Legislature ‘24: Lawmakers must choose partnership over partisanship

National surveys conducted during the pandemic reveal a growing partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on the purpose of public education, what content is appropriate for students to learn, and the level of influence parents should have over curriculum and instruction.

When adults choose partisanship over partnership, winning arguments and assigning blame obscure what truly matters — addressing illiteracy, declining student achievement, unmet student mental health needs and educator burnout.

Credit: Contributed

Credit: Contributed

Developing a shared vision for public education is more important than ever with local school systems adjusting how they support students in a post-pandemic world while confronting financial constraints, including the impending loss of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds by September 2024 and the increased cost of school operations due to worsening inflation and higher personnel expenditures.

Although school and community members should drive innovation and solutions-focused improvement, state leaders also play a critical role. Released in November 2023, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Impact Study Year Two Report identifies challenges that local school districts and state charters have encountered while implementing ESSER-funded strategies and offers several recommendations for how state leaders can remove obstacles to effective implementation.

Selected Findings from the CARES Impact Study Year Two Report:

• More than 93% of local educational agencies invested in improving literacy instruction and nearly 86% used funds to improve math instruction.

• Approximately 83% of district leaders anticipate that students will continue to experience higher academic and mental health needs than before the pandemic.

• Nearly 63% of leaders operated tutoring programs using ESSER funds, while 66% reported hiring academic interventionists to provide supplementary instruction.

• Nearly 3 out of 4 districts (72%) addressed unmet student mental health needs by hiring counselors, behavioral specialists and school psychologists.

As they look ahead to the 2024-2025 school year, local education agencies confront multiple pressures. Students’ needs remain high, so they must continue to provide a wider array of academic and nonacademic supports than before the pandemic. Yet, their financial capacity to do so is diminishing.

The ESSER funds that enabled them to add teachers to provide small group instruction, academic interventionists to deliver personalized, one-on-one instruction to students farthest behind, mental health clinicians to help students work through anxiety, grief or other conditions, and educators providing support in other ways expire in less than a year.

The loss of ESSER funds will hit districts serving the highest proportion of low-income students the hardest. Because they serve high percentages of low-income students, these districts also received the most per-student amount of ESSER funding. This leaves them with the largest budget gap to fill to continue providing the ESSER-funded services they believe have the greatest benefit for students.

Below, the Georgia Partnership provides six recommendations for how state leaders can adjust school finance and staffing strategies to support local efforts to accelerate student achievement.

Address existing state funding gaps. The Quality Basic Education formula does not provide sufficient funding to support several vital school operations, including student transportation, counseling and school psychological services, and the purchase of technology and instructional materials. Increasing state funding for these items and adding an inflation adjustment would enable districts to redirect local funds to the continuation of ESSER-funded practices.

Add a funding weight for low-income students to the QBE formula. Georgia is one of six states that does not provide additional funding for low-income students. Incorporating a funding weight for low-income students into the QBE formula would help enable districts to sustain some of the promising practices that they implemented using ESSER funds.

Boost funding for mental health and wellness staff. Additional mental health and wellness staff are critical to address students’ nonacademic needs. However, state funding ratios for school counselors, social workers and psychologists are far higher than recommended best practice levels.

Review and revise school staffing models. The pandemic compelled districts to staff schools differently. Districts have relied on multiple staff members to assist students, including academic interventionists, instructional coaches, behavioral specialists and mental health clinicians. A comprehensive study of how to reconfigure staffing ratios to best serve students is needed.

Establish and fund a state research consortium to measure local and state initiatives to improve student outcomes. Local districts have pursued different strategies to improve student learning and well-being. These strategies vary in design, implementation and impact. To better understand what works, how it works and what it costs, a research consortium can pair researchers with practitioners to examine key problems of practice.

Develop and fund a comprehensive plan to strengthen the educator pipeline. A comprehensive and funded approach to strengthen the educator pipeline, including leaders, is needed. The Georgia Department of Education and many districts have designed and implemented initiatives to address different pieces of this challenge, but funding and reach are often limited.

We all have a role to play in rising above political rhetoric to develop a shared vision for public education. The first step toward achieving a shared vision is incorporating lessons learned from the pandemic into policy and practice. Adapting state policies to meet current on-the-ground realities will smooth transitions toward a post-pandemic environment where school and community leaders champion what works and build consensus around what matters — students graduating from high school ready for work and life.