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Educating the workforce of the future with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
On this week's episode, Penta Partner Meghan Pennington explored the impact of early childhood education on the future workforce with our guests from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Senior Vice President and Vice President of Education & Workforce Policy, Cheryl Oldham, and Vice President of Policy and Programs, Caitlin Codella Low. Drawing from their extensive experience in the education sector, Cheryl and Caitlin provided valuable insights into the importance of a robust childcare system in shaping the workforce pipeline and the necessity of investing in our youngest learners.
The group examined the challenges employers face in providing quality childcare and the prevalence of child care deserts in many U.S. zip codes. The conversation also delved into the CHIPS Act and its potential to address childcare issues, as well as the complexities of using data to inform K-12 education policy, highlighting the disconnect between parents' perceptions of their child's performance and the data reality.
The episode emphasized the need to understand these challenges to create effective, data-informed solutions that help families and build a stronger workforce. Tune in to learn more!
Welcome to another episode of what's At Stake, a PENTA podcast. I'm your host, megan Pennington, a partner at PENTA, and today I'm excited to be sitting down with two experts from the United States Chamber of Commerce Foundation. We'll be diving into the latest in early childhood education, its implications on child care and the future of work, as well as all the interesting things they're focusing on related to the future of data in K-12 education. Our first guest is Cheryl Oldham, who serves as Senior Vice President of the Chamber Foundation and Vice President of Education and Workforce Policy. We also have Caitlin Codella Lowe, who serves as Vice President of Policy and Programs at the Chamber Foundation. They both have decades of experience in this space and will no doubt make for a great conversation. Cheryl Caitlin, thanks so much for joining us today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourselves and your career and what brought you to the Chamber Foundation to do this work?
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thanks for having us and giving us this opportunity to talk about our work. We could do that all day long. But I'm Cheryl Oldham, as you said. I've been at the Chamber and Chamber Foundation for 13 years now. Came to this sort of space of education and workforce. I guess not, maybe intentionally grew up in Texas, sort of stumbled into politics and moved to DC with that in mind, worked for a newly elected governor named George W Bush.
Speaker 3:I think we've heard of him?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the issues that I was sort of assigned to as a 20-something were in this space of education, higher education, some other issues, and then when he became elected president, I went to the White House and ultimately the Department of Education worked for him for eight years and then here at the Chamber Foundation. So it wasn't sort of intentional. I didn't study to get into this space, but it has been. Now I have two kids and so I feel like everybody has a passion for these issues when you have a couple kids and you live it every day.
Speaker 2:And so I've been at the Chamber Foundation, as I said, and Chamber also oversee the policy for the US Chamber on these issues, and have been doing it for almost a decade and a half. I can't believe I'm saying that Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Kailin.
Speaker 4:Sure. Similarly, I didn't plan on getting into education policy in particular. When I was in college.
Speaker 4:I was really really interested in policy and specifically social welfare policy was what I majored in, and I was a social worker when I graduated from college for a couple of years, and it was a fascinating experience doing that, working on the ground with individuals every day.
Speaker 4:I was specifically a hospital social worker, oh wow. And I took an opportunity to move to DC and I worked on the Hill for a bit and education was one of my issues, and when I was a hospital social worker, I really saw how education really impacted an individual's life. Like you know, the amount of stories that you had with patients that, like their sort of future, started or stopped in the classroom was remarkable, like something that I don't think I really appreciated prior to that experience. And so I knew I wanted to do something in that policy, so worked on the Hill and then took an opportunity to move over to the chamber, been there for over 15 years which is again difficult to even wrap my mind around and have been working in this space with Cheryl for 12 years. Is that even possible?
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like a dynamic duo.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I didn't intentionally get into education, but found my way there, and once I got into it I never wanted to let go.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, that's interesting because I think so often when you meet people working in education policy, they have stories like that. I mean, every education is such a personal thing to everyone and everybody has their own experience in the education system in the United States or wherever they grew up. But, you know, I talk to people often that say, you know, I ended up in education or early childhood education policy and I didn't necessarily know that I was going to be there. But I think that's interesting because, you know, I think when people think of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation they might not necessarily think what is the? You know, why is there a center for education and workforce? Maybe tell me a little bit about why this is important to the chamber foundation's work and why this policy area is something that you invest in and think about every day, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:The mission of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation is to harness the power of business to solve big problems, both in the United States and around the world, and so one of the biggest challenges I think we have in this country is around talent, and it's kind of twofold it's the skills issue and competitiveness issue, but it's also an opportunity issue.
