Instead of being asked to score at least a on tests of English Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, science and one optional exam, New York students will be assessed using standards. 

It is yet unclear as to who will be evaluating whether they can be considered:

• academically prepared
• creative innovators
• critical thinkers
• effective communicators
• global citizens
• reflective and future-focused

It is also unclear what the criteria for succeeding in each category will be.

When I asked parent subscribers to my mailing list how they felt about the shift, the answers split starkly into two camps.

There were those who cheered. Josh Kross, father of two high schoolers and one graduate, wrote, “Regents are outdated. Good riddance.” Moria Herbst added, “Other states don’t have them. Certainly not in Massachusetts, where I grew up. And Massachusetts does just fine!”

“I am deeply in favor of moving away from a standardized testing model,” said E.J., the Washington Heights parent of a first grader. “While Portrait of a Graduate is still being worked on as to how it will actually function, I’m encouraged by the idea and the possibility of it being a more complete picture of the human we’re sending out into the world.”

Other parents, however, were less enthused.

“Portrait of a Graduate is so fuzzy as to be meaningless,” wrote Rachel Fremmer, dismissively. “I didn’t think standards could be lowered any further, but they have been.” 

“It seems like a process that will make things more subjective for teachers, and thus less fair for many students,” opined Marina. “This seems like a vague requirement that will allow parents with resources even more leverage.”

Yiatin Chu, mom of a ninth grader, went even further, saying, “For those who criticize the Regents as a low bar/waste of time, why aren’t we improving it and making it more rigorous instead? Portrait of a Graduate is aspirational — over 40% of eighth grade students are entering high school not reading at grade level. I see the change to these graduation metrics for HS graduation as a way for the system to push kids out the door.”

New York City already faces the issues of straight A students being unable to perform equally well — or even pass — state elementary and middle school tests, not to mention high school Regents exams.

“Without objective tests, there is no way to gauge what kids are actually learning,” Diane Rubenstein predicted. “This will allow the (Department of Education) to give kids nothing in the classroom. This will give (them) cover to not teach.”

“Removing this requirement dilutes education standards even further,” agreed AW. “It plays very well into the current administration’s program of ‘equity,’ aka ‘mediocrity for all.’ It disincentivizes kids from learning and teaches them that if something is hard, just protest and it will be removed from your path, even to your detriment.”

For many parents, the perceived lowering of standards will hurt city students when it comes to competing not just nationally, but internationally.

“If USA high schools become less competitive, that’s not good for the next generation,” Jenny worried, while Ella added, “Our kids will fall behind other countries. We are already falling behind in the world. My kids cannot compete with foreign students.”

Of the that currently have high-school exit exams in place, New Jersey ranked No. 2 in the country for educational achievement for 2025, Virginia was No. 13, Ohio was No. 15, Florida was No. 19, Texas No. 31 and Louisiana No. 35. (Massachusetts, which got rid of its exit exams in 2025, is, as noted above, ranked No. 1. However, that ranking was achieved while the state still had its exit exam up through last year.)

In New York, while students will no longer be required to sit for Regents exams in order to graduate, they will still have the option of taking them in order to earn a .

This could have the effect of widening the gaps between students, rather than improving equity. Colleges and employers will be able to see who earned a Regents diploma and who opted to bypass established standards via a more subjective metric, which could imply less academic rigor.

Like those rejected from colleges that went SAT/ACT scores because they realized those were a reliable predictor of applicants’ capabilities, students who choose not to take the Regents exams could find themselves negatively perceived and penalized.

“I understand the growing pressure to move away from standardized testing, but we still need a meaningful way to measure student progress and evaluate our schools,” ventured Stephanie Cuba, the mother of children in seventh and ninth grades. “Education policy should be deliberate and comprehensive, not a series of reactive decisions. If you’re going to dismantle the old system, you need a clear, credible plan to replace it. Without that, we’re operating without a compass.”

Right now, with Profile of a Graduate details vague and , New York risks graduating multiple cohorts whose achievements will not be properly valued. The repercussions might follow them for years.

When I asked families on my 4,000-plus-member how they felt about the new restriction, I received answers ranging from enthusiasm to concern. 

“Phones and smartwatches in classrooms and school hallways are more than just a distraction — they’re a barrier to learning, focus and social development,” according to Manhattan’s Arwynn H.J. 

“Bring on the ban,” cheered Bronx parent and teacher Jackie Marashlian. “My high school students were ready to air-scroll me toward the ceiling with their fingers, so bored with whatever it was I was trying to impart to them. One day we had a WiFi glitch and I saw my students’ beautiful eyes for the very first time. Bring kids back to face-to-face interaction and socializing during lunch breaks.” 

“As a middle school teacher in the Bronx and parent of an eighth grader, I think the cellphone ban is fantastic,” agreed Debra. “While my son is ‘devastated’ he can’t have his phone, it scares me that he’s said he doesn’t know what to do at lunch/recess without a phone. Kids have become so reliant on technology, even when they are with their peers, that often they are not really WITH their peers; they are all just staring at their phones. I hope the cellphone ban leads more students to be both physically and mentally present.”

For mom Elaine Daly, the phone ban affects her more than her special-needs daughter. “My child is 11 and knows she is not to use the phone in school. My parental controls blocks, locks and limits access. But I need her phone to be on so I can also track her, since the NYCSchools bus app always says: Driver offline.”

Jen C., who reported the ban has been going well with her child in elementary school, sees a bigger issue for her high school-age son. “He has homework online and likes to get started during his free periods. However, he’s not allowed to use his laptop, and there are not enough school issued laptops. I feel that teachers should give off-line work, or the school needs to give access to laptops.”

Parents of older students were the ones most likely to be against the blanket edict.

