U-OK’s Dan Hamlin on Emerging School Models & Learning Loss

The Learning Curve Dan Hamlin

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Hello everybody. This is Albert Cheng, professor at the university of Arkansas coming to you with another episode of the learning curve podcast, and as always, or as usual, joined by my cohost, Alisha Searcy. Hey, Alisha. What’s up? Hey, Albert. How are you? Ah, doing good. Semester at the university is winding down.

[00:00:42] I don’t know if you have a similar change in your rhythm in December, but I know I guess we’re all getting ready for holiday season as well. You got exciting plans?

[00:00:51] Alisha Searcy: Winding down for sure. I like this time of the year, you know, if you’ve had a busy year and I certainly have. So we’re going to be taking some time off and at the end of the year heading to DR for a few days.

[00:01:03] So I’m looking forward to that. And just some rest. And, you know, there’s so much going on. Politically and education wise and all the things, so work wise, I’m also looking forward to having some time to just sit and reflect and plan for next year.

[00:01:17] Albert Cheng: There you go. Yeah, we all need that. On that lovely note, I hate to bring you back to some news that’s been going on, but we’ll get there to the rest and join our family and whatever our blessings are for the holiday season.

[00:01:31] But I have to point out, I think this made headlines and in case our listeners aren’t aware, Tim’s Which is another international test, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science study. TIMSS just released the results of their 2023 test. And, well, if you haven’t heard of this, you probably could have guessed that performance among U.

[00:01:52] S. 4th and 8th graders wasn’t that good. Encouraging. We definitely saw drops since the last time the TIMSS was administered in 2019. And so again, this is just more evidence of the post pandemic drop. Although I think it’s important to just always remind ourselves that the drop was happening before the pandemic as well, but certainly a steep drop post the pandemic.

[00:02:14] Now, you know, Alisha, what’s really interesting about this, what caught my eye, was that it didn’t have to be that we had big drops. The test scores, if you This news article that I’m citing, they mentioned that actually there are several other countries who made some gains, or at least the drops weren’t that big.

[00:02:29] And so, you know, the U. S. is in the middle of the pack and lots of countries saw declines, but you know, the declines were tempered in some places. And so I think that calls to You know, some sobriety to us as we think about U. S. education, but maybe there’s some encouragement to be found. Like, it doesn’t have to be this way.

[00:02:46] And so, you know, let’s, let’s see what we can do. The data are out there. I think it’s up to us and folks all around, you know, in education to, all right, let’s roll up our sleeves and see what we can do to improve math and science test scores.

[00:02:58] Alisha Searcy: Exactly. And I have, you know, some questions around this not to be answered now, but I’m just going to, you know, throw them out there.

[00:03:04] I’m wondering the impact of our move to Common Core. I was a huge supporter of it at the time. Then as a parent, I had a different experience with it. And so I wonder how much of this is impacted by the change to Common Core, even though it’s been several years, you know, what’s happening there. Maybe we, we need to do a show on that, just like see the impact there in terms of instruction, in terms of how we’re teaching math, all of the things.

[00:03:31] And I think it’s going to be time, right, just have, as we’ve been focusing on the science of reading, I don’t know if there’s a science of math, but there’s certainly a certain level of overhaul, right, when we think about reading. Pedagogy and high quality instructional materials, all of the things, I think all of that contributes to it, right?

[00:03:51] But whatever it is, we better get to it fast because this is not good news, frankly. You know, I’m glad to hear that we’ve got some highlights in certain places and we need to find out what they’re doing, but I think as a country, this is not good for us and hopefully it’s a wake up call.

[00:04:06] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I’d certainly love to see a Science of Math moment that we’ve been seeing in reading.

[00:04:13] And as much as I love math and familiar with it, I actually have to admit that I don’t know the Research base that well formally, but there’s got to be something there. I think I know definitely there’ve been folks working on it, but Hey, maybe that’s a toll topic for a whole nother show.

[00:04:27] Alisha Searcy: Yes, for sure.

[00:04:28] Well, I’ve got an article that’s not related to math. At the moment, but it’s entitled Gen Z doesn’t believe in government, the solution is closer to home than you think, right? That’s startling. So this is an opinion piece written by a young man who’s 19 years old, David Millman. So, apparently David ran for office a year or two ago, but his whole premise of this article is, he says, we’ve built a system where the only elections we pay attention to are the farthest away from our communities, and our perspectives are needed and missing in local politics.

[00:05:07] So, I want to just call your attention and the listener’s attention to an interesting poll that he included in here. According to the latest Harvard Youth Poll, only 11 percent of those ages 18 to 29 feel that the United States is generally headed in the right direction. It also talks about whether or not And another recent survey says that only 27 percent of Americans ages 18 to 25, get this, agree strongly that democracy is the best system of government.

[00:05:40] Yeah. Ouch. Yeah. Compared with 48 percent for all ages. So, his article is about how we need to focus more on local politics. When he ran for office, he was trying to help young people in particular understand that when it comes to housing, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to other issues, local governments have a greater impact on your everyday life, which he makes a great point.

