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Dear John,
It’s week 272 of our new reality and we are thinking about what goes viral and how to make sure the truth doesn’t get lost along the way.

One of the things we have aimed to do in this newsletter and on social media is put a spotlight on the ways in which pandemic-era learning losses continue to affect students. Sometimes those posts go largely unnoticed, sometimes they strike a nerve.

In a new article published on Saturday in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why Does Trump Keep Saying Harvard Teaches Remedial Math? ([link removed]) ” reporter Sara Randazzo traces the story from a Harvard Crimson article in September ([link removed]) to a post I wrote on X in March ([link removed]) to Trump’s Oval Office remarks last week.

“Last fall, Harvard expanded its entry-level math offerings,” Randazzo reports. “Students are given a skills test to determine whether they need the extended course … The Harvard Crimson student newspaper wrote an article about the new offering in September, saying that it was ‘aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills’ … Fast forward to March 18, when Marc Porter Magee, the head of an educational advocacy organization, posted the Crimson article on X … The post racked up 1.1 million views … The idea bounced around the internet and made its way to the Trump administration. The president has voiced it twice from the White House.”

The facts of the original Crimson article aren’t in dispute: Harvard is indeed remediating algebra skills in an introductory course for the first time because of a demonstrated lack of foundational math skills among a sizable number of its students. But in a game of telephone, by the time the news made it into the Oval Office, Trump described it this way on May 23: “Did you see that, where the students can’t add two and two and they go to Harvard?” You might chalk that one up to classic Trump hyperbole but Randazzo also takes issue with other examples from the White House: “Two federal agencies, in official correspondence, have echoed it, one even suggesting Harvard is teaching ‘middle school math.’”

So what’s the truth?

As is often the case, this debate hinges on definitions.
1. Is algebra “middle school math” as the White House asserts? Most students on track to go to Harvard take algebra in 8th grade. As Randazzo explains: “Students who were freshmen at Harvard last fall would have been finishing eighth grade when the pandemic hit.” So the timeline lines up as a deficiency that emerged for middle school students when schools were closed.

2. Is this new introductory math course a “remedial math course”? Here is how Randazzo defines it: “Remedial math is generally thought of as basic instruction necessary before students can take college-level courses.” It seems like teaching students algebra so they handle the college-level calculus content in the traditional Harvard intro math course fits within that definition.

3. Is the need for this course because Harvard admitted students without the math skills found in previous classes? Randazzo cites Harvard’s high average SAT math scores to refute this idea but neglects to mention that Harvard made the SAT optional in the years in which the students in these classes were admitted.

So Harvard’s pushback seems to boil down to: “We are not teaching a remedial math class, we are simply remediating math in a class.” Is that a distinction without a difference?

In the end, as I said to Randazzo, “You don’t get to choose what goes viral,” but hopefully in continuing to put a spotlight on the facts about what students lost during the pandemic, and the student journalism that brought these stories to life, we can gain some perspective on what we owe all our students to make things right.

Last time ([link removed]) in the Roundup, we looked at a new report from JerseyCAN on implementing and strengthening literacy reforms and checked in on the results of Delaware’s school board elections. Today, we take note of a new survey in Louisiana and make the case for more transparency from the states on open enrollment.
Best,

Marc Porter Magee, PhD
50CAN Founder and CEO

@marcportermagee ([link removed])

Take note of Believe in Better's growing popularity

Last year, Louisiana Kids Matter and their legislative partners passed a universal in-school tutoring program, a statewide math screener, a universal ESA and an after-school tutoring grant for struggling students in a highly productive session that saw progress on nearly every aspect of our commitment to families that we can Believe in Better ([link removed]) . On Friday, the team released ([link removed]) new polling that shows just how popular these reforms have been.

Louisiana Kids Matter surveyed 600 likely voters in Louisiana over the past month, finding broad support for the key elements of the policies under debate, including:

93% support for the first-in-the-nation universal tutoring program, launched by Louisiana Kids Matter and our partners at Accelerate.

91% support ensuring students graduate with credentials tied to high-demand, high-wage jobs.

88% support for universal math screeners in grades K-3.

66% support–including 74% support among parents with kids in K-12 schools–for the GATOR Scholarship, a universal ESA.

It is encouraging, if not altogether surprising, to see deepening support among the public and parents for Believe in Better policies that put kids’ needs at the center of our education systems. It should give us all more encouragement to push forward with bold reforms that bring these promises to life.
* The task this week is to consider polling in your own states to gauge support of enacted policies that take us a step closer to the Believe in Better promises.