Speaker 2:So, as the largest, you know, on the US Chamber side, the largest advocacy organization representing the interest of business in the world, is the US Chamber. Its membership cares deeply about workforce talent, ensuring their competitiveness, and that starts at the very youngest of ages. And then the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation is an affiliate of the US Chamber. We get to, I think, have the pleasure of really diving into the program side of this. We're not advocating around policy and the foundation, we're building the programs that will help to advance these systems to work more effectively, and it starts with early education and childcare, k through 12, obviously, workforce development and training, post-secondary education. It is a pipeline of talent that needs to work more effectively in order to ensure, you know, we are competitive as a nation, as a community, as companies, but then also so that individuals have opportunity.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to pull on that for a second, because I think sometimes when you think of early childhood education and workforce pipeline, you think, wait a second, isn't that daycare? But actually it's not right. I mean, we are really thinking about our youngest learners and investing in our youngest learners from birth, right? So maybe can we talk a little bit about how the childcare system is so important to our workforce pipeline and how kind of all of that plays out. What is the landscape of childcare in the US?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Kate, do you want to take this one? And I'll chime in Sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely so. It's so funny you say that, megan, because back, you know, gosh, when we started this work in childcare about seven or so, seven or eight years ago, we were sort of brought into it, thinking about pre-K as a piece of, you know, sort of this broader conversation in the world of preparedness for K-12. And when we started digging really deep into this issue, we realized that, you know, the zero to five landscape was this sort of gaping hole around workforce as an issue, right, and of course, fast forward several years and the pandemic hits and all of a sudden we're all having conversations via Zoom and your colleagues have their infants or their toddlers running around behind you and you're like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, this is really young. See what childcare and as a workforce issue looks like every single day. And also, not, you know, surprisingly, at that moment in time, I think the business community jumped in with, you know, sort of both hands to say how can we help our colleagues think about or solve these workforce challenges?
Speaker 2:and seeing what that meant for parents you know, both parents, mothers and fathers, but you know, unfortunately all mothers in particular were sort of saddled with working and kids and we saw what that meant for women keeping their jobs in the workforce right Okay because I think you hit on something important, which is the women piece, which is we saw like a massive exodus of women from the workforce during the pandemic and it was sort of pre-pandemic that it felt like child care was this personal issue that, as a working parent, you needed to figure out on your own?
Speaker 2:right, it wasn't you know, maybe there was benefits that your employer was providing you know here or there, but it wasn't. I don't think it was necessarily viewed by anybody as an individual responsibility right.
Speaker 2:To manage and juggle and figure that out. And then I think the pandemic really, you know, caused this shift. And we see it every day where employers come to us and they're saying we were trying to figure out how to support our working parents because we see it in the data, we know that they're if they are worried about where their child is, or that their child is safe, or they're unable to show up for work because they have an issue with child care at home. I mean, there is a bottom line issue for employers, but they also care about their working parents, obviously. And so some of the work that we have done is really to try to quantify that economic impact, both to a state economy but also to the business community when that child care system breaks down. And so we've just seen this you know more and more that the business community is stepping in and up and because they have to, right.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think, as you mentioned, kaylin, the pandemic laid bare. This, you know, I think, like broken child care equation, if you will. Right. Working parents have to have somewhere to send their children if they're going, that's safe and that is, you know, a high quality environment, place that they can get to, that they can afford and that's the only way they can go to work. But we need a robust, vibrant workforce, right, and it seems like those two pieces kind of have to go together. So now, as we think of return to work, and people are about like we're, you know, we're here together today. How has that equation, you know, have we seen? You mentioned businesses are stepping up. I think there have been some federal investments, like what's the state of the child care system today, as we're in sort of you know of I don't know a hybrid environment when I call it.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, the state is still broken, right, like we have not fixed child care. It was broken well before. The pandemic continues to be broken now. That being said, you know we at the US Chamber Foundation have done a lot of surveying right of both companies and employees, trying to figure out, like, where are their answers to this? Really ingrained Like this is. This is not an issue, you know, make no mistake. This is not an issue that we can just snap our fingers and pour a huge amount of money in it like fixes itself. Right, it's a very challenging issue, but we do know that there are things that really help the workforce in particular. So when you're thinking about hourly wage workers, right, predictive scheduling, just knowing right in a month in advance, I know.
