WILMINGTON, Del. – A wall of the Rodriguez family home celebrates three seminal events with these words: “A moment in time, changed forever.”

Beneath the inscription, a clock marks the time and dates when three swaddled newborns depicted in large photos entered the world: Ashley, now 19, Emily, 17, and Brianna, 11.

Another“moment in time” occurred last June, one that could change the paths of Emily and Brianna. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its landmark case on affirmative action, barring colleges from taking race into consideration as a factor in admission decisions.

The ruling struck down more than 50 years of legal precedent, creating newfound uncertainty for the first class of college applicants to be shaped by the decision – especially for Black and Hispanic students hoping to get into highly competitive colleges that once sought them out.

It also places the Rodriguez sisters on opposite sides of history: Ashley applied to college when schools in many states could still consider race, while Emily can expect no such advantage.

Their parents, Margarita Lopez, 38, and Rafael Rodriguez, 42, are immigrants from Mexico who moved to the United States as teenagers.

Ashley is the first in her family to attend college, a freshman studying child psychology on a full scholarship to prestigious Oxford College of Emory University, where annual estimated costs approached $80,000 this year.

Emily is the middle daughter, a senior and mostly straight-A student at Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington who wants to become a veterinarian, and who spent most of this fall anxiously awaiting word from her first-choice college, Cornell University.

The impact of the court’s decision on enrollment at hundreds of selective colleges and universities won’t start to become clear until colleges send out offers this spring and release final acceptance figures.

“We definitely feel that this year, the window is narrower for students whose GPA does not tell the full story of their brilliance and the challenges they’ve overcome.”

TeenSHARP co-founder Atnre Alleyne

But many students, counselors and families view this admission cycle as the first test of whether colleges will become less diverse going forward, while cautioning it may take years before a clear pattern emerges. The Hechinger Report contacted more than 40 selective colleges and universities asking for the racial breakdown of those who applied for early decision and were accepted this year.

About half the institutions responded and none provided the requested information. Several said that they would not have such data available even internally until after the admissions cycle wraps up next year. Some have cited advice from legal counsel in declining to release the racial and ethnic composition for the class of 2028.

For the Rodriguez family, higher education has already become a symbol of upward mobility, a life-altering path to meaningful careers and the sort of financial stability that Margarita and Rafael have never known.

College wasn’t a part of their culture, and before last year Rafael and Margarita had no idea how complicated and competitive the landscape would be for their bright, hardworking daughters. Of all U.S. racial or ethnic groups, Hispanic Americans are the least likely to hold a college degree.

“I never even dreamed about a place like Emory, or about all the schools that have really good financial aid,” Margarita said recently. She wouldn’t have looked beyond the local community college and state universities for her daughters if she hadn’t learned about TeenSHARP, a nonprofit that prepares high-performing students from underrepresented backgrounds for higher education.

She immediately signed up Ashley, and later, Emily.

TeenSHARP co-founder Atnre Alleyne, with his wife, Tatiana Poladko, and team of advisers, guided Ashley and Emily through their high school course selection and college essays, while pointing out leadership opportunities and colleges with good track records of offering scholarships.

Related: College advisors vow to kick the door open for Black and Hispanic students despite affirmative action ruling

Emory is one. The school admitted no Black students until 1963, but has aggressively recruited students from underrepresented backgrounds in recent years. Hispanic enrollment had been growing before the Supreme Court’s decision, from 7.5 percent in 2017 to 9.2 percent in 2021. Ashley’s class at Oxford is 15 percent Hispanic.

“I felt like I was right at home here,” Ashley said, shortly after arriving in August. The entire Rodriguez family dropped her off and stayed for a few days until she was settled. “It felt very homey to me,” she said. “Everybody is so welcoming.”

Still, Ashley worried about her grades as she adjusted to her new workload. She fielded constant texts and calls from her family, who were adjusting to having her away from home for the first time.

Emily missed her sister terribly – together they’d started their high school’s club for first-generation scholars, helping others navigate college choices. “She has the brain and I like to talk,” Emily joked.

This fall, Emily set her sights on some of the most selective colleges in the country, many of which had terrible track records on diversity even before the Supreme Court’s decision. She approached her search knowing that she was unlikely to get any boost based on her ethnicity.

That makes her angry.

“We have so much history behind us as people of color,” Emily said. “So why would we be put at the same level as somebody whose family has benefited off of the harm done to communities of color?”

Emily also knew she would need a hefty scholarship to attend one of her dream schools; her family can’t afford the tuition, and they’ve been loath to saddle their daughters with loans.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing if poor whites now benefit from affirmative action.”

Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University

Elite schools like those on Ashley and Emily’s lists are more likely to be filled with wealthy students: Families from the top 0.1 percent are more than twice as likely to get in as other applicants with the same test scores. But such schools also offer the most generous scholarship and aid packages, and Emily and Ashley believed they presented the best shot at a different life from their parents’.

“Ever since I was little, I knew that college was the ticket to break this cycle our family has been in for generations and generations, of not knowing, of not being educated,” Emily said. “And because of that, having to work with their backs instead of their brains.”

That the Rodriguez sisters could even consider top-tier colleges is a credit to their mother.

“I want them to have the opportunity I never had,” Margarita said. “I know that life after education will be easier for them. I don’t want them to be working 12, 14 hours like their dad did.”

Rafael Rodriguez has always worked: first, with livestock as a child in central Mexico and later, in Florida, on an orange farm until the age of 15, with a residential permit. His earnings went toward helping the rest of the family come to the United States and settle in West Grove, Pennsylvania.

Rafael didn’t attend high school because he had to help support his parents and sisters. He now owns a trucking company.

Margarita desperately wanted to go to college, but said her mother did not believe in taking out loans for higher education and refused to sign her financial aid forms.