[00:06:07] But I would add and ask the question, I wonder how much of this too is the teaching of government? And social studies in our schools. We know that there are some classes at the high school level, but when I think about elementary and middle school, we focus so much on reading and math, which is important, but in some schools, kids are only getting like science and social studies.

[00:06:32] One time a week, an hour a week. And so what does that do for teaching young people about our government, how it works, their role in it, how they need to be involved? So I appreciate this piece and this young person talking about the need to engage more young people in the process early on closer to their government.

[00:06:53] I also agree with his point though, that. You know, we do all of this work, Albert, around the presidential election, right? We are inundated with commercials and digital ads and a thousand mail pieces, right? And then next year, in 25, There are going to be lots of municipal elections across the country, and we probably won’t get anything at all.

[00:07:15] Number one, because the candidates don’t have that kind of money to reach voters that way. But, number two, I think it’s we don’t pay as much attention to some of these local elections. And so, I appreciate this opinion piece. I appreciate the work that this young person is doing. And I think his his, his This point is well taken that we should absolutely be more involved and we should care about our government and see that the closer we are to the government and those policies, the more of an impact they can make on everyday lives.

[00:07:43] Albert Cheng: I think you’re absolutely right, Alisha. There’s a lot to be said for taking our focus from the national level, you know, what’s going on in DC to thinking about what’s happening, you know, not even just in, in our city limits, but what about our own neighborhoods? Right. You know, being a good citizen. A lot of it doesn’t even have to be political, you know, to engage in the political process.

[00:08:02] I mean, seem to be a good neighbor for the students out there. What does it mean to be a good student in your school, a good citizen, where your school’s at or in your neighborhood? For all of us, you know, moms and dads, what’s it mean to raise good kids and be good neighbors? And I mean, I think there’s so much we could do for civic renewal, so I’m with you.

[00:08:21] Alisha Searcy: I like that term. I agree with you, Albert, and I hope that we Those who are listening and those who are within our realm of influence, we need a civic renewal. I like that.

[00:08:32] Albert Cheng: All right. Well, hey, we are going to continue the show on the flip side of this break. We’re going to have Dan Hamlin from the University of Oklahoma.

[00:08:40] So stick around.

[00:08:53] Daniel Hamlin is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma. In his research, Hamlin focuses on the effects of education policies related to academic achievement, student health and safety, parental involvement, school climate, and school choice.

[00:09:11] His work appears in peer reviewed journals including the American Educational Research Journal, Sociology of Education, the Journal of Criminal Justice, Educational Policy, and Urban Education. Professor Hamlin’s research has also been covered in the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Forbes, Marginal Revolution, The 74, and Chalkbeat.

[00:09:33] Dan earned his B. A. from Michigan State University, an M. A. from Sejong University in Seoul, Korea, and his Ph. D. from the University of Toronto, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Dan, welcome to our show. It’s a pleasure to have you on.

[00:09:49] Dan Hamlin: Yeah. It’s good to be on. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[00:09:52] Albert Cheng: Well, you know, we wanted to ask a lot of questions about what you’ve been up to. And one of the things you’ve been up to in recent years is running Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance’s Emerging School Models Annual Conference. Could you share with our listeners your background and how you became interested in K 12 education policy and how your academic experiences and research inform your overall philosophy about education and the work you do?

[00:10:18] Dan Hamlin: I, just to quickly touch on the Emergent School Models Conference, so yes, that’s correct. I’ve been co moderating that conference at the Harvard Kennedy School with Paul Peterson. We’ve run that conference for about three years, and I’m sure we’ll get into it a little bit more, but it’s, it’s been interesting to watch how, coming off the pandemic, interest in that conference has just grown tremendously, and I think that’s, it’s largely a reflection of the, uh, Uptick in activity in the emerging school models, personalized models of learning sector that I think we’re seeing across the United States.

[00:10:53] But a little bit about my background. So I’ve been here at the University of Oklahoma for about five years. I’m a professor of education policy. As you noted, I Largely look at the effects of a range of different education policies pertaining to looking at effects on both tested and non-tested outcomes.

[00:11:12] And a pretty significant strand of research that I’ve done over the years, uh, has to do with school choice and especially non-test outcomes. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling. Prior to arriving here at ou, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School with you, Albert

[00:11:31] Uh, we were, we. As you recall, we were office mates and that’s right my doctoral work at the University of Toronto. I’m, I’m actually originally from Canada, though, and I spent a lot of time abroad, as you’ve noted, but I’m originally from Detroit, Michigan. And, you know, you asked about my sort of drive, what was kind of driving me to Education policy, and I would say there’s a few things, like anything else, there’s more than one factor at play, but I would say one of the big drivers for me and bringing me into this area was my time in Korea, so in teaching at a university over there for a number of years, and just being really kind of Almost taken aback by the zeal that South Koreans have for education.