“You can’t have the same policy for kids 6 years old and for 17 years old,” mom Pilar Ruiz Cobo raged. “This policy is crazy for seniors. Yesterday, my daughter had her first college adviser class, and only five kids could work because the rest didn’t remember their passwords to Naviance and the Common App. The verification code was sent only to their phones. Children who don’t study, don’t study with and without phones, now the children who actually work have to work double at home.”

A Queens mom pinpointed another problem. “Many high school students leave the premises for lunch, and my son’s school is one of those. He said they’re not allowed to take their phones. Children need to use phones outside of school for various reasons; to use phone pay, to contact their parents for lunch money or any updates, etc…”

The policy varies from school to school. At some, students are allowed to request their phones back when temporarily leaving the premises. However, the larger the school, the less likely it is to have enough staff to handle such exchanges.

“An interesting aspect of this policy is that although it was presented as a smartphone ban, it’s actually much more expansive, including tablets and laptops,” pointed out dad Adam C. “This presents a challenge for high school students who rely on laptops for receiving, completing and submitting assignments through Google Classroom.”

“They say parents have to provide their own laptop pouch (there are none similar to Yonder), and they can’t store laptops in backpacks,” confirmed Queens mom Y.N. “My son has afterschool sports activities and likes to do his homework on his laptop in between. I think he’ll have to take it with him and hope they don’t confiscate.”

“While I’m not opposed to keeping students off platforms like Snapchat during school hours,” Adam continued, “They should be able to connect a laptop to a school-managed Wi-Fi network for school-related purposes, and the current policy doesn’t provide the schools with much leeway around this.”

But Y.N. doesn’t believe that’s accurate. “I already voiced my concern to the Student Leadership Team (SLT). At the , they said these rules are fluid. Because the regulations came after the SLTs were done for the year, the chancellor said they should be able to change them. She said a plan had to be made before Day One, but it doesn’t mean that adjustments can’t be made at the school level. ‘Tinkering’ was the word they kept using.”

If that’s the case, perhaps NYC can pull back from its traditional one-size-fits-all approach and allow individual schools to “tinker” and set limitations based on the needs and feedback of their community, adjusting policy based on grade level, academic requirements and a multitude of other factors.

Then came her dyslexia diagnosis. 

My husband and I explained to her, “Mi amor, not everyone’s brain is wired the same way, and yours is having a hard time putting letters and sounds together. This isn’t your fault.”

I told this guidance counselor about my frustration. I knew the most important indicator of lifelong success is the ability to read, and reading-related learning challenges are common. Yet schools aren’t set up to support these students. It didn’t make sense.

Individual instruction is the best way for struggling readers to catch up, but affordable options were hard to come by.

“You’re just a mom,” he said, dismissively. “There’s nothing you can do.” 

I wouldn’t just give up and hope my daughter would eventually read well enough to get by. 

Most kids don’t learn to read alone, and no child should be expected to somehow figure it out. My family became a team, navigating this challenge together: switching schools multiple times, finding specialized centers, doing hours of research. I sold my business so I could dedicate myself to Lucy — scheduling intensive instructional intervention while ensuring she could be a kid. I started a book club for her and went to soccer and swimming lessons so she could see her friends. 

Today, Lucy is an honor roll high school student and a strong reader. But getting here was a lonely, humbling road. I heard people talking about my kid having “a problem.” I was doing everything I could, but doing it alone was so difficult. It’s partly why I founded here in Miami in 2020. I know what it’s like to have a struggling child and little guidance. And I now know from experience, it doesn’t have to be like that. 

The Lucy Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocating for and providing science-backed reading instruction. A full-time team of five — curriculum specialist, operations director, learning specialist, executive assistant and me — runs the show. We have school partnerships, teacher training programs and one-on-one lessons. Five part-time learning specialists are fully trained by my team. In October, we’ll hire six more. 

Our first chair was also a mom whose child has dyslexia. Currently, half of the board comprises moms in similar situations, bringing firsthand experience and dedication. While I lead as CEO, I’m a parent who spends ample time guiding parents with emotional support and effective resources so the whole family will thrive. Our goal is to create a replicable, scalable model that serves all children.

The Lucy Project has served more than 375 students from 36 Miami-Dade schools and has worked with four Title I schools in underserved communities: Kinlock Park, W.J. Bryan, Goulds and Norwood elementary schools.

The project harnesses the Science of Reading to enhance literacy skills among children, particularly in underserved communities. It’s the backbone of The Lucy Project’s professional learning and student programs, as Science of Reading moves everyone forward. It is crucial for many and essential for some. 

Lessons are fun, interactive and responsive to each student’s changing needs. Learning specialists break down reading and spelling into smaller skills and help students build on them over time. Early intervention is everything. While the majority of second- and third-graders reached grade-level proficiency within one school year, remediation makes the biggest impact in kindergarten. 

Norwood Elementary’s partnership launched the first Literacy Hub, which included summer professional learning for two kindergarten teachers and coaching throughout the year. All students engaged in Structured Literacy lessons in small groups, and those who needed focused support received it one-on-one. At the start of the 2023 school year, 52% of kindergartners were on grade level. By year’s end, that number was .

The Lucy Project also hosts seminars, apprenticeships and professional learning that have empowered more than 100 teachers so they can empower their students. Our team helps Miami-Dade students access daily reading remediation and provides parents with emotional support, guidance through the school system,and referrals to appropriate agencies.

We provide income-based private tutoring on a sliding scale, depending on household income. A mix of corporate and individual donors and grants from foundations fund these programs and make financial assistance possible for families in need. 

To catalyze cutting-edge literacy education, The Lucy Project is hosting a conference, , on July 30. Featuring nationally recognized experts in structured literacy education from leading universities like Stanford and Yale, the event is open to educators and families, who can . The idea is to empower South Florida families and the whole community with practical teaching strategies that provide results.

