Are Colleges Becoming Market-Oriented?
Someone once remarked to me that the college campus is the natural home of socialism. But it looks like even colleges are starting to price services according to demand rather than follow a simple uniform rule.

Major in some subjects? Expect to pay more.

Starting this fall, juniors and seniors pursuing a major in the business school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will pay $500 more each semester than classmates with other majors. The University of Nebraska last year began charging engineering students $40 [more (?)] for each hour of class credit.

A typical engineering graduate can expect a higher starting salary than the history major. In the market, then, the engineering degree is more valuable to the student than the history degree. It's not unreasonable to think he should pay more.

Labels: Education

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Union Industry Schools to Charter Schools: Come Join Us
Competition with charter schools for students has forced the traditional, union-rule schools to respond. Sometimes the response is outright hostility and obstructionism, such as when a district refuses to sell a surplus building to a charter school.

Sometimes the response is a little more friendly.

From the archives of draft posts that never got published, I noticed that the Boston public schools are trying to bring charter school employees back to the union shop.

Today, 550 teachers and principals in the city's 14 charter schools will begin receiving letters asking them to consider converting their schools, which are under state jurisdiction, to pilot schools, which are autonomous but fall under the Boston public school system. The letters were mailed by the Boston Teachers Union on Saturday.

I don't know what sort of reception this invitation received--when I put this item in the queue, it was well over a year ago--but I do see this as an interesting response of the traditional school systems to charter schools. At least it's better than trying to shut down those schools outright.

Where did these pilot schools come from?

Pilot schools, created in 1995 in response to competition from charters, have more autonomy than traditional schools but less than charter schools .... The school system has 19 pilot schools, which are popular among parents.

There's certainly public demand for shaking up the system:

In February, after a yearlong standstill, the system reached an agreement with the teachers union to create seven more pilot schools by 2009. Roughly 6,000 of the system's 58,600 students attend the pilot schools. About 4,300 Boston residents attend 14 charter schools.

Looks like something else for the "I ought to look into that" pile.

Labels: Charter schools, Education

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Education: Dollars and Cents; Apples and Oranges.
How much does your state on K-12 education compared with others? The U.S. Census Bureau has the goods.

Here's the home page for education-spending numbers, but you may need to head over to this page and then look for the text "Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finances" to pick from the annual reports. The reports, by the way, start in 1992 and go through 2005.

Since there's some production lag time, the numbers in the 50-state reports are typically a couple years old. But unless you have a full-time research assistant who can dig out the information for you, they're as good as it gets.

You can get the information in either PDF or Excel. You can also look at all states, or just a specific state, as the page for 2005 reveals.

Here are a few points that stand out from the 2005 edition, which was released in April, 2007:

Nationally, 47 percent of all public school revenue comes through state governments, 44 percent from local governments, and 9 percent from the federal government.

Only 85 percent of all spending is for current operations (the rest is on capital outlay and "other," which I think means debt). Of current operations spending, 55 percent is on "instruction," meaning that only 47 percent of all spending is actually on instruction.

The amount of money spent varies tremendously. In New York, schools spend $14,119 per student. Utah spends $5,257. (Utah, by the way, has much better student achievement.) The national average is $8,701, though that number was from the 2004-05 school year.

Dig into the spreadsheet version of Table 8, and you can figure out which states load up compensation with benefits, such as gold-plated health insurance and retirement plans.

There's always something to cherry-pick. Some people will turn to Table 12, which ranks states according to how much they spend on schools as a percentage of personal income. A state can rank high on the list in at least two ways:

- It has a high income and spends much more than average on schools

- It has a below-average income and spends an average or above-average amount on schools.

Of course, since we're dealing with the provision of services in an almost total absence of a market, it's hard to say what is the "right" amount of money to spend on schooling.

Labels: Education

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Don't Governmentize Toddlerhood. (Updated)
Fresh from today's electrons in the Wichita Eagle.


Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Opinion

SCIENCE DOESN'T SUPPORT CLAIMS ABOUT PRESCHOOL
By John R. LaPlante

Should Kansans expand taxpayer-funded preschool? It's a favorite cause of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and a number of legislators are on board. The promised cost savings make the idea sound compelling, but is it?

Let's start with the research used by advocates, who claim that money spent on preschool will avoid later social spending.

A recent Eagle article cited studies from Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina ("Lessons start now," April 22 Eagle). These flawed studies, however, are no grounds for government parenting.

No study has produced as dramatic results as the Perry (Michigan) study. Ron Haskins, a consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, reminds us that while the study looks promising, "its results have never been fully replicated." This suggests that there was something unique about the Perry circumstances.

Further, the results were in some ways not that impressive after all. By the time the 123 children had reached age 19, nearly a third had been arrested.

The (Abecedarian) North Carolina study, started in 1972, is an even less useful precedent. As with Perry, there are questions about how representative its sample was. Experts can't even agree on what caused its positive outcomes.

Haskins calls it "one step away from foster care," since it enrolled children in 40-hour-per-week, year-round day care when they were 4 months old. (Are Kansans willing to turn children this young over to a bureaucracy?) Because Abecedarian was a five-year experiment, it was extraordinarily expensive. Haskins estimates it would cost $100,000 per child if implemented today -- more costly than four years at the University of Kansas or Kansas State University.

The Chicago experiment, meanwhile, did not use random assignment, the gold standard for social research, meaning that its findings also are suspect.

Instead of putting even more money into the same old programs, the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy recommends that Kansas foster educational improvement by making schools compete for students. Funding the student would promote greater choice and accountability, and spur all schools to excel.

The merits of preschool versus competition among schools have already been tested. Matthew Ladner of the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute observed that the academic gains of preschool students in Arizona disappeared by the fifth grade. The schools that faced the greatest competition for students, on the other hand, achieved significant gains in student scores.

Arizona offers tax credits for private-school tuition. The state also makes it much easier for competent authorities to open a charter school than is the case in Kansas, and Arizona generally makes greater use of competition.

Rather than heed the siren call of expensive preschool programs based on uncertain science, Kansans who care about children ought to employ a competition-based approach to school funding.

Labels: Education

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Advancing Educational Choice: Job Openings.
The Alliance for School Choice is moving its offices from Arizona to Washington, DC. With that move comes the need for some staffers on the ground. What follows are some job announcements that may be of interest.

