In my career as an arts educator and school administrator, I have met countless families whose children are excited to embark on a college education focused on filmmaking or acting.

The parents are often less excited than their children, however: They seem both apprehensive and determined to steer their children to more “practical” pursuits. Given the financial realities regularly confronted by the arts and the high cost of postsecondary education, a bit of hesitation may be natural.

Just as there are a number of ways to build a career in filmmaking or acting, there are various ways to pursue learning these crafts. Whether through formal, postsecondary degree attainment or informal, out-of-school time opportunities via summer camps and workshops, the foundational skills students build by studying a creative craft are portable and durable and can set them up for success in whatever field they ultimately pursue.

A performing arts education, in particular, not only enhances one’s ability to learn — building listening skills, developing empathy and perseverance, enhancing focus and creating opportunities to express emotions — it also equips students with practical skills that translate seamlessly to life as we now live it.

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In my view, the performing arts have enormous value in ways we don’t often think of or even expect. Storytelling — the foundation of all these crafts — helps students to organize their thoughts, to understand the elements necessary to keep people engaged in a journey.

How many of us have had to stand up in a classroom or a conference room to hold or persuade an audience? It’s all storytelling. Understanding what makes a story work, how to perform it, how to capture your audience and get them to care about what you are saying are skills that can be taught and learned. These skills matter whether you’re hoping to score an A on a research presentation, perform a soliloquy or secure funding from a venture capitalist.

Mastering these skills gives students the practical abilities necessary to write well and create contemporary media; for the latter, they must develop skills with associated technologies, which include constantly changing gear and software. It puts them in the driver’s seat in an entrepreneurial, creator-driven economy.

Mastering their art also includes developing essential “soft skills,” such as organization, time management, collaboration, empathy, public speaking and persuasion, as well as planning and budgeting, multitasking, self-regulation and the development of cultural awareness, to name a few.

Related: PROOF POINTS: The lesson the arts teach

I’ve witnessed the positive impact of working in these crafts not only for the thousands of students I’ve worked with over my 30 years at the New York Film Academy (NYFA), but also through my own children, who were encouraged at an early age to participate in theater, music and media arts: Auditioning, performing and writing stories were common activities in our home.

Their exposure to these experiences and the resulting skills and self-assurance they gained spilled over to their studies and social acumen. I can say, without hesitation, that they succeeded in traditional academics in part due to the skills learned in their education and pursuits in the arts. Beyond that, my wife and I regularly received feedback about how much more poised and confident our children were than many of their peers.

Students with access to these experiences develop habits and practices that inform their ability to be present and prepared in a wide range of situations.

Today, it’s nearly impossible to find a career that doesn’t, on some level, rely on our ability to leverage a combination of technology, media and performance skills. We hear endless statistics about the need for strong technical skills, the need for a workforce that is literate in STEM — science, technology engineering, and math. Yet as a society, we have historically proven fickle when it comes to prioritizing the arts and supporting arts education.

Adding the arts to STEM, “STEAM” as some refer to it, marries the technical and the creative. There is a clear need and dependency on both. Together they not only engage both sides of the brain, they bring us a fuller experience of the world — to say nothing of the economic opportunities.

I worry that because we have so neglected and undervalued the arts, we have created a generation of anxious, socially disaffected young people struggling to find their place, to connect and make sense of an increasingly complex world. This neglect has set them up with a false belief that the human experience is binary: creative or linear; purposeful or financially lucrative.

The arts compel students to take control, whether directing a crew on set, creating a character or performing a part. Acting, in particular, offers students a safe space to be vulnerable and explore feelings that can overwhelm us in our “real” lives.

Mastering artistic skills can make the difference between success and failure in so many contexts, both personal and professional.

By prioritizing arts education, we empower students to pursue their passions and fulfill their potential. We equip them not only with the tools they need to succeed in any occupation but to make their unique and meaningful mark on the world.

By encouraging our kids to pursue the arts, we may actually achieve those things that so often feel nearly impossible: their happiness and success.

David Klein is the senior executive vice president at the New York Film Academy. He oversees the operations, development and delivery of programs including Acting for Film, Filmmaking, Musical Theatre, Broadcast Journalism and Cinematography.

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Dialogue between a teacher and an administrator as school opens in 2024:

The above dialogue is based on an actual situation, and it is emblematic of the reality that administrators far too often do not listen to the voices of teachers. The result is that many teachers feel alienated and disrespected. More than half say they are thinking about leaving the profession, and 86 percent of public schools reported difficulties hiring new teachers last year.

Yet, most teachers care about their students and want to enable them to succeed. That leaves the teachers who remain conflicted. They say to themselves: Do I leave for my own wellness, or do I stay for my students?

During the height of the pandemic, teachers were forced to rebuild the education plane as it was flying, often without supervision and adequate training or feedback opportunities. But here’s a key insight: Teachers developed creative and sometimes novel solutions to problems they encountered daily. They found ways for education to continue despite vast challenges. That’s the good news.

Related: Widen your perspective. Our free biweekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in education.

Now the bad news. When schools reopened, far too few administrators inquired about these new approaches, and were often unaware of them. School leaders failed to create opportunities to hear from and listen to their teachers both while they were off-site and when they were back on-site. This meant that positive changes developed during the pandemic were not carried forward, and the conversation centered on educational failures during the pandemic. This isn’t a problem of the past; it persists.