Instead, she married Rafael a few days after graduating from high school and had Ashley a year later. Emily was born 17 months later. Margarita was thinking of enrolling in community college until Brianna came along six years later. She now helps Rafael with his trucking business while working as a translator.

Both sisters are keenly aware of the gulf between their lives and their mom’s. In her college essay, Ashley described being “a daughter of two immigrant parents who undertook a dangerous journey from their native Guanajuato, Mexico, to America.”

Emily wrote about how Margarita had violated “every norm of our Mexican community, allowing me to sacrifice my time with family on weekends and in the summer” to attend Saturday leadership trainings with TeenSHARP, as well as college-level courses in epidemiology and health sciences at Brown, Cornell and the University of Delaware.

Related: Colleges decry Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, but most have terrible track records on diversity

The pressure Emily feels is both formidable and familiar to the immigrant experience, magnified by the divisive court decision.

Hamza Parker, a senior at Smyrna High School in Delaware, feels it as well. He was at first unsure of whether or not to write about race in his essay, a debate many students have been having.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority decision that race could be invoked only within the context of the applicant’s life story, leaving it up to students to decide if they would use their essays to discuss their race.

Meanwhile, conservative activist Edward Blum, who helped bring the case before the court, has threatened more lawsuits and said he would challenge essays “used to ascertain or provide a benefit based on the applicant’s race.”

“I never even dreamed about a place like Emory, or about all the schools that have really good financial aid.”

Margarita Rodriguez, mother

Hamza wavered at first, then rewrote his essay to describe his family’s move to the United States from Saudi Arabia in sixth grade and the racism he subsequently experienced. He applied early decision to Union College in upstate New York; earlier this month, he learned via email that he did not get in.

Neither Hamza nor his father, Timothy Parker, an engineer, know why, or what role affirmative action played in Union’s decision: Rejections never come with explanations.

Parker hopes his son will now consider an HBCU like the one he attended, Hampton University, in Virginia. He worries that if Hamza ends up at a school where he is clearly in the minority, he could be made to feel as though he doesn’t belong.

Related: Beyond the Rankings: College Welcome Guide

“I’m letting it be his choice,” Parker said, noting that Hamza might also feel more comfortable at an HBCU given the nation’s divisive political climate. With the end of affirmative action, he added, “It feels like we are going backwards not forward.”

HBCUs are becoming more competitive after the court’s decision. Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta, said Black high schoolers may be choosing HBCUs because they fear further assaults on diversity and inclusion and believe they’ll feel more comfortable on predominantly Black campuses.

Parker is now finishing his applications to Denison University, the University of Maryland, the University of Delaware, and Carleton College. He’s not sure if Hampton will be on his list.

Alleyne, Hamza’s adviser, said that while they will never know if the court’s decision had any impact on Hamza’s rejection from Union, he’s concerned about what it portends for other TeenSHARP seniors.

“We have so much history behind us as people of color. So why would we be put at the same level as somebody whose family has benefited off of the harm done to communities of color?”

Emily Rodriguez, high school senior

“There are so many factors at play with every application,” Alleyne said. “We definitely feel that this year, the window is narrower for students whose GPA does not tell the full story of their brilliance and the challenges they’ve overcome.”

Alleyne is also concerned that scholarships once available for students like Parker are disappearing. Some of the race-based scholarships his students applied for in past years are no longer listed on college websites, he said.

At the same time, there are plenty who believe that the court’s decision was a much-needed correction, including Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University who testified in the case. He argues that the ban will lead to a fairer landscape for low-income students for all races.

Kahlenberg is in favor of using affirmative action based on class instead of race. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing if poor whites now benefit from affirmative action,” Kahlenberg said.

Related: A poster child for protesting affirmative action now says he never meant for it to be abolished

For the Rodriguez family, Cornell’s early decision announcement was long anticipated, to be marked on the magnetic calendar attached to their refrigerator as soon as they knew it. Ashley would be home from Emory for winter break and would hear the news alongside her sister.

For weeks, the family had prepared themselves for bad news: Cornell had announced it was limiting the number of students it would accept early decision, in what the university said was “an effort to increase equity in the admissions process.”

Still, Emily had spent a summer studying at Cornell and gotten to know some faculty and advisers there. She had fallen in love with the animal science program, and the lively upstate New York college town of Ithaca, set amid stunning gorges and waterfalls.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Rafael said as they huddled together in front of Emily’s laptop. Emily wore a white t-shirt with “Cornell” emblazoned in bold red letters on the front, for good luck. She wavered, then clicked.

“Congratulations, you have been admitted to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: College major: Animal Science at Cornell University for the fall of 2024. Welcome to the Cornell community!” said the email on her screen, adorned with red confetti.Annual estimated costs for next year would be $92,682 – but Cornell pledged to meet all of it.

Emily screamed, and the room erupted in cheers. Every member of the family began sobbing. Cinnamon, the family’s three-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, barked wildly.

Emily jumped up and down. “Ivy League!” she shouted. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I did it.”

Brianna, a sixth grader who will work with TeenSHARP once she’s in high school, hugged both of her sisters.

It will be her turn next.

Additional reporting was contributed by Sarah Butrymowicz.

This story about the end of affirmative action is the second in a series of articles accompanying a documentary produced by The Hechinger Report in partnership with Soledad O’Brien Productions, about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action. Hechinger is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post Will the Rodriguez family’s college dreams survive the end of affirmative action? appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Striding into a packed community center filled with high school seniors, Atnre Alleyne has a few words of advice for the crowd, members of the first class of college applicants to be shaped by June’s Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious admissions.

