Education Week, October 1, 2020, by Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel

Even before COVID-19 sent students and educators home, teachers’ jobs had grown increasingly complex. Rightful demands for standards matching those of other nations—and for equitable opportunities allowing students to meet or exceed those standards—swelled over recent decades.

With research clearly indicating how important teacher and principal quality are to student learning growth, a thoughtful school staffing and compensation strategy would have been a natural response. Instead, decades of benevolently intended policy shifts snatched dollars from teachers’ pockets as their jobs got harder, while failing to innovate like other professions.

As we explain in Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck, the consequences have been devastating for students and committed educators. A vigorous pivot is long overdue.

Over the past five decades, U.S. public education went on a spending spree benefiting nearly everything and everyone—except classroom teachers. Since 1970, real per-pupil spending increased 145 percent, yet real teacher pay was nearly flat, increasing just 7.5 percent (see figure). Teachers work longer hours, so hourly pay actually declined. If teacher pay had increased in proportion to K-12 spending, teachers today would earn nearly $140,000, on average, instead of less than half that. Read the full column…

CRPE, August 4, 2020, by Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel

One striking finding of the CRPE and Public Impact review of state reopening plans is what’s not there: the primary purpose of schools, teaching and learning. During COVID-19, states are giving districts only minimal guidance and support about teaching and learning. Yet district and school leaders are already working around the clock to plan for social distancing, health checks, contact tracing, and device distribution, among other vexing challenges.

In effect, states are dumping the instructional planning burden during an unprecedented modern pandemic onto teachers’ laps (or laptops).

Students—especially the myriad vulnerable to trauma and learning loss—will pay the price.

Yet it’s not too late for states to lead on teaching and learning by providing a targeted set of high-impact expectations for all districts to meet when some or all students are learning remotely. If states required just these expectations—and backed the requirement up with support—vastly more districts would have strong instructional plans to guide teachers. Read the full column…

Education NC, April 24, 2020, by Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel

As Public Impact’s co-presidents, we’re pleased to have our organization collaborate with EdNC on the 1.0 version of the NC District Response to COVID-19 School Closures Database, based on CRPE’s national database.

What do the data tell us so far? We took a close look to summarize districts’ readiness to serve students and teachers at home, compare that readiness to research about what works, and suggest steps for leaders to help North Carolina teachers and students succeed in these conditions.

Our finding in a nutshell: Very few of the state’s 115 districts are ready to provide high-growth student learning with students and teachers at home. How could they be? None of the districts expected this situation, but now that it may be here to stay for a while, it’s time to address some missing elements: technology to connect all students with teachers, protocols for using technology well, and the support teachers need to ensure high-growth learning—especially for our most vulnerable students.

We started analyzing the data with a belief that has guided us through two decades of work: All students can make high learning growth, despite enormous challenges—if they and their educators have the right guidance and resources. Both research and the stories of educators who have made it happen in the most difficult of circumstances tell us this. Read the full article…