[00:12:19] The amount of investment and interest that families put into their children’s education. The amount of time spent on education. The incredible focus on education there. And some would say it’s almost, it’s almost too much because they’ll have high school students that will Be working and going to school until sometimes very late at night, and then waking up very early the next day and doing that seven days a week for their entire high school career, so some people say, yeah, that’s a little bit too much, but it’s arguably a pretty good problem to have, and in a lot of ways, it got me thinking, seeing that, and Living in South Korea and seeing sort of the incredible interest in education and investing in human capital through education there, especially the interest that families have in education.

[00:13:06] Seeing that is, I think, really got me to reflect on the United States and it really, you know, when I started to look at, well, compare interest levels in the U. S., we don’t even come close to that, uh, when it comes to the interest that we place on education If you compared us to the level of achievement that your average Korean student makes compared to your average American student, we’re way behind.

[00:13:31] And I think I started to realize our students are not being prepared for a competitive global future in a lot of ways. And so with that experience, it kind of drove me to thinking about, well, what are the conditions? That could be set up in schools to unleash, to better unleash the talents of families and students and teachers so that you could have a more productive education system.

[00:13:56] So those are some of the things that drove me to this.

[00:13:59] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the earlier segment, we just finished talking about the news story of the TIM scores and, you know, again, the U S in the middle of the pack and, you know, Your usual suspects of Asian countries up at the top. Let’s talk about the Emerging Schools Models Conference.

[00:14:15] And so this is something that’s itself emerged from the pandemic where families and parents views on education certainly have shifted and it’s opened a door to a wider variety of schooling models. So we’re talking charter schools, voc tech schools, homeschooling, micro schooling, learning pods. So yeah, talk about how.

[00:14:36] You know, what transpired in the pandemic as it pertains to schooling and how that’s informed the conferences that you’ve put together?

[00:14:44] Dan Hamlin: Yeah, and I think the happenings that occurred during the pandemic, I think we’re, you’re correct, we’re the driving force behind At least the inaugural, uh, Emerging School Models Conference.

[00:14:57] So, during the pandemic, as you noted, we saw an increase, especially in these more small personalized models of learning for, for various reasons, right? Some of it just had to do with safety. So, for example, hundreds of thousands of students actually. migrated to virtual charter schools during the height of the pandemic.

[00:15:20] Many migrated back to their in person district run public schools after that. So you had that type of model, but then you also had pods and micro schools that those types of schools seem to increase pretty dramatically during the pandemic. And there’s some evidence that they’ve kind of held their enrollment, whereas the full time virtual schools may be While they’ve held some of those enrollments that they gained during the pandemic, I think there’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that many of the pandemic era students have kind of returned to their in person schools.

[00:15:52] And then you had other models that you mentioned, like homeschooling and hybrid homeschooling, and there’s some evidence that, well, during the pandemic, I think, There were some surveys that were done, and while those surveys weren’t perfect, I think a lot of times it’s very difficult for those who are administering surveys that are trying to figure out what type of schooling model a family has a child enrolled in.

[00:16:16] I think there was some evidence that you saw from different surveys indicating that Uh, homeschooling and different forms of homeschooling, like hybrid homeschooling, doubled in enrollment share. And then coming off the pandemic, it seems to be the case that some of those enrollment numbers have held, although not quite a doubling of homeschoolers.

[00:16:37] It has increased, but not quite a doubling. And so those small personalized models of learning that were increasing during the pandemic, my colleague, Paul Peterson and I, well, we said, well, okay, this sector is really interesting. It’s extraordinarily diverse. I mean, there’s so many different types of schools with different missions out there that are popping up all over the country, and then couple that with sort of the ESA movement that was really gaining steam during the time where Many of these models, in some states, could be included in ESA programs.

[00:17:13] So, those things kind of taken together, we wondered, well, okay, what exactly are the numbers here? How many, yes, we’ve seen kind of this uptick during the pandemic, but post pandemic, have these enrollment numbers held across these different sectors? How do you define these different sectors? And then, importantly, what is some of the evidence?

[00:17:34] On the outcomes of these different emerging school models, and so we wanted to try to Chart new, really use the conference to kind of chart out some new territory and try to understand what the sort of inchoate evidence base is saying about these different models of learning. And that, that was, you know, primarily the impetus behind the conference.

[00:17:56] I think in year one, we had about a hundred people show up to the Kennedy School, and I think we had a few hundred attend online. And then in year two I think that tripled. I think we had over 300 some odd people attend the conference in person, and we had maybe another thousand attend the conference online.

[00:18:16] And then this past year, which was our third year, we blew those out of the water. We ended up going way over capacity where we were at the Kennedy School and ended up actually turning away a few hundred of people and directing them to attend online. So the interest level in it has just kind of grown every year.

[00:18:35] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s go back to something you mentioned. You talked about states passing ESA programs and how that might have helped this movement, so to speak, gain some steam. So, what have you learned about how schools are interacting with these ESA programs? You know, what are these programs like?

