This easy-to-reference one-pager provides an overview of arts education policies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense Education Activity. It is updated annually, and this blog post shares more about the changes in state policies captured in the 2023 update.
For more detailed information about these state policies and the option to cross-compare states, see the 50-State Comparison.
These resources are a collaboration with the Arts Education Partnership.
States, school districts and charter schools will be receiving $190 billion in federal aid from the three relief packages passed since March 2020. The bulk of the funds from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) will be flowing through states to districts and charters. This means that while local districts have the final say in how most of the funds will be spent, state leaders have the pivotal role of assisting local districts as they put this historic investment to work to support students and educators.
Here are a few of those roles and examples of states leading the way.
Provide clear guidance, priorities and technical assistance for districts.
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) requires local districts to release plans for a safe return to in-person instruction within 30 days of receiving funds. Some state education agencies or state councils have supported districts by releasing a plan that offers a comprehensive vision for a safe return to in-person instruction. These plans often include priorities or values, equity statements, and discussion of how federal resources can be used effectively. Some examples include:
Facilitate meaningful consultation with stakeholders and the public.
Effective planning will benefit from input from students, educators, families and many different perspectives. The American Rescue Plan requires states and local districts to develop ESSER plans that meaningfully engage in stakeholder consultation and take public input into account. The diverse voices states and districts might consider include civil rights organizations and stakeholders representing English learners, children experiencing homelessness, children in foster care, and migratory students. To maximize the likelihood of input, engagement opportunities should be offered in multiple languages, on more than one day and after the school day. Some examples include:
Create statewide programs and initiatives for using federal funds.
Governors and state legislatures can create statewide programs for accelerating student learning. They can designate the state’s share of federal funds to support these programs, make federal funding a permissible use for local districts, or both. Some examples include:
By working in close partnership, state, school district, and school leaders can engage with students and families and invest federal resources to accelerate student learning and meet the needs of their communities.
Teacher Appreciation Week presents a critical opportunity to create a renewed vision of how policymakers appreciate teachers. This renewal, coupled with new federal stimulus funding, creates an opportunity to go beyond appreciation to serious investments in the types of meaningful job rewards and supports that teachers value. Beyond expressions of gratitude, this year education leaders can commit to invest in comprehensive supports in attracting, preparing and retaining teachers.
States across the country have been impacted by chronic educator shortages and with the pandemic, shortages have likely been exacerbated. GTL knows from partnerships with state and district leaders that schools are often unable to fill teaching positions, and students are left without fully-prepared teachers in the classroom. Early retirement in some states has increased dramatically, and enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined. These shortages tend to disproportionately impact students living in poverty, English learners, students with disabilities, students of color and students from marginalized communities. Investments targeted to address these growing inequities can make an impact in closing the achievement gap. Through new federal funding streams, state policymakers have the opportunity to make significant, strategic investments to support equity by investing resources to stabilize and strengthen the educator workforce and increase teacher talent and diversity, particularly in underserved, hard-to-staff schools.
As education leaders make strategic decisions about the use of federal ESSER funds, they can consider directing these funds to strengthen the educator workforce. Given that the pandemic has likely impacted underserved schools disproportionately, educator workforce investments can help support proactive, targeted and purposeful policy and practice that is grounded in the unique needs and contexts of underserved schools. A data-driven approach, built on the GTL Center’s Talent Development Framework, may help leaders visualize and identify where investments in talent are needed to address both short- and long-term needs.
Through a cross-state collaborative, supported by Regional Comprehensive Centers 1 and 9, GTL Center experts have worked with states to explore short-term solutions to educator shortages exacerbated by the pandemic — including increasing the ranks and quality of substitute teachers, leveraging teacher candidates, reducing teacher attrition and implementing innovative staffing structures.
Yet short-term solutions can be at odds with strengthening, growing and diversifying the educator workforce over the long term. States and districts can consider how they invest in teachers now, and how that investment can also support the teacher workforce in the long term. To address this need, the GTL Center has written a call to action for education leaders to prioritize new federal funding for investments in stabilizing and diversifying the educator workforce.