Having this type of community support network for students and families. It takes a team to ensure every child learns to read and succeed in life. Together, school administrators, educators, literacy specialists, nonprofits, parents and caregivers, and funders who collaborate are a force that can change the world. 

It’s time to start thinking like a team. Because we are.

Dozens of seats remained empty when classrooms fully reopened in the 2021-22 school year. Approaches to absenteeism in the 22,000-student district were failing, and administrators were forced to rethink how they could bring children back to school. 

The job was assigned to Shadae Harris, the district’s chief engagement officer. Harris and other staff decided to prioritize family engagement instead of using punitive measures — such as referrals to the juvenile justice system — to increase attendance.

“In order to really improve student attendance, we had to make sure that we were designing a system of engagement that really put families at the center,” Harris said.

Lack of family engagement is a national issue, as nearly 1 in 4 students are chronically absent. found that many parents don’t think chronic absenteeism is a problem and are unaware of how often their child misses class.

The poll, released in May by the National Parents Union, surveyed roughly 1,500 public school parents around the U.S.

“They haven’t been told [chronic absenteeism] is a problem,” said Keri Rodrigues, the organization’s co-founder. “They haven’t really defined what it is for them, so they’re not seeing that this is a major issue.”

The poll, which was distributed to parents in March, showed that 16% of respondents had a child who missed six to 10 days of school during the 2023-24 school year. Another 4% said their child missed 10 to 15 days, and 3% said their child missed more than 15 days.

Still, 82% of parents said they were unsure about whether chronic absenteeism existed at their child’s school or didn’t think it was widespread.

Students are considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of school, or roughly 18 days in most districts, according to , a national nonprofit. These students are more at risk for struggling academically, falling into poverty or dropping out of high school.

Only 8% of parents surveyed said they thought their child was absent more often than most students. Harris said the Richmond district found out through its own research and discussions with families that not only were parents unaware of what chronic absenteeism was, they didn’t think their children were skipping class as much as they actually were.

“You may have a family who thinks they’ve only missed three days, but it’s actually 13,” Harris said.

In response, Harris helped launch several family engagement initiatives in the 2021-22 school year. The district created an on its website, and teachers began to make home visits to families who had absent children. So far, the district has completed more than 40,000 home visits.

Through “that building of trust, that prioritizing of relationships, we were finding out what the root causes were,” Harris said. “There were issues around health, medical needs, transportation and housing

When Richmond staff found that several families were living in motels because they couldn’t afford rental deposits, they secured grant funding to help those students get stable housing. More than 130 families have been moved to better accommodations through this program, Harris said.

The district deployed school officials to work with parents distrustful of the school system, calling them family liaisons instead of attendance officers, which implied discipline instead of cooperation. Harris created a “We Love You Here” campaign to help families feel supported instead of judged for their children’s absences. 

If the district did need to get law enforcement involved because a student’s attendance failed to improve, court hearings were held in one of Richmond’s middle schools instead of at the courthouse. 

Harris said the middle school’s gym would be filled with booths, each one offering a community resource or service.

“Instead of ordering [the families] to do something more punitive, [the judge] orders them to see every single service,” Harris said. “So they have a little card and they visit the service. Then the judge will give them a certain amount of days to improve attendance.”

The most common reason for absences in the parents’ union poll was physical illness, followed by medical or dental appointments, weather, family emergencies and vacation. When asked why they think students are chronically absent, nearly 30% of respondents said it’s because they don’t want to attend school. About 26% attributed absences to illness and 21% to parents who don’t care.

More than half of respondents — 56% — said parents should face legal consequences if their child misses too much school without an approved reason. But Rodrigues said people need to focus more on why students don’t want to come to school.

“The only thing that’s going to solve their problem in a meaningful way is getting to the reason why kids don’t want to be in the classroom,” she said. “Part of that is because of the mental health crisis and social anxiety. The other piece is that we don’t present compelling reasons for them to actually want to be there and create that [fear] that they’re going to miss something if they don’t show up every single day.”

In the poll, 11% of parents said making school more engaging or fun would improve attendance, while 8% said children should be given incentives for showing up and 6% said schools need to engage with parents more.

Harris said she feels family engagement was the biggest reason why Richmond Public Schools has improved its chronic absenteeism rate, which was at 25% during the 2022-23 school year and at the end of 2023-24 had dropped to 19%.

“If you prioritize your relationships with families and students, you’ll actually get the information you need to find out, like, what are the things that motivate them? What are the things that give them joy?” Harris said. “Families actually already know. We just have to be quiet and listen to them and help shift some of the power to them. Because they’re the experts of their children.”

The top takeaways mirror what Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff found in a 2022 survey that confirmed the ideological divide fueling the so-called culture wars — but also revealed widespread uncertainty about what students are exposed to in school. Wanting to better understand this seeming disconnect, in September and October 2023 the pair asked a nationally representative sample of 4,000 households to respond to dozens of hypothetical in-class scenarios involving race, LGBTQ topics and opt-out requests. They then correlated the answers with respondents’ more general beliefs about education.        

Nearly 9 in 10 of those surveyed say teaching basic academics is a very important purpose of public education, with smaller pluralities agreeing that protecting democracy, teaching about government and civics, and providing a free education are priorities for schools. Three-fourths prefer spending to improve the quality of public education over paying for low-income children to attend private schools.

From there, however, ideological gaps begin to appear. Teaching children the importance of embracing differences, for example, was very important to 74% of Democrats versus 35% of Republicans. And while 9 in 10 respondents want children taught to treat people equally regardless of skin color, just 14% of Republicans say it is all right to assign a lesson on U.S. policies benefiting white Americans, versus 46% of Democrats. 

