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Dear John,

It is week 294 of our new reality and we are thinking about the power of persistence.

Last week, longtime partners, supporters and past and current staff members gathered in New Haven, Connecticut to celebrate ConnCAN’s 20th anniversary.

It was a night of music, celebration and reunion for so many of the people that have made this work possible. One of the themes of the night was the way in which effective advocacy is a relay race and it is the handoffs between leaders that makes all the difference in ensuring the long-term success of a campaign. That’s why we were particularly excited to be able to celebrate the former leaders of ConnCAN who got us to this remarkable milestone and who continue to play key roles in the education reform movement today: Alex Johnston, Jen Alexander and Subira Gordon.
20 years ago, Alex took a leap of faith when he stepped forward to launch a new kind of education campaign in Connecticut that partnered with educational entrepreneurs and parents to bring their voices to the state capitol and tirelessly advocate for their interests. Over time, Alex pioneered an approach to education advocacy campaigns–grounded in annual goals and relentlessly innovative on strategies and tactics–that became the foundation of the 50CAN model. After stepping down from ConnCAN in 2012, Alex launched Building Impact, which has emerged as one of the leading philanthropic advising firms in the country, helping a new generation of philanthropists and changemakers make a difference in the world.

13 years ago, Jen stepped into the leadership role at ConnCAN and charted a new path for the organization that built upon those early wins secured by Alex and team while taking on new challenges for a new era. She launched new local initiatives to make school boards more transparent and responsive to parents and secured major policy victories including the authorization of a new generation of charter schools. After stepping down from ConnCAN in 2018, Jen stepped into the role of executive director of the PIE Network and has led the organization through a period of remarkable growth as it connects and catalyzes the work of 132 state and local education advocacy organizations in 38 states.

7 years ago, Subira picked up the mantle of leadership and leveraged her deep understanding of the Connecticut legislative process to build new coalitions and secure a new era of wins, including remaking the state’s approach to teacher recruitment and a once-in-a-half-century reform of the state’s school funding system. After stepping down from ConnCAN in 2023, Subira has served as the CEO of the Nashville Charter Collaborative where she and her team are leading the effort to ensure every child in Nashville has access to a great public school.

It is this stewardship by these three amazing leaders that has made it possible for current ConnCAN executive director Steven Hernández and his team to play such a vital role in Connecticut today, including securing four new policy wins in the 2025 legislative session: the authorization of five new charter schools, new reforms to the funding system, $5 million in new funding for tutoring and increased funding for teacher literacy training.

Together, these four ConnCAN leaders–past and present–have set the bar for what we can do together when we relentlessly and consistently put kids’ interests first in our states.

Last time ([link removed]) in the New Reality Roundup, we looked at student achievement data in New Mexico and listened to a conversation between Liz Cohen and Emily Oster. This week, we spotlight a series of surveys that explore the popularity of particular policies and the large, income-based gaps in afterschool participation.
Best,

Marc Porter Magee, PhD
50CAN Founder and CEO

@marcportermagee ([link removed])

On the Eve of Election Tuesday, take note of new polling
Welcome, a group ([link removed]) of national Democrats that the New York Times called a “centrist insurgency,” was founded in 2019 by strategists Liam Kerr and Lauren Harper Pope. They’ve now released ([link removed]) new polling and an accompanying report, Deciding to Win.

“Deciding to Win aims to provide the most comprehensive account to date of why Democrats lost and what our party needs to do to win again,” the authors write. “We draw on thousands of election results, hundreds of public polls and academic papers, dozens of case studies, and surveys of more than 500,000 voters we conducted since the 2024 election.”

While the project is not exclusively focused on education, the results provide new insight into the electoral viability of key education policies under debate. Here is what they found:
The most popular policies polled as it relates to education are free school lunch (+14%), increased funding for Head Start (+14%) and expanding school choice (+9%). At the bottom: phasing out Title 1 (-9%), equalizing public school funding nationally (-11%) and getting rid of tracking in public schools (-39%).

What should we take away from these new results? It’s clear there is strong public support for programs that expand opportunities and create a fairer playing field for kids. At the same time, it is also clear that voters want decision-making in our education system to be based in the states and that policies which slow some kids down in order to make it easier for others to catch up is a clear political loser.

