Reflections

Introduction:             As our nation grapples with the rise of authoritarianism, our school children remain woefully unprepared to demonstrate the qualities of capable citizenship and uphold the sanctity of our democratic institutions. Just 23% of 8 th graders scored at proficient or above on the 2014 NAEP civics examination, a dismal score reflective of the declining importance placed on civics within the national consciousness over the past half century. [i] The crisis has been further exacerbated in the standards and accountability era; with the onset of No Child Left Behind in 2001, schools were compelled to place heightened importance on Math and ELA to the detriment of instructional time devoted to history, civics, economics, and the arts. [ii] Students of color and students living in poverty experience what has been described as a “Civic Empowerment Gap”, demonstrating reduced achievement on civics and history examinations, voting and participating in the p

Introduction: The Charter and Choice Movements at an Impasse             The charter and school choice movements are currently at an impasse. While Charter Schools as a sector continue to expand and serve more and more of America’s schoolchildren, bipartisan support for school choice has declined. Democrats and Republicans traditionally supported charters in relatively equal numbers; as of 2012, 62 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats approved of charter schools. While GOP support for charters remained steady at 62 percent in 2017, the percentage of Democrats who approve of the charter sector dipped to 48 percent. (Saad, 2017) Bipartisan support for school choice emerged out of the "A Nation at Risk" Report (1983), which famously asserted that “if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” ( A Nation at Risk , 1983, p. 3) The 1980s b