Parents Need More School Options

By Chris Krug | The Center Square

Responses to COVID-19 across the country have exposed weaknesses in all aspects of society.

Crises do that. Crises expose weaknesses. Crises show how the systems we trust and rely upon are so close to fraying.

But arguably the greatest frailty of them all could be seen in the way that our public schools unraveled over the past year. Our kids are suffering in so many unfathomable ways. As School Choice Week comes to a close, let’s pause for a moment and consider how simply awful the current situation is for parents who have opted to maximize the value of the school taxes they pay and utilize the public service. Ohio was the first to mandate school closures on March 12 and, within one day, 15 other states mandated school closures. Teachers

School choice advocates rally at the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort, unions, whose apKy., on Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. They are supporting legislation that would give tax credits to people who donate to scholarship funds for special-needs children or those in low-income homes to attend proach to maintaining strength of memprivate schools. bership and loyalty Bruce Schreiner / AP file photo long has valued service time over talent and student performance, leaned into the fear-stoking mainstream media and pushed state government for closures well ahead of any available science and data.

In Illinois, where my children attend public school, students in most local districts have been outside of the classroom since mid-March 2020.

Friday was the first day my youngest was allowed to return to class. It was the third time since the school shutdown in March that she’s been present in class. She’s 8.

She’s spent the better part of 10 months trying to learn via Zoom. It’s been miserable for her and for everyone around her. She tells me that she feels like a failure because she can’t stay engaged. She’s been corrected in front of her peers by teachers who are expecting engagement commensurate with in-person learning. She’s embarrassed. Turned off. Says that she doesn’t like school. Again, she’s 8.

She’s been clinically diagnosed as having special needs. Spending hours in front of a computer screen is the worst possible scenario for her and kids like her. But it is the only available option.

The private schools in our area are full. They have been operating on a 5-day in-school schedule since mid-August without incident.

Homeschooling is not a viable option for working parents. So we’re stuck, and our little girl is stuck in the middle of an archaic system that wasn’t great in its original form that is now repackaged into virtual delivery and operated by people who have zero experience teaching via distance learning.

Forget about what the American Academy of Pediatrics had recommended for kids and screen time before the pandemic: “Correlational studies have shown that 8- to 11-yearolds who exceed screen time recommendations scored lower on cognitive assessments, with compliance with recommendations explaining about a fifth of the overall variance in cognitive scores (The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Vol. 2, No. 11, 2018). A combination of screen time and too little sleep has also been associated with heightened impulsivity in the same age group (Pediatrics, Vol. 144, No. 3, 2019).”

Meanwhile, private schools have operated normally or with only slight modification and in accordance with local departments of health guidelines – across the country – without incident.

You’re not reading stories about massive outbreaks at private schools because they are not occurring. Teachers and students in these schools are not dying. It’s a fact that has gone largely unreported because it doesn’t fit the message of the fear-stoking organized labor unions that rule the public education machine.

Americans deserve better, and choices for how we educate our kids with the tax dollars that we push forward to public education are vital. Not all kids are alike. My kids are no more important than yours. But our kids are all different and need customized solutions. The American public education system has been outdated, operates on an agrarian calendar and contributes significantly to our kids falling behind the world.

No offense, but our ability to educate and our kids’ ability to learn shouldn’t have been ranked behind Poland in science, Lithuania in math, or Portugal in reading before the pandemic. You can only imagine where we will rank next year.

We need more charter schools that actually have to account for outcomes to continue to operate. We need magnet schools that would allow for specialized curriculums. We need more control of how tax dollars are allocated to education for the specific purpose of allowing the free market to improve the educational system, rather than to protect and maintain the draconian approach to educating children via the lone public options we’ve funded for generations.

If this moment isn’t the precise time to consider how we make education better, there won’t be another.

Much of the nation celebrated National School Choice Week last week, as more and more parents frustrated with remote-only learning, unhappy with public school outcomes and simply looking for alternatives are embracing school choice options.

In Arizona, a national leader in school choice options, private and charter schools saw enrollment increase significantly over the past year. In Michigan, roughly 10 percent of the state’s student population attend charter schools. In Ohio, more than 300,000 students take advantage of some type of school choice option in the state, and that number could grow thanks to legislation signed into law near the end of 2020. In North Carolina, a new poll shows a majority of residents now support school choice options. And in Kentucky, new legislation was filed that would create Education Opportunity Accounts that could be used in public or private schools across the state.

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Legislative and congressional districts in the state are supposed to be redrawn this year by new, independent commissions approved by voters in 2018. But Census Bureau problems mean the panels are unlikely to meet their constitutionally mandated deadlines.

by Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun

Delays by the U.S. Census Bureau in sharing detailed population data are threatening to upend Colorado’s new redistricting process ahead of the 2022 election, injecting uncertainty into a politically fraught undertaking that will affect the state’s political landscape for the next decade.