Professional Opening: Director of Research

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Director of Research in its new DC headquarters. Responsibilities will include research support for the Alliance’s policy advocates, supervision of research support staff, coordination with and supervision of outside researchers, and writing for a lay audience. The successful candidate should have strong research and writing skills, experience with education policy issues, sufficient experience and gravitas to supervise the work of distinguished outside researchers, experience with legislative bill-tracking, supervisory experience, and a congenial personality. The Alliance offers a fast-paced, positive working environment and excellent benefits. Please send resume and writing sample to Elizabeth Moser, director of state outreach, at schoolchoicelady@cox.net. The Alliance is a nonpartisan, equal opportunity employer.

Professional Opening: Director of Communications and Marketing

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Director of Communications and Marketing in its new DC headquarters. Responsibilities encompass supervision and execution of a media and marketing strategy to advance school choice across the nation. The successful candidate must possess experience and a demonstrated track record of success in both communications and marketing, strong writing skills, supervisory experience, high energy, and a congenial personality. The Alliance offers a fast-paced, positive working environment and excellent benefits. Please send resume and writing sample to Elizabeth Moser, director of state outreach, at schoolchoicelady@cox.net. The Alliance is a nonpartisan, equal opportunity employer.

Professional Opening: Print and Electronic Publications Director

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Production Director with responsibility for all print and electronic publications. These publications include: the School Choice Activist and Navigator newsletters, annual reports, various other publications, and the Alliance website. Specific responsibilities include designing and executing production of these publications; coordinating and editing substantive content; and supervising support staff and outside contractors. The successful candidate must possess experience and a demonstrated track record of success in both print and electronic publications, including web design and HTML coding experience, strong writing and grammatical skills, supervisory experience, high energy, and a congenial personality. The Alliance offers a fast-paced, positive working environment and excellent benefits. Please send resume and writing sample to Elizabeth Moser, director of state outreach, at schoolchoicelady@cox.net. The Alliance is a nonpartisan, equal opportunity employer.

Professional Opening: Executive Assistant to the President

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a highly experienced Executive Assistant to the President in its new DC headquarters. Responsibilities encompass assistance to the President on correspondence, calendar, travel, and general organization; and principal liaison to the Board of Directors. The successful candidate must possess experience and a demonstrated track record of success as an executive assistant, experience in Board relations, experience with travel and meeting planning, careful attention to detail, an ability to multi-task, high energy, and a congenial personality. The Alliance offers a fast-paced, positive working environment and excellent benefits. Please send resume and writing sample to Elizabeth Moser, director of state outreach, at schoolchoicelady@cox.net. The Alliance is a nonpartisan, equal opportunity employer.

Professional Opening: Development Director (production and communications)

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Development Director for production & communications in its new DC headquarters. Position responsibilities include:

• proposal and letter writing,
• writing grant reports, Alliance Insider (development’s quarterly newsletter) and other fundraising marketing/communications materials and publications,
• working with communications team to produce an annual report,
• implementation and management of the direct mail program,
• establishment and implementation of an annualized mail schedule (requests, non-requests, annual giving) for each giving level,
• prospect identification and cultivation for Alliance, and
• stewardship of all current donors to ensure maximize retention and increased gifts.

Qualifications

Excellent oral, written and organizational skills required. Highly accomplished and versatile writer with thorough knowledge of strategic communications concepts, methods and techniques. Proficient in proofreading and fact-checking. Ability to manage and organize projects. Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information, prioritize competing work and deadlines, and produce highly accurate work. Experience with a direct mail program a plus.

Bachelor’s degree in English, communications, or a related field. Minimum of five years experience creating written communications in support of fundraising efforts.

Salary and benefits are commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Interested candidates please submit a cover letter and resume to Cheryl Hillen, director of development, at cehillen@aol.com. For questions/inquires, please call (860) 872-4004. For more information on the Alliance for School Choice, please visit our web site at www.allianceforschoolchoice.org.

Professional Opening: Development Director (c-4, state-based fundraising, external relations)

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Development Director for c-4 and state-based fundraising in its new DC headquarters.

Position responsibilities include:

• cultivation of a diverse base of donors for Advocates,
• management and implementation of events throughout the country to build support for Advocates,
• utilization of mail, meetings, events and proposals as appropriate to raise Advocates support,
• prospect research for political major donor prospects,
• working with the Advocates board to identify prospects;
• assisting with marketing and communications materials and mailings,
• stewardship of all current donors ($1,000 - $5,000 range) to ensure maximize retention and increased gifts, and working with state team to identify and cultivate support for state-specific fundraising needs/projects (both Alliance and Advocates).
  

Qualifications

Excellent oral, written and organizational skills required. Highly accomplished and versatile writer with thorough knowledge of strategic communications concepts, methods and techniques. Proficient in proofreading and fact-checking. Ability to manage and organize projects. Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information, prioritize competing work and deadlines, and produce highly accurate work. Experience with political fundraising a must!

Bachelor’s degree in English, communications, or a related field. Minimum of five years experience in a political fundraising position.

Salary and benefits are commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Interested candidates please submit a cover letter and resume to Cheryl Hillen, director of development, at cehillen@aol.com. For questions/inquires, please call (860) 872-4004. For more information on the Alliance for School Choice, please visit our web site at www.allianceforschoolchoice.org.

Professional Opening: Development Assistant

The Alliance for School Choice (www.allianceforschoolchoice.org), the nation’s leading public policy organization supporting private educational options for disadvantaged schoolchildren, seeks a Development Assistant in its new DC headquarters. Position responsibilities include:

• management of the Raiser’s Edge 7.0 database,
• serving as the gift administrator, reconciling contributions periodically with the accounting team and organizing/providing financial information for the monthly executive committee reports,
• facilitation of development mailings and serve as manager of the donor files, editing all development print materials including donor proposals and grant reports, supporting the development team in donor cultivation (assist the development manager with the facilitation of regional donor events, edit promotional and giving club materials), assisting with the management of the direct mail program, most importantly managing deadlines, and provide special assistance as needed (aid with organizational strategy and development progress).

Qualifications

Proficient with Raiser’s Edge 7.0. Knowledge in gift administration. Excellent oral, written and organizational skills required. Proficient in proofreading and fact-checking. Ability to manage and organize projects. Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information, prioritize competing work and deadlines, and produce highly accurate work. Experience in a fundraising environment preferred.

Bachelor’s degree in communications, business or a related field. Minimum of two years experience in a fundraising position.