The biggest partisan differences involve LGBTQ topics. Most Democrats — 80% to 86%, depending on the scenario presented — support instruction in high school, a rate that falls to 40% to 50% in lower grades. Republicans, by contrast, are comfortable with LGBTQ topics less than 40% of the time at the high school level and less than 10% in elementary school. 

The bottom line, Polikoff said in a recent interview, is that in order to find a path forward, Americans need to have more detailed conversations about what children should learn, why and when. 

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

I’m curious why you started your report with information about people’s support for education.

We really felt people’s views on the purposes of education do shape their answers to all the more detailed and specific policy questions. For instance, we asked a first broad question about the purposes of education, gave people a bunch of options for answering and asked them to rank their top three. 

It’s obvious but not obvious. The top finding when you ask these kinds of questions is almost always something about the basics of teaching children reading, writing and math. Most people, when they think of school, that is what they think of first.

But by and large, we didn’t see lots of partisan differences, except on one item of teaching children the importance of embracing differences. When we looked at the relationships between the purposes and people’s ratings on other items, we saw that that question was the most predictive. 

You found fewer divides on market forces and choice in education than one might expect, with widespread preferences for spending public money on public schools, 4 in 10 saying competition makes public schools better and a slim majority agreeing that it pushes them to make better use of resources. Why is the partisan gap less stark on these issues?

The average voter doesn’t know very much about education policy. For Republican politicians or people who are in the Republican ecosystem, school choice is their education issue. It has been for a long time, but it really is now. For the rank-and-file voter, it’s not all that salient.

On average, Republicans are somewhat more supportive of choice policies, but those gaps are not really that large because I think lots of Democrats support some of these principles, too. The idea that if your neighborhood public school is no good that you should be forced to stay there forever — it’s not a very appealing argument. And then there are lots of Republicans who like their local public schools and believe in public schools. It just doesn’t cleave very neatly, the way, you know, feelings about trans people do.

That’s a tidy segue. You used scenarios to tee up detailed questions about what, specifically, should be taught about race and LGBTQ people. Why?

In 2022, when we asked questions about LGBTQ topics in the curriculum, we asked very general questions: Should schools teach about sexual orientation? Should they teach about gender identity? But the real question on the table is, what should children be taught and when? 

This time, we tried to craft scenarios that range from very easy — meaning we think most people would be fine with them — to very difficult, meaning we think few people would be fine with them. And to cover a full range of ways in which LGBTQ topics might come up. We have stuff about sex, which is a thing Republicans like to fixate on. And then things we think might be more banal, like a teacher being gay or trans or having a pride sticker on the wall. 

There are enormous partisan differences, compared to race and sex. Gaps in support between Republicans and Democrats on these items are sometimes as large as 50 points. There’s not a single one of the 24 scenarios we asked about that include LGBTQ issues where Republicans support even high schoolers having access. Republicans are so opposed to virtually all these scenarios that something like 20 of the questions have 10% support or less.

Democrats are pretty mixed about elementary school. They support family-related items, like the teacher having a picture of their same-sex spouse on their desk or the book about same-sex penguin adoption, . But on a lot of items, majorities of Democrats aren’t in support in elementary grades, whereas at the high school level they are definitely in support of all items.

Trans-related items are the ones with the largest partisan gaps at the high school level, with Democrats still not over the moon — 67% support — but Republicans very, very opposed. 

Did you identify possibilities or opportunities for a path forward?

I would say we didn’t. But we can draw some conclusions that could inform a path forward. Respondents really seem to have read the items in our survey and thought about them because you see a big range in terms of what they support and what they oppose. That’s important information. We really do need to have a discussion about what’s age-appropriate, what parents want and kids need. And that’s probably not going to be one conversation. That’s probably going to be 50 conversations, one in each state. Or maybe 13,000 conversations, one in each district.

You can’t just say what’s right is the Republican approach, the [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis approach, which is to ban this stuff altogether, don’t talk about it at all, which is not really tenable. But the Democratic approach — which is not super clear but seems to be something like, “Let teachers do what they want and if you have concerns, you’re a bigot” — that strategy doesn’t seem to be particularly useful.

People need something to grab onto. We need some reasonable folks to propose different ways of including LGBTQ issues in the curriculum. 

The other thing our results point to is this issue of how schools actually deal with parent concerns. We asked a series of questions about that, and the one-sentence takeaway is people haven’t really thought about this. 

Parents’ right to opt their kids out is easy to support because of course parents should have that right. But the reality is, how are schools supposed to deal with the fact that, with very few exceptions, every classroom is a purple classroom, meaning it has Republican parents and Democratic parents? You could easily have people wanting to opt out on one side or people raising concerns on another and it quickly spirals into ridiculousness. How are schools supposed to deal with this? 

I’m comfortable with some reasonably constrained opt-out provisions for material that parents don’t want their kids exposed to. I think that’s not a crazy relief valve for these particularly hot-button issues. But we need to come up with policies that are actually implementable, that aren’t going to be incredibly onerous on teachers, aren’t going to have kids missing half the days of the school year, that are reasonably constrained in terms of what they allow and don’t allow.

You tested two ways of asking about opting out. What did the results tell you?

We looked at the opt-out question a few ways. We asked people what they thought were reasonable responses from parents who disagree with the content of a lesson and gave, like, 10 different options. Pretty much everyone thinks it’s reasonable to talk about these issues, to voice your disagreement either to your child or the teacher or even at a school board meeting.

There’s much more of a mix in terms of whether you think it’s appropriate to ask the teacher to change the lesson. Relatively few people think that more extreme examples, like un-enrolling your child from the school or organizing a protest, are reasonable responses. 

We asked a question about how people think schools should react when parents express concern. Again, we found that people don’t really have a great answer, because once you start to get down to brass tacks about how you’re going to handle these, it gets really complicated really fast. 