[00:18:51] What’s the finance model? Do you have any insights on best practices for ESA policies, you know, or, or things like what are parents choosing with this ESA funds? I mean, what, what have you learned based on your own research and just from these conferences about ESAs?

[00:19:05] Dan Hamlin: Really good question. You, you set out to explore the evidence base.

[00:19:09] What did you actually learn? Um, and that’s a, that’s a very good question. Um, so. You know, I, I, I’m not a best practices guy at all, so I wouldn’t, you know, be able to really speak well to, you know, what are the best practices. I do think it’s worth noting for your listeners that ESAs vary pretty dramatically across the, I think there are, are there 17 or 19 states that now have ESAs in place?

[00:19:35] I’m trying to remember, Albert, do you know?

[00:19:38] Albert Cheng: Oh, I mean, you’re, you’re keeping track better than I am. I mean, you wake up one morning and it’s all different again.

[00:19:44] Dan Hamlin: Right. So I can’t remember the exact number. I think it’s either 17 or 19 states that now have these programs in place. And that’s, that happened pretty quickly.

[00:19:54] I mean, so there were actually many fewer ESA programs in place just prior to the pandemic. So, you know, to answer your question about the growth of ESA, yes. You know, I think there’s some evidence that ESAs have kind of taken off in the post pandemic era. You know, as far as, I mean, there’s obviously considerable debate about the ESAs, about the use of ESAs and how to regulate them.

[00:20:21] And I do think there’s some ESA advocates who have certain anxieties about the way that ESAs might be used, especially if it’s a very expansive program that basically allows for anything that is, can be qualified as an educational service, so some folks have We worry that those types of very expansive ESAs can be abused.

[00:20:47] So, for example, there are some cases in Arizona where there were families who were found to have bought a flat screen TV with their ESA money and were able to say, well, it’s an educational expense. Or families took a kayaking trip and said, well, it was educational. Or families took a trip to Europe and said it was educational.

[00:21:07] So there are some that worry about ESAs and how You’re actually supposed to regulate and think about them. And then there are others who say, well, yes, these abuses are actually few and far between. And, you know, we have to trust families, it’s their money. And we have to trust that families are going to make the best decisions for their children.

[00:21:27] We can’t lower the bar on ESAs and start restricting ESAs just because of a You know, a few bad examples. And so, I think that’s the debate that’s out there. As a researcher, I try not to take, you know, a really strong position either way on that. What I’d rather do is try to collect some evidence. So, here’s the disappointing part.

[00:21:47] I don’t think, Albert, we have a lot of great evidence on ESA. You know, you look at all the research that’s been done over the past three decades on school vouchers. We have a lot of excellent and, in many cases, causal studies that were able to leverage lotteries to be able to derive causal estimates for students who use a voucher.

[00:22:09] And in the case of ESAs, we don’t have these types of designs. We don’t have, in many times, the lotteries available to us. Most of the new ESAs are universal, meaning anyone can be eligible to participate, so there isn’t an income. Threshold for participating, and so studying them is really hard. And then you add to that that maybe, I think EdChoice has estimated that maybe a quarter to a third of ESA users use them to do what sometimes people call unbundling education, meaning instead of sending their child to one single school, they’ll use the ESA to basically procure a basket of different educational services.

[00:22:52] So For example, let’s say you’re using the ESA because you have a child with severe special needs. As a family, you feel like you can better serve that child largely at home rather than sending that child to school. And so that basket of services that you use your ESA for that child might be some kind of therapy coupled with particular types of maybe private school, educate, part time attendance at a private school or something like that.

[00:23:18] And so, and maybe even Some tutoring. And so, there are those types of BSA users. And so, as you know, as a prominent researcher in this area, the identification strategy then becomes very difficult, because then what do you attribute the, how do you infer what has caused, what’s the cause behind a student’s given outcomes?

[00:23:39] Is it the therapy? Is it the part time attendance at a school? Is it the parent homeschooling? That becomes very, You know, very challenging, even if you were to do the correlational analysis like what is, what is actually behind this?

[00:23:52] Albert Cheng: Yeah well, I was hoping you’d fill in the gaps for me because you know, there’s very little out there, and we’re just kind of behind the curve on getting data to do this kind of stuff.

[00:24:01] Dan Hamlin: I’d say way behind the curve. I mean, The movement in some of these areas, especially, I think, if you look at hybrid homeschools and microschools, which probably have, I mean, I, look, I don’t even think we know, I don’t think we have a very good sense, we think Microschools enrollments have increased quite a lot, and I’ve seen some estimates suggest that there may be 1.

[00:24:26] 5 million students attending microschools. I have no idea whether that’s true or not. I suspect it’s, I suspect that’s overstating things. I’ve seen other estimates suggest that maybe it’s, Somewhere around 750, 000 students who are attending microschools. So, not only do we not have a good sense of the outcomes of microschools, we’re not even really clear how many students are attending microschools.