Speaker 4:I'm working every Tuesday, first shift. Every Wednesday, second shift. Every Thursday, first shift right. I am then able to figure out what that child care solution works that works for my kid and works for me as an individual right, just so. Predictive scheduling is one thing right.
Speaker 4:Having this hybrid environment being another thing. Flexibility that I think we have seen leaps and bounds since 2020, right, like the flexible working arrangements that I think companies have embraced certainly employees have embraced right. But then also figuring out what what child care solution works best for each family individual individually, and embracing that. I think that is such an important piece of this conversation, right, when we talk about child care is it is a really personal issue.
Speaker 4:I have two kids that are in child care right now. Right Like, thank god I have a working system that fits the needs of my kids. But that was a deeply personal conversation and decision that my husband and I had in order to figure out what solution is going to work for my four-year-old and what solution is going to work for my one-year-old.
Speaker 1:Which is an important part of that solution, is essential for you to go to work right Absolutely, and it seems like employers recognize that in a just even. You say, like in scheduling, in benefits available to their employees. It's an investment in a solid and productive workforce for them.
Speaker 2:For sure, and I think you know, as we see way more jobs open and available than we actually have a labor force looking for work, employers are thinking more and more about what are those key benefits, what are the recruitment retention, how do I get the best employees? And this comes up right. This issue of child care certainly comes up as one that I think they you know they need, that needs to be on the table if they're going to be able to attract and retain and compete for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, this makes me think of the CHIPS Act. So the CHIPS Act tell me what, if at all, does, will the CHIPS Act do to incentivize employers to think of creative ways to help their employees solve their child care challenges?
Speaker 2:I mean the CHIPS Act. Is this massive federal investment in chip manufacturing sort of a competitiveness with China issue? It's not so much an incentive as it is a mandate. So if you're an employer that is seeking those federal dollars for manufacturing facilities, the requirement is that you have to ensure quality child care, both for those individuals who would be constructing said manufacturing facility and then also those who will ultimately work there. So it is, you know, it's sort of a trade-off. You want the mill at least a hundred. If you're going after at least $150 million in federal funds, this is what you have to. You are required to ensure for your workers.
Speaker 2:It's, I think, challenging because I mean, yeah, we've basically put on the backs of employers what we haven't been able to fix from a policy perspective. Right, either you know, at the federal level or the state level, these issues. You know, as Caitlin said, we have some broken pieces to the system. We have deserts where there's no child care. We have, you know, reimbursement rates that are probably not modernized. We've got a lot of issues with the system, and so what we've said is, well, we haven't figured out those things. So we're just going to say, employers, you got to figure it out. If you're going to have access to this money, you have to require this, and so I think it's going to be a real challenge.
Speaker 4:Right, no, I think. One thing just to highlight, and what Cheryl just said, is that 50% of the US is considered a child care desert. Right Like that fact, in and of itself is unbelievable right we have and like this means that a huge amount of kids are in a zip code that does not have the care capacity to serve the needs of working parents or, you know, certainly, the needs of these kids.
Speaker 4:And, not surprisingly right when you look at the map of where a huge amount of these facilities are scheduled to go, right, like where the plan is for them to go, not surprisingly, a huge amount of them are in places where there is a child care desert.
Speaker 4:So, like we know that we are marrying location needs with a population that already isn't isn't served in the way they need to be right In order to sort of step ready to work day one.
Speaker 4:Like we're not even talking about the skills gap challenges that we might be walking into in some of these places, and so I think there's just like 10 fold ads to the challenge for the business community Now, like look, this is something that these workers are going to be dealing with regardless. And so I think, like understanding the needs of these communities that you are, you know, sort of breaking ground in right now and, and you know, figuring out how to help to serve these employees is is important, it is certainly going to be even more challenging in a lot of these places that we're already struggling. Before, like we weren't at 100% and now we're just like over, you know, overreaching capacity, like we weren't meeting the needs, and now we have so much more right that we've got to think through Not only that. Right, like the bar is really high here. Right, it's about capacity, it's about quality right.