My co-author and I heard these observations as part of research we conducted for our new book, “Mending Education: Finding Hope, Creativity, and Mental Wellness in Times of Trauma.” During the pandemic and through 2023, we spoke with dozens of educators across the nation. During a weeklong period in June 2023, we also surveyed more than 150 pre-K to 12th grade teachers across the U.S. to capture their pandemic experiences and understand their situations.

What we learned is that teachers summoned remarkable creativity and ingenuity to navigate the continual crises with their students. Importantly, they wanted the best of the changes they created to be retained in the non-online school setting.

Related: PROOF POINTS: Some of the $190 billion in pandemic money for schools actually paid off

No one denies that there were many educational setbacks in the pandemic years; counterintuitively though, there were many positives. Sadly, these positives have not been adopted, replicated and scaled; they have been ignored as remnants of the pandemic. The result: Our schools have not improved in ways that would have been possible post-pandemic.

Take these two examples.

First, the pandemic paused standardized testing at the state and federal levels. Yet teachers, many of whom had been frustrated by the stress and limitations of testing, found new and improved ways to assess student learning. They turned to approaches such as allowing students to make oral or visual presentations (with video or illustrations) of their learning or to present portfolios with examples of their work like essays and quizzes and projects. Instead of relying on a single point in time score, educators were able to assess, and then share with families, students’ individual progress. Many of our survey respondents and other teachers with whom we worked were delighted with the changed approaches. Students were less anxious (teachers too). Teachers told us that when learning was not measured by a single score but rather in ways that captured student progress, learning outcomes improved.

Second, because learning was largely remote, traditional forms of discipline (expulsion, suspension, removal from class, timeouts) could not be used. Survey respondents and other teachers shared that they found ways to engage disengaged or disruptive students. They used breakout rooms and chatrooms to work with subgroups of students. They created group projects to enable students to learn about teamwork and peer support. They did exercises that enabled students to regulate and reregulate themselves by identifying their feelings, a strategy that benefited all students, not just those who were struggling overtly. They visited the homes of students and taught from driveways and through windows. They reached out via text or email to families to share problems and strategize about solutions.

Those changes could have continued after the pandemic. But for them to stick would have required decision-makers to listen in real time to the experiences of those working in the trenches with our students. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, we reopened schools as if we could return to what existed pre-pandemic; we tried to force a return to a prior “normal” that no longer exists. In short: Opportunity knocked, teachers responded and then changes were abandoned.

We are paying a high price for these failures to recognize teachers’ voices. We cannot educate from the top down or sideways in. Educational improvement comes at the micro, meso and macro levels — if we are sufficiently respectful of and open to the voices of those to whom we entrust our children. We must listen and learn from our teachers. If we do, we all stand to benefit.

Karen Gross, an author, educator and artist, is a former college president and senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education; she currently serves as a continuing education instructor at Rutgers School of Social Work. 

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When I left home at 17, I knew I wanted to go to college. I knew earning a degree would help me find a path to a more secure future. And I knew that I was interested in pursuing a career focused on social justice.

I also had no idea how I could afford college when I was already working multiple jobs just to earn enough money to make ends meet. I had never met my father, and I had a rocky relationship with my mother, so I was largely on my own. Fortunately, I was able to use financial aid to enroll at Prairie State College, a community college just outside of Chicago. It remains the best decision I have ever made.

I thrived at Prairie State, where I was surrounded by an incredible community of faculty, staff and other students who had my back at every turn. The support I received eventually allowed me to earn a scholarship and transfer to a four-year college to begin my pre-law journey.

I’m now a senior at Howard University, where it remains all too obvious that the four-year college experience is not designed for transfer students like me — a realization that leaves us feeling isolated and overlooked.

Like many transfer students, I felt stigmatized during the admissions process and alienated by other students; I didn’t get an orientation when I started, as first-year students do; and many of my previous credits didn’t transfer with me.

That even an HBCU — commonly known for community-building efforts — struggles to effectively support transfer students underscores the gravity of this issue.

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Solving such challenges will require four-year universities to reimagine how they support transfer students. Creating a sense of belonging for learners is critical. Research shows that students who feel as though they belong at their institution are more likely to remain and persist. Developing that connection can be challenging for transfer students, especially those coming from community colleges, as there are typically so few of us on a given campus.

Some 80 percent of community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, yet just one-third transfer to a four-year institution. In total, community college transfers account for just 5 percent of undergraduate students at elite colleges and universities.

The most obvious starting point for institutions looking to better support transfer students from community colleges is to admit more of us. This can be achieved by intensifying outreach efforts at local two-year colleges and more effectively promoting the message that transferring to a selective, four-year university is not only possible but encouraged. Some schools are already making an effort to admit more transfer students.

Community college transfer students can find themselves adrift in their new institutions due to a lack of proper guidance and support. We are typically not given the insider knowledge required to navigate the complexities of a four-year university. For example, I’ve been excluded from being a part of student-led organizations that I would have needed to join as a freshman — when I was still in community college. A history of belonging to these organizations is mandatory when being considered for larger and more prominent selective organizations, including sororities and fraternities.

Related: ‘Waste of time’: Community college transfers derail students

The absence of a support system can transform what initially felt like an exciting step forward into a daunting and solitary journey. I am fortunate to have benefited from the support of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which provides me with access to a network of fellow transfer students and alumni who have successfully navigated this path.