Salary and benefits are commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Interested candidates please submit a cover letter and resume to Crystal Corriveau, development manager, at ccorriveau@allianceforschoolchoice.org. For questions/inquires, please call (480) 262-7708. For more information on the Alliance for School Choice, please visit our web site at www.allianceforschoolchoice.org.

Labels: Education, jobs in public policy, School choice

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How Much Does Your School District Spend?
For most homeowners, the single largest recipient of their property taxes is the local school monopoly. Yet numbers on school finance can be hard to find and worse, difficult to figure out.

The Goldwater Institute has set up an interactive database that gives a look at district finances. Unfortunately, it's of use only if you're looking at districts in Arizona. But it might serve as a model for groups in other states.

There appear to be some bugs that need to be worked out. The first few times I selected a grade level, some computerese error messages came up on the screen. Take that as a sign that the information is not relevant or available.

Labels: Education, K-12 education

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Rural Lawmakers: Vote for Urban Choice, or Pay for the Clean-Up.
There's a plan being floated in Missouri to establish tax credits for companies that provide grants to scholarship organizations that would, in turn, help students attend privately run schools.

A similar measure has been operating in Arizona and Pennsylvania for a while, but its prospects in Missouri are not strong.

What's interesting about this scenario is how the proposal might pass after all. From the St. Louis News-Dispatch:

Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, hopes to sell rural legislators on the premise that the tax credit is a free-market solution to failing urban schools. Without such a solution, he said, the whole state may have to foot the bill for continuing declines in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Sounds about right.

Bring in some competition, fix up the schools, and stave off a state bailout or takeover.

Labels: Education

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Public Schools: Melting Pot, or Boiling Pot?
It looks like the Cato Institute is taking on the belief that public education (i.e., government-run schools) is an essential part of a civil society.

From an announcement:

"Many Americans believe that public schools are the gentle flame beneath the Great American Melting Pot-- that they are the best, perhaps the only, means of fostering social cohesion and good citizenship. But are they?

A new report from Cato's Center for Educational Freedom argues that, in reality, public schooling is inherently divisive. In "Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict," Neal McCluskey explains that public schooling forces everyone to pay for a single official system that does not, and indeed cannot,– reflect the public's diverse and often conflicting views. The inevitable result of this system, he concludes, is endless social discord over what is taught."

If you're a C-SPAN junkie, you can watch a vide of a conference on the topic through this page.

Labels: Education

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School Choice Advances in Arizona.
Two new school choice measures in Arizona have survived a legal challenge, for now, says the Alliance for School Choice.

Even more interesting than the decision of the state Supreme Court to not hear a case challenging the "Arizona Displaced Pupil Choice Grants" (for children in foster care) and "Arizona Scholarships for Pupils with Disabilities" are the results of a recent public opinion survey.

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The Court's decision comes on the heels of a recent poll showing a significant amount of support among Arizonans for the challenged programs. The poll found that 76 percent of Arizonans surveyed like the idea of ArizonaÂ?s disabled students being allowed to attend the school of their choice, and 64 percent support the concept of foster children getting the education of their choosing, whether that is at a public or private school.

The survey also found considerable voter support for the concept of school choice beyond the targeted programs for foster and disabled children.

When asked if they liked the idea of Â?Parents having the ability to take their tax dollars and put their child in the school of their choosing,? respondents favored the idea by a 2:1 margin.

A full copy of the poll is available at www.azschoolchoice.com. The survey was conducted by The Polling Company, Inc. in December of more than 500 Arizona residents and has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Just when you thought Detroit Public Schools Couldn't Get Worse . . .
The man whose poor record of managing the Detroit Public Schools led to his departure, and the state of Michigan's taking over the system is now a candidate ... for the job of superintendent.

Labels: Education

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Ohio Charter Schools are Safe, For Now.
In Ohio, charter schools turned back a constitutional challenge. See State ex rel. Ohio Congress of Parents & Teachers v. State Bd. of Edn (PDF), in which the plaintiffs alleged four complaints:

(in the summation of the law firm Jones Day, which defended charter schools)

"1) [charter schools] are not part of the 'common system' of public education,
(2) render the public school system less than 'thorough and efficient,'
(3) take local property taxes from traditional school districts, and
(4) may not be supported by the state due to the fact that the schools are operated by private individuals."

Labels: Charter schools, Education

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Are Public School Districts Constitutionally Protected from Charter Schools?
That's the question that is posed in Ohio, where community schools, as they are known, face legal challenges.

A challenge on the grounds of the state constitution was rejected on a close vote early last month.

See (PDF) State ex rel. Ohio Congress of Parents & Teachers v. State Bd. of Edn

Labels: Charter schools, Education

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No Child Left Behind on a Big Scale.
In theory, under No Child Left Behind, a student who attends a school with persistently lousy performance will eventually get the chance to attend another school, even a private one. I don't know if that's actually happened, however.

On the other hand, Ohio has taken steps to allow students, now, to take advantage of school choice. Under the Educational Choice Scholarship Program, students who attend failing schools have an out. They must attend a school building that has been in "academic emergency" or "academic watch" for three years.

Of course, the program has been opposed by the teachers union, which is all for protecting jobs, even if it means denying opportunities to students. You might not know, however, that the state's association of school boards also opposes EdChoice.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Public Education, Yes. Government-run schools? Not for all.
In the wake of Milton Friedman's death, I decided to look at his 1956 essay, which started him down the path of advocating for school choice.

The essay is The Role of Government in Education. There are two major components, K-12 education, followed by higher education.

For higher education, Friedman proposed a contract by which college students would get funding in exchange for a portion of their post-college income. He admits that it has a funny smell to it: "There seems no legal obstacle to private contracts of this kind, even though they are economically equivalent to the purchase of a share in an individual's earning capacity and thus to partial slavery."

On K-12 education, he says that we have three questions to ask.

Should government compel minor children to be educated? Yes, he concludes, as an educated citizenry is vital to a stable democracy.

Should the cost of that education be borne only by parents and the child, or by society at large? Friedman comes down on the side of compulsory payment of others (taxation), on the grounds that primary and secondary education carries substantial "neighborhood effects," or what your Econ 101 class may have called "externalities."

Who should administer that education? Through a series of events, we have ended up with giving a monopoly, based on geographic scope, to government bodies known as local school districts, the directors of which (school board members) are selected by political means (that is, school board elections).

