Bailey Takacs

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Will Corona Boost Online College Competition?

_{Bailey Takacs
March 18, 2020}

The global public health crisis hastened by an outbreak of COVID-19 threatens student flows to colleges and universities and other forms of personal collaboration. Just how stark the impact will be will be depends on many unknown variables–among them: how long the outbreak lasts, to what extent it can be contained, and to what degree local and international travel will be restricted. While there is an unfortunate potential for some students to lose out on college experiences, the unique reaction to the disease also raises an intriguing question: Should families now consider alternatives to the in-person college experience? Will many choose the cheaper option on an online school? Online learning is poised to be a big winner here. It is very possible …

Coronavirus Calls for Technology Surge in Education

_{Bailey Takacs
March 17, 2020}

With schools closing throughout the entire nation and families resorting to remote or home schooling, the need for technology as a tool in education is being keenly felt. It is clear our schools were not ready for the virus. Many districts are sending children home without any education until late April at the earliest. If this is to continue and school is canceled for the rest of the year, children across the nation will miss out on months of education. This pause presents an opportunity to think about how we educate our youth. Specifically, we have not yet seen the technology breakthrough in education that has occurred almost everywhere else in our society. The time is ripe for that revolution. With companies such as Khan Academy and Primavera, a national virtual charter …

Our Way of Life is Worth Preserving

_{Bailey Takacs
March 11, 2020}

Tradition is under attack in America’s educational system. Dissolving the connections with our history will break society. Edmund Burke argues in Reflections on the Revolution in France that “Men… becom little better than the flies of a summer,” each generation vanishing and giving nothing but the simple fact of their life on to the next. There are unfortunate, but not surprising, similarities between the French Revolution and the current battleground of education in the United States. Much like the French civilization in the 18th century, we have become deluded with a belief that the only way to change is to abolish what we have come to know. Burke’s commentary is equally fitting for our time as his, when he wonders “how any man can have brought himself to that …

Budget Cuts Will Lead to Educational Regression

_{Bailey Takacs
March 2, 2020}

I was not that shocked when I read the news that Washington State’s elected leaders in both the Senate and the House are attempting to cut funding to charter schools. It’s par for the course with many of our state leaders, who have an open hostility to these schools whose success is based on their ability to escape excessive state control. What is more surprising is that the Democrat-run House and Senate are willing to stir up a storm in poor communities. In most cases, charter schools are created in neighborhoods where the schools are failing or under-performing. In Washington, by 2020 we will have 14 active public charter schools that serve nearly 4,000 students. Liv Finne, Director of Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center, a non-profit think tank that …

Mississippi Misfortunes and Where to Rebuild

_{Bailey Takacs
February 24, 2020}

The Magnolia state has had its fair share of woes. Coming in near the bottom of the barrel in education standings, the highest poverty rate in the United States, the lowest labor participation rate (56% to be exact), and one of the lowest median incomes, coming in at $23,121. This is just to name a few. Yet there is hope. My visit to the capitol of Mississippi this past week leads me to believe that in education, we may be on the cusp of a new era of meaningful reform. For example, we have seen a recent uptick in fourth grade reading scores, where Mississippi improved its position from forty-ninth in 2013 to twenty-ninth in 2019 based on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores. This is a significant improvement. But more importantly, many in …

Government Schools Vs. Independent Schools

_{Bailey Takacs
February 17, 2020}

Commenting on Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Corey DeAngelis writes in the Washington Examiner, “Trump is absolutely right to call them government schools instead of public schools.” DeAngelis is correct. Here’s why. “Public” schools are not open to everyone because students are barred based on zip codes.The schools are directly responsible to and directed by the government, whether at the local level (a district school board) or at the state level (through the state board of education).The schools are funded by federal, state, and local taxpayers. This distinction is helpful because correctly characterizing these schools clarifies who should be held accountable. Other forms of schooling, such as charter schools, religious schools, private …

Is Reform Achievable?

