Declining test scores from the pandemic are no surprise to this math teacher in Idaho

As I prepared to teach my online math classes recently, the Department of Education released the dismal results of a study commissioned to track the impact of the pandemic lockdowns on the math and reading development of America’s children: “average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined five points in reading and seven points in mathematics compared to 2020, the largest average score decline in reading since 1990 and the first ever score decline in mathematics.”

As a math teacher who has taught for over 30 years in traditional, charter, private and home schools, the figures disappointed me but they didn’t surprise me. There is one clear solution: school choice, specifically, “education savings accounts,” which allow parents to spend money where they conclude their child will get the best education. Flexibility is the key.

With education savings accounts, parents have the flexibility to choose a private school or a charter school for their children, but even these choices tend to be one-size-fits-few models.

In May 2016, I walked away from teaching within the traditional school model, because I could no longer tolerate the inflexibility of what I call “The System.”

I was teaching at a phenomenal charter school within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Using its limited flexibility, the school groups sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students into cohorts based on skill levels. While this is a good start, it is insufficient because the state requires students be taught grade-level content, regardless of whether they have the necessary foundational skills from previous grade levels to grasp the concepts.

I should have been teaching sixth-grade content to my eighth-graders that final year, because that is what they needed. I walked away thinking that I was done with teaching, tired of inflexible regulations. My students were capable of making significant progress in math, but the inflexibility of “The System” prevented them from achieving.

In 2018, school choice provided a workaround. I started a business, Math with Mrs. Fish (a play on my name), teaching customized math courses online to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students enrolled in charter schools that provide funds for homeschooled students. When I moved to Boise just a few months later, I was grateful to be able to take my business with me. I had hoped to provide my services to students in Idaho. I discovered California was actually doing a better job of providing education flexibility than the Gem State.

Over the years, about 30% of my students have been enrolled in a class below their grade level. I receive joyful emails from these students and their families, telling me how they now love math and are experiencing success in math for the first time in their lives.

Sadly, that’s not the end of poor regulations. These same students, receiving government funds for their math classes, must take state-mandated standardized tests for the grade level based on the year they were born. All their hard work and progress will go unrecognized by California because they face content they have not yet learned.

On the same day the U.S. Department of Education released the dismal stats about declining scores, Idaho lawmakers decided to dump another $330 million into education. How that $330 million will be allocated will not be decided until the regular legislative session in early 2023.

Anna Miller, Education Policy Director at the Idaho Freedom Foundation, has studied the failed past results of throwing money at inflexible “system schools,” as I call them. In another article, Kaitlyn Shepherd, Anna Miller’s research assistant, chronicled the significant amount of money Idaho school districts have in their rainy day funds.

Idahoans must rise and demand that money fund the students — not the system.

Using Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account as a model, which provides parents with over $6,000 per child per year, Idaho lawmakers have an opportunity to enact the most flexible school choice option. Using an education savings account, parents can create an individualized education for each of their children by selecting from the exploding number of options available in the free market, like Math with Mrs. Fish, micro schools, pods and the kind of homeschooling that is emerging that I call “custom schooling.”

Teachers like me, frustrated by the outdated and inflexible system schools, are providing live courses, online and in person, unfettered by restrictions that need to go the way of chalkboards and overhead projectors.

“System schools” have proven time and time again that that they are failing our children. We can see that in the new math and reading scores. To recoup the learning loss that resulted from the lockdowns, the only option is the flexibility provided by school choice through education savings accounts. Make sure your voice heard, so that instead of pouring millions into systems of mediocrity, we invest instead in children.