Yet as Friedman points out, government financing need not mean government operation of schools, let alone government schools being the only place at which taxpayer funds would be spent. (Think of food stamps; they are not bought at "public grocery stores.")

Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on "approved" educational services. Parents would then be free to spend this sum and any additional sum on purchasing educational services from an "approved" institution of their own choice. The educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions of various kinds. The role of the government would be limited to assuring that the schools met certain minimum standards such as the inclusion of a minimum common content in their programs, much as it now inspects restaurants to assure that they maintain minimum sanitary standards. An excellent example of a program of this sort is the United States educational program for veterans after World War II.

Fifty years after Friedman's initial essay, school choice has but a toehold in American education. It works more or less at the university level, with privately and publicly owned colleges.

At the K-12 level, school choice is expanding, with tax credits, tax deductions, voucher programs, and other means operating in about a dozen states. Here's hoping that it doesn't take another 50 years for the idea to get to fruition.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Fifty Years of School Voucher Progress.
The recent death of Milton Friedman reminds us all of the value of competition in education, and the promise--largely untried--of school vouchers.

The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation offers a timeline of the idea of school vouchers in a poster they recently sent my way. Here are some of the items on the list:

1955: Friedman articulates the idea of school vouchers--government financing of education coupled with consumer choice of school, in "The Role of Government Education," a chapter of the book Economics and the Public Interest

1955: Minnesota enacts an education tax deduction.

1962: Friedman writes Capitalism and Freedom, which further discusses vouchers.

1970: The U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity decides to create a pilot voucher plan. The NEA denounces vouchers.

1972: The U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity creates a pilot program in Alum Rock, California. It is very limited in scope, hindering its demonstration value.

1975: The president AFT--the other teachers union--reverses his opinion and comes out in favor of vouchers, in "Vouchers: A Critic Changes his Mind."

1980: The PBS series "Free to Choose" highlights economics, and school choice.

1983: Reagan administration proposes vouchers and tuition tax credits. In Muller v. Allen, SCOTUS gives OK to Minnesota tax deduction.

1985: Reagan administration proposes converting Title I money to vouchers.

1987: Iowa enacts the Iowa Tuition Tax Credit

1990: Wisconsin enacts the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

1995: Ohio creates a scholarship and tutoring program for Cleveland.

1997: Arizona creates the Arizona Tax Credit program. Minnesota establishes a tax credit program and expands the tax deduction.

1998: SCOTUS upholds the use of religious schools in the MPCP

1999: Florida starts the A+ program, which gives vouchers to students in failing public schools. Illinois creates an education tax credit.

2000: Florida expands the A+ program to include students with special needs.

2001: The Illinois Supreme Court rejects a Blaine Amendment challenge to the state's tax credit. Florida enacts a corporate tax credit program, as does Pennsylvania.

2002: In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, SCOTUS rules that the Cleveland program does not violate the U.S. Constitution

2003: Pennsylvania creates a tax credit for pre-K.

2004: The DC Schools Choice incentive Act implements vouchers in the nation's capital city.

2005: Utah enacts a Special Needs Scholarship program. Arizona and Ohio expand school choice programs.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Legislative Scheduling of Sports Schedules: Good Stewardship, or Mere Meddling?
Glenn Price of the Durant (Oklahoma) Daily Democrat thinks that the state legislature should require that when Oklahoma State University (division I) schedule tune-up games against division II opponents, it should do so against schools within the state.

"Between both the men and women's programs, OU did not play one exhibition game against another Oklahoma state supported school this year. But, they did play against two Missouri teams and gave them money to play the exhibition games. Why not an Oklahoma team? ... When the division I schools set up these exhibition games, why don't they use the division II teams that are in their own state to help out their fellow state universities?"

Price compares the situation of OU and OSU to the two universities out east, Louisville and Kentucky: "Both schools were perennial powerhouses in basketball. They were about 100 miles apart, both were state supported schools, but they refused to play each other. The state legislature got tired of the two schools being afraid to schedule each other, so they passed legislation that the schools must play each other at least once a year in both football and basketball."

Ah, the wisdom of the legislature.

Labels: Education

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The U.S. Becoming a Nation of the Less Educated?
Is the U.S. actually becoming a nation with less education? The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education says so.

"If current trends continue," it warns, "the proportion of workers with high school diplomas and college degrees will decrease and the personal income of Americans will decline over the next 15 years."

Granted, having a BA in English lit isn't a great qualification to serve up coffee, but the Center expects that high school graduation rates will decline as well. One way of measuring the economic effect: a 2 percent decline in inflation-adjusted per-capita income by the year 2020.

Changing demographics and the achievement gap are largely responsible.

Just another reason to introduce competition, choice, and a diversity of players into the delivery of K-12 education. Private schools and public charter schools have a record of helping close the achievement gap.

Labels: Charter schools, Education, School choice

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Choice School Students Say: He's Throwing Away My Dream.
Policy recommendations based on rational thought are good. Emotional appeals that have rational thought behind them are even better.

Milwaukee has had a limited version of parental choice in education for about a decade now. You have to live in Milwaukee and be under a certain income level, but if you qualify, you get a voucher to send your child to a participating school.

The number of students who could participate in the program has been capped by law, and in the last year there was a lot of political action over raising the cap.

The group called School Choice Wisconsin was instrumental in getting the cap increased. They did a great job of adding some grassroots advocacy to the policy arguments.

I highly recommend the following commercial. Make sure to watch it until the end. It's a Quicktime file, 5MB.

http://www.schoolchoicewi.org/library/comealong.cfm

See more commercials here: http://www.schoolchoicewi.org/library/commercial.cfm

Labels: Education, School choice

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California Rejects Another Preschool Proposal.
California, the trendsetting state, takes a step back from universal preschool.

Writes K. Lloyd Billingsley, for the Pacific Research Institute, "On Tuesday, 61 percent of California voters improved the state's educational and fiscal prospects by rejecting Proposition 82, an expensive government pre-school measure of dubious merit that would have raised already high taxes and expanded state power."

Citing a number of previous ballot measures that were disregarded by state officials, he wonders if the program will be implemented anyway.

Meanwhile, Billingley's associate, Xiaochin Claire Yan, explains Why Voters Did the Right Thing:

The program designed by Prop. 82 lacked components that were critical to the success of preschool programs in other cities. It also didn’t help that Rob Reiner had to resign from the state preschool commission due to allegations of questionable use of classroom funds to help the campaign on 82.

