By Vistria’s Phil Alphonse and Hope Chicago’s Janice Jackson. This commentary originally appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business.
As we close the books on the academic year, another chapter ends, too: COVID-19 funding for education, also known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, must be obligated by the end of September. These funds have provided critical support to districts and schools to try to make up for learning loss and the ripple effects of the pandemic.
With ESSER funds ending, districts are grappling with budget challenges and what to prioritize. Let’s focus on what we know works, including the “Science of Reading,” expanded opportunities for post-secondary education and more support for school staff.
First, literacy: the foundation of education. Pre-pandemic reading proficiency in the United States was already declining. The average performance of the country’s fourth and eighth graders declined in math and reading from 2017-2019, following a 10-year stagnation in progress. Notably, Black and Latino children, and those from low-income families, children with disabilities and students where English is their second language, have fallen even further behind.
The approach known as the “Science of Reading” shows promising results on increasing literacy. Mississippi saw drastic improvements in fourth-grade reading levels in just under a decade, which has been attributed in part to a requirement to train teachers in the Science of Reading. Long gone are the days of rote memorization. Instead, students need to be taught through science-based phonics instruction. Curriculum partners, like Really Great Reading, have been providing high-quality instructional materials that for decades have been tied to the Science of Reading. Studies have demonstrated that students who used these approaches had significantly larger growth in their reading scores versus those who did not.
Second, students — especially Black and Latino students as well as those first in their family to pursue college — must have more support when it comes to post-secondary education. To break down systemic barriers, organizations like Hope Chicago equip high school students to make the transition into college easier with not only the financial support that covers tuition, room and board, plus the many ancillary fees associated with post-secondary education, but also the wraparound support to get students over the finish line.
Our collective job is to prepare students to succeed in today’s job market, meaning skill development through career and technical education (CTE) is critical to ensuring today’s students become tomorrow’s talented workforce. The United States could be facing a shortage upward of 6 million skilled workers by 2030. Edmentum, an education technology platform, has launched newly developed CTE programming and the data shows the marked impact these programs can have on both career readiness and improving graduation rates. As workplaces evolve, CTE programs prepare students with tools related to automation and artificial intelligence, among other technical skills needed for our future workforce.
Finally, school staff need more support. The long-standing shortage of teachers prior to the pandemic has been exacerbated by the increased stress teachers have taken on while their average pay declines. In addition to onboarding a new generation of educators, we must equip existing teaching staff with the tools they need to be more effective in the classroom. Organizations like Ed Direction use a data-driven approach to give educators and school leaders the skills they need, while also helping students become more engaged.
Data has shown students can recover from the learning loss of the pandemic, but some of our students may never catch up. Gains varied by state, but the most troubling finding was that higher-poverty districts that lost the most during the pandemic did not close the gap nationally. The window is closing with the current ESSER funding, but we must find ways to financially support school districts to continue to make achievement gains. We must be honest about how our students are performing and hold school districts accountable.
Meeting the needs of our young people is not just an educational imperative, it’s critical for who we are as a workforce and a society. If we want to strengthen our country’s social fabric, decrease the racial wealth gap and improve life outcomes, it all starts with a solid educational foundation. Our future depends on it.
Phil Alphonse is a senior partner and co-head of Knowledge & Learning Solutions at The Vistria Group. Janice Jackson, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, is CEO of Hope Chicago and an operating partner with The Vistria Group. This commentary originally appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business as part of the Crain’s Forum.