“You have to get good grades, you have to find a way to do the academics, but also become leaders,” said Alleyne, the energetic co-founder and CEO of TeenSHARP, a nonprofit that prepares students from underrepresented backgrounds for higher education. “In your schools, do something! Fight for social justice.”

Many of the TeenSHARP participants gathered here, who are predominantly Black or Hispanic, worry that their chances of getting into top-tier schools have diminished with the court’s decision. They wonder what to say in their admissions essays and how comfortable they’ll feel on campuses that could become increasingly less diverse.

On this autumn night, Alleyne and his team are fielding questions from the dozens of students they advise, on everything from early decision deadlines to which schools are most likely to give generous financial aid and scholarships. The changed admissions landscape has only increased the team’s determination to develop a new generation of leaders, students who will fight to have their voices represented on campuses and later on in the workplace.

“I want them to kick the door open to these places, so they will go back and open more doors,” Alleyne said.

That goal is shared by successful alumni of the program Alleyne and his wife, Tatiana Poladko, started in a church basement 14 years ago. Several are on hand tonight recounting their own educational journeys, culminating in full scholarships to schools such as the University of Chicago and Wesleyan University, where annual estimated costs approach $90,000.

Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, highly selective colleges served as a beacon of hope and economic mobility for students like those TeenSHARP advise. Many are first in their families to attend college and lack legacy connections or access to the private counselors who’ve long given a boost to wealthier students.

Related: Colleges decry Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, but most have terrible records on diversity

But even before the high court ruling, Black and Latino students were poorly represented at these institutions, while the college degree gap between Black and white Americans was getting worse. For some students, the court decision sends a message that they do not belong, and if they get in, they worry they’ll stand out even more.

“I felt really upset about it,” Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, said about the affirmative action ruling. “This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”

While the full impact of the ruling on student demographics remains unknown, representatives of 33 colleges wrote in an amicus brief filed in the case that the share of Black students on their campuses would drop from roughly 7.1 percent to 2.1 percent if affirmative action were banned.

The uncertainty of what the decision means is taking a toll on students and school counselors nationally, said Mandy Savitz-Romer, a senior lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. As colleges sort through how they can meet commitments to diversity while complying with the law, students wonder if mentioning race in their essays will help or hurt them.

In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that race could be invoked only within the context of the applicant’s life story, making essays the one opportunity for students to discuss their race and ethnicity. But since then, Edward Blum, the conservative activist who helped bring the case before the court, has threatened more lawsuits, promising to challenge any essay topic that is “nothing more than a back-channel subterfuge for divulging a student’s race.”

The Department of Education has published guidelines saying that while schools cannot put a thumb on the scale for students based on their race, they “remain free” to consider characteristics tied to individual students’ life experiences, including race. The National Association of College Admission Counseling issued similar guidance, while the Common App introduced new essay prompts that include one about students’ “identity” and “background.”

Because of the uncertainty,school counselors need specific training on crafting essays and how or whether to talk about race, Savitz-Romer said during a Harvard webinar last month on college admissions after affirmative action. “We need counselors and teachers to make students understand that college is still for them,” she said.

It’s a tall order: On average, public school counselors serve more than 400 students each, which offers little time for one-on-one advising.

Related: Why aren’t more school counselors trained in helping students apply to college?

That reality is why nonprofit advising groups like TeenSHARP toil alongside students, guiding them through an increasingly confounding admissions system. TeenSHARP’s team of three advisers works intensively with roughly 140 students at a time, including 50 seniors who often apply to as many as 20 colleges to maximize their chances.

That’s a fraction of those who need help, another reason why the group’s leaders rely on their network of more than 500 “Sharpies,” as alums are known.

Emily Rodriguez, a TeenSHARP senior who attends Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington, decided to address race head on in her college essays: She wrote about her determination that she would not “play the role of the poor submissive Mexican woman.”

“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed. But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”

Tatiana Poladko, co-founder, TeenSHARP

Hamza Parker, a senior at Delaware’s Smyrna High School who moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia as a sixth grader, said he was against writing about his identity at first. “I feel like it puts you in a position where you have to have a sob story for your essay instead of talking about something good, like, that happened in your life,” he told Alleyne and Poladko during a counseling session over Zoom.

But in the session Alleyne and Poladko encouraged him to draw from his own story, one they know something about from working with his older sister Hasana, now a junior at Pomona College. The family had a difficult move from Saudi Arabia to New York City and later Delaware, where Hamza joined the Delaware Black Student Coalition.

Hamza decided to revise his essay from one focused on linguistics to describe experiencing racism and then embracing his Muslim heritage.

“I am my normal social self and my Muslim faith and garb are widely known and respected at my school,” he wrote. “My school even now has a dedicated space for prayer during Ramadan.”

Related: The newest benefit at top companies: Private college admissions counseling

Alleyne and Poladko typically work with students who are beginning their first year of high school, so the pair can guide the entire college application process, much as some pricey private counselors do — although TeenSHARP’s services are free; as a nonprofit it relies on an array of donors for support.

Neither Poladko nor Alleyne attended elite schools. They met as graduate students at Rutgers University and became committed to starting TeenSHARP after helping Alleyne’s niece apply to colleges from a large New York City public high school.

Astonished by how complicated and inaccessible college admissions could be, the two decided to make it their life’s work, writing grants and getting donations from local banks and foundations so they could serve more students.

“I felt really upset about it. This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”

Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, about the affirmative action ruling.

Their work is now largely remote: During the pandemic, the couple relocated from Wilmington to Poladko’s native Ukraine to be closer to her family, leading to a dramatic escape to Poland with their three young children when war broke out. Poladko is taking a sabbatical from TeenSHARP this year, although she still helps some students via Zoom. Alleyne flies from Warsaw to Wilmington to meet with students in person, often at the community center downtown that once housed their offices.