[00:24:51] And a lot of times, if you look at So, you might be asking, well, what is the federal government doing? Shouldn’t the federal government be classifying some of this stuff? And if you look at the federal government surveys, or even some of the surveys that state agencies do to try to track some of this, they really struggle to distinguish Between things like full time virtual schooling, homeschooling, micro schooling, and families are really inconsistent with how they mark this stuff.

[00:25:19] So, you’ll have families who have their kid enrolled in a full time virtual school, and they feel like they’re homeschoolers, and so they’ll mark themselves as homeschoolers. You’ll have a family that’s doing hybrid homeschooling, maybe they’re homeschooling. Twice a week and having their kid go to a private school on the other three days, and they may mark themselves as homeschoolers or private schoolers.

[00:25:41] So all of this becomes really challenging. And then micro schools get. You know, listed in all kinds of different ways because you have in person micro schools, online micro schools, part time micro schools. So there’s all kinds of different ways that parents classify themselves when their child is attending a micro school.

[00:25:58] So even just knowing who is in these sectors has been, you know, an incredible challenge, I think.

[00:26:05] Albert Cheng: I think you’re right. Well, one last question before I turn to Alisha. I’m going to make you make a hypothesis, you know, microschools, pods, hybrid learning. So what’s your take? I mean, do you think they’re going to hold promise to ensuring that students will acquire the requisite academic background knowledge that they need to, to succeed?

[00:26:21] Set them up well for life and, you know, what’s the promise for improving just education generally?

[00:26:27] Dan Hamlin: I think the best way that we’re probably going to be able to assess whether microschools, something like microschools, are delivering is to be able to look at Things like post secondary outcomes. So how are, how are students doing in later life?

[00:26:43] What is their post secondary, you know, experience look like? And then even over a longer term, what is their employment and income look like in later life? I, I think that’s, you know, that’s going to take time. You’re going to need longitudinal data. It’s going to be, we’re going to need more complex analyses than the ones we have.

[00:27:00] But I think that’s probably going to give us some of the best evidence, because I just don’t think that. There’s a lot of good metrics to look at. While the students are in school, that will allow us to make a claim about the sector as a whole. So, I’ll give you some reasons why I think this is the case.

[00:27:20] So, you have a lot of micro schools out there, for example, that are very much kind of child centered, progressive pedagogy type micro schools that eschew test scores altogether. And so, they’re much more focused on Providing a space for the student to pursue his or her learning independently, so they don’t do a lot of testing at all, and it may be pretty much impossible to get test scores to figure out, you know, how those students are performing.

[00:27:48] By contrast, you have other microschools that are very much academically oriented, for which you could get some information on. And then you have a whole range of different micro schools that just serve very special niches. For example, you have micro schools that may focus on serving students with disabilities, or micro schools that focus on serving gifted students.

[00:28:08] And so, you have this whole range of different micro schools out there, and so to try to make a claim about the sector as a whole. Based on analysis of like test scores or a particular type of outcome, I think is going to be really, really challenging. And so where I would say researchers need to look is they probably need to look at post secondary outcomes and say, well, okay, if you’re more of a progressive child centered micro school, and the claim is that Testing and standards are, you know, potentially harmful, let’s say, to the child, and we want students to be able to kind of explore their interests more freely.

[00:28:43] Well, we could see if that actually works out over the long term by looking at post secondary outcomes. So, to answer your question, unfortunately, I’m not I’m not, you know, terribly sure how that’ll work out, because I do think a lot of, a lot of the micro schools, and I don’t know the exact percentage, but it sure seems like a lot of them are, you know, grounded more on the progressive child centered pedagogy.

[00:29:07] So, whether that leads to, you know, You know, higher test scores or not, I don’t know. I think maybe there’s some evidence that it might not lead to higher test scores. But, you know, maybe what it produces is a strong post secondary outcomes. And I don’t think anyone actually knows, you know, what you can make a lot of hypotheses, but no one really knows yet because virtually no analysis has been done.

[00:29:26] And I, I don’t think I’ve seen a single high quality study of micro schools yet. And I don’t know of any that are underway.

[00:29:35] Alisha Searcy: Thank you for that, Professor. I want to turn to talk more about your research around learning loss and high dosage tutoring. So this past fall, you authored Pioneer’s white paper entitled, From Crisis to Opportunity, Post Pandemic Academic Growth in Massachusetts.

[00:29:53] Can you talk about the major findings of this research and the wider data and lessons drawn from pandemic learning loss across the country?

[00:30:03] Dan Hamlin: Yeah, maybe the first thing to say is that indeed there were very large learning losses, uh, if you look at the nation’s report card, if you look at state tests pretty much across the board during the pandemic, there seemed to be pretty significant learning losses.

[00:30:21] Coming off the pandemic, the federal government actually, as a recovery strategy in large part, created emergency funds for schools to use and basically emphasize different types of what the government termed high leverage instructional interventions. So they kind of prioritized that. States and districts that were looking to address learning loss post pandemic, if they were going to.

