Notes from the Road, NAEP, Trump’s Forced Voucher Orders, and…What’s at Stake?
Just back from the road (again!)
I just returned from a multi-state trip where I met with lawmakers, parents, and community leaders in Tennessee, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. I’ve appreciated the chance to speak with folks of all political stripes—conservatives, progressives, and a lot of people in between.
You can read some of the coverage of my visits here and here.
News Dump: NAEP and Forced Vouchers
Meanwhile, if you believe that education policy in this country has to be built on a fundamental commitment to public schools, and that public education is perhaps the most important of our public goods, the first days of the second Trump Administration have been chaotic and disheartening. Trump has issued sweeping executive orders (EO) pausing all manner of federal public services. And then there’s a specific EO trying to carve out pieces of federal agency budgets to fund school voucher schemes. Administration threats to gut and maybe eliminate the U.S. Department of Education abound, too.
Then there’s the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the so-called nation’s report card which came out on January 29, right alongside Trump’s voucher EO. NAEP says, as usual, that math and reading learning rates for American 4th and 8th graders continue to stagnate. And the scores of many at-risk kids are even declining relative to their more advantaged peers—reflecting decades of financial and policy neglect dating well before the pandemic.
(Just a reminder: vouchers do far more damage to vulnerable kids on similar academic measures).
It's a lot.
With the voucher EO, Trump is intending to create federally funded vouchers by diktat: directing the Departments of Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services (among others) to find ways to spend chunks of their budgets on voucher schemes. How that EO holds up in court, and what its relationship will be to the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) tax shelter/voucher scheme sitting in Congress, are still open questions. But for the moment, what’s clear is that all of this is about amplifying voucher spending in states that are already diverting their own taxpayer funds to private education as well as forcing vouchers into states that have already (and often repeatedly) rejected them.
So, while we wait, I want to take up a question I get everywhere when I travel. I think it comes from a genuine exhaustion that folks have fighting against things, and some genuine desire for inspiration to take up fights for something too.
Sometimes this comes as a good faith question, sometimes as a challenge. But basically, it’s: “Okay Cowen, what are you for”
What Works, and What’s the Right Thing to Do?
These are important questions because although we know parents and voters strongly support public education and their own local public schools, they also want improvements. And isn’t learning and working together to improve investment in our future the point of public policy?
What are some of the real opportunities for supporting and improving public education? Any answer ought to be guided by two basic principles: what actually works, and what’s the right thing to do? And those answers have to begin with deep, sustained investments in public schools. We know money matters, and we’ve known that for years.
What else? Here are the kinds of things I talk about: investments in early education like pre-K and child care for all kids; Grow-Your-Own teacher pipeline initiatives that draw on local talent; policy strategies for diverse learners like English Learners and students with dyslexia; universal school meals and new investments in high-quality HVAC systems. And that’s just the start.
We know those investments not only work, but parents like them, too. That’s why the voucher lobby has tried to buy votes and divide progressives by throwing versions of some of these ideas into spending schemes for so-called “education savings accounts (ESAs),” whose real policy goal is private K-12 tuition on the taxpayer dime.
The common denominator for all of this is making sure these resources are available to every school in the nation, but especially those educating the most vulnerable students. And threats to those resources are clear and present every day—whether it’s in chronic underfunding in many states or in the Trump Administration’s effort to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
Wrapping Up: What’s at Stake?
Maybe your own list of policy priorities is different than mine. Maybe you’d add or take something away. But one thing is certain: when states commit more and more resources to voucher schemes—mostly for kids already in private school, by the way—they close the door on other solutions and opportunities.
So, whatever our answer, “what are we for?” also becomes a question of “what do we lose?” when taxpayer dollars are sent to private schools. And with all the news and all the chaos out there, it’s more important than ever to remember what’s at stake.
Josh
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