polled ([link removed]) Black and Latino voters across multiple swing states, finding 91% want school choice.

Large urban districts have suffered big declines in the number of young children, according ([link removed]) to a new analysis by the Economic Innovation Group.

Washington Latin Charter School, located in the nation’s capital, combines Latin, classical philosophy and literature. The school, and its efforts to ensure a diverse student body, are the subject of a piece ([link removed]) by The Century Foundation.

Fordham has the rundown of progress in Ohio since the state passed curricula reforms to support the science of reading, with an initial analysis finding ([link removed]) that two-thirds of schools will need to transition to new reading curricula.

Tutoring could be the bipartisan foundation for shrinking or eliminating the achievement gap, according ([link removed]) to Future Ed’s Tom Toch and Liz Cohen, writing for the Washington Monthly.

It isn’t just the US. The Economist reports ([link removed]) that wealthy countries across the world are seeing similar declines on international exams, with scores falling to their lowest levels in decades.


[link removed]

Nearly 100 students with disabilities, many of whom had been previously turned away from other programs, are experiencing their first summer camp ([link removed]) this week as part of the Aaron’s Acres Summer Camp. The camp focuses on the standard fare experiences–swimming, horseback riding, arts and crafts–but also combines it with individualized supports in socialization, behavior and other needs. “At Aaron’s Acres, we believe every child can do every activity, we just have to figure out how to be creative and introduce modifications,” Executive Director Risa Paskoff told NBC News.

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