They also rely on relationships they’ve built over the years with college presidents and admissions officers at schools like Boston College, Pomona College and Wesleyan, along with both Carleton and Macalester Colleges in Minnesota, many of whom have welcomed TeenSHARP applicants.

“We need more ‘Sharpies’ on our campus,” said Suzanne Rivera, president of Macalester College, in Minnesota, and a member of TeenSHARP’s advisory board. “Their questions are always so smart and so insightful.”

Sharpies also tend to become campus leaders, in part because TeenSHARP requires that its students develop leadership skills. That’s something William Garcia, who graduated from the University of Chicago last spring, told seniors in Wilmington.

“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll even if they are offered admission.”

Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta

At first, he felt isolated in Chicago, reticent to talk about his experiences as a Hispanic man. “I was in your shoes five years ago,” Garcia said. He later realized his background could be an asset, and drew on it to turn an ingredient for one of Mexico’s most popular liquors into a business venture for his own agave beverage company.

“Embrace your story; tell your story,” Garcia said. “I would tell my story and people would be really interested and would start to help me.”

Alphina Kamara, a 2022 graduate of Wesleyan University, urged seniors to aim high and look beyond state schools and local community colleges that have lower graduation rates and fewer resources — campuses she might have ended up at it not for TeenSHARP.

“I would have never have known that schools like Wesleyan existed, and that I, as a first-generation Black woman, had a place in them,” said Kamara, the child of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone.

Related: Beyond the Rankings: College Welcome Guide

Still, there will always be some TeenSHARP students who don’t want to be on campuses that had terrible track records for diversity, even before the court’s decision.

Tariah Hyland, who in high school co-founded the Delaware Black Student Coalition, knew she’d be more comfortable at one of the country’s more than 100 historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. She told the Delaware audience that she’s thriving in her junior year at Howard University, where she is studying political science.

Powell, the New Jersey junior, is eyeing both Howard and Atlanta’s Morehouse College and said he’ll likely only apply to HBCUs.

“When I was in public school, I was the only Black boy in my classes,” said Powell, who now attends Acelus Academy, an online school. “I was always the minority, and so by going to an HBCU, I would likely see more people who look like me.” 

That’s no surprise to Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta, who said she’s expecting “more interest from Black and Brown students, now that the Supreme Court has made what I believe to be a regressive political decision.”

HBCUs like Spelman — whose graduates include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman and author Alice Walker — are already seeing more applications and are becoming even more competitive.

“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll, even if they are offered admission,” Holley said, adding that students may be worried about further assaults on diversity and inclusion on college campuses and believe they will be more comfortable at an HBCU.

Still, not everyone predicts the court ruling will precipitate a permanent drop in Black and Hispanic students at predominantly white, selective colleges. Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University predicts the drop will be temporary, and that the affirmative action ban will eventually lead to a fairer landscape for low-income students of all races.

Kahlenberg, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, said he wants to see an end to legacy preferences as well as athletic recruiting, so that colleges can give “a meaningful boost” to “disadvantaged students of all races” and “you can get racial diversity without racial preferences.” Challenges to legacy admissions are mounting: The Education Department has opened an investigation into Harvard’s use of the practice, and a recent bipartisan bill calls for colleges to end it.

As mid-December approaches, Alleyne and Poladko are anxiously waiting to see how the handful of TeenSHARP students who applied for early decision will fare.

“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed,” Poladko said. “But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”

Until that time, both Poladko and Alleyne will continue pushing students to help those who come after them.

“Our goal is to figure out the game of admissions and give our students an advantage,” Alleyne said. “And our job is to teach them how to play the game.”

This story about TeenSHARP is the first in a series of articles, produced by The Hechinger Report in partnership with Soledad O’Brien Productions, about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action. Stay tuned for an upcoming documentary and part II. Hechinger is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post College advisers vow to ‘kick the door open’ for Black and Hispanic students despite affirmative action ruling  appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Lizette Valles is a former teacher and librarian who runs a Los Angeles school that she believes represents a promising alternative to U.S. public education.

It has three fourth-grade students, including her son, and just one other teacher: her husband. There’s no building, so they share space in a warehouse with a race car garage and plant nursery – when students aren’t out hiking, fishing or cycling.

“We have ripped the doors off the classroom. We learn anywhere, anytime,” Valles told me, noting that she is looking for a new location so she can recruit more students for the so-called microschool. Interest is growing in these small, independently run  “learning pods,” which are often operated by parents and enroll an estimated 1.2 to 2.1 million U.S. students.

Valles was among the enthusiastic would-be innovators and entrepreneurs I met at least week’s Harvard Kennedy School conference, Emerging School Models: Moving From Alternative to Mainstream. The event often felt like a pep rally for options beyond traditional school districts, where enrollment fell in the pandemic and is expected to drop another five percent by 2031.

I came to learn more about some of these alternatives at a time when parents and politicians are increasingly paying attention to homeschooling and other public school substitutes, accompanied by a rise in new networks, foundations and companies like Prenda and funds like Vela that provide growing financial and logistical support.

These options include microschools like Valles’ Ellemercito Academy, homeschooling co-ops like Engaged Detroit, “classical” options such as Haven School (focused on nature) in Colorado and Bridges Virtual Academy in Wisconsin, among others that spoke about their work.

Some are nascent and small, and they don’t necessarily have much in common. It seemed a stretch to see them as becoming “mainstream” — especially because scant evidence exists of their effectiveness in serving students, or even of how many students they enroll. And most American children — close to 50 million — remain enrolled in traditional public schools.

Still, a growing number of states – more than a dozen this year – have either expanded or started voucher programs that steer taxpayer money to these new options, which can include private and religious schools. Late last month, North Carolina became the latest state to pass a universal voucher program. 