The GTL Center is also hosting meetings with state education agency leaders to build a more comprehensive, data-driven approach to addressing educator shortages, as outlined in the Talent Development Framework. This work requires looking at both subject-matter and school-level shortages to identify where in the pipeline a state is losing talent, why the state is losing talent, and how to take concrete actions to shore-up pipelines. The work also requires short and long-term solutions developed by a team of stakeholders that have a critical role in the talent pipeline (e.g., educator preparation programs and teacher associations). Once stakeholders have interpreted the data and examined root-causes, they can take action by implementing evidence-based strategies that support teachers throughout the career continuum.
To make any investments worthwhile, it’s important to ensure that schools have qualified, effective and diverse teachers and leaders in the workforce. Doing so ensures that all other investments find solid ground. This Teacher Appreciation Week, let us all have a renewed appreciation for teachers and invest in the teaching workforce.
“My 1st graders pantomimed today to illustrate understanding of vocabulary. Pantomime pairs well with a current science unit about animals and the structures they use to defend themselves. They loved it. I’m so thankful I took the arts integration class!”
As professors preparing teachers at Louisiana State University, emails like this one from a former undergraduate student are common since re-envisioning the required arts course to incorporate arts integration. Prior to the course remodel, however, such emails were extremely rare.
In the United States, about 2,000 institutions prepare teachers for careers in education. According to Education Commission of the States, 29 states require enrollment in an arts-based class prior to teacher licensure and certification. Compulsory arts coursework can range from fine arts survey classes to arts electives or fully arts integrated curriculum; however, state education policies related to arts courses remain vague.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports decreased instructional time devoted to the arts in public elementary schools. Offering arts integration coursework for preservice teachers can embolden elementary teachers to embed the arts into the crowded curriculum, leading to benefits for students and teachers alike.
A November 2020 search of the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Resources Information Center database revealed 681 studies related to arts integration. Elementary arts integration coursework naturally connects the core curriculum (literacy, math, science and social studies) with arts elements, principles, strategies and arts vocabulary across art forms. In 2016, Louisiana’s flagship Elementary Grades 1-5 Teacher Education Program at Louisiana State University rebuilt its arts course for preservice teachers. This course became the state’s first fully, and currently only, arts integrated course for aspiring elementary teachers in the state. The transition was not easy, nor was the shift initiated by teacher educators, so it required building strong consensus for change.
Facing a July 2019 deadline, the coordinator met privately with every discipline area faculty group within the program to build consensus during the 2017-18 year. Faculty examined the current program sequence, undergraduates’ praxis requirements, and whether core courses addressed praxis content. Stakeholder groups provided feedback on plans to revamp the program, and in February 2018, faculty approved a program that included the newly created arts integration course.
In addition to convening stakeholders and including arts integration in educator credentialing, the new iteration of LSU’s course featured a third policy action. Arts integrated lessons and resources showcased in the first weeks of each semester align with the National Core Arts Standards. Significant time is spent emphasizing equal prioritization to the arts and core components. Further, one non-negotiable of the class asks students to plan and facilitate two arts integrated mini lessons that feature a national core arts standard, objective and assessment and a core curricular standard, objective and assessment.
Despite the tedious course overhaul, preservice teacher feedback has been positive. Early career teachers attribute much of their differentiation ability to the arts integration class. They also report the joy it brings to both teaching and learning, even within a crowded instructional day. The ability to reach more learners and improve enjoyment are two outcomes well documented in current arts integration literature. Policymakers can learn from this rigorous coursework that results in an increase of arts integration instruction in elementary grades. Stakeholders interested in learning more about the course can visit the LSU School of Education Best Practices website.
Legislatures are moving full speed ahead with their sessions, and many of us in the education policy sector have our eyes on what this session will mean for school funding. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated recession, there is less money to go around than we have seen in previous years. With fewer financial resources available, questions about how to support school finance equity and equalization may be at the forefront of policymakers’ minds.
Learn more about key terms in common funding models in this new resource.
While school finance equalization programs aim to bring equal resources to every student, funding schools equitably means that students should be provided with resources that allow for their achievement to be equal across schools and districts. For example, research shows that targeted funds can be used to provide additional services and help close the opportunity gap between different student populations. Additional funds can be used to reduce student-to-teacher ratios, provide summer learning experiences and ensure students have access to adequate equipment — like the internet — to learn outside of school hours.
The challenge with achieving equitable school funding is that school districts in low-income communities that would benefit most from additional supports cannot easily generate additional revenue to fund those supports. School districts with lower incomes are disproportionately nonwhite, which makes funding schools equitably an issue that impacts students of color most significantly.
