With this toxic stew of factors both internal and external, I fear America may be entering a dangerous period for K-12 public education, with an increased risk of corruption and malfeasance.

Look at what鈥檚 happening in Illinois. The state Board of Education recently voted to for the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, the standardized test used in the public schools. The result: 53% of students will now be judged to be proficient in reading, rather than 38%. It appears to be a blatant effort to lower standards in order to make the public schools in Illinois look better.

The board claims that it has to do this, because so many of those students are going on to college despite falling short of proficiency. But talk to anyone who works with incoming university freshmen and you will realize that, in the current era, college enrollment is of college readiness.

The K-12 school system is embattled: Enrollment just keep coming, and public support is at an . Since the pandemic, has gone from stagnant to declining, especially when compared with that of other wealthy countries. Many districts have unfunded pension plans that will add even more financial strain. And the current workforce, especially in the big urban districts, is about the future of public education.

K-12 districts are largely controlled by local politicians 鈥� school board members 鈥� who often have strong incentives to keep powerful interest groups happy in the short term, whether they are parent organizations or union leaders, instead of making difficult decisions that would protect their school system’s long-term integrity. These include closing schools, reducing administrative positions or redrawing (or eliminating) attendance zone lines. These board members control hundreds of in taxpayer funding every year and what may be over a trillion dollars worth of underutilized real estate assets.

This is a powder keg of risk with vast amounts of money at stake, not to mention the public trust and the educational opportunities of a generation of children.

Adding to the problem, local journalism has deteriorated in the last two decades, as newspapers around the country have gone out of business or cut their news desks. The education beat seems to have . What鈥檚 more, after being gutted by the Trump administration, it鈥檚 unlikely that the federal Department of Education is going to be able to play much of a watchdog role in coming years.

The legal oversight of the public schools mainly falls to state legislatures. But most Republican lawmakers have other fish to fry, focusing on culture war issues and giving families escape routes from the system in the form of tax credit scholarships or educational savings accounts.

Democrats, reeling from recent electoral losses and paralyzed by internal divisions, are reluctant to even acknowledge the potential for bad behavior in the school system, as the public districts and their unions are a tremendous store of political power for them 鈥� even in red states. As Dana Goldstein in The New York Times, 鈥淒emocrats, for their part, often find themselves standing up for a status quo that seems to satisfy no one.鈥�

As a result, powerful interest groups can often exert their influence over the system and extract special privileges or take advantage of wasteful spending. Here are just a handful of recent stories, many of which received little to no coverage in the mainstream press:

• In Chicago, the district , which could be worth tens of millions of dollars. But, in a classic case of anti-competitive behavior, the district prohibits future owners from operating charter schools there, meaning the properties will go for millions below their true market value. 鈥淥ur goal is not to sell them for the highest dollar amount,鈥� admits a district spokesperson.

• In New Jersey, the state teachers union to fund the gubernatorial campaign of a candidate 鈥� the union’s president 鈥� who finishes fifth in the Democratic primary.
  
• In Tampa, the district , a failing school serving African-American students. The nearest school for many of these families is A-rated Gorrie Elementary, which primarily serves wealthy white families. But not one of the Just students is allowed to enroll in Gorrie, instead getting bused to C-rated schools farther from their homes.
  
• In Los Angeles, the district spends to increase permanent capacity at Ivanhoe Elementary School, one of the most coveted in the district, despite thousands of empty seats in schools just five to six minutes away.

• Outside Sacramento, the Center Joint Unified School District fights efforts of local families to be allowed to that is just blocks from their home, because the district fears losing funding if its archaic district boundaries are redrawn.聽

Strong investigative journalists are needed to step into this void, for there will be important stories to tell. Nonprofit watchdogs, like my organization, Available to All, will play a role, too.

Most importantly, state legislators need to step up their oversight of local districts. Legislators need to ensure they do not lower our academic standards to make their schools look better. There also need to be strong transparency laws, and districts should be subject to external audits of their financials and real estate holdings.

Public education can survive the current crisis and emerge stronger than ever, but only if those of us who believe in public education work together to ensure that trust in the system is restored.

With the Minneapolis teacher walkout settled, the eyes of the education world turn to Sacramento, where teachers and support employees unions have been on strike since March 23.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association is the of the California Teachers Association鈥檚 981 local affiliates. Its demand for increased hiring is meant to address more than school district staffing shortages. CTA locals all across California have been losing members for four years, and COVID only made things worse.

According to the union鈥檚 latest internal figures, the number of active members 鈥� those working in the state鈥檚 public schools 鈥� fell to 293,548, more than 35,000 fewer than the union鈥檚 high-water mark in 2018. Losses were felt in every region of the state and included all categories: K-12 teachers, education support employees and higher education faculty.

Some of the more recent losses can be explained by the effects of the COVID pandemic and school closures over the past two years. But the union鈥檚 membership losses went beyond school staffing declines.

As of Feb. 29, 2020, two weeks before the first school closures in California, membership stood at 304,509. The union also tracks non-members, eligible school employees who have decided not to join. In February 2020, more than 28,000 workers, or 8.5 percent of the total, fell into this category.

Almost two years later, the number of non-members grew to more than 34,000, or 10.4 percent. Put another way, there were 5,000 fewer employees available to recruit, but the union ended up with 11,000 fewer members. At least in California, the union member exodus exceeded that of the much talked-about teacher exodus.

