Start with transparency, data collection, and collaboration
Thomas J. Kane
Thomas J. Kane is the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education and Economics and faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.
The American Rescue Plan provides an additional $123 billion in federal funding to K-12 schools, much of which is to be used over the next two years. Because of this new funding and the remarkable resourcefulness educators have already shown during the pandemic, we are likely to see more innovation in schools over the next two years than we’ve seen in a generation. We cannot let this moment pass without organizing ourselves to learn which strategies prove most effective in helping students catch up.
School districts are busily designing strategies to help students make up for lost ground, such as intensive tutoring, after-school enrichment, summer school, extended days, vacation academies, and, yes, more hybrid instruction. (Stephen Sawchuk described three districts’ plans last month.) Precisely because so many of these approaches are new or untested on such a grand scale, state leaders have an obligation to students and educators to measure their effectiveness as they roll out. That means states must encourage school districts to share their plans with their peers and prepare their data systems to track the kinds of interventions each student is receiving. Over the next two years, states will be able to pool the data to compare students’ learning experiences under each type of intervention. States can then share that evidence back with districts so that districts can adjust their strategies. States have a chance to play a new role in education: as evidence-gatherers and accelerators, as clearinghouses and conveners—and not just accountability and compliance enforcers.