K-12 Education

What Would Bayard Rustin Do? Part 1

Our guest author is Eric Chenoweth, co-director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE) and the principal author of Democracy Web, a civics education curricular resource project of the Albert Shanker Institute.

A new exhibition at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, “The Life of Bayard Rustin: Speaking Truth to Power,” shines a light on Rustin’s central work in the Civil Rights Movement and his contributions to the international peace and human rights movements. It runs through December 31, 2025 and will form the basis of a permanent exhibition in the museum’s expansion planned for 2026. Part I of “What Bayard Rustin Would Do” describes the exhibition and the context to Rustin’s work up to 1965. Part II describes Rustin’s work and writings in the last 25 years of his life as he faced the increasing backlash to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. The full article is posted on the Albert Shanker Institute’s March on Washington Resources page.

We live in a reactionary age. Worldwide, the advance of freedom in the previous century did not just stall. It went into reverse. What is shocking many is that this reactionary age has taken root in the modern world’s oldest, richest and most militarily powerful democracy. Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in January 2025 has put him in a position to assert largely unchecked power to reverse America’s progress towards a multiracial democracy. 

This period in America would not have surprised the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. He spent decades working to end a previous period of white reactionary rule in the United States. Yet, soon after the masterwork of his career — the organizing of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — he began warning of a political backlash against the gains made to end Jim Crow rule and to make the country a full democracy ensuring the right to vote to all citizens. As he that backlash began to manifest, he argued for political strategies and policies to move the country in a radical direction towards greater equality. Whatever situation he found himself, Rustin worked to achieve a more equal, tolerant and pluralist society and a freer world through nonviolent and democratic means. His life and teachings offer guidance on how to respond to today’s global reactionary challenge. A new museum exhibition offers a launching point.

Reading Legislation in California and Massachusetts – Is There a Third Path?

Two pieces of reading legislation - one recently enacted in California and another one under consideration in Massachusetts - mark early efforts in these states to align classroom instruction with the broad scientific consensus on how children learn to read, why some students struggle, and which components are essential for effective reading instruction.

There is evidence that reading policies can contribute to improved student outcomes, as seen, for example, in Mississippi. A recent national analysis likewise suggests that comprehensive early literacy laws are linked to gains in elementary reading achievement. While there is no single policy formula – as Matt Barnum notes, states adopting Mississippi-like policies may see meaningful gains but perhaps should not expect Mississippi-sized improvements – it is reasonable to conclude that strong legislation can contribute to raising literacy levels. Yet, these laws' potential, rest heavily on their effective implementation and sustained commitment over time. In this sense, the laws are best understood as setting the stage for reading reform, rather than as guarantees that change will unfold exactly as written. 

How can more states move (or continue to move) toward stronger reading laws that set a better stage for improvement efforts? How can legislation meaningfully address something as complex as reading development and the instruction it requires? And what distinguishes laws that are best positioned to succeed? While lessons can be learned from states at the forefront, different contexts will call for different approaches. In this piece, we compare the paths taken by California and Massachusetts and highlight a third, promising model from Illinois, which enacted literacy legislation in 2023.

Revisiting the Great Divergence in State Education Spending

A few years ago, we took a quick look at the difference in K-12 education spending between the higher- and lower-spending states, and whether that “spread” has changed since the early 1990s. We found, in short, a substantial increase in that variation, one which really started in the long wake of the 2007-09 recession. 

Let’s update that simple descriptive analysis with a few additional years of data, and discuss why it’s potentially troubling. 

In the graph below, each teal circle is an individual state, and each “column” of circles represents the spread of states in a given year; the red diamond is the unweighted national average. On the vertical axis, we have predicted per-pupil current spending in a district with a 10 percent Census child poverty rate (roughly the average rate), controlling for labor costs, population density, and enrollment. This measure comes from our SFID state dataset (note that the plot excludes Alaska and Vermont). 

When Teachers Teach Teachers, Teachers Learn

Our guest author is Kata Solow, executive director of the Goyen Foundation, where she led its multi-year transformation process and created the Goyen Literacy Fellowship to recognize exceptional reading teachers. 

Elementary school teachers across the country are asking for help. 

Go on Facebook, browse Twitter, and you’ll hear a common refrain: “We want to change how we teach reading, but we don’t know where to begin. We need to see what it looks like. Give us models and examples of excellent literacy instruction.” 