Speaker 4:Like, the quality commitment here is huge and we know that high quality early childhood education is absolutely important for the kids that it serves. And probably hard to define, but it's not something you can, just it's a little difficult to, but it's also not something that we can just like say, oh okay, we've figured this out right, like this is an everyday effort.
Speaker 2:I think important to what Caitlin saying too, about the sort of issues that currently exist in these communities is it's not as though X chip manufacturer can come with a plan that says we'll provide stipends or we'll provide, you know, connection services to ensure these employees have confined childcare, or we'll, in many places it won't exist so like it needs to be created right, and is it the center and run it?
Speaker 1:And are they? Do they know how?
Speaker 2:No, of course not so right. So there's just. I mean, there are people out there that can help them to figure that out, but it is one of those things and, as we've seen also, this is not, this is a requirement that has been placed on them. That's probably the 10th or 15th thing on the list of things that they are thinking about, as they're standing up an entire manufacturing facility to manufacture a manufacturer facility. So it's like it's important, it's on the list. They probably don't know how to do it. They're gonna have to figure it out, they're gonna have to work in the community to figure it out, and it's you know, it's a challenge for sure.
Speaker 1:Let's take a quick break and we come back. We'll hear more about the future of work and takeaways from the latest K through 12 education data.
Speaker 3:Penta is the world's first comprehensive stakeholder solutions firm. We are a one-stop shop for the intelligence and strategy leaders need to assess a company's reputation and make decisions that improve their positioning as executives in the C-suite must account for a growing set of engaged stakeholders, all with distinct, fast-changing demands. Penta provides real-time intelligence and strategy solutions. We work with clients solving complex global challenges across a variety of industries. Our clients span technology, financial services, energy, healthcare and more. To learn more about how Penta can support your company, check out our website at pentagroupco or Twitter at PentaGRP, or find us on LinkedIn at pentagroup.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to what's at Stake. Let's dive back in. So we've just talked a bit about how the pandemic dismantled many child care options, you know, making it difficult for parents to balance work and their children's enrichment. Has this had an impact on people who are rejoining the workforce? I think I have an idea, but talk to me about that a little bit. We saw so many people drop out of the workforce. How has that return gone and how has child care played a piece of that?
Speaker 2:I think we're slowly returning and please, you know, chime in here. I think we've seen, you know it was interesting we saw men return much quicker, at a quicker clip, than women. I think we're maybe back or, you know, bringing women back. I think child care still continues to be in survey data and others still continues to be, you know, one of the biggest challenges, which is why we continue to be working. You know we continue to work on this as an issue, Kate. What have you seen? More data.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I think so. In the survey data that we have done, I think what has been interesting is, prior to the pandemic, there was a general you saw like a general need to rely on family, friend or neighbor care, and that data has risen dramatically in the last three years. And I think my question in sussing that out is, like you know, we talked about child care being a really important personal choice. Is that something that you're yet still relying on? Because it was? You sort of experienced it during the pandemic and now and now that's you know your desired location for child care right with a family, friend or neighbor. But we saw that up to high and I think what we're, what you know some have said is that that has really been surrounding the need, so like you're in work, but you also need assistance for these. You know sort of wrap around these ripples of being back in the office right, whether it be commute, whether it be travel, whether you know like you need it, all the things that being back to work you know requires of you.
Speaker 2:And I think we haven't seen I don't remember the exact numbers, I should know this of centers that closed during the pandemic and I don't think that we, like we're back to pre-pandemic numbers in terms of child care facilities that are back and open, and so that obviously I mean we talked about it previously we are already in a place where we don't have enough and then so many closed we don't have as many back now. I think your point about family, friend and neighbor is really important, but it's also, you know, it's probably a out of necessity, but also, as you said, out of personal choice. And so anytime you start to talk about these sort of solutions to child care that include, you know, government run, that just from our research, from our perspective, that's just not gonna. That's just not what people want. They want the mixed delivery, they want options, they want flexibility, they want a system that works for them, as Kay Lynn's been talking about.