_{Bailey Takacs
January 31, 2020}

Dale Chu, senior visiting fellow of the Fordham Institute (an education reform think tank) writes, “the dour forecast is good reason for reformers to fight even harder in the 2020s and to search for a new path forward.” Given Chu’s conclusion, new transformative measures are required to propel our educational system to new heights. Simply put, what we are doing is not working. That is not to say that some pieces of reform haven’t been successful, such as the charter school movement and the accessibility of more choice in education. However, continuing down the path we are on will provide us another dreary decade. What America needs is one state to step up and lead the nation in systemic change of our education system. Not ideas that merely nibble at the edges. We …

Progressivism Fails to Clear the Gap

_{Bailey Takacs
January 30, 2020}

A recent report, The Secret Shame, shows the deleterious effects of progressive policies on education outcomes of minorities. The report concludes that the top 12 progressive cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Detroit have larger educational achievement gaps between whites and minorities than the top 12 conservative cities, such as Fort Worth, Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Oklahoma City. Specifically, “progressive cities, on average, have achievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points higher than in conservative cities.” To determine the progressive and conservative cities, the report relied on independent political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw who “pooled data from seven large surveys of U.S. public …

Mississippi Should Take Education Head On

_{Bailey Takacs
January 9, 2020}

Mississippi’s 2020 legislative session, which started on January 7, will have plenty of bills for lawmakers to sort through. Let’s hope education is at the top of their priorities. According to a U.S. news report, Mississippi ranks 46th out of 50 in K-12 education standards. Clearly a lot of room for improvement, which is why ACTE is partnering with Empower Mississippi – an independent, nonprofit advocacy organization with the vision for Mississippians to have opportunities to make choices that improve their lives through education – to begin shifting the conversation toward a fundamental transformation of their education system. Don Nielsen, a twenty-five-year school activist and program chair to ACTE, offers innovative solutions to the educational challenges …

Democratic Presidential Hopeful Michael Bloomberg Supports Charters

_{Bailey Takacs
January 7, 2020}

Mike Bloomberg steps away from the rest of the crowd with one simple and sound approach to educational reform: he supports charter schools. Stu Loeser, Bloomberg’s campaign spokesman, confirms that “Mike’s education plan will absolutely promote charter schools.” Finally a candidate that does not fall into herd mentality on one issue! Other candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in particular, have promised to eradicate all federal funding for charter schools. On at least this one issue, Bloomberg’s move can differentiate him from the rest of field. The promise to expand charter schools is positive for a several reasons. Charter schools are broadly sought out, especially by low-income families who feel left behind by their government run school. They …

Magnolia State Has Opportunity to Soar to the Top

_{Bailey Takacs
December 30, 2019}

Empower Mississippi, a nonprofit advocacy organization with a focus on education and employability, is helping elevate the state of Mississippi’s education standards. Their emphasis is on freedom and choice, paramount to transforming the education system. Elyse Marcellino, the Vice President of Empower Mississippi writes: “All in all, Mississippians have more opportunities than ever to find the educational program, services, staff, curriculum, and environment their children need.” This is due to their concerted effort on promoting choice in both private and public education. There are more than 4,500 students enrolled in a school choice program in the state of Mississippi and the numbers are increasing due to the passage of new legislation. As Marcellino notes, …

Education Must Be Run Locally

_{Bailey Takacs
December 13, 2019}

The word education does not occur in the U.S. Constitution—a clear indication that the federal government has no business meddling with education policy. Furthermore, though often ignored, the Tenth Amendment clearly limits the scope of federal power: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Listening to the current crop of presidential candidates, however, one would draw the conclusion that the federal government, and not the states, bear the primary educational responsibility. In addition, one notes that 70% of the participants attended private schools or sent their own kids to private schools even as they fight against school choice for others. …

The Cockpits of our Economy

_{Bailey Takacs
November 27, 2019}

In 1952, the United States Air Force came to a realization. Even though good pilots were flying even better fighter jets, they could not figure out why split second decisions were lagging. Pilots were blamed, the technology was blamed, and flight instructors were blamed. The source of the problem though, was the cockpit. They found that that every cockpit was built for the “average” pilot, yet when each pilot was measured, there was no such thing as an average sized pilot. Director of Harvard’s Mind, Brain, and Education program, Todd Rose, likens the state of our education system to that of United States Air Force fighter pilots. In his 2013 speech for TEDx “The Myth of the Average”, he noted, “If every pilot has a jagged size profile and you design a cockpit on …

We Will Tell You How to be Innovative

_{Bailey Takacs
November 21, 2019}

A recent EducationWeek article, provocatively titled “These Shop Teachers Told Their Students to Form a Union,” focuses on Aviation High School in Long Island, New York, where students were encouraged to create a classroom much like the workplace of a union. Teachers José Vaz and Antonio Pepenella mention that students have more control over their education. This includes students electing officers (including foremen and a union representative) who are in charge of enforcing the class contract and ensuring student rights are protected and mediating conflicts between their classmates. Although a novel concept, which allows children out of their seats and away from the Pythagorean theorem, the approach is actually anti-innovation in that it builds a follow-the-leader …