Labels: Education

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Conservatives now offering "one of the worst ideas in education:" former U.S. Secretary of Education.
"DUMB liberal ideas in education are a dime a dozen," says Rod Paige, "and during my time as superintendent of Houston's schools and as the United States secretary of education I battled against all sorts of progressivist lunacy, from whole-language reading to fuzzy math to lifetime teacher tenure. Today, however, one of the worst ideas in education is coming from conservatives: the so-called 65 percent solution."

As an alternative, Paige recommends the 100 percent solution, about which I will have more to say in the next month or so--with any luck, in a major newspaper in the Midwest.

The mad professor of economics has a couple of thoughts on the 65-percent plan.

Labels: Education

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Some Bad Ideas Won't Die Just Yet.
Milwaukee and Chicago have the only two big-city school districts that have a residency requirement for teachers.

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute recently explained (PDF) Why It's Bad for Schools and Why It Isn't Going Away.

Why won't it go away? Here's one reason: the teachers union's power increases if its membership lives within the district.

Labels: Education

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Schools for Students ... or Student for Schools?
Should traditional public school districts be required to let charter school students participate in extra-curricular activities?

The Saint Paul Pioneer-Press recounts the story of a 16-year old boy who wasn't doing well in his school district. He enrolled in a charter school, and has performed well since then.

Since the charter school does not have a football team, Randall Brekke asked to try out for the team of the district high school.

They said no. The logic is appalling: "District 196 Superintendent John Currie said students should view the activities as part of the whole school experience and not drop in only for one or two."

In other words, take it or leave it, regardless of whether the academic program--allegedly the reason for a school to exist--fits the needs of the student. We're going to claim all of you, regardless of the fact that customization is the order of the day.

The system must prevail.

Labels: Charter schools, Education

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NEA Fights NCLB, $8 million worth.
The National Education Association--the union of many public school teachers--doesn't like the No Child Left Behind law.

Now, some folks who have taken a look at the union's documents find that it has given $8 million to groups that have produced publications against the act.

Labels: Education

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School Bill in Congress Offers Funds for Trapped Students.
Federal funding for schooling isn't idea by any means. But if it is to be, initiatives such as the following would be useful. It comes from the offices of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and a few other politicians.

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House and Senate Education Leaders Introduce Legislation to Give Children Trapped in Under-Performing Schools More Opportunities to Achieve

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and John Ensign (R-NV) and U.S. Representatives Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) and Sam Johnson (R-TX) today introduced bicameral legislation to implement the Bush administration’s America’s Opportunity Scholarships program to give children who are trapped in under-performing schools more choices and opportunities to improve their educational experience.

“America’s Opportunity Scholarships give meaning to the promise of No Child Left Behind,” said Sen. Alexander, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development. “This is about giving low-income families whose children are stuck in low-performing schools the same opportunities as other families. A recent poll found that 62 percent of public school parents have transferred a child out of one school into a better school or have decided where to live based on the schools in that district. This offers a way out for students whose families don't have the money for tuition or the luxury of moving.”

“Educating America’s youth must be a priority for the people of our nation, and our government,” said Sen. Ensign. “America’s Opportunity Scholarships program opens greater avenues to make certain that all children in our nation are given a chance to succeed. This legislation will help to ensure that our most disadvantaged children can receive a better education and will ensure that our nation’s next generations have the skills they need to succeed in the future.”

“Not only does the America’s Opportunity Scholarship for Kids Act expand upon the great success of No Child Left Behind by increasing parental choice, but it also shines a brighter light than ever on the need for more educational opportunities and – ultimately – higher achievement in our classrooms,” said Rep. McKeon, Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“Children may be a fraction of today's society but they are 100% of our future. It's time we empower students - and their parents. I want to give these children a choice and a chance,” said Rep. Johnson.

The America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids Act would authorize the Department of Education to provide $100 million in fiscal year 2007 for competitive grants to states, school districts, and non-profit organizations to provide scholarships of up to $4,000 to low-income children in persistently under-performing schools to attend the private school of their choice.

States, school districts, and non-profit organizations would also be authorized to provide up to $3,000 to low-income students for intensive, sustained supplemental educational services if students don’t want to attend a different school. This would include high-quality tutoring, after-school or summer school programs designed to help improve the student’s academic achievement.

Under the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, schools are identified for restructuring after failing to meet their Adequate Yearly Progress goals for six years. The U.S. Department of Education reports that in the 2004-05 school year, 1,065 schools were identified for restructuring. Preliminary estimates suggest that an additional 1,000 schools will be identified for restructuring in the 2005-06 school year.

“You shouldn't need to win the lottery to send your child to a high-performing school,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings who joined the bill sponsors at a press conference on Capitol Hill to announce the legislation. “President Bush believes we must give parents options, and the America’s Opportunity Scholarships program will empower parents to demand more from our schools and enable them to make choices for their kid’s education and future.”

The bill’s sponsors noted a pair of studies that illustrate the effectiveness of school choice:

- a Harvard-Georgetown-University of Wisconsin study published in 2000 found that African-American students receiving private scholarships in three regions – Ohio, New York, and Washington, D.C. – scored significantly better than their public school peers; and

- according to the 2002 book, “The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools” by William Howell and Paul Peterson, African-American students using vouchers in New York cut their achievement gap in half over three years

Labels: Education, School choice

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Milton Friedman 101
Imprimis has a short Q&A with Milton Friedman. Here's the section about education. LA is Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, which publishes the monthly periodical.


LA: I want to talk now about education and especially about vouchers, because I know they are dear to your heart. Why do you think teachers unions oppose vouchers?

MF: The president of the National Education Association was once asked when his union was going to do something about students. He replied that when the students became members of the union, the union would take care of them. And that was a correct answer. Why? His responsibility as president of the NEA was to serve the members of his union, not to serve public purposes.

I give him credit: The trade union has been very effective in serving its members. However, in the process, they've destroyed American education. But you see, education isn't the union's function. It's our fault for allowing the union to pursue its agenda.