But many transfer students are not as lucky.

Colleges could help by connecting transfer students with one another — either through on-campus groups or external organizations — to ensure they have the support, community and resources they need to thrive.

Schools should make it clear that transfer students will be warmly welcomed and supported throughout their academic journey. By doing so, these schools can begin to foster a more inclusive environment, one that acknowledges and values the unique perspectives community college students bring.

Colleges should also work to dismantle obstacles that complicate the transfer process and serve as subtle deterrents to students. Every prohibitive application fee, convoluted form or arbitrary rule might as well be a sign that says, “Turn back now.”

For example, students lose an estimated 43 percent of their credits when they transfer, wiping out semesters of hard work, extending their time and increasing their costs to a degree. Institutions can proactively create clearer, more consistent transfer agreements with local community colleges, guaranteeing that credits will transfer.

The financial aid and application processes for transfer students, who are not typically provided financial award packages upon admission, must also take into account their unique needs and circumstances.

Here’s why this all matters: Data is clear that students who transfer from a community college are just as capable of succeeding as students who are first-time freshmen or transfer from four-year institutions.

We know we can do this. We just need opportunities and support.

Rebbie Davis is an English major, Philosophy minor who previously attended Prairie State College before transferring to Howard University. She is president of the Howard University Writers Guild and vice chair of HU’s Future Law Scholars’ board of directors.

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Data is now everywhere in our lives, informing our decisions about which new show to watch, what path to take or whether to grab an umbrella. But it’s practically absent from the way our kids learn.

Our approach to teaching data science and data literacy has hardly evolved since I started my teaching career in 1995. Yet now more than ever, K-12 students need basic modern data science skills.

Nearly 1 in 4 job postings in the United States require data science skills. These aren’t just tech jobs — they span industries from manufacturing to agriculture to transportation. The ability to capture, sort and analyze data is as important for small business owners as it is for computer scientists.

Now is the time to reprioritize curricular emphases to reflect the importance of data science and data literacy. With data talent in high demand globally, other countries are investing billions in data education.

But American K-12 education still underemphasizes data science and data literacy skills — including the ability to understand qualitative and quantitative data, assess claims based on data and make data-driven predictions.

How do we know? Look at the data.

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According to the most recent NAEP results, between 2019 and 2022, student performance in data analysis, statistics and probability fell by a full 10 points for eighth grade students, representing what some experts consider a full grade level in lack of progress.

Data science education is typically reserved for higher education, but only slightly more than a third of Americans have a college degree. The opportunity to learn basic data skills should not be reserved for a select group of students.

Every student needs a chance to practice these vital skills from kindergarten through high school. That’s why I am excited for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to be a part of Data Science 4 Everyone’s national Chart the Course initiative, exploring the integration of data literacy and science across our most important school subjects. It will build upon NCTM’s work to reimagine, revitalize and increase math’s relevance for high schoolers.

As president of NCTM, I’ve had the honor of helping to lead the mathematics education community through a time of profound technological change, which has included developing a position statement on AI.

Additionally, in partnership with the National Science Teaching Association, the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Council for the Social Studies and the American Statistical Association, we made an unprecedented joint call to build data science as an interdisciplinary subject across K-12 education.

Early in my teaching career, we focused on teaching students how to use a dataset to create a bar graph or scatter plot. Now, students need to know how to formulate the question that will generate the data, how to collect the data and how to interpret the data.

Students are eager to make sense of the world around them, but many don’t see how classroom instruction is related to the problems they will face as adults.

Data — in the form of numbers, graphics and videos — can provide the hook that pulls students into lessons with real-world examples and applications.

While a math teacher might look at a graph and observe that a certain variable decreased, a social studies teacher might say, “Of course there was a decrease, look at what was happening at that moment in history.”

If we want students to think with and use data analysis skills in their everyday lives during and after high school, we need to create relevant data-learning experiences that engage students in using statistics to make sense of the world around them. This will also result in better test scores because students will understand the material and be able to apply what they know.

Related: Do we need a ‘Common Core’ for data science education? 

We are now joining with Data Science 4 Everyone in an even broader effort to create the first-ever national K-12 data learning progression that stretches across school subjects. It will shape how generations of students study data.

Educator voices are vital to this process. We need input from the people who are closest to students and who will be rolling out data science lessons in their classrooms, so we’re asking them to weigh in. We need to engage our educators in order to effect change.

Data Science 4 Everyone’s Chart the Course voting platform is open through October 31, and we are encouraging teachers to vote for the learning outcomes they believe are the most important for K-12 students to learn by the time they graduate from high school.

The selection of the learning outcome options in Chart the Course was informed by 11 focus groups made up of students, educators, higher education leaders, policymakers, researchers, curriculum designers and industry professionals.

The collaborative approach was designed to create a framework that meets the needs of students and reflects the cross-disciplinary potential of data science. We hope to equip students with the skills they need to understand data and think critically and carefully as they interact with AI tools and draw their own conclusions about the world around them.

Engaging with data is a way to make education relevant for all our students and bring our many subjects together in unique ways. It’s time to chart a course that connects classroom learning to the lives of students. That should be our goal for all teachers.

Kevin Dykema is president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), an international mathematics education organization with more than 30,000 members. He has taught eighth grade mathematics for over 25 years in southwest Michigan.