It’s not always clear, however, that this money goes directly to schools and parents: In Arizona, millions of dollars also went to businesses and non-school spending, a recent investigation found. The Network for Public Education, an advocacy group, last month published an interactive feature chronicling “voucher scams.”

And choice efforts are faltering in some parts of the country like Texas, due in large part to public support for local school systems, although Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session later this month where lawmakers are expected to focus on school choice.

There’s also been plenty of pushback: North Carolina’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has declared “an emergency for public education” in the state because of diminishing funding for it, along with the legislative push for vouchers. During a virtual panel Thursday sponsored by Parents for Public Schools, Cooper insisted that “the majority of people of North Carolina and across this country still support our public schools,” while calling complaints over so-called culture wars and indoctrination of students “nonsense.”

“We have seen an erosion [of support] and a legislature that has not only underfunded our public schools but chosen to essentially choke the life out of them,” Cooper said. “We cannot give up on public education even though some government leaders have.”

Related: School choice had a big moment in the pandemic but is it what parents want for the long run?

Speakers at last week’s conference, sponsored by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, offered no such dissenting views. They repeatedly urged the audience to “join the [school choice] movement,” one that Valles sees herself as part of, in her position as the California field coordinator for the National Microschooling Center, a support network launched with start-up funding from the Stand Together Trust.

An email sent to participants afterward called the conference “an engaging and motivating event for proponents of educational choice,” one reason why Michigan State University professor Joshua Cowen, who was not invited, dubbed it a “political operation disguised as an academic conference.”

“It’s not a movement,” he said. “It’s a coup, with the idea to overthrow existing institutional structures.”

I spoke to Cowen because he’s spent years researching choice options such as vouchers, and has concluded they do more harm than good and often lead to worse outcomes for vulnerable children. He sees the latest push as a way to create a product – then build up a demand for it.

“Instead of focusing on how to improve existing supply (public schools) what they’ve done is start from the premise that taking down public schools is the first, necessary condition,” Cowen told me. “Think about how this works with advertising in our daily lives: microschools, the solution you never knew you needed!”

Related: After decades of studying vouchers, I’m now firmly opposed to them

Vouchers have meanwhile run into snags: In Florida, they often don’t cover the full cost of private school and many parents have had trouble finding space in the schools their children need or want. Yet demand for the vouchers is such that Florida parents and schools are having trouble accessing them.

At Harvard, the state’s education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr., chalked up any snags to “growing pains,” while bashing the state’s public school system as “an employment program” for teachers and other staff members.  When asked about evidence of school choice effectiveness, Diaz said he believes “the ultimate arbiter is the parent themselves.”

“To me, the answer is a system that is based on the needs of the students and families. If we do that, we’ll have a better society and a better structure.”

Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the advocacy group EdChoice

Conference goers also heard from (and cheered) keynote speaker Republican Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, who said he hoped a lawsuit over the planned opening of the nation’s first religious charter school in his state would ultimately land before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stitt called an Oklahoma state board’s approval – one being challenged by parents, clergy and education activists – a “win-win for religious and education freedom,” and repeated a popular stock line adopted by right-leaning politicians: “No parent wants to hand their kids over to a one-sized fits all education.”

Other familiar phrases spoken throughout the conference included calls for freeing students from failing schools, funding students instead of systems, supporting parent and family rights and fighting so-called “woke indoctrination.”

Related: School choice had a big moment in the pandemic but is it what parents want for the long run?

Much of what I heard dovetailed with conclusions in Cara Fitzpatrick’s exhaustively researched new book, “The Death of Public Schools:  How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America.” In it she notes that conservatives are aiming to both “radically redefine public education in America,” and “use public dollars to pay for just about any educational option a family might envision.”

Dissent over choice options comes at a time of much hand-wringing in both political parties over how to improve lagging test scores and the country’s overall education performance. During a conversation with Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute this week, former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan lamented a lack of bipartisan support for education initiatives, while repeating his oft-proclaimed dismay for a “one-size fits all” approach.

Duncan, who served under President Obama, also acknowledged that many parents consistently say they like their children’s schools, a conclusion supported by recent polls.

“It’s not a movement. It’s a coup, with the idea to overthrow existing institutional structures.”

Joshua Cowen, Professor, Michigan State University

Beyond the underlying politics, conference speakers pushed for removing obstacles to expanding microschools, by finding physical spaces for the schools and getting around what they described as a frustrating maze of regulations that prevents them from serving more children.

Bernita Bradley spoke passionately about ways she’s helping parents via Engaged Detroit, which offers support and coaching for homeschooling parents. “Traditional education has not worked for our children,” Bradley said, calling it “punitive for Black students.”

Choice programs “have to be based on what parents want,” said speaker Robert C. Enlow, president and CEO of the advocacy group EdChoice. “To me, the answer is a system that is based on the needs of the students and families. If we do that, we’ll have a better society and a better structure.”

Valles, meanwhile, envisions a new building with room for 10 students who, in addition to learning math and reading skills, might spend a day hiking, fishing, landscape painting or simply lying on the ground listening to the sounds of nature.

“A lot of people want this for their children,” Valles told me. “Microschooling offers a different pathway. …The questions it asks have more to do with what brings your child joy, peace, excitement and creativity, rather than rigidity, regurgitation and standardization.”

This story on microschools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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NEW YORK — I strap on a virtual reality headset. A screen appears and dramatic music pounds into my ears. I’m told there has been a nasty avalanche and that it’s my job to restore power to the grid.

The exercise is part of a new program that encourages learning middle school math through real world problem-solving, now in use in 190 school districts across 36 states.