The link between school district property wealth and per-pupil spending is tied to school districts’ reliance on local contributions, which allows wealthier districts to generate significantly more revenue for education more easily than districts in communities with low incomes. This creates a budget gap between districts that is often exacerbated during recessionary periods. Because achieving school finance equalization is already an arduous task, conversations about funding schools equitably are often left behind, especially during challenging fiscal times. However, this issue may be even more important now, as funding cuts move schools further away from goals of equitable funding.
Funding schools equitably is about distributing money to school districts and student populations that need it most, and states can use several tools to achieve this. Our new Glossary of K-12 Education Funding defines key terms needed to understand foundation formulas, categorical funding and other ways states support K-12 education, which can help support students and close the opportunity gap. Education Commission of the States’ 50-State Comparison: K-12 Funding shows how states use categorical funding and foundation formula funding to support students. For example, some states provide additional weights or dollar amounts for students with specific needs.
School finance equalization is one policy tool that can help states work toward equity goals by recognizing that some school districts have access to more funding than others. For example, Georgia has used Equalization Grants since 1985 to balance school funding between low and high wealth school districts. School finance equalization can ameliorate education funding gaps between school districts by equalizing the tax base available for education. By evening the tax base, schools in districts with higher concentrations of poverty can generate the same revenue with the same tax effort as a wealthier district.
Challenging budget times often impact students in low income areas the most, as these school districts rely heavily on state-level supports. School finance equalization may be one policy tool to help improve funding equity, as state policymakers consider how to most equitably distribute available resources during this challenging time and into future years. Interested in learning more about this policy tool? Check out this state information request on school finance equalization that includes key terms and several state examples.
Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline, says, “No significant learning can occur without significant relationships. Connection is the key.” Students need to connect to each other, to their teacher and to their motivation to learn. How can educators and policymakers ensure a connected learning experience in a time of social distancing and remote learning?
Like many educational nonprofits in the U.S. this year, The Learning Alliance had to adapt to COVID-19's impact on educating students in person. Located in Indian River County Florida, TLA has established a community-wide Moonshot Moment goal of 90% literacy by third grade. A vision for all children to become literate, compassionate, creative citizens who will improve our world has led to TLA’s Moonshot Academy, an afterschool and summer program conceived as a learning lab for both teachers and students. Teachers receive professional development and coaching to improve their practice in a non-evaluative environment. Students close gaps in foundational literacy skills while developing social emotional competencies and authentically applying their learning through arts integrated learning. TLA calls this our Enriched Literacy Framework.
The design of Moonshot Academy has evolved over eight years through collaboration with Kurt Wootton, co-founder of The Arts Literacy Project at Brown University, and Tina Blythe, researcher at Harvard’s Project Zero. Their work contributes powerfully to the curriculum. The program integrates the arts and visible thinking strategies to support learning at every level, bringing in community partners from the ballet, the museum and an environmental education organization in concert with individualized direct, explicit literacy instruction anchored in the science of reading. At Moonshot Academy, educators don‘t have to choose between teaching literacy or arts, foundational skills or social and emotional skills; our program uses a both/and approach to provide students with meaningful and relevant learning opportunities.
This summer, Moonshot Academy decided to move its program entirely online. Staff had six weeks to rework the curriculum, learn how to use digital platforms, communicate with families and train teachers. Staff took a curriculum designed to be delivered over a five-hour camp day and reconfigured it into three one-hour components: daily small group instruction with a 1:4 teacher to student ratio; daily 1:1 tutoring; and twice weekly enrichment classes provided by community partners. Staff provided flexible scheduling options to accommodate families’ needs. Teachers pivoted from in-person instruction to online teaching, blending synchronous and asynchronous lessons to ensure students connected through live social interaction. Ultimately teachers and students showed unbelievable creativity, innovation and resilience, exceeding their own expectations.
A few considerations for state policy makers and others from lessons learned this summer:
Flexibility is key in uncertain times, from the federal to the state to the local level. As we continue developing strategies to support students during these times, the lessons Moonshot Academy learned can be a starting point for educators and state policymakers to ensure all students are seen, connected and ready to learn.