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When my 8-year-old started asking questions about the world, it hit me that there wasn’t a lot out there to guide parents in teaching their kids about being active, engaged citizens.

Manifestations of this gap are even more glaring in my college classroom, where many of my students do not know how to vote, haven’t read the Constitution and are unaware of the state and local political offices responsible for many of our quality-of-life decisions.

As a parent and as a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, I’ve seen firsthand how important civic knowledge is to young people — and how it is lacking. And this isn’t just a problem in my corner of the world; it’s a national challenge we can no longer ignore.

Despite the vast amount of information available at our fingertips, a staggering number of Americans struggle to grasp the fundamentals of our political system. Nationwide assessments reveal that civic knowledge hasn’t improved since 1998, with only 23 percent of eighth graders performing at or above the “proficient” level.

School curricula on civics often fall short. Scores on Advanced Placement government tests are consistently among the lowest across all AP offerings.

The urgency of this issue is magnified by our current political climate. A majority of people across party lines believe the country is heading in the “wrong direction.” Until we treat civic know-how as a fundamental skill, we will continue to be bewildered and disillusioned.

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With the upcoming national elections — and every election thereafter — we need to make civic education a top priority. Solutions need to be embedded in everyday life, both at home and in school.

While higher education institutions like Stevens can play a role in such education in early adulthood, as a country, we need to start much earlier.

There are multiple hurdles facing K-12 schools in teaching civics. After the No Child Left Behind Act, social studies and civics were sidelined in favor of reading and math.

Teachers in social studies and civics tend to be among the least supported, and often have to take on coaching or administrative roles in addition to their teaching duties.

Government classes, typically offered in the senior year of high school, come too late for students to develop a strong understanding, and state laws increasingly restrict political activities and discussion of various sociopolitical topics in schools.

For instance, Florida recently passed a law that effectively prevents third-party voter registration organizations from working in high schools and on college campuses. Plus, fears of parental complaints lead teachers to limit political conversations in the classroom.

This lack of prioritization of civics instruction must change. No one likes playing a game they don’t know the rules to, and it is simply unfair to have a child go through 13 years of school only to graduate without understanding the political system they’re stepping into.

That’s why I wrote “How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It).” We need parents to play a key role, and to support integrating civics into every grade, starting early and building on concepts just like we do with other subjects.

Imagine if parents took on this role by discussing government and politics at the dinner table, encouraging their children to ask questions and showing them how to get involved in community and local government activities.

That way, we’d have more young adults who understand the system they will soon inherit.

Related: Rethinking civics education starts with inviting teens to co-create

Parents and educational leaders can do more in this arena. For young children, we should focus on building vocabulary and awareness of governmental structures.

This will involve reallocating school time to social studies and civics. Students need repeated exposure to new words and ideas to develop a working understanding, so the earlier the introduction, the better.

Children should study the primary documents of the U.S. to understand the basics of our system and begin to learn about primary elections, which are often only briefly covered in most school settings.

Visual models can help students make connections; lessons can include diagramming how a bill becomes a law, modeling checks and balances and discussing the overlapping and distinct powers in our federalist system.

We can also help children understand specific civic issues connected to their local communities.

Middle schoolers and high schoolers can handle broader concepts and ideas. Young people at this age can and do engage in community involvement; parents and schools should foster these efforts.

High school should be all about turning theory into action. Experts agree that a high-quality civic education requires “action civics,” in which students learn by doing rather than just reading. Simulations of elections, legislative hearings and courtroom activities are examples of active learning shown to be impactful and memorable.

Research shows that teaching civics through active learning is related to increased civic participation. If we want our students to get the most out of their education, we must prepare them to understand and engage with our political system.

Dedicated efforts to increase educational focus on civics will enhance student self-efficacy and ensure the vitality of our democratic traditions.

With the election on the horizon, now is the perfect time to start these conversations and integrate civic education into our daily lives.

This reprioritization has to happen day in and day out, during presidential election years and all others. By committing to this, we can raise a generation of informed, active citizens ready to take on the challenges of our democracy.

Let’s give our kids the tools they need to understand and participate in the world around them — starting now.

Lindsey Cormack is an associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and author of “How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It).”

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What do you think of when you hear the word “civics”? For most adults, civics likely conjures distant memories of a high school course in which they memorized the three branches of government and other constitutional trivia.

Unfortunately, that experience of civics hasn’t changed much. What has been missing from civics education for decades is deep civic learning, in which students come to understand what a good democratic government looks and feels like and deeply connect with their own capacity to shape the future.

What is the result? When it comes to politics and community involvement, young Americans — who are the most demographically diverse young generation in our nation’s history — often feel disconnected, left out of the discussion, disengaged from community resources, unwelcome, bored and ignored.

Such feelings are causing an unprecedented level of disillusionment with democracy, not just as a concept but as a way of life. A recent Harvard poll revealed that 64 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. have “more fear than hope about the future of democracy in America.” Likewise, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars’ Civic Outlook of Young Adults in America study of 18- to 24-year-old Americans revealed low knowledge and high levels of discontent with democracy; another poll found that only 27 percent of young people in Generation Z strongly agree with the statement that democracy is “the best form of government.”