[00:30:51] You know, they were incentivized, essentially, to use some of these high leverage instructional strategies. Many of them had to do with increasing instructional time in some way. So, for example, high dose tutoring was probably one of the most significant of these that districts spent money on. That’s considered a high leverage instructional strategy because there is a pretty robust evidence base suggesting that.

[00:31:19] High dose tutoring programs actually can accelerate learning pretty quickly, but they’re very intensive. One of the other significant high leverage strategies were summer learning programs. These also have a decent evidence base. They don’t appear to accelerate learning as fast as high dose tutoring does, and there’s some evidence that the effects of summer learning programs kind of fade out.

[00:31:45] After the next academic year, but you still get some pretty decent gains, uh, and the summer learning programs are typically not as intensive as high dosage tutoring and are also a lot cheaper than high dosage tutoring. So, high dosage tutoring, summer learning, these are a couple of the big ones. And these are not cheap to operate and not easy to operate, so logistically, it’s difficult to get well trained tutors into schools three to four to five times a week to work with students and to remediate learning loss.

[00:32:18] And then there were also maybe a third bucket of strategies that schools prioritize related to after school learning. So, high dosage tutoring is Typically supposed to be within the school day and the idea behind that is our students maybe who are working after school whose parents maybe have atypical work schedules that by offering high dosage tutoring within the school day you’re going to get the students potentially who need that tutoring most and when you offer stuff after school you may miss a lot of those students.

[00:32:49] That makes sense. But a lot of schools still offer some of these afterschool programs as well. And the outcomes on those are a little more mixed than what you see for summer learning programs and high dosage tutoring.

[00:33:00] Alisha Searcy: Makes sense. So we talked about the strategies that are working. Um, it sounds like a lot of it is around intent and more instructional time.

[00:33:11] Can you talk more about some of the policy proposals? And then, there are other projects that you found in states, districts, et cetera, families that help to address learning loss if they’re different than what you’ve already talked about. Some of these proposals, and even including what happened in Massachusetts and other states, that what they’ve tried to do in terms of their federal ESSER fund to remediate these learning deficits.

[00:33:35] Dan Hamlin: Right. So my contention in the paper was, well, when, Federal funds, these emergency relief funds, eventually run out. It could be difficult for a lot of schools to maintain some of their high dose tutoring programs, some of their summer learning programs. If they can maintain them, great, by all means, they should do that.

[00:33:53] If they can secure the funds to keep those programs going, that’s great because the effects seem to be there, and so, wonderful. But, one of my contentions was, there are already a lot of schools Especially, the rural schools were unable to offer robust, high dosage tutoring programs. And then also a lot of schools that were indicating that they would not be able to maintain these programs once relief funds ran out.

[00:34:19] So, what I did was a scan of different policies that were going on across states to develop more of a A long term approach to not just post pandemic learning loss, but creating a robust education system that could drive student learning to greater heights over the long term. So there are a few different things that I looked at.

[00:34:42] One was permanently extending instructional time. Now that can be actually very expensive, but there is some good evidence to suggest that increasing instructional time is going to have positive effects. And based on some of the evidence I’ve seen, it may do so in ways that are kind of difficult to see.

[00:35:03] So, there are quite a few schools right now that have a lot of dedicated instructional time, but the day is incredibly tight. I’ve been in some schools where you have kids, they’ll have a 20 minute lunch, a 15 minute recess, and they’re just running from one thing to the next. And so, the extended instructional time arguably allows for Maybe a longer lunch, maybe a longer recess.

[00:35:26] And then when students are actually focused on their instruction, maybe that time gets used a little bit better. And then some schools just don’t have enough instructional time. Some districts in some states just don’t have enough instructional time. So that was one of the potential proposals that I think could be considered.

[00:35:44] Another one was in the area of college and career technical education opportunities. So if you look at. The Commonwealth, for example, has a pretty strong system in place by most accounts, and there’s some research that suggests that it’s been fairly successful. And coming off the pandemic, if you do have students, and we do have students who have experienced pretty significant learning loss, then having these types of programs and expanding these types of opportunities for students might actually help to address some of the post secondary challenges that might Come about as a result of learning loss, and so I think if you look at Massachusetts, there are some pretty long waiting lists in many cases for some of these programs, so finding ways to expand these opportunities, I think, makes a lot of sense, and then also it just seems like Things have kind of shifted.

[00:36:41] I don’t know about you, Alisha, but when I was growing up, it was kind of like you either go to college or you’re just not going to succeed in life. And that was, that was the message. And that was kind of conventional wisdom, but I think that’s really flipped in the past 10 years. And especially coming off the pandemic, people have really kind of questioned that and arguably for good reason.

[00:37:04] I mean, you could go out and get an HVAC license, start a business, and. Make a lot of money and have a very nice upper middle class lifestyle, and there’s just a ton of skilled trades that are out there like that. Without the student debt, right? Pardon?

[00:37:21] Alisha Searcy: I said without the student debt, right?