I believe in my heart that relationships matter, especially in education. At BARR, we have science to show that systematic attentiveness to relationships causes changes to student behavior.
I’ve spent most of my career as an educator demonstrating how systematically attending to the relationships between students and teachers makes a huge difference in better academic and behavioral results. If we know our students — really know all of them — understand them and expect them to meet high standards, they achieve more, attend school more, get into trouble less and ultimately succeed beyond school.
So, I built a school-coaching model called BARR that boils down to a couple of things: a sustained focus on school relationships and a relentless, regular examination of student data. BARR is built on two pillars: positive, intentional relationships and real-time, actionable data addressed through three years of professional development and coaching. Staff receive training, including virtual and in-person coaching. Weekly social and emotional lessons for students are used to foster relationships and bolster critical non-cognitive skills. Teachers work in teams weekly to discuss student progress, determine academic and non-academic barriers to learning and identify the students most at risk of falling behind. The principles of improvement science, data use and rapid improvement cycles are integral in the work to be able to assess and improve impacts.
According to BARR’s most recent data, teachers report that they feel increased self-efficacy, believing they can facilitate positive, strength-based changes in their students. They say they feel supported by their administrators, and these teachers, in turn, can change their behaviors. Also evidenced is enhanced collaboration; better use of data; and positive, intentional relationships with students. Student attitudes also change as a result. Students report feeling more supported, that more is expected of them and that they feel more engaged in school. They say they’ve changed their behaviors. They attend school more, have fewer behavioral issues, and improved social and emotional skills.
As a result, students graduate at higher rates, have better math and reading scores, increase the number of credits they earn and pass core classes at higher rates. It’s a holistic approach that feels better for students and teachers but also brings about measurable, meaningful results.
It works where BARR started in Minnesota 20 years ago. It works in Maine, it works in California and it works every place in between.
The way to show causality is through randomized controlled trials — studies where students are randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. BARR has conducted 12 within-school randomized controlled trials in California, Kentucky, Minnesota and Texas with 4,723 students and 149 teachers. Half of the students were randomly assigned for one year to receive the BARR model and half of the students were assigned for one year to the control condition, school as usual. BARR measured credits earned, Northwest Evaluation Association scores, and student and teacher perceptions.
The first BARR school was St. Louis Park High School, where students outperformed their Minnesota counterparts. In 2017, students performed equally well, regardless of ethnicity. The number of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests that students took at the school steadily increased over time with implementation of the model.
That experience gave us the confidence to test the model elsewhere.
BARR tested it at Hemet High School in California. Failure rates (the percentage of students failing one or more courses) went down over time for all students and specifically for Latinx students. In reading and math achievement scores, BARR students did better than — a statistically significant difference from — non-BARR students.
BARR then conducted randomized controlled trials in 11 other schools. Again, failure rates for BARR students were always lower than non-BARR students — this included students as a whole, and for girls, boys, students of color and white students specifically. These studies have been validated by the American Institutes for Research, What Works Clearinghouse, Evidence for ESSA and national registries.
Tactically speaking, federal, state and local policymakers can encourage, legislate and fund school districts to invest in relationship-based, evidence-based practices, such as the BARR model. Policymakers can also help educate philanthropic and private partners in supporting and funding evidence-based practices and research in their portfolios. BARR has shown that investing in research and relationships yields dividends.
Last month, we released a 50-State Comparison of tuition-setting policies showing that, in the majority of states, legislatures grant authority to individual or system-level boards to set tuition for public higher education. However, even when state legislatures do not set tuition rates, several still impose restrictions on tuition prices through enacting tuition capping or freezing policies. We found that restrictions are in place for the four-year public sector in 11 states, and, for the two-year public sector, in 10 states. To be clear, we only include state laws that mandate a cap or freeze of tuition — not individual institutions or systems that have created their own cap or freeze policies. And, the majority of cap or freeze policies across the country are created by institutions or systems themselves, not by legislatures.
A quick internet search points to institutions of all types and sizes that have halted tuition growth for 2020-21: the University of Nebraska, Temple University, Michigan State University and James Madison University, just to name a few. Nationally, it appears that postsecondary institutions most frequently draft their own methods for holding the line on tuition growth.
In some instances, state lawmakers and higher education leaders have collaboratively developed methods to slow tuition growth. Take, for example, the state of Washington, where the tradeoff between tuition revenue and state appropriations was addressed head-on: A 2015 policy provided state support to replace tuition revenue and restrict further tuition growth.