Why is this happening? For these teachers, their world has just changed. Over the last five years, as reading-related legislation has swept the country, hundreds of thousands of elementary school teachers are being required to change the way they teach reading. This is a really big deal: changing how you teach reading is a hard thing to do.

States are trying to help teachers make these changes. Most of the newly-passed laws support professional development for in-service teachers. However, the most common PD programs like LETRS are highly theoretical. While they provide educators with a strong foundation in the components of structured literacy and the research that underlies it, they do not address what these components look like in a real classroom.    

At the Goyen Foundation, we think that we have started to build a model that bridges this research-to-practice gap by providing teachers with concrete examples of great literacy instruction. This piece is about how you can do it in your school or district.   

Celebrating 20 Years of AFT Collaboration with PBS Public Television Station WETA on Colorín Colorado!

Guest author AFT Educational Issues Director Giselle Lundy-Ponce has been working in the field of PreK-12 education policy, research and advocacy for the last thirty-two years. In 2004 she initiated the partnership with the public television station WETA’s Learning Media Department to develop Colorín Colorado. Now with so much attention to the Congressional threat to defund public television, the story of 20 years of a successful partnership between AFT and public television station WETA -— to better meet the literacy needs of English language learners, their families, and their teachers -— is more important to tell than ever.

In 2005, the AFT announced that it was launching Colorín Colorado, an online resource hub, to provide educators of English language learners (ELLs) with evidence-based resources, best practices, and information to help their students read and succeed. At the time of the launch, we recorded 400 visitors to the site, and we were pleased because we were reassured that we were meeting a need. Fast forward to today, we are thrilled beyond words that the initial 400 visitors have grown to over 3.5 million. When Colorín Colorado was launched, it was limited: We were almost exclusively a PK-3 website focused on literacy instruction, and the target audience was primarily educators and families of Spanish-speaking ELLs.

Now we offer resources that span the PK-12 range, and the content of the website is applicable to ELLs from all language backgrounds. While many of the website’s resources are still available in Spanish, and we refer to the website as bilingual, we have added family literacy tip sheets in sixteen languages. Every year, we have kept growing and expanding beyond the literacy scope and are now the main clearinghouse for what works for ELLs in content areas across all academic subjects, social-emotional development, how to address trauma in the classroom, and a whole host of other topics on ELL instruction and ELL well-being.

Science of Reading Laws: Let’s Begin with the Facts

In the past five years, virtually every state has enacted legislation aimed at improving reading instruction—a wave of reform the Shanker Institute has been (and still is) following closely. The legislation is far from perfect. Some laws lack clarity or feel clunky — somewhat misaligned with the complexity of teaching and learning to read. Others are overly rigid, and have unenforceable mandates that do little to inspire educators' trust. 

These are all valid critiques—ones we at the Institute have raised ourselves. But because we’ve taken the time to read and code these laws, we also take issue with how some of the criticisms are framed. Often, sweeping generalizations dominate the public conversation, misrepresenting both the content and intent of these laws. In this commentary, we address several of the most common misconceptions.

But before jumping in, here is some context: a total of 118 laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia use the expression “science of reading” in at least one piece of legislation passed between 2019 and 2024. By contrast, language invoking the use of "evidence" and "research" appears in virtually all states. As we noted in our 2023 report, states vary significantly in how they define “science of reading” – a topic we may tackle separately. 

Howard University School of Law Presidential Charge to the Class of 2025

Our guest author is Jaden Alexander Cody, a 2025 graduate of Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and the 70th Student Bar Association President of Howard University

Good afternoon everyone, it is a delight to share this space and this air with you all today. To President Vinson, to Provost Wutoh, to Dean Fairfax, Senator Alsobrooks, faculty, staff, esteemed alumni and guests, families and loved ones, I bring you greetings, but most importantly to the reason we are all here today, the class of 2025! Good afternoon, to you!

My name is Jaden Alexander Cody, I am a graduating Third-Year Law student here at the University from Atlanta, Georgia and I have had the esteemed privilege of serving as the 70th Student Bar Association President of Howard University and thus Student Body President of Howard University School of Law.