[00:37:23] Dan Hamlin: And without the debt, yeah, right, without the debt, and certainly there’s, I’m not arguing that students shouldn’t go to college and that there aren’t benefits.

[00:37:31] Of course. Uh, attending a university, but for some kids, and these are going to be incredible opportunities and lead to very solid middle class lifestyles, and in some cases, I think there was a recent Wall Street Journal article that came out that did a review of different types of millionaires that are kind of emerging all over the U. S. right now in these different types of skilled trades. So, for kids who maybe have an interest in this, I think it makes a lot of sense to expand these types of programs.

[00:38:00] Alisha Searcy: I like that. I’m glad you said that. No one here is saying don’t go to college. I’ve got a high school senior right now and that’s all of our lives right now is getting her into college.

[00:38:10] So we believe for sure, but there are different paths for different students. I want to dig a little bit deeper to talk about this high impact tutoring model, specifically some of your research that focuses on the effects of high impact tutoring on low achieving high school students. Can you talk about this research, the findings of course, and what do you think the prospects are for improving student achievement and closing these opportunity gaps?

[00:38:39] Dan Hamlin: There have been literally hundreds of randomized controlled trial studies that have been performed on students. High dosage tutoring, and they show pretty strong effect. Overall, the bigger the program, as what seems to be the, as with many educational interventions, the bigger these programs, the effects kind of decrease, but those decreases are from a very sort of large starting point.

[00:39:07] So, even those more muted effects So, the larger programs are still pretty sizable, amounting to a half a year to about a year of learning.

[00:39:17] So, I’ve been, I have been operating a randomized controlled trial here in Oklahoma at nine high schools, and we find that students participating in our high dose tutoring program, they grow about double what they’re expected to grow.

[00:39:34] And we’re actually Focusing on high school students, so students in ninth grade. And what we do is we test them in eighth grade to identify really the lowest performing quarter of students in middle schools. And then we randomly assign those students and some get our high dose tutoring intervention which we run.

[00:39:56] throughout the entire academic year. So we have tutors that we train. These are university students at the University of Oklahoma. Most of them are undergraduates. They come from all different majors. So we give them a bootcamp in summer. That’s pretty extensive. And then we train them on a weekly basis and work with the classroom instructor and also look at lesson plans.

[00:40:18] And so we’re, we’re working with them on an ongoing basis. And then we send them out into. They go out into schools, and they work for one hour sessions, and it’s three times a week for the entire academic year, and they’ll work with a small group of three students. So, they get to know those students, what they can and can’t do.

[00:40:38] In many cases, they build pretty solid relationships with the students that they’re working with during the academic year. that academic year. And again, I’ve been doing this now for, this is the fourth year. In the previous three years, we’ve seen students pretty consistently grow more than double what they’re expected to grow in their ninth grade year in mathematics.

[00:40:58] So pretty, pretty impressive results. But the thing is, this is not a cheap intervention. It requires lots of human resources, right? So even if you just say, Hey, let’s, Let’s eliminate the research team and just focus on the intervention. There’s just a lot of logistics that goes into the training of the tutors, getting folks to school sites.

[00:41:19] So I think high dose tutoring can work when you have, if you have a major research one university that’s within, say, 20 miles of your school, then. This can work really well. The idea that you’d send high performing university students out to high schools to work with low performing students, that can work really well.

[00:41:37] But if your school is, you know, not near a Research One university, or you’re in an area with low population density, it can be a little bit more difficult to deliver these types of programs. And folks have tried to do it virtually online, and the results just don’t appear to be as strong.

[00:41:54] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, I think you raised some really important points about human resources, financial resources, and of course, time.

[00:42:01] Very, very important. So, my last question is a policy one. Albert and I were talking earlier about The new TIM scores and just generally how our students are performing in math. And as you’ve talked about this research that you’re doing with these high schools right now, you’ve, you know, made clear the things that we know we can do that work.

[00:42:23] And so the policy question is, are there things that can be done Lessons that you’ve learned so far that could be used to inform state driven K 12 education reform policy making in this area, so that we could really see this kind of impact across the country.

[00:42:41] Dan Hamlin: I do think if you have an opportunity, if you have the human and financial resources, and high growth tutoring and summer learning can be part of that.

[00:42:52] Fantastic programs to run at school sites, but it’s just, I think it can be difficult to operate it at all school sites. So, you know, what I’ve kind of suggested, especially in the, you spoke about the white paper that I wrote for Pioneer. I think a lot of what I was looking at was, well, if you look at systems over the long run, you can kind of shift things around.

[00:43:13] You can implement different programs, but at the end of the day, You’re also going to need really excellent people in place if you want to accelerate learning over the long run. And that requires being able to engage families effectively. So, there’s a lot of research that suggests that if schools can engage families in substantive ways early on, That can really help to drive outcomes, but a lot of families actually say they want more support from schools on how to learn at home with their kids.