Speaker 4:Well, and just to add on to that, megan, I think that a really important thing is, like we've struggled in for years, right on child care as a child care workforce is its own sort of separate issue here. Right, and to Cheryl's point, like I have a personal experience with this, right my own child goes to. I had my kid on a list when I was 10 weeks pregnant. My one year old. I had a list when I was 10, knowing that I was gonna have a weight. Right. There was no infant care available for her until she was 13 months old. Technically she's not even an infant anymore right and so what?
Speaker 4:what is that? They used to have two infant center, two infant rooms that were available and open, and so they were able to take 16 infants. Well, that changed to one infant room because of a child care workforce shortage that they as a center were experiencing, right, and so then they had to close that. What did that? That ripples into this community because now eight infant rooms, infant spots, that were available are are no longer available, right, and so they are competing with every other workforce, right, Whether it be the Starbucks or whether it be Riley were everyone's. Everyone is competing for hourly wage workers in the same way, and I think child care is sort of a micro case study. And what does that look like and how does that affect the broader workforce?
Speaker 1:Well, and it seems like, you know, there's the challenge of today the parent that needs to go to work, and then the child care workforce that must be in place to support caring for the child to the parent to go to work. But then, you know, certainly, thinking about it from the perspective of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation, there is the competitiveness challenge in the big picture of those children needing a place to be while their parents are at work to prepare them to enter pre-K and kindergarten and, and you know, be successful in K through 12. What investments must be made in the child care system to ensure that our you know youngest you know youngest learners, birth the five are ready to enter the you know, our public, our public school system or wherever they're going to go to school to be part of the workforce, you know, when they're?
Speaker 2:18 or after college Couple things, one sort of just flip it Lee always sort of joke, like if we could just get the child care system right, like we would not be having a third grade reading issue or an eighth grade math issue, right, like if we could get that piece quality child care system available to all who need it. I think we would. We would set kids up certainly for success down the road. You know one of the things when you talk about what needs to happen in terms of that zero to five to prepare, when we first got into this business, it was partially because the only conversation that was happening in Washington DC was about universal pre-K and so it was about adding an extra year to the existing public education system and that was really all that like. I mean, this is a generalization I'm making.
Speaker 2:There was, I'm sure, lots of people talking about the earliest of years, but the biggest noise in this town was universal pre-K. It was all about this extra year. So four-year-olds, maybe three-year-olds, and if you look at all the research and we did a report called the Workforce of Today, workforce of Tomorrow, and it walks through all of this right and talks about the importance of that zero that whole time, not just three and four-year-olds in preparation for going to kindergarten, but zero to five as really critical in terms of brain development and all of that. So for us, that is the important piece right Fixing this childcare system, making the appropriate investments, incentives to employers to provide these benefits, all of these things, that boosting the CCDBG and some of these other tax provisions. That's what we need to do in order to have the future workforce 90% of the brain is developed in the first 1,000 days.
Speaker 4:Like that's. The meaningful piece of the first three years of life is that this is when the meaningful connections right, the neuro development is happening for kids, and so we're only focusing on year four. Then we've sort of missed the boat.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the piece that I don't know, that people think about often, right, I don't know that even I mean, I'm not a parent, so I don't know. But if I were about to be a parent, I would think or I would not be thinking about, oh gosh, when my child is an infant that there are brain development connection, neural connections happening that will impact my child's ability to thrive in kindergarten or in third grade or in fifth grade. But I wonder, how are we able to assess children once they get into K through 12? Do we have an idea of where our achievement, where our children, are achieving in the school system? How are we tracking that? That feels like a very important piece of American competitiveness.
Speaker 4:Great segue into the future of data report that the US Chamber released this year. So, interestingly enough, megan, for years we actually do assess in grades three through eight, and once in high school we assess on reading and math and then we also have a really and this is a state test right. We also have a meaningful assessment that happens in grade four and eighth, right On reading and math. It's called the nation's report card in the national assessment of educational progress. For all the acronym lovers in DC, nace is the common right and we had years of data right that tells us how kids are doing right and reading and math in really important places.
