Education Week - November 17, 2021 - 5

Betting on education to get extended
national political attention
like it has in recent weeks is a very
risky business. If the pandemic eases
and masks disappear from faces in
classrooms, for example, frustrations
about how schools handled it might
be less of a factor by next fall. A recent
Yahoo News/YouGov poll found
that U.S. adults are much more likely
to think schools nationwide are " too
politicized " (69 percent) than their
own local schools (39 percent). The
federal government's role in the daily
life of schools also remains extremely
limited, which has traditionally made
it less appealing as a big issue for congressional
candidates.
Disagreements have already
emerged about not just the extent to
which Youngkin's win hinged on public
schools in general, but whether various
education issues played out in a
way other candidates can easily copy.
Exit polling for the Associated
Press in Virginia indicated voters who
said their top issue in the race was critical
race theory, which became a hotly
disputed shorthand for how local
schools are approaching and teaching
students about structural racism
in society, broke for Youngkin in a big
way, while those who prioritized how
schools approached the pandemic favored
McAuliffe by a significant margin.
Those two issues combined constituted
the top election priorities for
roughly half of voters.
Further down ballot, however,
local school board election results
from across the country indicate that
opposing critical race theory and
mask mandates to win over voters is
far from a surefire winner.
The vast majority of educators do
not teach critical race theory in their
classrooms, according to EdWeek Research
Center survey data, and many
say those attacking it are disingenuously
trying to undermine schools'
efforts to promote equity and provide
students with an accurate portrayal of
American history.
Whether education should have
been a bigger advantage for McAuliffe,
given how many Democrats traditionally
consider it one of their keystone
issues, is up for debate.
Youngkin's poll numbers also
surged late in the campaign, at the
same time that arguments over
school curriculum and other local
controversies got big headlines in a
way school closures largely did not.
And the fact that the AP exit poll
found that a quarter of voters said
their top issue was critical race theory,
which until recently the vast majority
of the public had no familiarity
with, might strike especially strong
fear as well as frustration in some educators
and elected leaders.
'Making an emotional
appeal'
Regardless of why parents are frustrated,
Tommy Schultz is eager to sign
them up.
The president of the American
Federation for Children, a nonpartisan
group that supports vouchers
and other school choice policies and
which counts ex-education Secretary
Betsy DeVos as its former chief, said
his group is intrigued by the political
possibilities for its favored candidates
next year in places like Iowa, New
Hampshire, and Ohio, in addition to
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Schultz, whose organization focuses
in large part on state legislative
races, said his group is also making
plans to expand the number of states
where it's politically active next year
from 15 to 25.
Youngkin's actual policy platform
expanding education options,
for
which focuses mainly on increasing
the number of charter schools, might
surprise if not disappoint some school
choice backers. Yet Schultz isn't concerned,
pointing to a big expansion in
school choice programs in states since
the pandemic started. And he said the
appeal to parents, whoever it reaches,
resonates in a way that other strategies
often don't.
" The best candidates that are out
there are articulating an emotional
appeal, " Schultz said, noting that
prior campaign lines from Republicans
about wanting to abolish the
U.S. Department of Education, for
example, don't resonate in the same
way. " I think that's where we saw
Youngkin run a textbook, replicable
campaign. " (DeVos herself lauded
Youngkin's victory.)
On the stump, McAuliffe talked
up increasing teacher pay and
boosting school funding. But it was
his comment in late September that
downplayed the role parents should
have in what schools teach that
struck a nerve.
Since some politicians are already
effectively playing defense on
schools, Starr said, " Without really
effective communications about what
they have done for schools and what
they will do for schools, they're going
to be fighting this fight in a big way, "
Starr said.
But should it matter what issues
drive interest in empowering parents?
For Tafshier Cosby, the answer is an
unequivocal yes.
The national organizing director
for the National Parents Union
who lives in New Jersey, Cosby said
Murphy's extremely narrow re-election
victory in her state should alarm
people who assume traditional public
schools have weathered the pandemic
without much damage to their
standing.
Murphy's decision not to permit
schools to offer remote learning options
this year, she said, underscores
how many politicians in general
have refused to listen to various parents'
concerns over the last several
months. In her view, they could pay a
price for that indifference very soon:
" I pray that this is a wake-up call for
everyone.