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While the issue of low voter turnout among young people is something that well-meaning initiatives have tried to address for decades, it’s crucial to recognize that civics is about more than voting. At its heart, civics is about being an engaged and collaborative community member. But with so many young Americans feeling frustrated about the systems they see as broken, and increasingly unable to see channels in the existing structures to make things better, something needs to change.

The key is, as learning science has proven, that civic identity cannot be achieved without young people first feeling a sense of belonging and agency in their communities. Being aware of how their government works is not enough to motivate young people to take part in it. Today’s teens and young adults won’t take action if they don’t feel like they are seen for who they are, and that their voices, concerns and needs matter enough to older adults to be taken seriously.

The good news is, at a local and national level, community institutions are actively making efforts to reach out to and listen to young people. At a national level, the museum coalition Made By Us is researching what types of engagement methods actually connect with young Americans ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

At the regional level, there are growing efforts to build networks for learning that center the unique needs of individual students.

In Pittsburgh, Remake Learning and The History Co:Lab have combined their shared passion for youth-centered learning to create the Civics Education Ecosystem. Fueled by a shared commitment to intergenerational co-creation as a key practice to inspire civic agency, the group’s recent Youth Design Day provided the opportunity for young people from across the region to identify and map spaces that emphasize their authentic participation. The day surfaced how a sense of belonging can be fostered in a wide range of institutions, from museums and government agencies to art centers and community spaces. At the same time, the youth participants highlighted that many institutions do not yet know how to meaningfully engage teens; in response, the teens crafted a workshop to train community organizations in authentic ways to encourage youth participation — a workshop that is taking place this October.

Related: We can and must start early and teach students to become active citizens

Building strong civic learning ecosystems, both in-person and online, is crucial in a world in which so much of young people’s lives are centered in digital spaces. Over 40 percent of Americans age 18 to 29 rely on social media as their primary news source, so it’s essential that young people have experiences that bridge across differences, connect to their hopes and needs and put the news they see online in context.

As the concept of learning ecosystems helps more people recognize the rich tapestry of opportunities that exist in their communities, now is the time for America to redesign civics education to center on local relationships and experiences. We know that young people seek hands-on, real-world knowledge, and that they want to be heard and involved. Let’s provide them with more possibilities to engage in civic learning and action beyond the confines of a textbook.

Let’s create more spaces where teens and young adults are recognized for their ideas, seen as equal partners in the civic process and feel like they truly belong. Only by inviting young people into the conversation, enabling them to lift and share their voices and encouraging their sense of agency and purpose will we help them grow up with the experience and knowledge they need to step into their civic roles as makers and leaders of our shared history.

Tyler Samstag is executive director of Remake Learning. Fernande Raine is the founder of The History Co:Lab. Together they have formed the Civics Education Ecosystem.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

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As a political scientist with a background in policy analysis, I used to approach questions about policy plans in terms of which had data behind them and which didn’t — along with what such evidence might mean for decision-makers.

However, no question about what a new Donald Trump administration would mean for U.S. education can be answered strictly with a debate about facts and figures.

With the former president and his allies still denying that he lost the 2020 election, with Trump and his running mate embracing unfounded stories about Haitian immigrants eating household pets and with Trump’s obsession with the size of his cheering crowds, any analytical projection about his future agenda is all but impossible. With such an absence of facts or evidence-based policy designs, we must turn to past actions, current rhetoric and the priorities of Trump’s political alliances for a hint of what could come.

On that basis, we could expect more debates about bathrooms and women’s sports, more inexplicable musings about whether slavery had benefits for enslaved Americans, more spending of scarce resources to put Bibles in public schools and more singling out of kids because of their immigration status.

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Many Republican proposals have been well-covered, starting with Project 2025 — the policy agenda assembled by the conservative Heritage Foundation for a new Trump term. Although Trump denies that controversial document speaks for his candidacy, more than 140 former members of the first Trump team had a hand in its crafting.

The key education points in the platform Trump does claim as his own — the so-called Agenda47 and the GOP party platform — strike the same notes of emphasis as those in Project 2025. Indeed, the one-page education “chapter” in the 16-page party platform is all but a summary of its much larger Project 2025 counterpart.

What do they emphasize? Culture wars, school vouchers and a peculiar fixation on ending the federal Department of Education.

Two of the first three paragraphs of Project 2025’s education plan call for universal school vouchers. In Trump’s official GOP party platform, universal vouchers are the second education agenda item, behind a call to end teacher tenure. Both items follow a general statement about making great schools.

And yet, private school vouchers are not only eating up increasing shares of state budgets, some states are now directly funding new construction for private schools to receive those vouchers. These schools are free to discriminate on admissions and expulsion decisions across a variety of child characteristics.

The education bullet point in the 20-point summary of the Trump platform — the highlights of the highlights — excludes any specific policy statements, simply reading in its entirety:

Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.

Such a call echoes that of Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, in his Foreword to Project 2025. In that section, after setting a new litmus test for all conservative presidential candidates to support universal vouchers, Roberts insists:

The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison our children.

Then there are the statements Trump and his allies make every day, including calls to end the U.S. Department of Education. A similar demand is in the very first paragraph of Project 2025’s education chapter, just ahead of its demands for vouchers.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, who hosted a “fireside chat” with Trump in August, has said on X (formerly Twitter) that Trump is “not kidding” about ending the department, and that she “hope[s] to get to help him accomplish this goal,” perhaps as one last secretary for that agency.