Speaker 4:Fourth grade is a really important marker for a lot of reasons. One is that so if you think about K through eight, right In kindergarten to third grade, you learn to read. You spend a lot of time learning to read as a really important sort of foundational building block to the rest of your school. After third grade we use reading to learn. So if you didn't figure out right, if you don't have the skills that you need in third grade, then after that you are building on faulty foundation right, because we're not gonna go back and teach on a read.
Speaker 4:We've already done that. We're using it now for the rest of our educational progress, right? So fourth grade reading is a really important marker to understand, like where did kids, where have we met the mark right and where do we, where have we not? Frankly, and for years, we've been sort of lagging in this world of reading as a marker right. This is not a place that we've got a huge. We don't have 90, 100% of our kids reading on grade level. We know that, but in last year, right. So in the midst of the we did, we did a NAIC testing in 2022. The results came out last year. Obviously, this takes into account what happened during the pandemic and the huge amount of kids that were out of school or were in school virtually right and what we saw is that an enormous amount of kids the largest drop in the history of name.
Speaker 4:Largest drop we've ever seen. We are back to like the days when we were just starting testing.
Speaker 1:Wow. So how do we? What do we do about that? Do we need more data? Do we need you know? How can we rebuild? How can we ensure that this next generation of our workforce has the skills they need to you know, participants, and to succeed?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's so much I think that can and should be done, but I think, from our perspective, one of the key things is we need to keep measuring right. We can't stop measuring, and that's a big fight in a lot of places across the country.
Speaker 2:It's like we don't like testing, people don't want to test, and how else do you know whether you're on track or not? And so I think measurement is really important. What you measured gets done. The policy is really important here, and K through 12 education gets mired in politics pretty quickly, and so we need the business community and all other stakeholders to really engage and care about what happens in our public education system.
Speaker 2:You know we had progress on reading and math in the early 2000s, and I would say that was in response to no Child Left Behind and the requirement that we assess in grades three through eight or, yeah, in grades three through eight once in high school on reading and math, as Caitlin said, or the requirement that we do that assessment, right, that was the federal law requiring it. And to segregate that data, let's understand how low income kids are doing, kids with disabilities, black kids, hispanic kids. We didn't do that before, we didn't know, and so we could sort of hide folks in the averages, right, and we could look at a school or look at a district and say, oh, on average everyone's doing. Well, disaggregate that. But that specificity feels very important. It feels very important, right, and I think that is one thing that seems like even the right and left, or the politics, continues to at least feel good about the idea that disaggregation of the data that we have is really important to understand how those subgroups are doing, and that's then how we pay attention, right? So if we know in a particular district that they're not doing well in math in fourth grade, then they can double down on what they need to do.
Speaker 2:And I saw it with my own kids. You know, elementary school, oh, so many years ago. Right, they were thought they were great forever and all of a sudden they realized they were falling behind in math and their kids were not up to where they needed to be, and the entire school came together to figure out how to fix that. And so that was the beauty of pieces of no-tall-of-behind, was that shining that spotlight and then giving the goal was to give extra resources to those places that needed it. And so in that future of data report that Caitlin talked about, some of the sort of stark things that we found is we actually don't know whether or not the resources went to where they needed to go and what happened with those resources. I mean, there's some of the research lacking in some of those sort of key critical areas that we hope that, as we begin to think about another reauthorization of this federal law, there are some things we need to understand in order to know what worked and didn't work.
Speaker 1:Well, and I want to pick up on that you mentioned the school kind of understanding where they needed to address achievement gaps. I think that's something that's so interesting about our country. It's federal law, but working in conjunction with state and local and the people on the ground that know their community better than anyone else. I wonder are there any states that are serving as a really kind of acing the game in how they collect data, or maybe an example for what works and something that we should take a look at on the federal level as a way to think about capturing and tracking data and making sure that we're understanding what's really happening in the communities, not just on an average basis, but really thinking of children as individuals, and how do you address individual needs and skills attainment?
Speaker 2:It was hitting it out of the park back in the day.
Speaker 1:We're just maybe doing a better job than others.
