k-12 education

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 […]

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 […]

While the National Association of Education is the 800-pound gorilla of k-12 education, it’s being challenged by organizations that appeal to teachers looking for an alternative to the trade union model. According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal (“Rise of Nonunion Groups Costs NEA Membership and Clout”), a number of teachers have decided to bypass the nation’s largest teachers union. While the NEA still […]

Negotiations to bring 15 more charter schools to Michigan have hit an impasse. Meanwhile, 3,000 people protested the proposal outside the capitol. The Detroit Free Press said of the crowed “many of them teachers,” but I suspect the percentage was close to 100 percent, and if not teachers, then their allies in other unions or the education establishment.

Michigan politicians are negotiating the expansion of the state’s charter law, a move that would allow another 15 charter schools in Detroit. The teachers union responds by … organizing a protest that draws so many teachers out of the classroom that the school system sends students home.

An agreement has been reached in Michigan to expand the number of charter schools–currently maxed out at 150 (the existing cap)–by 135. Showing that school boards of existing governments schools are as much of an obstacle to reform as the teachers unions, the director of the Michigan Association of School Boards says that his group is “dead set against this. We’d be pouring more money down […]

Michigan allows several authorities, including local school districts and state universities, to hold the charter of charter schools. Robert Thompson, a retired businessman wants to build, out of his own money, $200 million worth of school buildings for some new charter schools for Detroit. The proposal has been hindered by the refusal of the Detroit Public Schools chief, who has used his friends in the […]