How to Address Structure and Content Maladies Simultaneously
So how can states provide clear signals to the public about academic quality while also affirming the rights of parents? How should ESA programs be crafted to induce high-quality private schools to participate without fear of compromising their distinctive values? Moreover, how can state education agencies rebuild the trust they have rightly lost as a result of their focus on compliance-oriented pedagogy and reliance on skills-based tests to assess student learning—strategies that have not even come close to closing achievement gaps?
I recommend five policy moves that could support innovation, avoid undue regulation, and make academic excellence more likely in states with ESAs and other choice programs.
First lever: assessment reporting requirements. In the short term, every state that authorizes ESAs should require that participants take either the state test or nationally normed tests and that the results be reported to the state. This would constitute a minor change for ESA programs such as Texas’s, which requires testing but not reporting—except to Odyssey, the vendor chosen by the state to implement the program. The choice programs in Indiana, Arkansas, and Louisiana are exemplars of public reporting done well; test results are collected and provided (in the aggregate) to the public.
Second lever: knowledge-building assessments. Policymakers could set the bar much higher by additionally enabling access to a menu of knowledge-aligned assessments—particularly in English language arts and social studies. In ELA, such new testing models could match up with four or five commonly used curricula, and in social studies, assessments could gauge understanding of key areas of content knowledge required in each grade or grade band.
High-performing systems around the world—in the United Kingdom, Alberta, and elsewhere—already pursue content-rich testing policies, with positive academic results. In the United States, former Louisiana state superintendent John White incentivized high-quality curriculum and curriculum-aligned assessments that districts could opt into. Teachers reported that they liked staying focused on rich content in the classroom instead of jumping to skills-based test prep, and the project saw early signs of gap-closures. (Our team at Johns Hopkins University worked on the project, with many others.)
Novel state assessments have been extraordinarily expensive to design and field. They also require waivers from the U.S. Department of Education. But AI is reducing the cost of design and could enable more seamless test-to-test comparability. My colleague David Steiner, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, is leading a project to explore this approach in specific states. He noted recently that a menu of curriculum-integrated ELA tests “would move [us] from a single, curriculum‑blind test to a portfolio of curriculum‑based assessments that shared the same design, each psychometrically robust and comparable at the scale-score level, but anchored in distinct, coherent bodies of content.”
A menu of tests that bolster meaningful knowledge would also appeal to many charter, private, micro- and home-schooling families. Many students at classical high schools already take the Classic Learning Test rather than the ACT or SAT (see “The Classic Learning Test Takes Aim at the SAT–ACT Duopoly,” features, Vol. 26, No. 1). What if families could also choose civics or reading tests aligned to curricula commonly used by private schools and home-schooling families? States might not have to foot the bill on their own; curriculum publishers, who share an interest in high use, could join forces with state agencies to put such options in place.
Third lever: integrated data systems. In the long run, assessing the quality of options available within ESA programs requires student-level data systems that integrate K–12 demographic information, enrollment patterns, academic achievement, postsecondary achievement, and workforce participation. This is especially important in the case of ESAs that allow the “unbundling” approach in which families choose from a list of approved vendors to curate their child’s learning experience. Keeping track of which options parents select, and with what learning outcomes, would allow states to map out patterns of success and failure over time. For instance, what if a particular type of microschool seems to work well for specific kinds of kids? Or if some reading curricula don’t work as well as others in home-schooling contexts? Isn’t this important information that could inform parents’ decisionmaking?
States like Georgia and Texas already have data systems in place for district schools and could expand them to include students in charter, private, and homeschools. Other states, such as Florida, struggle to identify student enrollment in real time. This lack of precision results in unsurprising missteps, such as double payments (for instance, when one child is counted and funded in two different schools or sectors). Fixing the data issue would enable transparency and fiscal accountability.
Fourth lever: curriculum reviews. The sheer number of curricula and ancillary materials on offer can be overwhelming. How can policymakers help the best materials become the most popular? Many states already provide public reviews of curricula and host institutes to encourage teachers to embrace the best ones. They could extend this work to curricula popular in private school, charter school, microschool, and homeschool contexts, drawing on respected third-party evaluations and philanthropic support.
Fifth lever: common-sense parent resources and supports. “Transparency” applies not only to data, but also to the interpretation of data. What are the three best curricular choices for a special needs student? As a parent, if I don’t speak English well myself, how can I distinguish between the available private and charter school options in my neighborhood? Nonprofits are already key here; organizations like FamiliesEmpowered and LoveYourSchool meet parents where they are, in the languages they speak. As education choices expand, parent navigators—trained advisers who guide families in choosing among options—will play a crucial role.