The concept caught my attention during a demonstration at HolonIQ’s ‘Back to School’ summit in New York City earlier this month. The lesson seemed a lot more relevant than copying a row of equations from a chalkboard, which I remember from my own more traditional (and boring) math education so many years ago.

I was also intrigued because of the urgency of making math and science more meaningful for middle schoolers – these are the students who lost the most ground in math during the pandemic. It’s a little too early to know if VR lessons like this one will improve lagging test scores, but Anurupa Ganguly, founder and CEO of Prisms, the company behind the platform, is convinced it will.

“This is a whole new way of experiencing math instruction,” Ganguly, a former math and physics teacher, told me, pointing to promising early studies from the non-partisan research group WestEd, along with feedback from teachers and students on Prisms, which is hosted on the Meta Quest platform.

Instead of memorizing equations, students develop structural reasoning skills from solving real-life problems (such as a damaged power grid or limited hospital-bed capacity in a pandemic) with guidance from teachers trained in the purpose of the lessons.

Related: Inside the middle school math crisis

I sat through other new simulations at the summit as well, including Dreamscape Learn, something I’d heard and read about from a colleague who took a trip through its virtual Alien Zoo) and YouTube Player for Education, which is creating virtual lessons, content and assessments.

It’s never surprising to see and hear enormous enthusiasm for technology solutions at conferences: There are always a host of new apps and products on display that come and go. Entrepreneurs and investors packed Holon’s conference, eager to hear more about the global research and analytics platform’s latest survey results and reports on latest trends and ed tech for teaching and learning.

Naturally, that included lots of sessions on artificial intelligence, which many believe will be a bright spot for ed tech investing.

Instead of memorizing equations, students develop structural reasoning skills from solving real-life problems (such as a damaged power grid or limited hospital-bed capacity in a pandemic) with guidance from teachers trained in the purpose of the lessons.

Still, it’s impossible to ignore growing skepticism about the power of digital tools. Sweden moved away from tablets and technology this month in a return to more traditional ways of education – a backlash to its digital-heavy push that many in the country are blaming for student decline in basic skills. 

Sweden is instead embracing printed textbooks, teacher expertise, handwriting practice and quiet time. In addition, the recent UNESCO report entitled “An Ed-Tech Tragedy” documented vast inequality from pandemic-related reliance on technology during remote online learning, and concluded that lower-tech alternatives such as the distribution of schoolwork packets or delivering lessons via radio and televisionmight have been more equitable.

“The bright spots of the ed-tech experiences during the pandemic, while important and deserving of attention, were vastly eclipsed by failure,” the UNESCO researchers said in the report, which encourages schools to prioritize in-person learning and make sure that emerging technologies, including AI chatbots that many public schools are now banning, clearly benefit students before they are used.

Related: ‘We are going to have to be a little more nimble: how school districts are responding to AI

For her part, Ganguly is quick to note that Prisms is not an ed tech program, nor designed for remote learning: Once the VR headsets come off, teachers take over and guide students through the lessons. “Ninety percent of our resources are not in VR but in teacher training,” she told me.

I also raised questions about the use of ed-tech and screens during a session I moderated on early childhood education, where entrepreneur Joe Wolf, co-founder of the nonprofit Imagine Worldwide, described bringing solar-powered technology programs to remote areas in Africa, where few children have electricity and less than five percent have internet access; there’s also a dearth of trained teachers.

“There is no other technology in their lives,” Wolf noted, pointing to studies of a trial showing that children in Malawi not only loved using the program, they made significant gains in math and literacy using the program, despite pandemic disruption. Imagine Worldwide works with governments, communities, funders and other partners as it attempts to expand throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The bright spots of the ed-tech experiences during the pandemic, while important and deserving of attention, were vastly eclipsed by failure.”

UNESCO report, ‘An Ed-Tech Tragedy’

Ultimately, all of the problems both entrepreneurs and educators are trying to solve require a lot more research, noted Isabelle Hau of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, who was also on the panel, a view endorsed by Kumar Garg, vice president of partnerships at Schmidt Futures.

Garg spoke about “learning engineering,” and noted that pushback against education technology is a direct result of how quickly these tools rolled out in the pandemic.

“A billion kids got sent overnight home and we tried on the fly to create an online learning system with very little scaffolding,” Garg said, noting that it was impossible to know how many students were unenrolled and never even got online. “The crisis came, and everyone was like, ‘What’s the answer?’ ”

I suspect there never was one, as our team at The Hechinger Report found during this unprecedented interruption of education worldwide. But there is one result that is absolutely worth paying attention to: Plenty of entrepreneurs, foundations, nonprofit outlets, foundations and investors are looking for answers, and have new ideas that might (or might not) make a difference.

Regardless, we are eager to listen.

This story about teaching with VR was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters.

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Dear reader,

The lingering days of August fill me with nostalgia, marking a definitive end to summer. Yet my favorite season is gaining new meaning in education, as Hechinger Report stories from various parts of the U.S. show us this week. In Minnesota, Jon Marcus introduces us to college students taking extra classes all summer, while spending 12 hours a week in paid internships so they can shorten the traditional time to a bachelor’s degree from four years to three.

Proof Points columnist Jill Barshay explains research behind the disappointing results from post-pandemic summer school catch-up attempts in eight large school districts around the nation. And Caroline Preston tells us about students who are spending this month learning everything they can about climate change, taking steps to help prevent the heat waves, wildfires, floods and other disasters that have increasingly become part of all of our lives.

Also, in case you missed it, intern Alivia Welch looks at a weeklong camp in Mississippi aimed at helping third graders pass a gateway literacy test that determines promotion to fourth grade. As always, we want to hear what you think as summer winds down. Also, please remind others to sign up for our free newsletters and become a member.

