States, educators, and parents should applaud the announcement that $180 million in federal coronavirus relief funds will be earmarked for states to support the development of innovative learning models. Under Secretary Betsy DeVos’s leadership, the Department of Education’s “Rethink K-12 Education Models Discretionary Grant Program” incentivizes states to reimagine the provision of education during and after the coronavirus closures.
To obtain federal money, state education agencies have three options: (1) create a system that distributes money to families for use on tutoring, summer programs, tuition to a private or public online school program, counseling, test prep, or textbooks — similar to the Education Savings Account policies some states have already pioneered; (2) create a statewide virtual school, something Florida has already done; or (3) create entirely new “models for providing remote education … to ensure that every child is learning and preparing for successful careers and lives.”
The Department of Education hopes to award grants of $5 million to $20 million to winning states — an investment that could have long-term implications for parents’ educational choices.
The grants are especially important because parents have varied thoughts about how their child’s school has handled the closure. Some have been consistently impressed with the personal outreach and instruction teachers are providing, while others are shocked by the inability of the public school bureaucracy to transition to remote learning.
Within a few weeks of closure, Florida had distributed 32,000 laptops to students in rural areas so that teachers could frequently check in with students, while Los Angeles was unable to account for one-third of its high school students. South Carolina sent hundreds of internet-equipped school buses throughout the state to provide students access to the internet, while districts in Washington, D.C., Georgia, Texas, and Nebraska are throwing in the towel — ending their school year weeks early.
Worse, states such as Oregon and Pennsylvania have limited parents’ options by freezing virtual charter school enrollment.
There is another proposal on the table: a union-funded push for more money with no strings attached. Yet what the coronavirus crisis has taught us is that the state and district response depends on a combination of will, imagination, preparation, and financial support. If the last three decades of school reform have taught us anything, it is that throwing money at a system unwilling to change will get us nowhere.
The Department of Education’s grant program gets it right: states must be incentivized to create anew. Distance learning may be with us for a while, and the current patchwork of responses raises serious concerns about equity and grade-level losses of knowledge.
It will be especially important for states whose distance learning has not gone well to explore the models contemplated by the Education Department grants. Giving families more educational options and flexibility was certainly imperative during the crisis, yet it may be even more important post-crisis in the almost-certain economic downturn.
Now, more than ever, parents should have the freedom to dictate how, where, and when their children learn.
Kate Hardiman (@katejhardiman) taught in a Chicago high school and is currently a law student at Georgetown University Law Center.
