Think Twice Weekly Report

February 8 - FeBRUARY 14, 2025

The Think Twice Weekly Report compiles public education-related policy reports, research and articles of interest to policymakers, educators and stakeholders. This list is not exhaustive but is meant to highlight recent reports that may be used to support or undermine the work of our subscribers in supporting public schools. We encourage you to take a moment to scan these reports and determine if they may be used by policy makers to assist or erode your mission.



Policy Reports


Assessment

Source: EdTrust
Date: 2/11/2025
How District Leaders and Advocates Can Build Parent Support for Statewide Assessments

Addressing inequities in educational outcomes - particularly for students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners - cannot happen without data from statewide summative assessments. Statewide assessment results help schools and district leaders target resources to the students and schools with the greatest need and track whether these resources are impacting student achievement. ... EdTrust and the Collaborative for Student Success set out to answer ... how to build greater support for annual testing - with backing from the National Parents Union. This brief offers a comprehensive roadmap for district leaders and advocates alike on how to build support for testing and testing data along with essential recommendations for advocates.

Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Education

Source: Bellwether
Date: 2/14/2025
Surveying School System Leaders: What They Are Saying About Artificial Intelligence (So Far)

The education sector is in the early stages of understanding how schools are incorporating AI. Most existing surveys about AI in education explore surface-level questions about the teacher and student knowledge and frequency of using tools.4 Bellwether's survey fills a gap by exploring early trends in how school system leaders are thinking about incorporating AI, what barriers they face, and what challenges they hope that AI will help solve.

School Choice

Source: EdChoice
Date: 2/12/2025
Projected State Costs of Universal New Hampshire EFAs in Years 1 & 2

New Hampshire's Education Freedom Account (EFA) program is restricted to families that make no more than 350% of the federal poverty level. (That's $90,370 for a family of three and $112,525 for a family of four.) Republicans in the state Legislature have proposed removing the income cap and allowing all students to participate in the program. Opponents of expansion have incorrectly asserted that taking EFAs universal would cost the state more than $100 million in Year 1. But to reach that number, they included thousands of ineligible pre-school students, out-of-state students and current EFA students. They also assumed without evidence that every eligible student would take an EFA. No school choice program in the country has a 100% take-up rate among eligible students outside the public school system, and no program has a take-up rate that's even in the same ballpark.

Teacher Employment / Diversity

Source: NCTQ
Date: 2/11/2025
What can California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. teach us about how to diversify the teacher workforce?

Nationally, the diversification of the teacher workforce is slowing compared to the diversification of college-educated adults, but California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. are bucking that trend. Explore what factors contribute to their relatively high rates of teacher diversity and how their policies and practices will likely affect teacher quality.

Reports Reviewed


GLC seeks to ensure that policy briefs impacting education reform are based on sound, credible academic research. Below are reviews conducted with GLC support.



Review of Fiscal Effects of School Choice: The Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America Through FY 2022

Source: EdChoice
Reviewed by: Mark Weber, Rutgers University

The expansion of voucher programs, which provide taxpayer-financed subsidies for families enrolling students in private schools, has prompted a debate about their fiscal impact. A recent EdChoice report argues that these programs do not negatively affect public school finances and actually save taxpayers substantial sums of money. Today's review explains how this argument rings hollow.

In his review of Fiscal Effects of School Choice: The Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America Through FY 2022, Mark Weber of Rutgers University and the New Jersey Policy Perspective walks readers though the report's simplistic and unvalidated methods, showing how they lead to the invalid conclusion that the programs result in taxpayer savings.



What We're Reading


Research and articles that we want to highlight for subscribers as potential resources:



NEA Protect Public Schools Resource Hub

By: National Education Association

Keep up with NEA's current actions, responses to executive orders, information, and resources to counter the attacks on public education and the Department of Education


Donald Trump's playbook for privatizing America's government

By: Peter Green, Quartz

"...the Trump administration has been pursuing plans to privatize huge swaths of government services. While taking the agencies off the government's books may appear to cut costs, it simply transfers payments to the private sector - and usually with a hefty premium, better known as a profit margin."


Crucial research halted as DOGE abruptly terminates Education Department contracts

By: Kalyn Belsha, Chalkbeat

The Trump administration has terminated dozens of contracts worth nearly $900 million at the U.S. Department of Education, halting crucial education research and data-gathering efforts.ion and other projects at school districts and public colleges and universities across the country, her ethics disclosure forms show.


Trump-voting states have more to lose if Education Department dismantled

By: April Rubin, Axios

States that voted for Trump last November, on average, use more federal funding in their education apportions than states that voted for former Vice President Harris.