Liz Willen, Editor

Spending summer in class means these students will be done in three years
As consumers chafe at the time it takes to earn a degree, some colleges are speeding it up

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PROOF POINTS: Summer school programs too short and not popular enough to reverse pandemic learning loss, researchers say
Extended-day programs that doubled as free child care lured families but were too expensive to continue

OPINION: The charade of ‘test-optional’ admissions
How colleges’ decisions to scrap mandatory admissions tests is hurting low-income kids and intensifying inequality

OPINION: You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach history without covering racism
We cannot sit back and let politicians prevent our young people from learning the truth in their classrooms

Activist students go to summer camp to learn how to institute a ‘green new deal’ on their campuses
A new campaign from the youth-led Sunrise Movement calls for pathways to green jobs, lower-emission school buildings and interdisciplinary school curriculum

OPINION: Tackling research projects can help students get into top colleges and universities
Research opportunities are a great way to demonstrate intellectual passion and potential, but high costs leave some behind

The post Summer school pros and cons appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

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Dear reader,  

The question of who decides what textbooks are assigned to students has become increasingly divisive, but a new law passed in the state of Idaho makes it mandatory for parents to have a say. That, in turn, is reshaping what is or isn’t in the curriculum and determining how subjects like climate change and social movements are discussed in the state, Hechinger contributor Laura Pappano reports from Twin Falls.   

Also this week, we dive back into the largely poor and rural state of Mississippi, where we spent years reporting on lagging test scores, and where there’s been much publicity over a so-called education “miracle.” Hechinger intern Alivia Welch takes us inside the story of two nine-year-old students from Jackson who did not pass the state’s reading test the first time and benefited from a little help from the Mississippi Children’s Museum.  

We also profile four would-be teachers who graduated into the pandemic to see if they stuck with the profession and learn how the education system can adapt to hold onto its younger teachers. And we take a closer look at the latest research on another fraught topic in education, social and emotional learning.  

As always, we want to hear from our readers. Please remind others to sign up for our free newsletters and consider becoming a member. 

Liz Willen, Editor

Who picks school curriculum? Idaho law hands more power to parents 
New law expanding input from non-educators forces good but tough conversations in some districts, but sets up gridlock in others 

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For many Mississippi students, summer meant one last chance to be promoted to fourth grade 
Last school year, nearly a quarter of the state’s third graders did not pass an important reading test on their first try. What will get more children over the bar? 

These would-be teachers graduated into the pandemic. Will they stick with teaching? 
We tracked down nearly 90 members of the University of Maryland College of Education’s 2020 class. Their experiences suggest the field isn’t doing enough to adapt to a new, more difficult era for educators 

PROOF POINTS: A research update on social-emotional learning in schools 
Schools spend millions on programs despite little hard evidence to show what works 

OPINION: Lessons from Mississippi: Is there really a miracle here we can all learn from? 
A closer look at what happened to reading scores in a state where students have long lagged behind 

The Supreme Court affirmative action decision left a head-scratching exemption for military academies. Here’s why it matters 
Like many colleges, military academies told the Court that affirmative action mattered to them, yet only they were exempted from the SCOTUS ruling 

Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US 
More than a quarter of students missed at least 10 percent of the 2021-22 school year. Before the pandemic, only 15 percent of students missed that much school 

OPINION: Tackling research projects can help students get into top colleges and universities 
Research opportunities are a great way to demonstrate intellectual passion and potential, but high costs leave some behind 

Infants and toddlers in high quality child care seem to reap the benefits longer, research says 
New study finds long-term enrollment in high-quality child care can make the positive effects last 

The post When parents pick school curriculum appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

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Dear reader,

As millions of U.S. students head back to school, one recent plea from a teacher in Virginia captures our polarized times: “Just let me teach history. That’s all. That’s it.” Ed Allison, who is trying to teach the topic at Granby High School in Norfolk, shared that perspective with The Hechinger Report’s Christina Samuels. 

It’s no longer that simple: Teachers like Allison are under a microscope since Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected portions of an African American studies course piloted by the College Board, insisting that it violates the state’s ban on teaching “critical race theory.” 

Our reporters spent time in three different cities and classrooms, looking at challenges teachers who are determined to comprehensively teach Black history are facing in these highly charged times. We’d love to hear more from our readers about what’s happening where you live. 

Also this week, The Hechinger Report takes an in-depth look at state takeovers, with a focus on Houston, where the Texas Education Agency took over the school district, removing the superintendent and elected board as a way of jolting better academic performance. Our story examines the controversy, but also dives into national research to see if such takeovers actually do improve student performance; several studies say they don’t. 

There’s a lot more to discuss and think about on our site this week, including efforts to stem teacher shortages via ‘grow your own’ programs, and a largely hidden legacy of the pandemic’s shift to virtual learning: schools that are forcing students with discipline problems out of the building and back online.  Many of our story ideas come from readers, and that’s why we hope to hear from you. Also, please remind others to sign up for our newsletters and become a member. 

