Education debates over school control, funding, test scores, and NAEP

Do state takeovers of school districts work?

There’s good evidence that prior takeovers have not improved students’ performance, on average. A detailed study examining 45 takeovers undertaken between 2010 and 2018 found that, if anything, test scores inched slightly downward afterwards. “I find no evidence that state takeover improves student academic achievement over the long run,” wrote Stanford professor Beth Schueler.

These results are especially striking since states increased funding for districts that were taken over. One silver lining: Takeover has in some cases improved districts’ fiscal solvency. There are also instances, including in New Orleans and Lawrence, Massachusetts, where takeovers have succeeded academically. Houston’s test scores have risen since it was recently taken over.

But the overall track record suggests that, at least historically, state leaders are no better at running schools than local officials — even in places that have been identified as needing intervention. 

Join us for our event this week: “returning education to the states”

I’ll be in conversation with two state education chiefs, from Indiana and Rhode Island, about the Trump administration’s promise to “return education to the states.” I’ll be trying to understand whether and how the convulsive federal policy shifts have trickled down into classrooms. Sign up to attend this Thursday from 1-1:45 ET.

A surprising defender of (some) federal education programs

Speaking of which, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in recent Senate testimony that “shifting authority back to the states will not come at the expense of essential federal support and programs.” She also touted an administration proposal to modestly increase funding for IDEA, the law supporting students with disabilities. The fact that a Republican administration is touting the biggest federal education programs as “essential” is striking.

Still, the administration is proposing cuts of billions of dollars from smaller, less high-profile education programs, including money for education research, teacher professional development, and after-school programs. 

The politics of school funding

Meanwhile, the administration’s message — that it’s seeking to reduce federal involvement rather than funding — may not be breaking through to regular people, as evidenced by a recent New York Times focus group. “I feel like [Trump] just defunded a lot of the education systems, the schools,” said one independent voter who voted for Trump in 2024.

The administration has generally not cut school budgets, although they’ve tried to in a number of instances. The problem officials face is that “closing the Education Department” sounds to some like “defunding education.”

When proficiency measures mislead

A debate broke out recently among education wonks about an age-old topic: whether schools should be judged on student growth or overall proficiency. See perspectives from Jill Barshay and Mike Petrilli.

One particular study came to mind for me: It looked at what happened when students from low-income areas in Chicago opted to enroll in highly selective magnet schools, as compared to the Noble charter school network. To simplify a complex paper, it found that despite the high overall test scores of the magnet schools, many students would have been better off attending a Noble school, which has a track record of producing learning gains. 

This suggests that growth measures are not just an abstract fascination of wonks, but can genuinely help determine where students are more or less likely to get a good education. As we recently covered here, policymakers can disseminate better information, which parents seem to appreciate.

Which states have lost the most students

The Education Department recently published a revealing map showing enrollment trends by state between 2014 and 2024. What caught my eye was the fact that Mississippi has lost the second most students (behind only West Virginia).

The state has been heralded, largely deservedly, for its substantial gains on math and reading tests during that period. My takeaway is that state-level enrollment shifts probably aren’t driven by school quality, but factors like birth rates, immigration, costs, and the economy.

The price of small schools

Because of enrollment declines, school systems have a growing number of very small schools, which tend to cost more to operate. The latest example comes from Chicago, as shown in a story by Chalkbeat’s Mila Koumpilova. The city’s small high schools receive more than twice as much funding per student as larger schools. Other factors beyond size, like student poverty rates, may explain some of this gap.

The problem with 12th grade NAEP

The board that sets policy for the widely cited federal NAEP test recently announced it would begin breaking down 12th grade math and reading tests by state (for those that choose to participate).

As a wonk, I’m usually glad to have more data, but in this case I’m not so sure. The 12th grade scores have long come with a large asterisk: Tests are not given to students who have dropped out of school by senior year. This creates a particular problem when comparing scores over time if dropout rates have changed, which they have. NAEP officials have acknowledged this issue in 2014, 2022, and just last year.

This will likely make it difficult to meaningfully compare 12th grade scores across states. States with higher dropout rates will presumably look better because some of their lower-performing students are not in the testing sample.

I asked the NAEP board for comment on this. Vice chair and Harvard professor Marty West agreed this issue could complicate comparisons of scores between states. “These continue to be interesting questions for [the board] that we intend to explore further,” he wrote.

The state of education journalism 

I recently spoke about this in a Q&A with Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. In my view, the biggest challenge facing education journalism right now is the simple fact that there are far fewer reporters covering local school systems than there used to be. That’s bad for those communities, as well as for the national conversation. You can read our full conversation here.

Real estate agents and schools

The Trump administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development recently issued guidance saying that real estate agents are free to discuss local school quality with prospective buyers. Previously many have interpreted the Fair Housing Act to limit such discussions to avoid potentially steering buyers based on race. 

I’m not sure this change will have much of a practical effect, however. Real estate sites and agents have often outsourced their school advice to third-party sites like GreatSchools. The site’s ratings have been correlated with the racial makeup of student bodies, although GreatSchools said a while back it had made changes to reduce the link.

With costs rising and federal pandemic aid entirely gone, school districts across the country are facing budget cuts. 

The Supreme Court recently limited part of the Voting Rights Act. This could affect school board voting districts created to represent the views of minority voters.

Colorado briefly funded a “public Christian school” — but it recently closed after a state law that limits its operations. Backers initially hoped to use the school as a legal test case.