Democrats are more likely to say the school should teach the lesson as planned if a parent objects, but not even a majority of Democrats — only 48%. We asked how, if multiple parents disagree, should the school make a decision? Again, we got a lot of mixed answers. Mostly, though, people say educators or school boards should be the final deciders on these issues.

Then we did this cool little experiment. We wanted to see whether we could affect people’s views about opt-out by giving them some information about what the potential impact could be. So we randomly split the sample and gave half of them a paragraph with a little scenario that said the teacher believes all students should participate because learning about content they might not otherwise hear helps them see a new perspective, learn to be a critical thinker or simply learn a new important fact. And it can be hard for a teacher to accommodate every parent’s wishes for every lesson for every child.

And then we asked people who did and did not get that paragraph whether they supported opting out. We saw that exposure to an argument about the potential negative effects of opt-out actually pretty substantially reduced people’s support for opting out.

What I think this tells us is not about the specific language of that proposal, but that this is an issue where people’s minds aren’t 100% made up. Supposing a school had an opt-out policy and gave parents messages about why they think that, “Yes, you can opt your kids out, but we don’t think that’s a great idea for XYZ reasons” — that actually would affect people’s actions. 

People’s views on this are pretty malleable. And people haven’t really thought through the practical consequences. So there is potential to shape attitudes and actions.

It reminds me of the retrenchment that LGBTQ advocates did , where in 2009 voters overturned a law allowing gays and lesbians to marry. To prepare for the 2012 vote that re-legalized same-sex marriage, social scientists figured out that framing the issue as one of rights did not move the needle. But asking a prospective voter, “What does your marriage mean to you?” actually changed the conversation.

Republicans are really good at message discipline and Democrats are not. These are not like sure-thing issues — especially on trans issues. A lot of people don’t understand trans issues and are uncomfortable with them. A lot of people are uncomfortable with having to use different pronouns and things like that.

I’m a real believer that there are ways that you can change people’s attitudes based on how you talk about things. I think the strategy of, “if you don’t do things perfectly then we’re going to ostracize you and call you a bigot” — that’s not a winning strategy. You need to change hearts and minds. 

We did it with same-sex marriage for the most part, though you know lots of Republicans are still opposed to that. But we won the policy battle, at least for now. And I think that we can do that on some of these LGBT- and race-related issues in schools. But again, it’s not clear.

There are arguments you can make on some of these topics where it’s not clear there’s a right answer. Another example would be schools getting information about a child and hiding that from the child’s parents. That’s an issue where I certainly can understand why schools might feel the need to do that. At the same time, I can understand why parents will be very upset If they learned that that was happening. There’s just lots to unpack here.

But to get back to your question, yes, the messaging clearly matters. You need to figure out what messages are resonating with people, what arguments will work to persuade them. I’m sure they exist.

Latino students make up nearly three-quarters of the LAUSD student population.

But Carvalho’s 100-day plan, which promised to narrow academic achievement gaps and increase community engagement, has fallen short for some Latino parents. 

Five members of Parent Warriors, an advocacy group that is part of Families In Schools, spoke about unprecedented challenges, their eagerness for parent engagement, and Carvalho’s future — which they hope prioritizes a seat at the table for them. 

Parent Warriors members:

• Lissette Duarte, parent of a graduate and current LAUSD student.
• Raquel Toscano, parent of a graduate and current student at an LAUSD school.
• Sonia Gonzalez, parent of two students attending a charter school in Los Angeles  
• Mireya Pacheco, parent of a college student and two students attending a charter school in Los Angeles. 
• Monica Martinez, parent of five graduate and current LAUSD students. Her grandchildren also attend LAUSD schools.
• Sandy Mendoza, Director of Community Engagement and Advocacy for United Way of Greater Los Angeles

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

As a parent, do you feel superintendent Carvalho is promoting parent engagement across the district?

Duarte: I had really high hopes for him because he was a teacher and then an assistant principal and then a superintendent that was able to turn around Miami-Dade schools during a recession. And so I was like, wow, this is going to be a really great superintendent for us. But I don’t see that we’ve addressed the widening gaps in proficiency. 

Toscano: He started with the 100-day plan, but I feel that it’s too much on his plate…. I feel that the communication is still not as clear as I would want it to be…As he said, I feel we can come together and work together. But I still think that there’s a gap between all of us. I still feel that even being part of these committees…there’s still no connection. 

Gonzalez: So being a charter school parent, I have yet to see any outreach to charter school parents…what I know about the superintendent has been what comes through news…and things I’ve seen on the internet.  

Martinez: I think it’s a lack of communication because they talk about projects and bring them to the Board of Education but we’re not seeing it in the schools.  

Pacheco: When Mr. Carvalho came to the community, honestly, I didn’t see an invitation to speak to him closely…it was disappointing…I can tell you that I was expecting more. There’s a lack of communication. There’s a lot to be done. 

What has been the most challenging issue you have faced with your child’s education this past year or this school year?

Pacheco: There have been threats using Instagram threats for certain schools. The threat said we’re going to attack and then the school said, no, it was so-and-so. It was a child from the school making a joke…It’s very concerning… for them to not feel safe in the schools. 

Toscano: I feel that we’re failing them. There’s lots we can do but if Carvalho would take a minute to listen to all of us, we all have a story… and it’s just frustrating…There are lots of voices, but we haven’t been heard. 

Duarte: We have a critical issue with the achievement gap and loss of learning. There are around 1100 schools in LAUSD. We’re the second-largest school district in the country. We have nearly 9000 homeless students and about 84% of the students are living below the poverty level. 

How did the three-day strike by school workers affect your family? How do you feel about these strikes, like the teachers’ one a couple of years ago happening during the school year, and what preparations should be implemented?

