August 11, 2021

Back to School: What’s Your “Magic Wand” Education Solution? (Part One)

By Bellwether

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay for Pexels


Join Ahead of the Heard for a lively back-to-school series expanding on Andy Rotherham’s original Eduwonk post, What’s Your Magic Wand?, featuring reflections on wish-list education solutions heading into the fall from teachers, school leaders, academics, media types, parents, private sector funders, advocates, Bellwarians…you name it.
At Bellwether, we’re focused on the 2021-22 school year ahead but also on what we’ve collectively endured since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a gross understatement to say that it has been a lot, that mistakes have been made, that many rose to the occasion achieving amazing things for students (while others did not), and that countless lessons were (re)learned. It has been a season where optimism was sometimes elusive and where challenges often seemed insurmountable. 
So we thought we’d do something a little different…and try to have some fun.
We turned to contacts across the country in the education sector and asked them this simple, hopeful question. Answers vary as widely as each participant’s background and will be featured over a two-week span.  

Teachers, students, and families will enter into a 2021-22 school year unlike any other. If you could wave a magic wand, what’s the one education issue you’d address or solve right now, and why?

Lauren M. Rhim
Executive Director and Co-Founder, The Center for Learner Equity

“If I had a magic wand, I would leverage this unique moment to 1) assess where students are and develop robust personalized learning plans for all students, 2) train teachers to effectively differentiate their instruction, and 3) leverage dramatic gains in utilizing technology to bring students back to schools that are actually designed to enable all students, including those with disabilities, to reach their full potential.”

Noelle Ellerson Ng
Associate Executive Director, Advocacy & Governance, AASA, The School Superintendents Association

“I’d fully fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. A fully funded IDEA returns hundreds of millions of dollars back to local district budgets — funds that can be used on general education. Special education students are general education students first, so it would truly be a win-win-win.
I’d also love a magic wand solution to reliable, accurate poverty indicators for education programs as well as increased efficiency in data collection, where federal, state, and local databases could aggregate and share, while also adhering to best practices around student data/privacy and Personally Identifiable Information.”

Chris Minnich
CEO, NWEA

“We have to take this massive infusion of federal cash to reshape how schools are funded. Most schools are driven by the amount of resources they have. Obviously, there are outliers that do more with less, but with more money in the system, it’d be a great chance to hold higher-spending districts harmless, and plus-up the other districts to allow them to compete for talent, among other things.”

Raymond C. Pierce
President and CEO, Southern Education Foundation

“If I could wave a magic wand, the education issue that I would address right now is stability in the governance of our schools and examining ways to improve how our schools are governed. Our public schools cannot improve if they are not governed effectively and efficiently. We need to find, develop, and replicate successful models of school governance that promote local control and community involvement. The instability that is common among school district superintendents and other leadership is highly disruptive to students’ education.
As we look at this opportunity to reset public education following the pandemic, any strategies that states and other jurisdictions implement for improving education ought to include an examination and development of models of governance that address that goal. Despite numerous changes and innovations in education over the last century, the model of school governance has not changed. How do we preserve local governance while increasing the stability that has proven elusive given the political nature of school governance in our system of elected school boards?”

Vanessa Steinkamp
Texas Educator; Parent

“As an educator, my biggest concern for the upcoming year deals with the exacerbation of structural inequities caused by disparate COVID-19 restrictions in schools. The baseline will be harder to navigate as some students learned remotely, some learned through homeschooling, some learned in hybrid models, and some learned in person. It creates another set of variables for teachers to remedy, and I worry about the psychological effects of students’ learning taking a back seat to disease abatement. I want learning to be fun, engaging, and multifaceted. The pandemic really stifled creativity and student engagement. 
As a parent, my primary concern will be pivoting back to a student-centered classroom focused on skill-based engagement versus teacher-driven content. With 3-foot masking rules, collaboration and interpersonal skills were all but forgotten. Lastly, I want to see less technology (no more Zooms or computer scoring) and more student-to-student interaction.”

Christian Taylor
Two-Time Olympic Gold Medalist; Four-Time World Champion in the Triple Jump; Classroom Champions Mentor

“I would encourage educators to push the importance of students having greater awareness of current affairs. There is a lot going on at the moment and many opinions flying around but very few facts to highlight and move situations forward. I believe students and teachers should be able to discuss current affairs, voice findings, and, for certain ages, propose solutions. This could help students process the things they are taking in around them but also give educators an idea of how these issues are affecting the student body. Some issues may be distant and the student may not have any connection to it, while others reflect real-time situations they are faced with in their lives/communities.”
Stay tuned for more in our “Magic Wand” series and join the conversation on Twitter @bellwethered.
(Editorial note: Some organizations listed in this series may include past or present clients or funders of Bellwether.)

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