Needle in a Haystack: School Innovation

_{Bailey Takacs
November 19, 2019}

According to Chelsea White of the Christensen Institute, there’s a dearth of information about innovation in schools across the country. In short, the “innovations schools are pursuing never makes it beyond the district office—and when it does, it’s not reliably or consistently documented, shared, or promoted.” In a project they call the Canopy, the institute is doing something about that. As stated in A VIEW FROM THE CANOPY: Building Collective Knowledge on School Innovation, “The Canopy is a collaborative effort to surface a more diverse set of innovative schools, and develop an index of approaches linked to student-centered learning.” Encouragingly, they found that traditional public schools which represents 67% of their dataset are “work towards …

Innovative Leadership: An Emptiness In Public Education

_{Bailey Takacs
November 12, 2019}

One of the largest cities in the country once applied corporate solutions to the public education problems. The time frame was 2003-2017, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg worked with Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, in bringing about a training academy for school principals, a concept we at ACTE have been promoting. The NYC Leadership Academy was in search of a change agent, an educational entrepreneur who thinks of doing school differently—a leader who is not satisfied with the status quo. With a limited supply of innovative leaders in public education, Bloomberg invited Jack Welch, former GE executive, to chair the Academy. Welch linked educational leadership to that of the corporate world: “We used to say in the corporation, ‘Any one of you jerk …

Why Only One Type of School?

_{Bailey Takacs
November 7, 2019}

A fascinating new micro school has been making significant strides in Arizona. Prenda is like the Splenda of schooling. An alternative to the traditional government-run school. What’s different about this new method of schooling? For starters it is placed in the homes, offices, or studios of the coaches or mentors. This not only shifts the old classroom setting, desks lined up facing the front of the classroom. It also eliminates the need for specific degrees or credentials for those who are willing to connect with young people. There is a valid concern about the qualifications of those doing the teaching. Not everyone is qualified to teach. However, the elimination of certifications opens the door for very skilled workers in fields outside of education. What else is …

Knowledge and Civics: A Guide to a Responsible Citizenry

_{Bailey Takacs
November 6, 2019}

In a recent article, Classroom Content: A Conservative Conundrum, Robert Pondiscio argues that conservatives have placed all their faith in school choice while retreating in the battle over curriculum in K-12 classrooms. He urges conservatives to stay engaged in this battleground and not abandon educational content to the Left. Using E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s 1987 landmark book, Cultural Literacy, as his main point of reference, he notes that Hirsch concluded that a “student’s ability to comprehend a text is largely determined by the student’s background knowledge.” That is, speakers and writers make assumptions about what readers and listeners know, and “rely on them to understand references and allusions, and to make correct assumptions about word meanings and context.” But …

Nation’s Report Card Shows Decline

_{Bailey Takacs
November 5, 2019}

The National Assessment of Educational Progress sent home a disappointing report card for our nation’s students. According to the NAEP announcement on October 30th, “Average reading scores for the nation in 2019 were lower for students in both fourth and eighth grade than in 2017, while average mathematics scores were higher by 1 point for fourth graders and lower by 1 point for eighth graders.” It gets worse: “In mathematics and reading for both grades, a little more than one-third of students nationally scored at or above the NAEP Proficient level in 2019.” Not all was lost however. Fortunately two states, Idaho and Mississippi (who we at the ACTE work closely with) bucked the trend and showed upward trajectory. As reported by Idaho Education News, the state’s …

Back to Betraying Children

_{Bailey Takacs
October 30, 2019}

When lightning strikes, typically the surface it strikes is the underdog. Well, the same is to be said when teacher unions’ strike. In Chicago, the teachers strike and the surface they hit are the children. Chicago has the third largest public school system in the United States and its teachers went on strike for salary increases (15 percent to be exact), enforceable caps on class sizes, and a written commitment for more nurses, social workers, and librarians. They also struck for more affordable housing, which is far outside the parameters of collective bargaining on a teacher’s contract. But hey, why limit yourself to educational issues? Even more of a head scratcher? The mayor, Lori Lightfoot, a progressive Democrat, had put forwards what she rightfully described as a …