Because of slowdowns related to COVID-19, the Trump administration’s failed efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and data anomalies, the Census Bureau isn’t expected to provide the population information to Colorado until sometime this summer. The data was supposed to be in by March 31 — at the latest. The delay means it’s unlikely that two new, independent commissions will have enough time to redraw Colorado’s legislative and congressional maps in time to meet September deadlines set in the state constitution when voters passed Amendments Y

Voters cast their ballots in downtown Denver on Tuesday, June 30, and Z in 2018. The 2020. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun) amendments were sent to voters by the legislature and completely overhauled the way districts are drawn in Colorado.

If the deadlines aren’t met, nonpartisan legislative staff will draw the new maps instead, putting a big damper on the intent of Amendments Y and Z and the bipartisan, muchheralded agreement that led to their passage. The amendments are aimed at removing political maneuvering around the once-in-a-decade redistricting and giving the public more say in the task.

“There was not just bipartisan support, but unanimous support among the 100 legislators (for the new process). And both Y and Z passed by wide margins,” said Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert, a Parker Republican. “It’s a shame that we are in this situation.”

Top lawmakers in the Colorado General Assembly are now scrambling to respond and salvage the new redistricting process. The stakes are high, with Colorado expected to add an eighth congressional seat in 2022 due to population growth and partisan power at the statehouse potentially hanging in the balance. The new problems with the redistricting process come after state officials initially struggled to get Colorado’s congressional districts. (Handout) enough applicants to be on the legislative and congressional map-drawing committees. There were also concerns that not enough applicants from underrepresented groups sought to serve on the panels, whose members are being selected by judges in the coming weeks.

Colorado isn’t the only state where redistricting plans are in trouble because of Census Bureau delays. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that New Jersey and Virginia were planning to redraw their legislative districts ahead of elections this year. Meanwhile, California, Missouri, Maine, Ohio, South Dakota and Washington all have constitutional redistricting deadlines in the coming months ahead of the 2022 election, similar to Colorado’s.

Texas’ legislature may have to be called into a special session because of the Census Bureau’s slowdown.

Colorado’s nonpartisan redistricting commission staff informed top legislative leaders Monday about why the delays are so problematic.

“We knew for a little while now that the timeline was going to be called into question because of the census,” said Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat. “It’s become much more clear now the impact.”

The detailed population numbers were expected to arrive by March 31, officials said, but the data now may not arrive until July 31 — if not later.

“The Census Bureau has more or less acknowledged that they won’t be able to meet that deadline,” Jerry Barry, a nonpartisan staffer with the Office of Legislative Legal Services, told top lawmakers on Monday. “We have heard that it will be sometime this fall.”

Barry recommended that leading Democrats and Republicans quickly draft a bill to push back the map-drawing deadlines — now set at Sept. 1 for congressional districts and Sept. 15 for legislative ones — and then ask the Colorado Supreme Court to weigh in about whether state lawmakers can legally pass a measure altering the constitutional deadlines.

The legislature does not inherently have the power to alter the state constitution by passing a bill. That’s why lawmakers will have to ask the state Supreme Court if, given the extenuating circumstances, the alterations are OK.

“The only avenue the legislature has, because we don’t have the authority to amend the constitution and there isn’t time to refer a question to the voters, (is to seek) an opinion,” Holbert said.

Because of the pandemic, Colorado Supreme Court allowed the legislature last year to sidestep its constitutional requirement to meet for 120 consecutive days. The legislature’s lawyers see the request to alter the redistricting deadlines as being similar. (The Colorado Supreme Court is required to review the final maps and approve or reject them by the end of 2021 and pass them along to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.)

Holbert said lawmakers might have anticipated delays in census data being reported when drafting Amendments Y and Z and provided some flexibility around the deadlines. But at this point the only thing to do is find a way to respond. And his Democratic colleagues agree.

“We are just where we are,” said House Speaker Alec Garnett, a Denver Democrat. “So, let’s figure out a way to move forward.”

It’s unclear how long the legislature would seek to push back the map-drawing deadlines. Fenberg said if it’s a month or two, there really wouldn’t be that much of a difference.

Such an extension, however, would give candidates less time to decide which races to run in and likely create an even more frantic election cycle. A number of top politicians are watching closely to see where Colorado’s eighth congressional district is drawn. The new map is likely to have major ripple effects across the political landscape.

Fenberg is trying to find the silver lining. “I don’t think it’s the end of the world,” he said of a possible delay. “It might be, frankly, a positive thing.”

Fenberg points out that the pandemic will make it difficult for the independent redistricting commissions to meet and get statewide input since in-person gatherings are still frowned upon.

“There’s all kinds of reasons why right now is not a great period to be kicking off the redistricting process,” Fenberg said.

The upshot for proponents of the redistricting changes are that even with the delays, the process will not be in the hands of the legislature as was the case before Amendments Y and Z. Even if the independent panels can’t draw the maps, nonpartisan legislative staff will take the reins, meaning the influence of party politics will still be minimized.

The downside is it will be difficult to solicit and consider public input in the way Amendments Y and Z envisioned.

“It might not look exactly like the way we planned it when we wrote Y and Z,” Fenberg said, “but there’s still going to be some big changes.”