Consider this fact: There are two areas in the United States that suffer from the same disease—education is one and health care is the other. They both suffer from the disease that takes a system that should be bottom-up and converts it into a system that is top-down. Education is a simple case. It isn't the public purpose to build brick schools and have students taught there. The public purpose is to provide education. Think of it this way: If you want to subsidize the production of a product, there are two ways you can do it. You can subsidize the producer or you can subsidize the consumer. In education, we subsidize the producer—the school. If you subsidize the student instead—the consumer—you will have competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students.

LA: Although you discuss many policy issues in Free to Choose, you have turned much of your attention to education, and to vouchers as a method of education reform. Why is that your focus?

MF: I don't see how we can maintain a decent society if we have a world split into haves and have-nots, with the haves subsidizing the have-nots. In our current educational system, close to 30 percent of the youngsters who start high school never finish. They are condemned to low-income jobs. They are condemned to a situation in which they are going to be at the bottom. That leads in turn to a divisive society; it leads to a stratified society rather than one of general cooperation and general understanding.

The effective literacy rate in the United States today is almost surely less than it was 100 years ago. Before government had any involvement in education, the majority of youngsters were schooled, literate, and able to learn. It is a disgrace that in a country like the United States, 30 percent of youngsters never graduate from high school. And I haven't even mentioned those who drop out in elementary school. It's a disgrace that there are so many people who can't read and write. It's hard for me to see how we can continue to maintain a decent and free society if a large subsection of that society is condemned to poverty and to handouts.

LA: Do you think the voucher campaign is going well?

MF: No. I think it's going much too slowly. What success we have had is almost entirely in the area of income-limited vouchers.

There are two kinds of vouchers: One is a charity voucher that is limited to people below a certain income level. The other is an education voucher, which, if you think of vouchers as a way of transforming the educational industry, is available to everybody.

How can we make vouchers available to everybody? First, education ought to be a state and local matter, not a federal matter. The 1994 Contract with America called for the elimination of the Department of Education. Since then, the budget for the Department of Education has tripled. This trend must be reversed.

Next, education ought to be a parental matter. The responsibility for educating children is with parents. But in order to make it a parental matter, we must have a situation in which parents are Free to Choose the schools their children attend. They aren't free to do that now. Today the schools pick the children. Children are assigned to schools by geography—by where they live.

By contrast, I would argue that if the government is going to spend money on education, the money ought to travel with the children. The objective of such an expenditure ought to be educated children, not beautiful buildings. The way to accomplish this is to have a universal voucher.

As I said in 1955, we should take the amount of money that we're now spending on education, divide it by the number of children, and give that amount of money to each parent. After all, that's what we're spending now, so we might as well let parents spend it in the form of vouchers.

Labels: Education

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School's Out for Summer. Is that a Good Idea?
The Brookings Institution's Frederick M. Hess makes the case for year-round school.

One problem with entrusting an important function (such as the education of children) with government is that governments are by design and by nature slow to respond to changing times. (Private companies can have the same problem, but eventually the discipline of market competition catches up with them. See: GM, Ford, Sears, etc.)

One once-useful, now not-quite so useful feature of schooling today is the 9 month calendar. As Hess points out, it originated in a different age, when agricultural production took up a substantial portion of the workforce. (Today it's, what, under 3 percent? Or is that 2 percent?)

Of course, the needs of business still hold sway--the summer recreation industry depends on cheap teen labor, Hess reminds us--but social inertia and political interests play a role as well.

Hess, writing in the Washington Post, does not call for government imposition of summer school, at the federal or even the state level. Instead, he calls for striking down laws that prohibit a year-round calendar.

He also calls for increased school funding, which could be argued with. We've been increasing funding of schools for decades, and yet achievement (as reflected by NAEP scores and graduation rates) remains flat. Even if the "summer forgetfullness" is addressed by going to a year-round program, more funding alone is likely to give us unsatisfactory results.

But the idea of changing the school calendar? It's a reminder that we need not more money as much as systematic changes.

Labels: Education

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Virtual Schools Show Promise.
Bricks and mortar as the only operating model is losing steam in retail. Carolina Journal describes how it's giving way as the only model for K-12 education.

The A.L. Brown Cyber Campus is one case of putting new technology to use for the benefit of groups of students separated by distance or interests.

Labels: Education

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California Rejects Another Preschool Proposal.
Since K-12 education isn't working out so well (at least in some schools), the logical step is to ... expand the school system to an even younger age?

(Here's an entry that has been stuck in the "draft" stage for several months. I just noticed it this morning.)

California, the trendsetting state, takes a step back from universal preschool.

Writes K. Lloyd Billingsley, for the Pacific Research Institute, "On Tuesday, 61 percent of California voters improved the state's educational and fiscal prospects by rejecting Proposition 82, an expensive government pre-school measure of dubious merit that would have raised already high taxes and expanded state power."

Citing a number of previous ballot measures that were disregarded by state officials, he wonders if the program will be implemented anyway.

Meanwhile, Billingley's associate, Xiaochin Claire Yan, explains Why Voters Did the Right Thing:

The program designed by Prop. 82 lacked components that were critical to the success of preschool programs in other cities. It also didn’t help that Rob Reiner had to resign from the state preschool commission due to allegations of questionable use of classroom funds to help the campaign on 82.

Labels: Education

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More school choice news.
In case you missed it, Iowa takes a step towards school choice. It looks similar to a program already established in Arizona. The approach is an indirect approach to giving vouchers for education to families.

From the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation:

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For Immediate Release
June 2, 2006


Iowa enacts new scholarship tax credit program
Unprecedented bipartisan support marks a growing trend among the states

INDIANAPOLIS-Today, Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) signed the Educational Opportunities Act (EOA), a law that will allow thousands of Iowa students the chance to receive scholarships to attend a school of their parents choice. The bill, which reached the governor's desk after getting overwhelming support from both sides of the political aisle, is the second time this year that a democrat governor has signed a school choice law.

"This is a great day for all Iowa families," said Sara Eide, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference. "While the Catholic Conference has been working on this issue for nearly twenty years, it took the combined efforts of parents, educators, community leaders, organizations such as the Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education, and our national allies to make policymakers understand that expanded school options is a critical need in the state."

The program establishes a 65 percent tax credit for individuals who make contributions to approved school tuition organizations (STOs), which then distribute scholarships to families to be used at a school of their choice. To qualify, families must have an income that is at 300 percent or below of the federal poverty level. STOs must spend 90% of funds raised on scholarships, and scholarships may not exceed tuition at the child's private school. In addition, while the program will be capped at $2.5 million for 2006, the cap will rise to $5 million for subsequent years.