She could have competition. Two weeks before Trump’s appearance for Moms for Liberty, former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told reporters that she would consider joining a second Trump administration if it were for the specific task of eliminating the department she led in the first Trump term.

Let’s be clear: The U.S. Department of Education does many things, but what really riles up the Trumpian right is its role as the chief anti-discrimination authority for American schools. And that’s why it’s been singled out by the right for special criticism.

So what does all of this actually mean for kids and families?

What is the common theme of attacks on gender ideology, diversity and racial justice in schools; demands for universal vouchers; and calls to end the federal education agency?

Related: OPINION: I’d love to predict what a Kamala Harris presidency might mean for education, but we don’t have enough information

If policy proposals, like budgets, are moral documents, what unifies the possibilities of a new Trump term — whether laid out in Project 2025, the GOP platform, Agenda 47 or campaign speeches on the trail — into some statement of purpose?

I say it’s this: A new Trump presidency would usher in an era of isolation and separatism and a casting out of children who differ from their peers or from what Christian Nationalists believe America should look like beyond what we all share as human beings. As just one example: Voucher schemes, like those prioritized by Trump and his allies, have been used by the right to marginalize LGBTQ+ children and families by denying them access to what the right calls the “education freedom” and “opportunity” represented by such “scholarships.”

What, if not a Trump-inspired politics of humiliation, explains the Trumpian right’s current obsession with the names children use to call themselves or how they describe the racial legacy they carry and experience?

Yet presidents only have partial control over which specific plans they’re able to pass during their time in office. For that reason, considering a new Trump term is as much about the broader political coalition he leads as what Trump and his team could personally do in the education policy arena.

So, from all of this, and regardless of what policies actually pass, we can be sure that a Trump victory would extend the era of culture warring in American education.

For nearly a decade in political life, Donald Trump has told us who he is. When it comes to any education ideas he and his allies might have, my humble suggestion is that we finally listen to what he has said, and consider what he has already done.

Josh Cowen is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University and a senior fellow at the Education Law Center. He’s the author of “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.”

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

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Predicting the future is often compared to reading tea leaves. In the case of forecasting what education policies Kamala Harris might pursue as president, though, a more apt analogy might be reading her mind. Frankly it’s anyone’s guess what her education policies would be given how few clues we have.

It wasn’t always this way. Previously, presidential candidates laid out detailed plans for schools. George H. W. Bush wanted to be the education president. Bill Clinton wanted to use stronger schools to build a bridge to the 21st century. George W. Bush wanted to leave no child behind, and move the Republican party in a more compassionate direction. Barack Obama wanted Democrats to break with teacher unions by embracing merit pay.

But in more recent cycles, education has dropped from the list of voters’ top-tier issues, and candidates have become increasingly cagey about their plans.

Donald Trump’s administration was known for its advocacy of school choice, but that wasn’t something he talked much about on the campaign trail in 2015 or 2016; it only came into focus with his selection of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education.

And Joe Biden’s unwillingness to challenge progressive orthodoxy on education would have been hard to predict, given his moderate persona in 2019 and 2020. What turned out to be the best guide to his education policies was his self-identity as the “most union-friendly president in history” — plus the membership of his wife, community college professor Jill Biden, in the National Education Association.

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So here we are with another election in which education issues are barely registering, trying to predict what Harris might do if elected. She has said even less than Trump or Biden, partly because of the truncated nature of her campaign, and partly because of her strategy of leaning into positive vibes and declining to offer policy specifics in the hope that doing so will better her chances of prevailing in November. Official statements — a Harris campaign policy document and the Democratic Party Platform — are thin on details.

Making things even harder is Harris’ well-known willingness to run away from previous positions. She did that in 2019 when the Black Lives Matter movement made it awkward for her to embrace her record in law enforcement — including her tough stance on prosecuting parents of truant children.

That’s why looking at Harris’ statements from the campaign trail five years ago or her record as a U.S. senator only goes so far.

What we do know is this: She’s sitting vice president. She has positioned herself in the middle of the Democratic Party, not wanting to break with progressives on the left or business-friendly centrists in the middle.

And while her image is not blue-collar like Biden’s, she’s been careful not to put any sunlight between herself and the unions, including teachers unions. One of her first speeches as the presumptive Democratic nominee was to the American Federation of Teachers.

For these reasons, it is likely that a Harris administration would bring significant continuity with Biden’s policies, including on schools.

Picture her appointing a former teacher as secretary of education, proposing healthy increases in school spending and speaking out against privatization, book bans and the like. Call it the Hippocratic Oath approach to Democratic policymaking on education: First, do no harm.

Can those of us involved in K-12 education hope for bolder strokes from a President Harris — including some that might move the needle on reform? Anything is possible.

Her selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate thrust the issue of universal free school meals onto the national radar, given Minnesota’s leadership on that policy. Perhaps she will throw her support behind a congressional effort to provide federal funding for such an initiative.

The most significant play we might anticipate, though, could be on teacher pay. Boosting teacher salaries by $13,500 per year (to close the gap with other professionals) was the centerpiece of her education agenda when she ran for president in 2019.

It’s a popular idea, especially since so many Americans underestimate what teachers are paid today.

