With COVID-19 vaccinations underway, a new relief package approved by Congress, and the nomination of a new education secretary, 2021 is in large part going to be about putting the pieces back together in the education sector, about schools and colleges recovering from the devastating economic and educational consequences of the coronavirus. But it also should be about resuming the unfinished work of school reform, building a stronger public education system, now with a heightened focus on schools’ role in promoting racial justice and a sensitivity to the weaknesses in public schooling that the pandemic has exposed.
In higher education, the challenge of college affordability and its important consequences for education equity have been heightened dramatically by the pandemic, as have the troubling economics of higher education.
Let’s hope that secretary-designate Miguel Cardona, whom we profile here, and other new leaders at the U.S. Department of Education are committed to educational equity and finding innovative solutions to the unprecedented challenges our schools and colleges are facing today. The American people deserve an education department staffed by public servants committed to pursuing high standards for all students and a highly effective, diverse educator workforce; who recognize the foundational importance of having a clear picture of the performance of every college and school; and who go to work every day fighting for safe, high-quality public education options for every student.
To help education policymakers and practitioners navigate the pandemic recovery, FutureEd analyzed the $82 billion in new Congressional relief funding for schools and colleges.
To inform the work ahead, we recently released Goals, Strategies, Tactics, People and Money: Insights from a Decade of Education Advocacy, an analysis of effective education advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged students published under our AdvocacyLabs partnership with 50CAN. Author Marc Porter Magee studied nearly 300 state and local education advocacy campaigns for the project.
Doug Lemov, the managing director of Uncommon Schools and author of Teach Like a Champion, describes what he and his team find to be the most effective instructional strategies in online learning.
FutureEd Research Director Matthew Kraft and his Brown University colleague Grace Falken offer a blueprint for a national tutoring infrastructure to address the severe learning loss that many students have suffered.
To provide perspective on how education resources are shaping educational opportunities during the pandemic, FutureEd did an analysis of how the nation’s wealthiest and poorest school districts have delivered instruction this fall. There are substantial differences.
FutureEd Senior Fellows Mario Ramirez and Andrew Buher, a former federal pandemic official and a former urban school official respectively, outline the information schools should use in determining when to return to in-person instruction. And they explored the role that school-based health care can play in recovering from the pandemic in a piece that ran in The Hill.
Our FutureU higher education podcast series continues with insights from Boston University President Robert Brown on the challenges of reopening colleges and from Sonoma State President Judy K. Sakaki on the decision to remain virtual.
Editorial Director Phyllis W. Jordan examines striking research on racial and gender bias in classrooms and interviewed Attendance Works Director Hedy Chang about state attendance policies. Policy Associate Brooke LePage explores the surprising economic and educational consequences of schools “going green.”
You can find forthcoming virtual education policy events and the latest leadership changes in the education sector on our website, www.future-ed.org.
Thanks a lot and best wishes for the holidays.
Tom
Thomas Toch
Director, FutureEd
McCourt School of Public Policy
Georgetown University
ttoch@future-ed.org
@thomas_toch