Writing in The 74, Debbie Veney and Jay Artis-Wright find ([link removed]) similar patterns in two recent national polls of parents:

* A poll of K-12 parents from Agency and Atomik Research, finding that 65% would vote outside of their political party over education issues.
* A poll from Artis-Wright’s Freedom to Choose Schools, which found 71% of respondents rating US schools as “fair” or “poor” with greater access to enrichment programs and tutoring topping the lists of investments and improvements parents want to see.

Taken together, the polls are further evidence that parent dissatisfaction over education will carry political consequences for officials and parties that are slow to respond to the immediate needs of parents and families. “The politics of education are shifting,” Veney and Artis-Wright state, “Parents are frustrated, mobilized and ready to act. The question now is whether political leaders will listen.”

* The task this week is to consider these insights into education policies on Election Eve. Remember to vote!

End inequitable access to afterschool by learning from D.C.
Over three-quarters of parents who want to enroll their children in afterschool programs cannot, according ([link removed]) to a new national survey from Afterschool Alliance and Edge Research, with most citing program availability and costs as barriers.

Most concerning, however, are the gaps in access by income level, which mirrors patterns that we found ([link removed]) in the 2024 Educational Opportunity Survey. In the Afterschool Alliance report, 96% of wealthy families enrolled their children in out-of-school programming which, as noted in the 74 Million’s Jessika Harkay’s coverage of the survey, is “30 percentage points higher than families in the lowest-income bracket.” There are also big gaps in participation and accessibility between states, with Washington, D.C. leading the way in both categories.
What can advocates do to open up access? Harkay reports that the success in D.C. is driven by its investments in both programs and transportation options: “Washington D.C. leads the country in the largest percentage of students involved in programs, with 38% of K-12 students compared to the national average of 13%. D.C. also was named as the top leader in accessibility, which was defined by states that have prioritized funding for transportation and expanding opportunities in areas with limited options. The report credited the city for its ‘significant investments’ in afterschool programming over the past eight years, including over $100 million of funding in its Office of Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes.”

* The task this week is to read the Afterschool Alliance survey and to analyze state afterschool funding to compare expenditures with other states.


50CAN VP of Policy Liz Cohen has visited a number of cities for the launch of her new book, The Future of Tutoring ([link removed]) , including an event cohosted with The 74 in New York City.
Liz is continuing the conversations sparked by the book on her new substack, where she recently spoke ([link removed]) with Brown University’s Matt Kraft on what it will take to scale tutoring across the country.
HawaiiKidsCAN Deputy Director Erica Nakanishi-Stanis joined the Stupski Foundation and the Hawaii Community Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee to present on how they’re driving rising FAFSA completion rates in rural communities across the islands.

The HawaiiKidsCAN team is also in the midst of their annual giving campaign. Support ([link removed]) their efforts today and claim your limited edition “growing lehua tree” sticker.

Congratulations to the 25 parent advocates from across the country who have been accepted into the third cohort of our FIRE Fellowship. Developed in partnership between 50CAN’s Steven Quinn and the National School Choice Awareness Foundation, the parent-leaders will spend the next months skilling up in advocacy tactics, communications and education policy. Meet the new fellows here ([link removed]) !

Reporter Matt Barnum introduced ([link removed]) the new Chalkbeat Ideas, where he'll be examining the big ideas changing American education. His latest piece is an interview ([link removed]) with former US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

AEI’s report on student attendance suggests ([link removed]) that attendance patterns have changed without a single, primary driver, finding that absences increase as students extend holidays, weekends and vacations during the school year.

At EdWorkingPapers, David Figlio and Umut Özek write ([link removed]) that enforcing a cellphone ban in Florida schools caused an initial spike in suspensions but by the second year led to higher test scores and fewer unexcused absences.

Chalkbeat reports ([link removed]) that Illinois high school juniors’ ACT scores dropped to a decade low even as graduation rates hit a record 89%.

Alexander Russo’s The Grade has a new interview ([link removed]) with Laura Powell, the Des Moines, Iowa mom and citizen-journalist who broke the story of the Des Moines superintendent.


At O’Keeffe Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, students have a unique extracurricular option that runs alongside band, theater and sports: Halloween Club ([link removed]) . Overseen by former professional costume designer Shelley Cornia, participating students learn everything from design to textile skills. Asked what her favorite costumes produced this year were, Cornia responded: “Probably the guitars and the giant eyeball.”

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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.

1380 Monroe Street Northwest
#413
Washington, DC 20010

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