Following a growing trend occurring around the country, the EOA received overwhelming bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats alike. In the Senate, which is evenly split between the two parties, the bill passed 49-1: and in the House, where Republicans hold only a one vote majority, the bill passed by a vote of 75-19.

"We are so thankful for the strong bi-partisan support for expanded educational options in Iowa, including the leadership in both houses and educational opportunity champions like Representative Carmine Boal and Senator Joe Seng," said Eide.

In 2006, school choice has seen growth in the number of Democrats who back educational freedom. Earlier this year, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona became the first Democrat governor to sign a new school choice bill into law. Gov. Vilsack becomes the second governor to do so. Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin signed a bill expanding the cap of the Milwaukee school choice program by nearly 7,000 students. Also, the Democrat leaders of the Missouri Black Caucus were among the top proponents of a school choice bill before its legislature.

"We're seeing an important shift in the support for school choice," said Robert C. Enlow, executive director of the Friedman Foundation. "More and more legislators, parents and opinion makers from all sides of the political spectrum are realizing that the ability to choose a school is a fundamental freedom and that there are immense moral implications that come from denying families educational choice."

Labels: Education, School choice

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Discussion of School Choice Gets Nasty.
I know that headlines are meant to be provocative. But the LA Times went wild when it titled its discussion of school choice "A Satanic Idea?"

Bob Sipchen relates a recent visit with Milton Friedman. Says the Nobel-prize winning economist: "It'?s very clear that the people who suffer most in our present system are people in the slums -? blacks, Hispanics, the poor, the underclass."

On funding, "In the last 10 years, the amount spent per child on schooling has more than doubled after allowing for inflation. There'?s been absolutely no improvement as far as I can see in the quality of education. . . . The system you have is like a sponge. It will absorb the extra money. Because the incentives are wrong."

If you read the comments--which are remarkably civil for a newspaper-sponsored blog--remember to read from the bottom of the page up.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Arizona may have been the last of the continental states to be admitted to the union, but it's leading the country in school choice.

Here's a press release (a couple weeks old by now) from the Alliance for School Choice:

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We are poised for a miracle for school choice in AZ.

As you know, earlier this year, after a pitched battle, Gov. Napolitano finally allowed a $5 million corporate scholarship tax credit for economically disadvantaged students to become law without her signature, after two vetoes. We assumed this would be the high-water mark for school choice given that it was the first time a new school choice program was enacted in a state with a Democratic governor. (Later, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack signed a corporate scholarship tax credit bill.) But because we have a very pro-school choice legislature, we kept pushing for more.

Last week, in return for increased teacher salaries and full-day pre-K, Napolitano agtreed to three more bills as part of a budget deal:

1. a doubling of the corporate tax credit to $10 million, plus automatic 20 percent annual increases until 2010 when it will total nearly $21 million and over 6,000 students;

2. a voucher program for children with disabilities; and

3. a first of its kind voucher program for foster care children.

All three passed the Legislature yesterday. Napolitano has agreed to transmit the bills to the Secretary of State without her signature. If so, these will be the first voucher programs to be enacted in a state with a Democratic governor.

Our hero is Senate President Ken Bennett (who received an award at our Board dinner last November), who twisted arms until the very end to squeak out the necessary votes, even on his LAST DAY as a legislator. He deserves our thanks.

I am enormously proud of our state coordinators, Matt Ladner and Robert Teegarden; our lobbyists, Sydney Hay (Republican) and Barry Dill (Democrat); and our partners, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options and the Friedman Foundation.

Labels: Education, School choice

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The Limits of Charity Vouchers
Milton Friedman (PDF article, 4 pages) reflects on the prospects for school choice 50 years after his influential essay.

He notes that competitive industries produce economic growth through "bottom up" innovations, while schooling, by nature of it being government-directed, is top-down. It's also seen "little, no, or even negative improvement in the product." We spend more and get less.

He faults current voucher programs (which he calls "charity vouchers") as being limited in scope (generally they are available only to the poorest of families in the worst performing of school districts).

Even worse for the cause of educational excellence is the fact that in current voucher programs parents are prohibited from adding onto voucher amounts. What drives innovation in other industries, Friedman notes, are consumers who are willing to shell out big bucks. It sounds like a typical parody of economic conservatism, but it's true: the early adapters who pay $2,000 for a VCR lead the way for the development of $99 DVD players.

One major obstacle to real vouchers--though not the only one--is the wealth ($1.5 billion) of teacher unions, who benefit from the current system.

Given the strength of the opposition to school choice, Friedman predicts that when true competition and choice are ushered in, they will do so through a swift collapse of political support for the status quo.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Schools Slow to Publicize Family Options in NCLB.
The federal law No Child Left Behind offers families a tiny element of school choice, provided that they put in enough time in an abysmally performing school district. But school districts have strong financial incentives to neglect their obligations to inform families of their options.

This comes out in a several-month old announcement from the Alliance for School Choice (cleaning up the old in box today!). Here's a press release that gives some details:

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 23, 2006

Contact: Laura Devany, Alliance For School Choice 602-468-0900/ 602-615-8897


NATIONAL TEST CASES FILED AGAINST LOS ANGELES AND COMPTON SCHOOL DISTRICTS DEMANDING PUBLIC SCHOOL TRANSFER OPTIONS UNDER NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT

PHOENIX-- In a major legal development that could test the vitality of the No Child Left Behind Act and impact educational opportunities for children in large urban districts across the nation, the Alliance for School Choice today joined the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) in a legal filing. The action demands that the Los Angeles and Compton Unified School Districts immediately provide and publicize public school transfer options for children in failing schools as required by the law.

The Alliance also called upon U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to cut off applicable federal funds to the districts until they comply with the law or make other suitable educational opportunities available to children in failing schools.

"The No Child Left Behind Act isn’t worth the paper it’s written on so long as children are forced to remain in failing schools," declared Clint Bolick, president of the Phoenix-based Alliance for School Choice, the nation’s leading advocacy group for school choice programs for disadvantaged schoolchildren.

"NCLB shined a spotlight on what we already knew exists in our community; now it's time for our children to know that their parents aren't leaving them behind," said Star Parker, president of CURE. "If anyone needs the opportunity to improve the educational options for their kids, it's the most vulnerable members of our society."