She has a ready vehicle to pursue it thanks to the looming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which makes new legislation around tax reform a must-pass item for Congress next year. The most straightforward way for the federal government to put more money into teachers’ pockets isn’t through a complicated grant program to states and districts, but via tax credits that would flow directly to educators.

The tax code already allows teachers to deduct up to $300 for classroom expenses. There are also several student loan forgiveness programs for teachers.

A major teacher tax credit could quickly get expensive, however, given the size of America’s teaching force (3 to 4 million depending on how you count it). At, say, $10,000 per teacher, that’s $30 to $40 billion a year — in the neighborhood of what we spend on Title I and IDEA combined.

A smarter, more affordable approach would be to target only teachers serving in high-need schools — as the student loan forgiveness programs already do. Studies from Dallas and elsewhere acknowledge that great teachers will move to high-poverty schools — but only if offered significantly higher pay, in the neighborhood of $10,000 more per year.

We also know that when we pay teachers the same regardless of where they teach — the policy of almost every school district in the country — the neediest schools end up with the least-experienced teachers.

A tax credit for teachers in Title 1 schools — which get government funding for having high numbers or high percentages of students from low-income families — could transform the profession overnight, significantly closing the teacher quality gap, school funding gap and, eventually, the achievement gap, too.

Related: OPINION: If Trump wins, count on continued culture wars, school vouchers and a fixation on ending the federal Department of Education

Given Democrats’ interest in boosting the “care economy,” perhaps such a tax credit could flow to instructors in high-poverty childcare and pre-K centers, as well. This would fit well with Harris’ promise to move America toward an “opportunity economy,” including by boosting the pay of childcare and preschool teachers.

Still, a big effort on “differential pay” for teachers might be just one wonk’s wish-casting. We’ve had two presidential administrations in a row with little action on K-12 education. It’s quite likely that a Harris administration would be a third.

But here’s hoping for a pleasant surprise after November.

Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served in the George W. Bush administration.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

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A much anticipated and highly hoped-for recovery from pandemic learning loss is, disappointingly, not materializing. Instead, grim findings from a recent analysis by three testing companies noted that stagnation is a general trend — with a few isolated exceptions.

Those few bright spots hold powerful lessons for schools that are struggling, particularly those serving high percentages of low-income students. The high-performing, high-poverty schools we recently studied show us that demography need not be destiny.

In fact, the results at those schools refute the assertion by some that poverty is inextricably tied to lower achievement. Most important, the leaders of these schools identify a short list of approaches that, if used widely, could drastically change our current national trajectory of endless mediocrity and stagnation.

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Three recent reports from our organization, Education Reform Now, highlight transformative strategies that high-poverty schools across three states — Texas, Massachusetts and Colorado — are using to drive stronger student outcomes. The reports focus on elementary and middle schools with high proficiency rates or significant growth in math or reading.

Here are our top four takeaways from these three states:

1. Demography Does Not Equal Destiny. We found high correlations between low school poverty rates and better student achievement overall, but there was still wide variability among high-poverty schools. In the schools we studied, all of which are in the top quartile of student poverty in their respective states, proficiency rates ranged from 0 percent to well above 90 percent. By figuring out what schools on the high end of the proficiency scale are doing, we can change the educational and life trajectories of an unprecedented number of students from historically disadvantaged groups.

2. School-level factors seem to be driving the most change. We did not, by and large, see high-performing, high-poverty schools concentrated in certain school districts. While district policies can provide opportunities for improving student achievement, our results suggest that this impact varies widely and requires strong school-level leadership and effort.

3. No school governance model is predominant. While it’s often assumed that the flexibility given to charter or nondistrict schools is necessary for innovation, we saw successful traditional public schools innovate as well, suggesting that there’s at least some degree of leeway for adept school leaders to break out of the status quo and pursue policies that dramatically boost student achievement.

4.  In surveys and interviews with leaders of successful high-poverty schools, we found astonishing consensus on what’s driving higher student achievement.

First, high-performing schools use data as a common thread to drive, monitor and adjust every aspect of their operations — including core instruction, small-group instruction, attendance interventions, social-emotional learning and professional development. Principals across all three states resoundingly reported that data helped guide them to solutions. Once all students have access to strong core instruction, educators can customize instruction for those with specific needs.

A second common thread is supporting teachers through professional development and coaching and with high-quality instructional materials. In many cases, coaches are in the classrooms repeatedly providing quick, targeted feedback to improve teachers’ practices in real time and ensure that takeaways from professional development are implemented in practice.

Third, schools across all three states have implemented family engagement programs to create strong partnerships between school and home — an especially critical practice to reduce chronic absenteeism.

Finally, it is clear that finding, training and supporting effective school leaders is key. This appears to be more important than geographic location, school district programs and policies or the type of school.

All these findings are consistent with a wide body of literature on what works. We need a concerted approach to help schools that are not using these proven practices to adopt them.

Related: PROOF POINTS: Four lessons from post-pandemic tutoring research

One fear we have is that too many education stakeholders have given up on school improvement because they don’t believe it’s possible. Our case studies show that not only is improvement possible but also that these common strategies can help even those schools with the most challenging circumstances to succeed.

It’s also clear that the laws governing school improvement must be revisited and strengthened. For example, requirements in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) that school improvement efforts be “evidence-based” are not quite panning out as intended, in part because they are not designed well and in part because school leaders have inadequate knowledge of what works. In fact, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that many administrators they interviewed cited the “evidence-based” requirements of the law as the most difficult to interpret and implement. Such principles are needed, but they must be understood. Moreover, the GAO recommended better monitoring and oversight by the U.S. Department of Education.