Gonzalez: …many parents…are just really tired of having the strike used because ultimately nobody’s there to protect the children. Nobody’s there to take care of the missed days.

Martinez: In one way or another, they’re already behind academically… And I don’t want to say anything wrong about teachers. I’m so glad they received their increase. But our children…where is that balance? 

Toscano: My question was, do we really need it? Obviously, I’m for it. They need to get paid. They have families to support… There has to be a different way of negotiating. I think we parents need to be at this negotiation table.  

In terms of college and career readiness, how would you rate LAUSD on its ability to prepare students for college and its ability to help students navigate through the college/career process?

Duarte: They’re not properly preparing students and there isn’t enough support… because …especially with very large campuses, there’s probably only one college counselor. There’s no way to meet the need of getting the FAFSA done or linking them to those services and supports in a timely manner.

Martinez: They don’t have enough staff. The parents do not all have the opportunity to learn to be able to guide their children…And when they graduate, basically go to college blind. 

Gonzalez: There are a lot of good organizations out there that can be brought into the LAUSD school district to help them. The reality is the budgets can’t afford it. 

I’d like to give you this time to speak about the overall rate you give to superintendent Carvalho’s work in his first year in office and also to speak about the issue you care about the most.

Duarte: For me, I’d like to see him focus on a kid first agenda like Students First and allow for collaboration.

Pacheco: What I’d like to add is…Mr. Carvalho, please don’t forget that our children come first… Do not forget that they’re our priority. We will get old and they will continue living in this world.

This article is part of a collaboration between ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Conducted by Tyton Partners, an investment banking and consulting firm that examines pandemic-related shifts in education, and funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Trust, the was released Oct. 26.

It comes after parents had courtside seats to various aspects of their children’s learning during the pandemic, prompting many — from myriad backgrounds and political affiliations — to push for change.

“What we’re hearing from parents loud and clear is they feel a greater sense of ownership over their child’s education,” said Christian Lehr, a senior principal in Tyton’s strategy consulting practice. “The last two years have been incredibly difficult. Now, parents are actively searching for new experiences that will deliver on academic promises, yes, but also bring joy and delight.” 

Fifty-nine percent of participants said their educational preferences changed post-pandemic: 51% said personal interest and needs should drive a child’s education rather than grade-level requirements. 

Nearly 80% said learning can and should happen anywhere. 

Some parent groups, frustrated by underperforming schools, have advocated for the types of change they feel will propel children of color and other marginalized groups. Many don’t have a political agenda while others are openly partisan: Conservative parents are driving change from within the public school system, pushing for certain texts — often those that concern issues of race and gender — to be pulled from the classroom. Left-leaning suburban families against this trend. 

Others still, unhappy with districts’ remote learning options during the pandemic, entirely. And while some have returned to campus, virtual school enrollment figures remain high. 

Survey results also reveal that children from underserved backgrounds — a family who identified in the survey with at least two of the following: low-income, Black, Latino, Indigenous and with first-generation college-goers — are less likely than their peers to attend private schools or engage in learning beyond their typical school day. Thirty-eight percent of the 739 respondents in this category indicated they did not participate in any “out-of-school” learning experiences compared to 24% of their peers. 

Just 20% of underserved children attended camp compared to 32% of other students: Likewise, only 9% had private tutors compared to 14% of the remainder.

“Unfortunately, not all families can live out their K-12 aspirations,” Lehr said. “Too many parents are stuck. We must work hard to connect families with a broader set of learning opportunities and provide them the resources and tools necessary to take action.”

The survey included roughly 80 questions but respondents, each of whom had at least one child in grades K-12, didn’t answer all of them: The questions were dependent on previous answers and each took participants down a different path. 

Lakisha Young, executive director of The Oakland REACH, a parent-run group that empowers families from underserved communities to demand high-quality schools, said her organization was born out of frustration. 

On the 2022 California , 65% of Oakland Unified School District students failed to meet grade-level standards in English and 74% missed the mark in math. The roughly 35,500-student district has been failing children for generations, said Young, who reasons students wouldn’t fare so poorly if administrators were capable of improving outcomes without assistance. 

“We exist out of a problem,” said Young, who has three children, her eldest a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College. “And we have to do everything we can to address it.”

The Oakland REACH, which got its start in 2016, launched an online family literacy hub during the pandemic that provides students with research-based reading instruction. 

The group is also working to recruit dozens of parents and other community members to serve as tutors for reading and math, helping them land paid jobs within the school district that not only support students but lift up families. 

“They resemble our kids, and come from similar neighborhoods,” Young said of the tutors. “Our model builds the assets already in the community.”

The Oakland REACH, which has plans to replicate its programs across the state and nation, has caught the attention of major education philanthropists, including MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who recently donated $3 million and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which earlier gave . It’s among 31 education nonprofits that will split $10 million in funding from Accelerate, a new venture launched this year by America Achieves to ensure that all students have access to free, effective tutoring.

Tyton also gathered information from more than 150 K-12 suppliers who serve children in and out of school. It advises the K-12 community to be parent centric and consider the availability, affordability and accessibility of the programs they offer — and communicate these offerings to parents. 

To that end, policymakers and those working in education can develop online platforms and provide guidance for families to navigate their local K-12 ecosystem, it said. Suppliers of student programs, the report found, can increase capacity to serve more children — and funders can help them grow. 

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Stand Together Trust provide financial support to ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ.

A newly formed coalition of Oakland parents, who say they are fed up with the state of their kids’ public school education, plan to present a resolution Thursday night that could give them a seat at the table during the Oakland Unified School District’s negotiations with the teachers union.

This coalition is made up of two parent groups: CA Parent Power, composed of typically more white and affluent families in Hills schools, and The Oakland REACH, which advocates for Black and Latino families from the city’s flatlands.