NCLBA requires that school districts offer to children in schools that have failed to make "adequate yearly progress" for two years under state standards the option to transfer to better-performing public schools within the district. Lack of capacity is not a basis to fail to provide transfer opportunities under the law.

A 2004 report by the General Accounting Office found that more than 3 million schoolchildren -- overwhelmingly low-income and minority children -- were entitled to transfer, but only 1 percent of those eligible actually transferred.

The complaints filed against the school districts charge that of at least 250,000 schoolchildren eligible for transfer in Los Angeles, only 527 (.2 percent) received transfers to better-performing schools; while in Compton, zero students have received transfers despite appalling educational conditions. The complaints charge that the districts have failed adequately to make information available to parents or to provide sufficient options.

Los Angeles has by far the nation’s highest number of students in failing schools who are eligible to transfer. Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa has called for mayoral takeover of the school district, declaring that to serve the students it is necessary to "take on the powerful and entrenched interests" and "shake up the system." Compton, meanwhile, was already under state control, which did not significantly improve educational conditions.

"I don’t think it’s fair that the school is failing the parent and the child," said Linda Braxton, speaking of her 13-year-old son Jamal, who she would like to transfer out of a Compton high school. "The Compton system failed him, period."

"The conditions in Los Angeles and Compton are the tip of a national iceberg," Bolick stated. "The problem is that the number of children in failing schools vastly exceeds the number of available slots in better-performing public schools. Public schools alone cannot solve the crisis of inner-city education."

Because NCLBA does not provide a private right of action, the parents and their organizational partners must file complaints in the first instance with the school districts, demanding compliance. That is what they did today, in a pair of complaints prepared by Robert Boldt, partner in the Los Angeles office of Kirkland & Ellis, but Secretary Spellings has authority to take action to cut off certain federal funds to the districts until they comply.

In January, the Bush Administration proposed a $100 million demonstration project to add private school options to NCLBA for children in "restructuring" schools Â? that is, schools that have been failing for at least six consecutive years. More than 1,000 schools across the nation are in that category.

Bolick said that similar actions could be filed in almost every large district in the United States. "Millions of children are being left behind in failing schools," Bolick declared. "They deserve immediate access to better educational opportunities, to which federal law clearly entitles them."

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And here's a more recent announcement, which suggests that little has changed:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 9, 2006

SPELLINGS ASKS CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS TO TAKE ACTION ON SCHOOL TRANSFER COMPLAINTS


PHOENIX— Responding to complaints against the Los Angeles and Compton school districts’ failure to provide public school transfer options to children in failing schools, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings last week asked top California school officials to take action.

While “it is usually best to allow matters such as these to be resolved at the local and state level,” the U.S. Department of Education is “mindful of our own compliance responsibilities and remedies,” Spellings said in a May 1 letter to California State Board of Education President Glee Johnson and Superintendent of Public instruction Jack O’Connell.

The Alliance for School Choice and the Los Angeles-based Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education filed the complaints in March, charging that the two districts failed to provide meaningful notice or transfer options for thousands of eligible students. Federal law requires the school districts to make findings within 60 days, and authorizes the Secretary of Education to cut off federal Title I funds for failure to provide transfer options.

In her letter, Spellings also notes concerns about compliance by the Oakland and Stockton school districts. She noted that department officials will “gather further information on the implementation of public school choice and SES (supplemental education services) in your state.”

“We are encouraged that the secretary is taking seriously the rampant noncompliance of school districts with their public school transfer obligations,” declared Clint Bolick, president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice. “Millions of children are languishing in failing schools around the nation. That is neither morally nor legally tolerable.”

Labels: Education, School choice

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Entrepreneurial Schools.
The value of charter-school fundraising.

Recently I toured several charter schools. None depends solely on taxpayer support, each engages in development work, seeking volunteers and financial backing from foundations and individuals.

This is not unusual; many traditional public schools as well as public universities do fundraising. But charter schools are more consumer-sensitive than traditional public schools. There are several reasons:

One, they must persuade potential donors to actually contribute.

Two, they cannot rely on persuading a bare majority of voters to compel everyone else to pay more each day for the school's operating expenses. (Traditional public schools can place measures on the ballot, often timing them in ways as to maximize the likelihood of passage.)

Three, each family must take the active step of actually rejecting the default option of the standard school district, and actively select and apply to a charter school.

Charter schools do not operate uniformly well, no more than do all traditional district-owned schools. Yet they face more incentives to actively listen and respond to willing customers. If for no other reason, they are worthy elements of "public education."

Labels: Charter schools, Education

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No Child Left Behind ... Left Behind?
Alexander Russo says that No Child Left Behind is being gutted by administrative measures.

While the law is troublesome for several reasons, especially the federalization of education policy, it has had a few good results, including putting a spotlight on poor academic performance of schools.

The law is provides a long path towards some increased use of school choice--weak forms, perhaps, but options nonetheless. But the administration that pushed for NCLB is now taking away what little pressure it has put on schools.

One rule of politics is "follow the money." The threat of losing money--or even seeing more money go to outside agents--was supposed to be the stick to prod districts into reform.

No more?

Last summer, when the law was on the verge of shifting tens of millions of federal education dollars from urban school districts to outside tutoring companies, Spellings created a "pilot" program that allowed several big-city districts to keep on doing their own tutoringÂ?and to keep the money.

If this pilot program is expanded, much of the value of NCLB will have been wiped out. It will have turned into just another story in the story of putting more money into the sane old system.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Can school choice work in rural areas?
One objection to school choice is "it can't work in rural areas." According to this line of thought, the economics won't support more than one school system.

But the Alliance for School Choice says that it is possible--and looks to Iowa as an example.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Comparison Shopping for Schools.
Will the WWW foster consumer-driven education? Here's hoping. Competitive markets depend on the free flow of information. Of the web sites I have come across lately, two provide information about schools.

Great Schools.Net encompasses both government and privately run schools. Private School Review, as the name suggests, limits its coverage to privately owned and operated K-12 schools.

Labels: Education

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Doing School Choice Right.
charter schools are as different from each as regular public schools are--and by design, even more so.

They are still a relatively small element of the nation's school landscape, which means that we are still learning what works and what doesn't. One resource I've come across lately is the Center for Reinventing Public Education.

At the end of the month, CRPE will come out with a new white paper that analyzes previous studies on whether charter schools help students learn. Should be interesting.

Labels: Charter schools, Education, School choice

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