Opportunity to Learn, Responsibility to Lead

Overview & Synopsis

The overwhelming majority of families rely on public education for a foothold in the American Dream, making it perhaps the most consequential expression of America's core value of opportunity for all. State policymakers are the constitutional stewards and primary funders of America's public schools. They have the awesome responsibility of guiding public education toward its noble and essential mission of opportunity for all. Through standards, data systems, funding, accountability expectations and learning supports, as well as many other decisions, state policy significantly shapes and influences whether students have access to the opportunities they need and deserve. This report presents a set of principles for state leaders to advance an opportunity agenda through public education. Principles 1-3 directly address instruction and the student experience; principles 4-6 focus on important enabling conditions; and principles 7-9 address the state role in ensuring opportunities to learn. State leadership is essential to connect the things that students need and deserve to what public education provides. Accounting for opportunity is essential to reflect what is known about how people learn, and to ensure public education meets its obligation to provide opportunity to all. Pandemic disruptions make it especially timely for state policymakers to audit the policy and information ecosystem regarding opportunities to learn; an orientation toward the future is essential to address disruptive changes coursing through democracy, economy, and American society overall.