Given the state of student achievement and the findings of the GAO, we clearly need a nationwide, all-hands-on-deck approach to improving student outcomes through a clear, understandable approach to identifying, defining and disseminating evidence-based principles. Such an effort could begin within the first 100 days of the next administration, with a federal effort to spotlight success. That work could include convening state and local leaders to pinpoint what’s standing in the way of all schools adopting evidence-based school improvement policies and then strategizing to remove those obstacles.

The success stories we’ve highlighted in our series illustrate common practices that lead to better outcomes. Significant improvements are possible even in the face of adversity. By adopting core principles and tailoring them to their unique contexts, schools across the nation have the potential to change learning trajectories and foster academic success for hundreds of thousands of students.

Charles Barone is Education Reform Now’s vice president of K-12 policy, and Rianna Saslow is Education Reform Now’s senior policy analyst, K-12.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

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As a special education teacher, I often encountered students who struggled with solving math problems. Many would simply add all the numbers they saw without grasping what the problems were actually asking.

To help, I introduced keywords like “all together” for addition and “difference” for subtraction.

However, this approach fell short when students focused solely on the keywords, missing the problem’s context. Today, elementary school teachers share similar struggles with their students.

The issue isn’t just about teaching math; it also involves addressing gaps in literacy. Reading skills are closely related to children’s ability to solve math problems. And, as much as early literacy development plays a critical role in developing problem-solving abilities, early numeracy strongly predicts overall academic success, including literacy development: Research has found that literacy and math development are intertwined.

Yet, pre-K teachers spend an average of only 2.5 percent of their day on numeracy skills — a gap that underscores the need for teaching approaches that bridge math and literacy.

Teachers must do more to help students build foundational cognitive skills, such as logic and reasoning.

Related: Our biweekly Early Childhood newsletter highlights innovative solutions to the obstacles facing the youngest students. Subscribe for free.

Integrated teaching can help students view math and English language arts as complementary disciplines that help them solve real-world problems. It could lead to better academic outcomes and a richer understanding of the world. Unfortunately, most elementary schools teach math and English language arts separately.

One way that teachers can address these comprehension gaps is to initially remove numbers from word problems and encourage students to read through the entire problems before they add or subtract. By solving “numberless word problems,” students can visualize and grasp the context before computing.

We can also use the power of storytelling. In my classroom, I incorporated engaging literature into math instruction to help my students better understand word problems. We used “Amanda Bean’s Amazing Dream,” a Marilyn Burns Brainy Day Book by Cindy Neuschwander, to explore multiplication concepts; the book’s illustrations helped students identify repeated addition and multiplication and allowed them to recognize similar scenarios in math problems. Incorporating math through storytelling helps children better understand and remember math concepts and also improves their confidence and reduces math anxiety. By building on the critical skills students need to excel in math and ELA, we can better equip them to apply math to real-world problems.

Here is what this approach encourages:

• Improved comprehension: Stories and real-world scenarios promote a better understanding of math concepts, making abstract ideas more accessible.
• Math visualization: Using descriptive writing and storytelling to explain math concepts, such as measurement and fractions, gives students a tangible reference for math principles as they exist in the world.
• Vocabulary development: Just as students learn new words in ELA, with math storytelling they learn math vocabulary to enhance their understanding of the math concepts needed to solve problems.
• Critical thinking skills: When students analyze problems from various perspectives and use language to describe them, they’re better equipped to apply problem-solving skills across disciplines.
• Contextualized problem-solving: By establishing context through literature, students are able to construct meaning to solve other problems.

Administrators should encourage training for teachers and provide resources that effectively blend math and ELA. Supporting a curriculum that encourages the teacher to be a facilitator — rather than a sage on a stage — will encourage more students to talk about math, draw upon their language skills and solve problems together.

Here are some approaches educators can use to blend instruction to challenge students and enhance math and ELA skills:

• Project-based learning: Assign hands-on projects that require mathematical analysis and language arts skills, such as reviewing datasets, creating infographics and writing interpretations.
• Collaborative learning environments: Ask groups of students to work together to solve complex problems that require mathematical reasoning and effective communication. Their work could include debates or reviews of written mathematical explanations.
• Literature-based mathematical discussions: Read books that incorporate mathematical themes or concepts and include a character who uses math to solve problems; such books can spark lively debate and serve as a springboard to discuss how math applies to real life.

These strategies strengthen the connection between math and ELA and promote deeper learning and engagement for all students.

Related: You probably don’t have your preschooler thinking about math enough

Using an integrated approach with literature also provides a level of comfort for teachers. Not surprisingly, most elementary school teachers didn’t choose their profession due to a deep love of mathematics — and some may suffer from math anxiety themselves. Teachers can model problem-solving beyond the classroom by expanding what it means to teach math through children’s books and hands-on activities.

Math instruction will only improve if administrators, educators, parents and policymakers push for integrated curricula. Doing so will not only help students’ math, but promote a more effective education system overall.

Thera Pearce is the learning services manager at ORIGO Education. She has experience in instructional design, curriculum consulting and professional development coordination. She has also worked as a special education teacher and coach for 15 years in North Carolina.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

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