While tuition caps and freezes may sound like a straightforward solution to affordability woes, the reality of the policies is much more complex — especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The process of setting tuition prices depends on what sources of revenue the institution can count on: chiefly current and future enrollment and the tuition generated by those students, followed by state appropriations and state financial aid programs.
Postsecondary institutions are largely struggling to understand what the impacts of the pandemic will be on upcoming enrollment. At the same time, states have historically shown a preference for cuts to general higher education appropriations during economic downturns. The convergence of uncertain enrollment numbers, increased financial need and potential cuts to state budgets means that institutions may not have all of the information they need to understand the longer-term revenue implications of a tuition freeze or cap. As states, systems or institutions consider the immediate need of alleviating student and family financial burden with a cap or freeze on tuition, it is important to also consider the potential long-term effects.
Research pointing to risks associated with capping and freezing, such as actually increasing costs for students over time, can get lost in the mix. Data from Illinois demonstrate that the long-term implication of tuition freezes can be larger increases in tuition, leading to higher out-of-pocket costs for students over time and even less cost predictability. As state leaders consider the possibility of imposing restrictions on tuition growth, or of encouraging caps in order to garner other tradeoffs from institutions, they might consider the potential short-term benefits against the long-term costs.
The numbers are staggering. Since states began to issue shelter-in-place orders, virtually all 50 states have significantly reduced economic activity, and over 35 million Americans have lost their jobs. The International Monetary Fund predicted that this will be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This downturn will impact state tax revenue and thus result in reduced state P-12 education spending. The questions are, how badly will the public education system be affected, and what can state policymakers do about it?
State Revenue and Public Education Spending
According to the U.S. Census, 47.1% of public P-12 education funding comes from state sources. Another 44.9% comes from localities, and typically just 8% comes from the federal government. While localities rely on more stable property taxes, the vast majority of state revenue (just under 90%) comes from two sources — sales and income taxes. Retail sales started to take a hit in February, while state unemployment numbers — which will ultimately affect overall wages and taxes — did not begin to climb until the end of March. Because of this, we’d expect to see state sales tax revenue decrease first, but that will be followed quickly by very large reductions in income tax revenue.
CARES Was a Good, First Step
The federal government has recognized that public education funding will suffer during and after the pandemic. Because of this, the feds provided $16.2 billion in the recent Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to help fund public education. While the additional federal funding is helpful, it is not nearly sufficient to make up for potential state budget cuts. CARES education funding is equivalent to only 1.9% of P-12 education revenue in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the 2020–21 school year. To put it another way, this additional federal education funding is equivalent to only $286 per pupil, on average.
The Impact of State Budget Cuts
I have spoken to revenue and budget experts from around the country, and none currently feel confident in projecting how far state revenues will fall this year and next. Some preliminary estimates from states are showing state revenue drops of between 10% and 20%. These drops are likely to be even larger in 2021–22, when the income tax effects will be felt more fully. Furthermore, the extraordinary costs to states of health care investments and social services for those rendered unemployed, homeless and food insecure by the crisis will absorb a large share of the shrinking state revenue, leaving education far behind.
If we assume that state education spending will decrease by 10% this coming year, P-12 programs would see a reduction of over $21 billion — even after the current CARES Act funding takes effect. A 20% drop in state education budgets would result in funding decreases of just over $57 billion for America’s public schools. This would likely be equivalent to the loss of nearly 750,000 teaching jobs. Because of these large projected shortfalls, education leaders have advocated for $200 billion for schools in the next recovery act (CARES II), a very sizable increase over the current allocation. This would be spent over the next two to three years as the full effects of the recession set in.
Instead of trying to guess what will happen to individual state education budgets under different scenarios for state budget cuts and federal aid, I created an interactive tool that can be adjusted to look at any budgeting scenario. I used the CARES Act distribution formulas, which follow Title I allocations, and further assumed that half of the governor’s discretionary education dollars will go to P-12 schools (with the remainder to higher education). I used current data about spending, revenue sources and enrollment in each state; and I took into account the differences in the state share of education funding to calculate how the current CARES Act — and other larger allocations — would affect education spending, while also examining the effects of state budget cuts of varying sizes.