“When you think about the piss-poor education outcomes of our kids, the parents that we believe need to be most at the table are the parents who want to be at the table in a meaningful way,” said Lakisha Young, one of the parents calling for the resolution and the founder of The Oakland REACH.

The resolution asks the school board to allow families a chance for meaningful input on all labor agreement proposals, including collective bargaining agreements and memoranda of understanding.

Those negotiations are just getting underway this week as the current contract ends Oct. 31.

Gary Yee, president of the Oakland Unified School District board, said in an interview he is inclined to put the resolution on the agenda for full board discussion. 

Yee said the board should consider the parents’ request after 2½ years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that had them helping teach kids from home and working to keep them safe at school.

“The pandemic awakened a generation of parents to the awful reality that student outcomes in California, and especially in districts like Oakland, have been poor for decades,” said Megan Bacigalupi, a founder of the CA Parent Power group, in an emailed statement.

Both the district and the teachers union would have to agree to parents’ participation in the bargaining process, according to Felix de la Torre, general counsel with the California Public Employment Relations Board. Neither the school district nor the Oakland Education Association has commented on the parents’ proposal yet.

There is a phase of the negotiating process called sunshining that does allow for public participation. During this period of time, the union and the district each decide what issues they want to bargain over and disclose those to each other. 

Under state labor laws, the public can have a say in sunshining when both sides present their negotiating topics to the public during school board meetings, a time when the public has a chance to comment. 

In a statement, the California School Boards Association called parent participation “a negotiable item and possible if both parties accept that condition. At the same time, no individual party can unilaterally include parents, nor can parents insist on attending negotiations independent of an agreement between the district and union to do so.”

The new parent coalition is pushing for official support from the district to bring informed parents into the sunshining phase of negotiations, claiming there is a lack of transparency leaving parents in the dark and unable to take advantage of the moments when they can, in fact, legally have a say. 

These parents serve different constituents — but are coming together for this common goal.

“Given our partnership in coalition with the families in the Hills, they need the bridge created as well,” Young said.

Young started The Oakland REACH in 2016, to empower Black and Latino parents to advocate for their children. During the pandemic, fearful that flatlands kids were being left behind in distance learning, Young’s group began offering tutoring and classes that

CA Parent Power, led by Megan Bacigalupi, began in 2020 in response to what some families perceived as a slow response to reopening of schools during the pandemic, and was largely critical of teachers at the time.

Both groups share a distrust in the ability of the teachers union and the Oakland school district to represent their children’s interests during contract negotiations. They point to a long-term failure of Oakland Unified to improve student reading outcomes — of Oakland students are reading below standard, and in math, 70.9% are below grade-level standards.

Keta Brown, another Oakland REACH parent, has looked at the language around the collective bargaining agreement, and she doesn’t see “kids” mentioned.

“You got to make certain that the consumer, which is these babies, are a part of your process and that you are keeping them at the forefront,” said Brown, who lives in an area of East Oakland where her neighborhood schools have dismal math and reading scores. (She said she’s lucky she got her daughter into Edna Brewer Middle School, one of the district’s stronger middle schools. She commutes 25 minutes each way to get her child to and from school.) 

The Oakland Educators Association has long made the case that when it negotiates on behalf of teachers to increase pay and improve working conditions, it is in fact advocating for students. Research a quality teacher in a classroom is the strongest predictor of student success. The Oakland Unified district’s strategic plan is currently focused on improving student literacy and teacher quality and diversity. 

But for some families that have experienced failure over generations and don’t want to wait any longer for meaningful change, they want to be able to better understand and hopefully shape the next three-year contract that they say will affect their kids’ education.

This article originally appeared at , a community-supported public media newsroom based in San Francisco.

Kangro, unsure if LAUSD would reopen schools, made the move despite having a particular love for the local LA Unified schools in her quaint Mar Vista neighborhood.

“We love the specific teachers at our LAUSD school, but no one was standing up for our kids. So we went to a charter school and it’s nice because they don’t have to deal with all of this,” Kangro told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ referring to .

More than one in four California parents have switched their child’s school during the pandemic with most transferring from traditional public to charter schools, according to the .

The poll found a higher percentage of school switches among Democrats, white parents, families with English as a primary language and households earning more than $150,000 per year.

The annual poll, conducted by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education, surveyed 2,000 registered California voters, including 500 parents, on their opinions and priorities for public education. 

The poll’s analysis on school switches attempts to understand what contributed to the historic 4.6% student enrollment decline – or more than 270,000 students statewide.

Among parents surveyed that switched their child’s school, the 52% that originally attended traditional public schools dropped to 41% – an 11 percentage point decline. In contrast, the 15% that attended charter schools grew to 23% – an 8 percentage point increase.

This comes as 71% of parents surveyed supported charter schools – a 15 percentage point increase from 2020 to 2022.

“The public school system needs to figure out what’s driving these decisions because without enrollment there’s no money and that’s a problem,” said Morgan Polikoff, associate professor of education at the University of Southern California and co-author of the poll.

38% of parents decided to switch schools because they wanted a different educational experience for their children. The poll also found 31% of parents dissatisfied with COVID-related safety measures at their childrens’ school and 30% dissatisfied with mental health support or one-on-one learning help.

“In this current era where there are other school options, what we’re seeing is parents exercising their frustration by making these choices,” Polikoff told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ. 

Here are stories from four parents why they changed their child’s school during the pandemic:

Carrie Kangro

As Kangro’s son graduated from Beethoven Street Elementary School in the spring of 2021, she wasn’t convinced LA Unified schools would open up in time for his transition to middle school.

Kangro now drives her son to WISH Charter Middle School a few miles away from their Mar Vista neighborhood.

“I would have gone to our local school happily had this all not happened,” Kangro said.