Celebrate progress on open enrollment and demand better data

“Since 2020, nine states strengthened their open enrollment laws by applying them statewide. Currently, 16 states have strong cross-district open enrollment laws, 14 states have strong within-district open enrollment laws, 29 states have weak open enrollment laws, and four states have no open enrollment policies codified at the state level,” writes ([link removed]) Policy Analyst Jude Schwalbach for the Reason Foundation, in a new study of open enrollment policies across America.

Schwalbach found that over 1.6 million students have used open enrollment to select a different school across 19 states, with 43% of participants coming from low-income households and over a third of students transferring to schools in rural districts. In Colorado and Delaware, 1 in 4 students have used open enrollment to select a school other than the one for which they were zoned.

And, if anything, these numbers are significantly undercounting participation because of inconsistent data across states that are leaving parents and researchers in the dark–a problem that your advocacy can help fix.

Schwalbach explains: “Only three states collect and publish comprehensive open enrollment reports, reporting district-level data, such as the number of transfers, number of rejected applicants, and why they were denied. Only seven states published on their SEA websites the number of students using open enrollment by district. More-granular data, such as participation rates by race, low-income, and SWD status, were generally unavailable. At least one state— Utah—does not collect any open enrollment data. This means that families, taxpayers, and policymakers don’t have the tools to gauge the impact of or demand for open enrollment programs. Better transparency is crucial to public accountability, program refinement, and more accurate distribution of education funds.”

We believe every child deserves the opportunity to find the school that’s right for them. The first step in reaching that goal is to be crystal clear on how many kids are being left out of a system of choice today, and that starts with better data.
* The task this week is to understand what gaps exist in your state’s open enrollment data and to find sponsors for legislation that commits to collecting better data on student movement between and within district schools.


GeorgiaCAN’s Michael O’Sullivan noted ([link removed]) the alarm that he’s hearing from parents regarding cellphones in an interview with the Macon Melody, as the team awaits the Governor’s signature on the recently passed cellphone ban legislation.

Los Angeles is on the verge of a fiscal crisis made worse by declining enrollment, argues ([link removed]) National Voices fellow Aaron Smith in the LA Daily News.

50CAN President Derrell Bradford huddled ([link removed]) with AEI’s Rick Hess, ParentData’s Emily Oster and author David Zweig for a retrospective as to what went wrong in adult decision-making with the pandemic and how we can ensure that we’ve effectively interrogated and learned from the decisions made.

Transform Education Now has a new website and a new brand. Check out their new homepage here ([link removed]) .

Marking 100 years since the Supreme Court's decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Paul Petersonreflects ([link removed]) on its enduring impact on school choice in Education Next.

Fordham’s Checker Finn writes an open lette ([link removed]) r ([link removed]) to Bill Gates: “Real change on the ground—the kind that actually alters what schools do, who teaches, who goes to which schools, who gets paid how much, whose school years expand, whose graduation standards get more rigorous—means duking it out with the forces of resistance.”

On June 10, the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings will host a webinar ([link removed]) on how teachers can better engage K-12 students in STEM.

Lauren Camera of The 74 reports ([link removed]) on a new study that argues that afterschool programs are “far more important than policymakers and parents likely realize.”

A new study published by EdWorkingPapers evaluates an AI-based program implemented in Madrid schools, finding ([link removed]) it led to improvements in reading skills equivalent to about one month of learning.

A second study published by EdWorkingPapers explores ([link removed]) how declines in US achievement started well before the pandemic.

A new study by Urban Institute’s Daniel Kuehn looks ([link removed]) at the value of registered apprentices.


After the devastating fires that struck the Pacific Palisades neighborhoods of Los Angeles in January of this year, work has begun to bring relocated students back to their home schools. ABC News takes ([link removed]) viewers on site to show progress made and the challenges that remain. Here is how Nick Melvoin, the LAUSD school board member who represents Pacific Palisades, put it: “We’re trying to bring a sense of normalcy back to the kids, and that's why you start with the schools. Our schools are our civic cathedrals, and if you can normalize the situation for kids, your teachers are back, your school’s back, your playground is back.”

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ABOUT 50CAN

50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now is a nonprofit organization that works at the local level to advocate for a high-quality education for all kids, regardless of their address.

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