Related to its overall membership concerns, the union reviewed the work of its charter school task force. This internal committee was formed to develop and propose regulations for charter schools, unionize charter school employees and help them negotiate their first contracts. The committee reported that it has aided in unionizing 3,200 employees at 94 charter schools since 2014.

One can question how much of an achievement this is. California has, at last count, 1,351 charter schools, meaning the unionized ones constitute just under 7 percent of the total.

Despite its membership losses, the union doesn鈥檛 seem to be suffering much financial pain. It expects more than $212 million in income this year, most of it from annual dues of $753 per member. Much of it goes into various political activism pots.

The union has $2.8 million in its statewide candidate political action committee, $3.8 million in its media fund, $4.8 million in its independent expenditures fund, $12.8 million in its advocacy fund and $26.1 million in its ballot initiative fund. It appears this last fund will sit quietly for another year, as signature-gathering has ceased for all the ballot initiatives the union was preparing to fight.

In total, that鈥檚 more than $50 million designated to influence both legislators and the public to adopt the union鈥檚 agenda or embrace its viewpoint. That money is at work in Sacramento even when teachers are not.

Of course, the answer is pursuing all of the above. But what I鈥檝e found as leader of a charter school system in a disadvantaged urban area is that another key to success is alignment. There鈥檚 no doubt that teachers are on the front lines every day, playing a pivotal role in a student鈥檚 academic journey. And there鈥檚 no doubt that schools need adequate instructional resources, fair funding and effective training. But it鈥檚 also important to take a higher-level view of how teachers, grade levels, curricula and academic focus areas are, or are not, working together coherently.

I have been focused for the past three years on alignment as a core strategy for closing the achievement gap, and I鈥檓 seeing remarkable results in the low-income, minority students who dominate the makeup of our schools in the St. Hope system.

By alignment, we mean coordination in curriculum, teacher and student expectations, and whole-child support.

When curriculum across teachers and grades is aligned, there are consistent expectations that students can adhere to. Creating vertical alignment between grades drives academic success as lesson plans are developed not only to teach at grade level but also to ensure that students are mastering foundational skills that will be needed for the grade above and beyond. When teams are aligned, teachers are not just teaching in classrooms, or even in their schools. Instead, they teach in a network where everyone works cohesively together and focuses on how to support their scholars throughout their entire journey, from transitional kindergarten (for children who don鈥檛 meet the age cutoff for kindergarten) to 12th grade to college admission. Students can depend on consistent teaching styles, communication methods and expectations for behavior inside and outside the classroom year after year. This cohesive culture helps create an express highway for students who have fallen behind to be able to receive the support they need to close the gap and excel quickly in the classroom.

Alignment in curriculum and among teaching teams is achieved through effective professional development. This means taking the time needed with teachers to plan coherent curricula that transition smoothly across grades and to foster a collaborative work environment with consistent expectations and support across grades and schools.

Alignment in expectations means believing that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background, family situation or previous academic or behavior challenges, are capable of success. It means instilling in students at an early age that they have the potential to go to and through college. Simply put, there are no excuses 鈥� just because a child does not have the same at-home support or resources as others does not mean that he or she should be held to lower academic expectations. What it does mean is that teachers and school administrators need to ensure that each child is supported. This may come in the form of afterschool tutoring, small-group instruction and a greater emphasis on whole-child support.

When students have poor oral health, lack proper nutrition or suffer from mental health issues, their academic success is jeopardized. That鈥檚 why wraparound services, such as mobile dental clinics and eye exams, are critical. By serving as a family extension for students, ensuring they are physically and emotionally healthy, and teaching them life skills, my network gives students the resources to handle our demands for academic excellence and our refusal to settle for mediocrity.

The data show that alignment works. St. Hope schools have a very high percentage of minority and disadvantaged students, a population that traditionally tests below regional or state averages. Yet our standardized exam scores are higher than district averages in many categories. Our students come into our schools far below grade level but rapidly catch up. For example, our fifth-graders, who tested at 9 percent in math (compared with 25 percent for the district average), were testing at 48 percent (compared with a district average of 32 percent) by eighth grade. In contrast, the overall district scores for students moving through grade levels increased only a few percentage points rather than showing dramatic or rapid improvement.

For disadvantaged students, the results are even more striking. When looking specifically at how African-American students from low socioeconomic backgrounds performed on the statewide English test, St. Hope鈥檚 Sac High scholars scored 68 percent, compared with only 21 percent districtwide.

We have tripled the number of Sac High scholars on grade level in math and nearly doubled the number of scholars on grade level in English. At the same time, our suspension rates have dropped significantly, going from 22.7 percent to 9 percent for our elementary school, 22.6 percent to 18.7 percent for middle school and 18 percent to 12 percent for high school. What鈥檚 more, 96 percent of Sac High students were accepted into four-year colleges in 2019.

By focusing on and prioritizing alignment, we鈥檝e put in place systems that create consistency and cohesiveness, and we provide whole-child support so we can push our scholars to do their best. Alignment has enabled us to instill in all our scholars that a propensity for classroom achievement is not something they are born with, but rather that academic excellence, college readiness and future career success is something that is learned and earned.

Kari Wehrly is chief of schools for PS7 Elementary School, PS7 Middle School and Sacramento Charter High School, part of the St. Hope system in Sacramento, California.