This tool shows, for example, that at the current CARES Act funding level, a 20% state funding decrease in Georgia would result in a per-pupil funding cut of $869, even after the stimulus funds land — while that same size budget cut would result in a $3,530 reduction in per-pupil spending in Vermont. You can explore the results of the stimulus investment in conjunction with state education budget cuts of different sizes for any of the states.
What States Can Do
Knowing that the current federal funding program will not be sufficient to cover state education cuts, what can state and local leaders do? The following are some possibilities that education leaders can explore as they face difficult budgetary decisions: Ask for increased federal assistance: A 30% reduction in state education funding over each of the next two years could result in cuts to public P-12 systems of almost $200 billion. This kind of massive state funding cut would require a federal investment to allow districts to weather the economic downturn without dramatically impacting the education of our country’s neediest students.
Protect vulnerable student groups: Unfortunately, services for students who are English learners, those with disabilities or those from low-income families tend to feel the brunt of education cuts. State and district leaders should ensure that any cuts made to education do not fall disproportionately on these high-need student groups.
Increase flexibility: If states have to cut education funding, they may be able to provide districts with greater flexibility in how they spend their dollars. After the last economic downturn, states such as California changed their funding systems to a weighted student formula — in lieu of a bevy of categorical programs — to allow districts greater financial freedom while focusing more on student needs. States may want to take this opportunity to create more flexible, equitable and responsive funding systems.
The times ahead will be difficult for the education community. However, education leaders will stay focused and we know that we will overcome these difficult times. With some planning and hard work, state policymakers can ensure that all students in this country will have the resources they need to enable them to reach their full educational potential.
We as state leaders have faced challenging questions in the past few months as we work to protect the health and safety of our citizens. This is particularly true when it comes to the already unique challenges of educating and supporting students. Should we close schools for the remainder of the school year? How can we ensure students that receive free or reduced-priced lunches still have access to nutritious food? How do we ensure that the learning process continues in homes with widely varied access to the internet and necessary technology? What supports can we give daily to teachers and parents, who are dealing with an entirely new educational reality?
These questions have each called for immediate, emergency actions to ensure as much continuity of educational supports and services as possible in our states. Timelines have been accelerated, plans have been rewritten and emergency rules have been implemented. It is incredibly difficult work, and, as the chair of Education Commission of the States, I want to thank all state leaders who have been making these and other hard decisions in order to protect and support their communities.
As we look forward to the months ahead and to our work to rebuild and revitalize our education systems, I urge my colleagues to be not only innovative and enterprising, but also thoughtful and intentionally inclusive in our policymaking strategies. At the pace of current decision-making, those students and populations who tend to fall through the cracks in our education systems are even more vulnerable to being overlooked. It’s easy to make decisions based on fear and anxiety, or to champion solutions that play well on the evening news. It’s much more difficult to ensure that our ad hoc decisions, however well-intentioned, result in the uniform, adequate and equitable education for which we all strive.
By using all data and information available to us, as well as insights and best practices from our peers across the states, we can make better decisions that reduce the potential for negative impacts in our communities. This is the power of learning from experience on which Education Commission of the States was founded more than 50 years ago.
In Pennsylvania, before announcing any statewide school closures, I worked with state and local partners to ensure all continuity-of-education plans were in place in school districts before the closures took effect. I also signed S.B. 751, which provides much-needed flexibility and relief for our education community by waiving the requirement for schools to be in session at least 180 days, ensuring school employees are paid during the closure and authorizing the state secretary of education to waive student teacher and standardized assessments. Allowing for this kind of flexibility helped address the urgent needs across Pennsylvania, while also keeping an eye on the future of our education system and equitable learning opportunities for all.
I urge my colleagues to continue to use Education Commission of the States as a source of unbiased information about state and local responses to COVID-19, as well as any other policy area you may be considering. They’re working to provide nonpartisan counsel to help in navigating the new challenges and opportunities ahead. Education Commission of the States’ Policy Team continues to research, produce and release valuable reports and 50-State Comparisons during this time; and, as always, they’re very happy to provide opportunities for you to connect with your peers in other states and jurisdictions, who are experiencing many of the same challenges that you are experiencing. In uncertain times like these, it is more critical than ever that we all take a measured approach to policymaking and that we all take the time to learn from one another as well. Thank you for all that you do.
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