Despite supporting traditional public schools, Kangro lost confidence in LAUSD due to the demands and the political turmoil with United Teachers Los Angeles.

“UTLA was keeping schools closed as bargaining chips to get other things they wanted,” Kangro said. “Granted, teachers do need better pay, smaller classes and the whole laundry list of things they’ve been fighting for and I’m behind them on that. But it was just the wrong time and they sacrificed our kids’ mental health.” A UTLA spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. 

Despite all the chaos, Kangro plans to re-enroll her son back to an LA Unified school.

“My kids have grown up walking to their preschool and elementary school,” Kangro said. “Even though I love WISH [Charter Middle School], being in our community is even more important than all the gripes I have about LAUSD.”

Tanisha Hall

Like Kangro, Tanisha Hall switched her oldest daughter’s school from a traditional public school to a charter school.

Hall, a foster parent in South LA, moved Cassandra, now 18, out of George Washington Preparatory High School after challenges with teachers and administrators during the pandemic in 2020.

“She’s an IEP student and was not receiving any of the services or additional support she was supposed to receive from her teachers,” Hall said.

Hall also felt the teachers weren’t providing a supportive learning experience for her daughter.

“The teachers there had an attitude. Even if the kids have an attitude too, it’s your job to defuse that and still educate that child,” Hall said. “Especially being a foster parent, you don’t know what my children are dealing with and their emotional issues.”

As a result, Hall transferred her daughter to iLEAD Online Public Charter School midway through the academic year in the spring of 2021. 

“I’m a huge champion for public schools, but most of the homeowners in this area don’t send their kids there and that’s why they have low enrollment and low funding,” Hall said. “You also have people who work in these schools that aren’t getting paid a living wage, so I’m not blaming the teachers for their attitudes. However, the problems they face have an effect on how they address the kids.”

Erica Meyrich-Pinciss

Erica Meyrich-Pinciss also transferred her son out of LAUSD and moved to Hermosa Beach, a beachside city in Los Angeles County with its own public school district.

Prior to their move, Meyrich-Pinciss said Barrett, now 6, diagnosed with Sotos syndrome, which causes developmental delays, had difficulty getting the services and one-on-one support her son needed when he attended kindergarten at Grand View Boulevard Elementary School.

“Being around other kids even though they had different abilities is good for my son so distance learning was not what he needed,” she said.

At Grand View Boulevard Elementary School, Meyrich-Pinciss found her son placed in the wrong class setting.

“He was in a multiple disability program where he wouldn’t be around typical children,” Meyrich-Pinciss said. “I was just really angry because he understands things and it was clear that he needed to be on an academic track, but they didn’t want to give him an aid so they shoved him in there.”

Meyrich-Pinciss’ son now attends Hermosa View Elementary School.

“You had to fight tooth and nail to get anything out of [LAUSD],” Meyrich-Pinciss said. “But at Hermosa [View Elementary School], they want to see him thrive. It’s important to them and they actually care about the children.”

Lauren Phillips

Like Meyrich-Pinciss, Lauren Phillips transferred her daughter out of LAUSD and moved to El Segundo, another beachside city in Los Angeles County with their own public school district.

When Lola, now 7, attended kindergarten at Kentwood Elementary School in the spring of 2020, Phillips balanced work obligations during the pandemic while overseeing her daughter’s online learning — a huge strain.

“We were really excited about starting school but obviously it was Zoom from home,” Phillips said. “It got tiresome just because I wasn’t working from home, I was going into the office. So for me, I was ready to send my daughter back.”

However, LAUSD’s COVID-19 reopening strategy later in the academic year did not provide Phillips and her daughter the sufficient in-person learning experience they were hoping for.

“In April [2021], my daughter got to go back to school but they didn’t tell us until the day before that our teacher wouldn’t return and that she’d Zoom from home,” Phillips said. “I was already in a situation where I was worried about how to get my daughter there and how to pick her up for just three hours a day. So I was disappointed that she was going to still be doing Zoom but in the classroom.”

Because of this, Phillips asked Kentwood Elementary School if her daughter could return to fully remote learning but was met with an inadequate response.

“The principal at the time said that they couldn’t accommodate us on Zoom and that I needed to wait two weeks,” Phillips said. “I didn’t understand why we had to wait when there’s ample room online. It’s not like we were doing the reverse where the school had to physically fit a kid in a classroom. So I decided at that time we were going to pull her out of LAUSD and we never went back.”

Phillips’ daughter now attends Center Street Elementary School.

“[LAUSD] is too big of a school district and there’s too many children with too many different needs,” Phillips said. “We wanted to feel like we weren’t just a number in a system.”

A spokesperson for LAUSD said the district: “is continuing to focus on the long-term sustainability…through budgetary, programmatic and human resources strategies…Based on current year enrollment, we are seeing improvements, demonstrating that students are returning to in-person learning because families are recognizing all of our efforts to ensure students are provided safe learning environments and quality in-person instruction.”

ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ and the Progressive Policy Institute recently convened an expert panel discussion about the upcoming election, particularly as it applies to the question of education priorities and parent voice. 

Curtis Valentine of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project tossed questions to T. Willard Fair of the National Urban League of Miami; Alisha Thomas Searcy, Democratic nominee for Georgia state superintendent; Christy Moreno of the National Parents Union; and PPI President Will Marshall.

Explore recent coverage of the intersection of education and politics from ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ: 

• ‘Like a Gut Punch’: Advocates Reel as Manchin Compromise Abandons Pre-K

• Rash of New Polls Raises Red Flags for Democrats on Education

• Ed Dept. Launches ‘Unprecedented’ Parent Council

• Young Republicans, Old Democrats: Poll Points to Stark Generation Gaps on School Choice, Teachers’ Unions