Parents are distressed about a
host of practical and urgent issues,
ranging from how federal stimulus
funds are being spent, to feeling unsafe
in schools, Cosby said. Those
are the issues that she thinks will
hurt children and families, and disadvantaged
children and families in
particular, if people with power over
schools don't hustle to address them.
Cosby correspondingly feels frustrated
by the attention she thinks
critical race theory in particular has
received. " I'm disappointed that
it's getting all the oxygen, because
I think it's a distraction, " she said.
" COVID itself is going to go away at
some point [but] the trauma that it's
placed on families is going to be with
them for years. "
Wielding critical race theory
as an electoral weapon
Republican lawmakers are eager
to wade into disputes over classroom
content and set up disputes with Democrats
in governors' mansions. The
Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill that
would ban critical race theory from
schools in September, while Michigan
lawmakers are considering a bill prohibiting
race or gender stereotyping.
Both would likely be vetoed by Evers
and Whitmer, respectively.
Rebecca Kleefisch, Wisconsin's
former lieutenant governor who
could be the frontrunner for the GOP
nomination to oppose Evers in next
year's race, has prominently said
she would ban critical race theory in
schools because, she said, it teaches
that American institutions are inherently
racist.
" Our schools aren't supposed to
be laboratories to create new social
justice warriors, " she wrote in a column.
" They need to be preparing
students to be part of the 21st Century
workforce. "
And in an August 2021 statement
opposing masks in schools, Michigan
Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn
Maddock was not afraid to tag
school administrators with political
labels, saying parents should resist
" delusional behavior from liberal administrators. "
That sort of sentiment
could translate into election politics
and school board meetings even if
mask requirements end; recent polling
indicates Michigan is split on
such mandates.
Different types of political turmoil
affecting schools amounts to " a reaction
against the education establishment, "
said Will Flanders, the
education research director at the
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty,
which supports school choice
and limited government. " There are
few politicians who better represent
that establishment than Tony Evers, "
he said. (Evers is Wisconsin's former
state superintendent of public instruction.)
Evers
shut down schools statewide
in early 2020 but did not issue a similar
order for the 2020-21 year, saying
local districts were best positioned to
make such decisions. But Flanders
said the subsequent disruption of everything
from standardized tests to
traditional classroom lessons has put
him and others under the spotlight.
" A year ago, I might have said, by
the fall of 2021, no one's going to be
talking about this any longer, " Flanders
said, noting how that view did
not stand the test of time.
Starr of PDK International said
when making decisions about difficult
issues in today's climate, educators
should prioritize " making sure
that you have allies and proxies that
are going to support you, and that
you've considered every single argument
you could possibly have. Because
you know it's coming. "
Coverage of strategies for advancing
the opportunities for students most at
need, including those from low-income
families and communities is supported
by a grant from the Walton Family
Foundation, at www.waltonk12.org.
Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.
Teenagers see lower SEL skills
One of the most surprising findings to the
OECD was that across countries and socioeconomic
backgrounds, 15-year-olds showed
lower social-emotional skills than 10-yearolds
did.
Surveys from students, teachers, and
parents all showed lower social skills among
teenagers, above and beyond normal adolescent
self-consciousness. The skills gap was
particularly large for things like optimism,
trust, energy and sociability, and the OECD
found girls had bigger drops than boys across
most of the skills.
" Ask yourself, what are we doing as parents,
as schools, as education systems to help
young people through this difficult period
of adolescence. This is a finding that I don't
think many educators are aware of. It's something
that I think we should take to heart,
that there is a period in their lives where we
should redouble our efforts, " Schleicher said.
That is particularly crucial at a time when
many teenagers have faced social isolation
and anxiety from the ongoing pandemic.
" We know that the experience of
trauma impacts development and learning
and a host of other outcomes, " Kimberly
Schonert-Reichl, a psychology chair of social
and emotional learning at the University
of Illinois. " I don't think we can really
think about outcomes for young people
without a trauma lens ... and how we as a society
nurture and work to reduce the impact
of trauma on young people. "
Yet educators point out that social-emotional
learning programs, which in the United
States are often targeted to younger students,
can be a poor fit for more world-weary
adolescents.
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Education Week - November 17, 2021

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