Speaker 2:It's funny, I was in a state yesterday who actually was on a trajectory, who was always sort of widely recognized as on sort of the right path forward, and I think even they were saying they feel like they are data rich and information poor. That's the thing about K through 12, as opposed to, say, higher education In K 12, we've got data galore now, but are we using that data to inform policy? Do we know how? Are we using it in ways to advance teaching and learning and help individual students? I'm not sure that it was created for that purpose, and so that was another thing about this work that we did, which was to think OK, we believe in measurement, we believe in assessments, but we also understand that we've advanced in technology now that we can use assessments in different ways, and there's an important thing about accountability and accountability for districts and maybe accountability for schools, but there's also a way to use assessments to help that teaching and learning piece and advance the individual, which wasn't what that accountability regime was developed really to do. Sorry, kate, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Totally no. I think it's a really important piece, because there is another really important factor here, Megan, which is what parents think.
Speaker 4:For parents, you're getting regular what we would consider quarterly grade, so you get report cards every quarter and it tells you as your kid and a student and you take that as your information. So we actually recently, this year, surveyed parents, asking in partnership with a couple of their organizations learning heroes in particular to survey parents to say where do you believe your child is? 92% of parents across the country that they thought their kid was on grade level. They thought their kid was where they needed to be. 92%. But going back to the point that we had just talked about earlier, where you were talking about.
Speaker 1:I'm worried you're going to tell me where they really were 33% of fourth graders were proficient in reading.
Speaker 4:Let's lay this over each other 90% of parents think their kid is where they need to be. 33% of fourth graders are reading on grade level. 37% of fourth graders are proficient in math, 31% of eighth graders are proficient in reading and 26% of eighth graders are proficient in math.
Speaker 2:And it's worse if you're looking at, say, black kids, it's like 1 in 10.
Speaker 4:Well, actually I am so fourth grade reading. So I said 33% of fourth graders are proficient in reading. When you're talking about black kids 17%, hispanic kids 21%, white kids 42%. These are this is all by the way down from the last time we did this in 2019. And so part of this is really like was the underpinning for our sort of thought about like where does future of data report, like why is the future of data so important and how do we sort of deal with multiple issues at once and one of them is just how do we think about getting parents the information that they need, teachers the information that they need right, and administrators the information that they need?
Speaker 4:and, to Cheryl's point, right, like we also need to be measuring at a federal level, we need to understand where our kids are, where our pain points are and how do we make sure that, in the end, all of our kids, every single one of our kids, are prepared for whatever the world of work looks like in the future. And we know, by the way, that the vast majority of kids that are in K-12 right now will not be in jobs that even have a name right, I mean, think about right in 2020, none of us were talking about a chat GPT.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So we just don't even have any idea what the requirements will be. We have an idea what the future will be right.
Speaker 4:We have no idea what those jobs are going to need. So if we don't know what the job is, we certainly don't know what the skill is.
Speaker 2:But I can tell you what, regardless you're gonna need to know how to read and write right and do math but, there are basic we know right, like there are basic foundational skills that every single kid needs to have. Right and I think it's really. You know, caitlin, talk about what parents think in 92% and it's not because they have their head in the sand or they're not paying attention. I have my own kid because you're looking at their grades and my eighth grader said he was an.
Speaker 2:A student in algebra, an eighth grade A student. All through the year. Guess what? He failed the Virginia State Assessment, or eighth grade math. So hello, like his teacher has been telling me for an entire solid year, he knows exactly what he needs to do and the assessment, if it is assessing what he needs to know and be able to do, I mean I'm gonna look at that.
Speaker 1:I wanna know what's the disconnect there.
Speaker 2:And then how is that being used then to help figure out, okay, where, like, what's happening here and so it's not. You know, it's not to suggest that parents aren't paying attention.
Speaker 1:I think they are being given.
Speaker 2:I think they are being given it's really hard it's really hard and we need to align these things. My God.
Speaker 1:Right, right, oh my gosh. So it sounds like we have very steep challenges, but I'm so glad there are smart people thinking about them and you know, I think sometimes understanding the problem is the first step, right, understanding the challenges is the first step to creating a solution. So I'm heartened to know that we're understanding a bit of our challenges and, you know, I think we all believe in, you know, American ingenuity. We'll figure it out, and you know, so glad that people like the two of you are working on these things and thinking about them. Cheryl Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a fantastic conversation To our listeners. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Twitter at Penta Group P-E-N-T-A-G-R-P. I'm your host, megan Pennington, and, as always, thanks for listening to what's At Stake. We'll see you next time.