Dear Colleagues:
The resurgence of COVID via the “Delta variant” has school officials and parents looking for flexible learning options again. With the disruptions COVID caused to traditional school operations in the 2020-2021 school year, many parents took matters into their own hands and created learning pods, or small groups of students who met during the school day to continue their educations. As I wrote this week <[link removed]> for redefinED’s relaunched online commentary and news site reimaginED <[link removed]>, the obstacles
to traditional schools that COVID continues to pose mean solutions such as learning pods are here to stay.
 
The difference this year is that parents, policymakers and educators have the benefit of hindsight—that is, they have the benefit of knowing what strategies are successful for forming and maintaining pods. As I explain in reimaginED, New Hampshire officials partnered with Prenda <[link removed]>, a learning pod company based in Arizona, and are awarding grants to school districts to create learning pods. Two weeks ago, the New Hampshire Department of Education announced that four districts <[link removed]> had been awarded grants to launch pods.
 
News reports from New Jersey <[link removed]> and Florida <[link removed]> say parents are forming pods again this year, while school officials in Arkansas <[link removed]> say they are using small group sessions similar to learning pods.
 
Last year, lawmakers in states such as Maine and Pennsylvania tried to regulate pod activity by applying the same onerous rules to learning pods as lawmakers use to govern at-home daycare operations. Experts such as The Heritage Foundation’s Rachel Greszler have documented how such overregulation stifles small daycare operations, and as I explained for the State Policy Network last year <[link removed]>, such rules could also stifle pods. But after pods’ successes in continuing student learning in the midst of traditional school closures, state lawmakers such as those in New Hampshire are making it easier for parents to form learning pods. That’s good news for families in the Granite State and others such as Texas, Louisiana and Georgia <[link removed]>  where policymakers adopted proposals that should prevent agencies from overregulating pods.
 
You can learn more about pods <[link removed]> here.
 
Elevator Pitch: Learning pods, small groups of students who meet during the school day to continue learning while traditional schools are in flux due to COVID, are here to stay.
 
What Else We’re Working On
 
Well said. Senior fellow Jay Greene joined Speech First’s Executive Director Cherise Trump to discuss his new paper with James Paul, “Diversity University: DEI Bloat in the Academy” <[link removed]> on Speech First’s podcast “Well Said.” <[link removed]> You can view the podcast here <[link removed]>.
 
More Overreach from the Office for Civil Rights
 
Lindsey Burke and Sarah Parshall Perry, our colleague in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, write about the Biden Administration’s use of the Office for Civil
Rights <[link removed]> to investigate states that don’t mandate masks in schools. As they explain:
 
“To our knowledge, not a single state, school district, or individual school has banned students from wearing masks in the classroom.
 
Yet, the ever-politicized <[link removed]> Office for Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education has decided to use the heft of the federal government to investigate <[link removed]> states that
don’t mandate children to wear masks.
 
The Office for Civil Rights tries to disguise the word “mandate” by using the term universal masking’ throughout its press release announcing the investigation of five states that have banned mask mandates.
 
Again, no state has banned “universal” masking; several have prohibited mask mandates. If any or every child in a school chooses to wear a mask, not a single state has ever suggested that’s a problem.
 
The Office for Civil Rights’ hunt once again expands the force of Washington into local school policy, as it also did under the Obama administration <[link removed]>.”
 
Our Newest Addition
 
We would like to introduce the newest member of the team, John Schoof. John joins us as Research Associate and Project Coordinator, and this week he describes the K-12 landscape <[link removed]>, including the vast number of new school choice options for families across the country as we begin the school year. You’ll hear from him in a couple weeks!
Upcoming Event
 
Please join us online for “Religious Liberty and Education: A Case Study of Yeshivas vs. New York,” on Tuesday, September 14 at 12:30 pm. RSVP here <[link removed]>. Learn more:
 
Orthodox Jewish private schools, also known as yeshivas, have been under fire by critics alleging that some fail to provide a secular education that is “substantially similar” to that offered at traditional public schools. At the heart of this controversy lies a tension between two critically important interests in education that have implications far beyond the yeshiva world.
 
Parents have the right to choose an appropriate education for their children, while children have the right to receive a guaranteed minimum education. If preference is given to the former, how much freedom should parents have in choosing? If the latter, how does the state define what constitutes an appropriate education or measure the extent to which the end has been achieved?
Sincerely,
Jonathan Butcher
 
Will Skillman Fellow in Education
The Center for Education Policy

Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity
The Heritage Foundation

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