Liz Willen, Editor

How do we teach Black history in polarized times? Here’s what it looks like in 3 cities 
In Louisville, Ky., Philadelphia and Norfolk, Va., teachers are finding ways to give students an in-depth education on African American history even as the subject comes under attack 

State takeovers of ‘failing’ schools are increasing, but with little evidence they help students 
Takeovers have had limited success in improving student performance. Opponents say their real purpose is to undermine the power of Black and Hispanic communities 

To fight teacher shortages, schools turn to custodians, bus drivers and aides  
‘Grow your own’ programs offer school employees a chance to become teachers at low cost. But whether the programs meet schools’ needs is an open question   

‘August surprise’: That college scholarship you earned might not count 
Half of colleges reduce their offers of financial aid when students win outside money 

The newest form of school discipline: Kicking kids out of class and into virtual learning 
School districts across the country have begun punishing students by forcing them into online classes, sometimes indefinitely 

PROOF POINTS: A spate of recent studies on the “Google effect” adds to evidence that the internet is making us dumber 
Newer research suggests it’s better to guess before Googling 

Shop class is grounded, high school aviation classes are taking flight 
With the aviation industry facing worker shortages, K-12 schools try to offer a runway into jobs in the field 

OPINION: We cannot stand by and watch the Black experience get erased from U.S. history 
While Florida is the latest example in the news, there is a nationwide problem with representation of the Black experience in school curricula 

The post Teaching Black history in polarized times appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

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Dear reader, 

Ten years after graduating from law school, Jesse Wiese finally got his license to practice. Here’s why it took so long: Wiese was among the millions of people with criminal records who got stalled by regulations while pursuing education and workforce training for jobs that require a license.  

Our story this week, published with our partner The Washington Post, looks at roadblocks created by the nearly 14,000 laws and regulations that can restrict individuals with arrest and conviction histories from getting licensed in a given field. Such barriers not only keep people from good jobs, they reduce their chances of staying out of prison and rob the U.S. of productive labor, according to advocates. We’d love to hear what you have to say about this issue. 

Also this week, in our continuing reporting on the vast inequality that permeates higher education, columnist Jill Barshay digs deep into federal data on merit and need-based financial aid, documenting some surprising patterns — including escalating tuition discounts that benefit white and Asian students more than Black and Hispanic students. As we get ready to bring you a round of back-to-school stories, please remind others to sign up for  The Hechinger Report newsletter, and become a member! 

Liz Willen, Editor

‘A second prison’: People face hidden dead ends when they pursue a range of careers post-incarceration 
Nearly 14,000 laws and regulations restrict people who have been convicted or even just arrested from getting professional licenses 

OPINION: How to make it easier for teachers to stay in the classroom 
Making credentials valid across state boundaries will help relieve shortages 
 
PROOF POINTS: Surprising patterns in who gets merit and need-based aid from colleges 
New federal data documents the rise of tuition discounts 

OPINION: The Supreme Court ruling on race in college admissions ignores bigger inequities that must be addressed 
It’s time to fix the racial school funding gap in the K-12 system 
 
Some screen time for preschoolers won’t hurt their development, study finds 
More than two hours a day is associated with slower growth in social skills, researchers said, but academic skills appear unaffected

The post ‘A second prison’ for formerly incarcerated appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

A newsletter from The Hechinger Report

At a time of growing public skepticism of higher education and its value, it makes sense to take a look at what’s happening in England to make college “cheaper, faster, simpler and less intimidating for students,” in the words of The Hechinger Report’s Jon Marcus.  

While reporting there, Marcus also examined the role of instructors known as “pracademics” – established professionals in their fields who help students learn valuable skills. In the U.S., instructors like these “have been relegated to second-class status behind their full-time academic counterparts,” he writes.   

We’d love to hear what you think about these trends, and also hope you’ll take a look at some potential solutions to punitive school discipline, a topic we’ve spent years tackling. Also, when school opens later this summer and fall, artificial intelligence will be on the minds of students and teachers, and we’ll continue following this subject as well.  

Finally, our continuing coverage of community colleges includes a surprising look at just how many high schoolers attend the institutions to simultaneously earn college credit. As always, we appreciate hearing from our readers, and urge you to remind others to sign up for our newsletters and become a member. 

Liz Willen, Editor

One college finds a way to get students to degrees more quickly, simply and cheaply 
Its assembly-line approach makes life easier for students universities are trying to recruit 

What’s in a word? A way to help impatient college students better connect to jobs 
‘Pracademics’ who work in the fields that they teach are slowly winning new respect 

Preventing suspensions: Tackle discipline problems with empathy first 
Better managing student behavior through supportive relationships and engaging lessons can prevent the need for punishment 

PROOF POINTS: High schoolers account for nearly 1 out of every 5 community college students 
Dual enrollment far exceeds the popularity of Advanced Placement courses 

‘We’re going to have to be a little more nimble’: How school districts are responding to AI 
School districts are training teachers on generative AI and encouraging them to experiment with the tools for lesson planning and remedial help 

OPINION: Chief equity officers wear many hats and are needed in school systems now more than ever 
Some toil in isolation, without the support or encouragement they need to do a difficult job 

OPINION: How San Francisco public schools got math instruction wrong 
Reality check: Putting all students on the same algebra pathway did not work as advertised 

The post Making college ‘cheaper, faster, simpler’ appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

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Dear reader,  

In the pandemic’s aftermath, learning loss, frustration and loneliness have persisted, leaving students in many schools more likely to act out. That’s part of the reason we took a close-up look how so-called restorative justice works, at a time when climbing rates of student misbehavior have led to calls for stronger penalties, or even the return of police who were banned from some school districts in 2020. The story, set in Montgomery County, Maryland, also appeared in The Washington Post, and we’d love to know what you think. 

Also this week, we explain why some Native American tribes are being left out of programs meant to help reduce cost barriers for Indigenous students, who have historically faced significant challenges in attending and staying in college. And recent research reminds readers that even with public confidence in higher education plummeting, there are many who still believe deeply in the value of a college degree.  

Finally, it may also be heartening to learn how two-year community colleges are changing with the times, to be more in tune with local job markets. Please remind others to sign up for our newsletters, and become a member so we can keep bringing you these stories and much more. 

Liz Willen, Editor

What does restorative justice look like?
Maryland lawmakers prioritized the alternative disciplinary practice four years ago, but the rollout has been complicated 

The post A bumpy rollout for restorative justice appeared first on The Hechinger Report.