[00:43:47] And so, you know, I think arguably that could be an underutilized resource. I mean, we often talk about parental involvement, family engagement, getting parents involved, but really having substantive programs that help and assist parents in learning with their child at home, I think would be, you know, potentially an area that could really help.

[00:44:09] Now, the other part of getting the right human resources in place in schools is making sure you have a solid teacher core. I think if you look at the evidence base, yeah, maybe guidance counselors matter a little bit, maybe certain types of leaders in schools and coaches might have effects, but almost everything, based on my review of the literature, outcomes really tend to be largely driven, at least when it comes to school based inputs by teachers.

[00:44:40] And so finding ways to get good, high performing teachers in your schools is, seems to me to be one of the best ways that you’re going to be able to have a very strong education system over the longterm. And so I do think that yes, working conditions matter. I do think addressing student behavioral issues, creating a more positive school climate can.

[00:45:03] Help to attract high quality teachers to schools, but I also think financial incentives and compensation I think could be a big part of that. So finding ways, for example, to, if you want your best teachers working in schools that maybe have greater educational needs, well, Paying them the same amount that they would get to go work at the most affluent school around probably doesn’t make a lot of sense because a lot of teachers over time will just kind of head over to the affluent school where they think it’s, where for, whether they’re right or wrong, may see that as sort of a better environment to work in and so we probably want to pay people more to work with.

[00:45:44] in schools that have greater needs. So I think those kinds of things, I think, could help. I also, I didn’t write about this in the white paper very much, and it’s more of a hypothesis, and I have virtually no evidence to back this up. So you’re just going to, your listeners are just going to have to take this with a grain of salt.

[00:46:04] But I do think we need to, we probably need to, Have some kind of a rethinking, maybe even some kind of a public awareness campaign that gets us to think about education and to really place much greater value on education than we currently do. I’ll give you an example of what I mean, because it’s not that, I mean, you just talked about you’re doing all this stuff with your daughter right now, getting her prepped up for university, and Of course, there are lots of families like that, but there are also maybe a lot of people out there who maybe don’t place, you know, emphasis on education.

[00:46:40] I know that kind of hurts to hear for some, but I think it is true, you know, if you look at, and this isn’t necessarily an income thing, I don’t think it’s a racial ethnic thing. I think you see it across all different subgroups in American society, we just don’t place enough value on education, and I think we have to start doing that if we’re truly going to accelerate learning in this, in this country.

[00:47:03] If you just look at the sports, if you take, you know, affluent middle class families, for example, I’m just absolutely astonished at how much money and time that, you know, Families in that subgroup spend on their children’s sports careers. I mean, if you really think about it, it’s a really irrational, rational choice on their part.

[00:47:23] Because if they took maybe like, I don’t know, a third of those resources and a third of that time and applied it more towards additional learning for the child, I think the return on investment would be much more than any return they’re going to get for their child’s middle or high school sports careers.

[00:47:40] But that’s my opinion, so your listeners will have to take that one with a grain of salt.

[00:47:46] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, you could get people quite riled up with that, but I completely understand what you’re saying. It’s about priorities, and I think if you travel to other countries, you recognize the difference between the value that we place on education and others, so I agree with that point.

[00:48:00] Thank you for joining us today. This has been a great time spent with you, and I appreciate the work that you’re doing in these different research areas.

[00:48:09] Dan Hamlin: Well, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure speaking with the two of you.

[00:48:26] Albert Cheng: Well, that was fun getting to chat with Dan Hamlin. As folks know, he and I are coauthors on a number of research studies, but always fun. I love his company.

[00:48:35] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, doing great work. I learned so much.

[00:48:38] Albert Cheng: Well, before we sign off, though, I do want to read the tweets of the week, which comes from, hey, the Pioneer Institute.

[00:48:46] It’s its own tweet. But hey, I, I’m really glad that they’re giving some airtime to Steve Wilson. So let me just read the tweet. It was inspiring to hear Pioneers Senior Education Fellow, Steven Wilson, discussed the importance of restoring high expectations in schools and his upcoming book, The Lost Decade, returning to the fight for better schools during his talk at AEI.

[00:49:10] Excellent work, Steven. And you know, Alisha, I had the privilege to review his book. It’s a must read. He is, is. Essentially articulating, arguing a lot of things that you and I have been speaking about on the show. So it’s worth a read. And I don’t know, maybe, maybe we have to get them on the show or something to talk about this book.

[00:49:27] That’d be great.

[00:49:28] Alisha Searcy: I’ll have to check it out. That’d be great. Alisha, thanks for co hosting the show with me as always. Yes. Great show. It was great to be with you again. Looking forward to it next week.

[00:49:39] Albert Cheng: Yeah. And next week we’re going to have John Suchet and he’s going to come to us to talk about Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Suite.

[00:49:46] So let’s get in some more holiday spirit. Sounds good. All right. Well, everyone have a good day and hope to see you next week for another episode. See ya. Hey, it’s Albert Chang here. And I just want to thank you for listening to the Learning Curve podcast. If you’d like to support the podcast further, we invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.