Before I continue, I want to just take a moment and class if you would join me I’m gonna need you… Because as much as we like to think it’s us and our brilliance, hard work and grit that got us to this seat, I’m sure those who filled the seats around us and online would disagree. All of us are here because someone or a lot of someones ensured that we had what we needed to graduate today, whether it be prayers, calls, textbooks, outlines, food, a roof over our head and or money, we are here because of a village behind us, so I want us to thank the villages that have convened here today for their part in ensuring that JD is about to follow our names. Lets thank the fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, friends, spouses, children, linebrothers and linesisters. And of course, because our celebration shares a weekend with a special day, the mothers and mother-like figures that have impacted us, class, if you would join me in thanking them for all they have done for us.

While today we are ending a chapter as students of Howard University School of Law, we are entering a time of urgency, a time that scholars are noting already feels eerily similar to what many of us have learned about during our educational careers. We are standing in the days in which our children and their children will look back and either view our actions fondly, speaking our names proudly or question our complicity as we do those in Germany in the 30s, South Africa in the ’40s, 50s, and 60s or honestly, how we view peoples inaction in the face of injustice at any other point in American history. How will people be able to answer where you, where we, where the HUSL class of 2025 stood in history, how did we impact this field, that is so rapidly changing? How are we living out the mission of our University? How are we making the lives of minorities everywhere better? That is what I am here to welcome you to, welcome to a lifelong commitment to service, a lifelong commitment to justice, a lifelong commitment to equity, even when it makes some feel uncomfortable. That is what is expected of a Howard University School of Law lawyer.

Public Funds to Private Schools Will Leave Students with Disabilities Behind

Our guest authors are the National Center for Learning Disabilities, The Arc of the United States, the Council for Exceptional Children, and the Center for Learner Equity.

Just 50 years ago, in 1975, Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in order to ensure that students with disabilities have the opportunity to a free and appropriate education, like all children deserve. Thanks to generations of advocates the US House and US Senate passed IDEA and President Gerald Ford signed it into law.

Last week the US House Ways & Means Committee marked up a budget reconciliation bill that will include a $20 billion proposal diverting public funds to private schools via the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). While the bill includes new language about so-called “protections” for students with disabilities, it is insufficient in providing meaningful, enforceable protections for students with disabilities and their families. As the nation’s leading student advocacy organizations, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, along with the Council for Exceptional Children, the Center for Learner Equity, and The Arc of the United States, are staunchly opposed to this bill. 

Consider this math: ECCA is estimated to fund private school tuition for about 1 million children for $5 billion a year (averaging $5000 per child). By contrast, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) currently serves 7.5 million children and receives $14.6 billion in federal funding a year, averaging less than $2000 per child. This funding level is about 10% of the average per-pupil expenditures. Instead of fully funding IDEA, a promise Congress has never fulfilled, this Congress chooses to fund vouchers, which ultimately benefit the wealthy instead of investing in educating students with disabilities, the overwhelming majority of whom attend public schools.

Beyond Scripts: Why Structured Adaptations Are Key to Scaling Literacy Programs

During National Teacher Appreciation Week, we showcase guest author Susan B. Neuman, who is Professor and Chair of the Teaching and Learning Department at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University and a Shanker Institute Board Member.

I’ve had a front-row seat to decades of curriculum reforms—each promising to close gaps, accelerate learning, and transform instruction. I’ve seen the excitement of a new initiative, the careful design of pilot studies, and the early gains that spark real hope. But I’ve also seen something else: how quickly that promise can fade when programs meet the messy, beautiful, and unpredictable reality of classrooms. Curricula do not teach students to read - teachers do. Without supporting teachers, even the most evidence-aligned programs won't be able to deliver on their promise. 

The truth is, many of our most effective interventions never make it beyond the lab or the pilot stage—not because they don’t work, but because they weren’t built to meet the learning environments they were designed to help. In fact, one of the biggest challenges we face is how to take successful small-scale interventions and implement them across dozens—or even hundreds—of classrooms without losing their impact. This is especially true for vocabulary-building programs designed to reduce opportunity gaps for children in low-income communities. 

But here’s the big question: How do we maintain fidelity to a program’s core while allowing room for teacher voice and expertise to address classroom realities? The answer lies in something called structured adaptation—and it might be the missing link in making good programs great at scale. But what is structured adaptation?

Structured adaptation is a middle path between a rigid, word-for-word scripted curriculum and a loosely guided one. Think of it as a soft script: teachers are provided with clear objectives, key vocabulary, and suggested questions—but they’re also empowered to adapt the language, pacing, and delivery based on the needs of their students.