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With the 2022 midterm elections behind us and 2023 state legislative sessions ahead, policymakers must shift their time and attention from winning reelection to addressing the perfect storm brewing in education. Three significant challenges paint a grim picture for students and public schools unless policymakers step in to help: catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic impacts on learning, declining enrollment, and looming fiscal cliffs. This brief offers ideas for state leaders as they address the interrelated educational challenges facing schools right now. The brief highlights Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. These states, ranging from blue to red to purple, provide lessons that can be instructive for policymakers in almost any state. Each state demands different policy solutions, but all should aim to put family empowerment, not politics, at the center of their legislative agendas.

To counter learning loss and other effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, students deserve access to all available supports, including supplemental options. Unfortunately, access to supplemental options is just as disproportionate as the effects of the pandemic. Too many barriers stand between students and the supports that could help them recover and reengage in learning. Recent polling data shed light on the gap between parents' interest in supplemental options for their children and their access to them. The data highlight barriers that prevent students and families from accessing the full range of supports that can aid their recovery from the effects of the pandemic. Findings include: (1) an unmet demand for extracurricular options; and (2) information and cost are the most cited barriers to extracurricular participation, but other barriers also contribute. This report concludes with policy solutions that could help give more families access to every available resource to support their students, within and beyond the school day.

Parents across the country continue to be concerned about their children's academic and social-emotional well-being. Some parents are sufficiently satisfied with their children's school and are content with a return to a pre-pandemic normal. Other parents are sufficiently dissatisfied and have already made a change, whether between schools, to home-schooling, or with supplemental learning opportunities. In between is a third group of parents -- those who are frustrated and have not yet made a change, but are looking to policymakers and education leaders for solutions. "New Solutions for Frustrated Parents: How Education Leaders Can Help" offers four recommendations for policymakers and education leaders to address the discontent among parents as the 2021-22 school year comes to a close: (1) Work with parents to better understand their needs; (2) Increase the number of educational options available to families; (3) Inform families about educational options that could meet their children's needs; and (4) Reduce barriers to access. By responding to parent needs, policymakers and education leaders can better support families and students in the upcoming school year and beyond.

School districts across the country have long been finding ways to give greater autonomy to schools, theorizing that providing school leaders with authority over the decisions that most directly affect their students will enable them to better meet students' needs and, in turn, improve student outcomes. Charter schools, which are public schools that are operated independently from local school districts and granted freedom from many state and local education laws and regulations, are perhaps the most well-known autonomous school model, but they're not the only one. Many school districts have created their own types of autonomous schools. Massachusetts, an early adopter of charter schools and a leader in the creation of in-district autonomous school models, led the way in the development of a district-charter hybrid model, known as Horace Mann Charter Schools (Horace Mann schools). Designed to be a hybrid between the charter and district sectors, Horace Mann schools are granted many of the same freedoms and flexibilities as independent charter schools but must be approved by their local school districts and remain part of their districts in important ways. Through a review of past research on Horace Mann schools, analysis of publicly available data and documentation, and interviews with stakeholders (including current and former Horace Mann school leaders, Boston Public Schools (BPS) staff, and state officials and staff) this report analyzes the extent to which the Horace Mann school model has been able to realize the seven goals laid out in its founding legislation.

Whether in the western region of the state or the plains of the northeast corner, the ground has continued to shift under the feet of Colorado's rural charter school and district leaders. Efforts to understand the needs of Colorado's school communities early in the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced challenges with providing internet access, digital devices, and personal protective equipment, and meeting the basic needs of low-income families hit hard by the economic impacts of the pandemic. This report shares new data about the needs of students and schools in rural Colorado and the challenges and opportunities for collaboration among rural leaders and philanthropic funders. It also recommends five ways philanthropic funders in Colorado can best support rural students and schools in the months and years ahead: (1) Bring funding, networks, and creative solutions to address urgent staffing needs and shortages; (2) Keep grant application processes and reporting requirements at a minimum; (3) Stay flexible in grantmaking priorities to provide support across the myriad challenges rural communities are facing; (4) Support rural charter schools and districts in navigating the sustainability of their efforts, whether funded by philanthropic or public dollars; and (5) Provide non-monetary support, including opportunities to connect and collaborate with those who are outside the school or district but equally dedicated to supporting the success of rural students. [WEND Collective and Lyra Colorado provided additional financial support for this report.]

As schools across the country closed in March 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not clear how long in-person education would be disrupted. The abrupt transition to remote learning was particularly challenging for districts in rural communities, many of which have long lacked reliable access to high-speed internet and technological resources for students. The unique circumstances of the pandemic required innovative solutions to address a deepening array of acute challenges faced by rural schools. In Colorado, the philanthropic community met the moment by supporting rural school systems in fundamentally new ways, upending traditional grantmaking processes to better address communities' needs through two key initiatives: the Planning and Design Support (PDS) initiative and the Education Innovation Fund. RESCHOOL Colorado's Learning Dollar initiative, a program connected to the Education Innovation Fund, also played a pivotal role by distributing money directly to families for education-related expenses. The deep collaboration among funders that occurred during these initiatives wasn't the only silver lining that emerged in the chaos and uncertainty of 2020. Schools and districts, especially those in rural areas, also set aside considerable time and resources, when both were scarce, to secure needed funding for their students and communities. In this paper, the authors describe the origins of these initiatives and their basic design before outlining a set of recommendations for how philanthropy in the state and elsewhere can build on these promising practices to improve future grantmaking. [WEND Collective and Lyra Colorado provided additional financial support for this report.]

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way that families and policymakers view K-12 education. Learning loss is having an outsized impact on students who were furthest from opportunity before the pandemic. And families are increasingly looking for new educational options for their children. For decades, access to educational options meant "school choice" -- now it's time to think broadly about an ecosystem of flexible "learning options." Beyond traditional options, such as school choice through open enrollment, charter schools, and private school choice, policymakers are increasingly providing families with access to more flexible learning opportunities through Education Savings Accounts and "learn anywhere" policies. This report examines some of the most important trends in the realm of option-expanding state policies, along with recommendations to ensure that all families have equitable access to these educational opportunities.

In this report, the author explains the small-schools environment in New York City. Prior to the pandemic, the Big Apple had a small but growing microschool and learning pod community. New York City's frequent school closures throughout 2020 and 2021 caused many families to look more closely at these education options. New York State's stifling regulatory environment shows why more microschools and learning pods did not emerge during the pandemic--and might not emerge in the years ahead. One key lesson from this study--and others in this series--is that a state's policy disposition toward school choice, private schools, and homeschooling can thwart education innovation in many ways. For microschooling and learning pods to expand in NYC and elsewhere, state policymakers must assess and reform a host of statutes and regulations, even if such rules were created with student welfare in mind and have been on the books for generations. [For the main report, "Microschooling and Policy," see ED618730.]