Category Archives: Educational Choice

I work hard to spread the word about options and innovations in education. But once in awhile, the summertime heat provides a great chance to sit back and dream, too. Today I dreamed that this Herald Bulletin article, “Parents have more school choices,” was appearing in a Colorado newspaper: With an expansion approved by the Indiana Legislature, students now have more options when it comes to eligibility for vouchers. But it’s not just vouchers they have access to. Oh, how tempted I was to go through the article and replace every reference to “Indiana” with “Colorado.” Yes, we have one of the stronger open enrollment laws in the country, and one of the most thriving charter sectors, too. You can learn about the options that do exist at the fabulous School Choice for Kids website. But there are still many students out there in need of better learning options, so “more school choices” would be great!

The education establishment in Alabama doesn’t seem to have recovered from the big blindside victory for kids four months ago, when the state adopted a scholarship tax credit program. It’s made for a lot of fodder in the local media, including today’s gem from the Times Daily Montgomery Bureau: Several [state board of education] members have been outspoken against the Accountability Act and lack of input they had into it. “How in the world are we allowing corporations to pay for children to go to private schools?” said Ella Bell, of Montgomery. “Is there any legal ramifications of this? “I am going to seek legal advice on this because it is unfair to the children of my district.”

Summertime is catch-up time. Recently, I missed the chance to comment on the new CREDO national charter school study. The report’s predecessor, released four years ago, caught on in the national press as a sign that charters were faring badly. That report generated serious criticisms from researchers about the methods used to draw its conclusions. This time, however, the news is better, though not outstanding: Across the charter schools in the 26 states studied, 25 percent have significantly stronger learning gains in reading than their traditional school counterparts, while 56 percent showed no significant difference and 19 percent of charter schools have significantly weaker learning gains. In mathematics, 29 percent of charter schools showed student learning gains that were significantly stronger than their traditional public school peers’, while 40 percent were not significantly different and 31 percent were significantly weaker. So, looking at a bigger sample, CREDO finds overall small charter advantages in reading and a wash in math. Many of the most disadvantaged — “[s]tudents in poverty, black students, and those who are English language learners” — reap the greatest benefits. Despite the better news, the pro-charter Center for Education Reform showed its integrity by publicizing very similar concerns […]

At the risk of putting everyone on a neck-jarring roller coaster of education policy emotions, I have to follow up yesterday’s good school choice news from Arizona with a brief account of a New Hampshire disappointment. Whereas the uplift came from an elected state legislature, the downer emerged from the courts. New Hampshire Judge John Lewis declared the state’s scholarship tax credit program partly unconstitutional. As far as I know, this is the first-ever setback for a school choice tax credit program in the judicial system, at least as a less-than-100 percent positive decision. Both the Institute for Justice — which represents New Hampshire families who benefit from the program in the case — and the Cato Institute’s Jason Bedrick highlight the dangerous dual fallacy in the judicial logic:

There’s no time like summertime to focus on some good news, even if it comes from some place even hotter than home: Arizona. Thanks to Matt Ladner guest-posting on Jay Greene’s blog, I learned that the Grand Canyon State is a small step away from creating more opportunities for students and families after the legislature voted to expand two of its leading school choice programs. The nation’s leading school choice advocacy organization offers up some key details:

Governing magazine reports today that Wisconsin wants to join the cadre of states that offer private school tax deductions: Last week, the Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance Committee approved new tax deductions for families that put their kids in private school as part of its 2013-2015 budget. The plan allows for families to deduct up to $4,000 for every student in kindergarten through eighth grade and up to $10,000 for every high school student.

Just a short one today. Because it all has to do with things that happened in the way-back long ago dark ages of 1993 (before my time), I defer to my Education Policy Center friends. What better place to start than today’s Denver Post column by Vincent Carroll, who writes about when the good guys in education reform prevailed. Twenty years ago on Monday, then-Gov. Roy Romer signed into law Colorado’s Charter Schools Act, the third of its kind in the country. Carroll captures the essence of it well and, importantly, also points readers to a great new Independence Institute non-fiction story:

You may have heard old adages like “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Well, here comes the young whippersnapper again, questioning longstanding wisdom. When it comes to tax credits for private school choice, I have to say the old adages just don’t work. So the Cato Institute’s Jason Bedrick points out on a new posting. Bedrick looks at states with scholarship tax credit (STC) programs before 2010 that later expanded those programs. He compares eight legislative votes in four different states, before and after, and finds that the vote margin grew significantly and dramatically in all but one case. The Cato analyst concludes:

According to my stressed-out-looking Education Policy Center friends, we are fast approaching the 20th anniversary of Colorado officially approving charter schools as a means of public school choice. At the time, we were the third state to do so (after Minnesota and California). Today, 42 states have some form of a charter school law. As being one of the pioneers, it’s great to see Colorado’s charter law today ranks among the strongest nationwide. Not far behind us was Arizona, where charters became law of the land in 1994. Yesterday the Goldwater Institute’s Jonathan Butcher took the opportunity to explain why lawmakers in his state should continue to preserve charter freedoms while also pointing out improvements the state could make to ensure equity. Butcher’s accompanying new report also provides a detailed picture of the growth made in Arizona’s charter sector and the results their students have achieved.

You may not be surprised to hear that this little tyke enjoys games as much as the next kid. Want to challenge me to a contest of Checkers — or better yet, use those same Checkers in a game of Connect Four? Maybe you just want to get me outside during the summer so I can play Hide-and-Seek or Kick the Can. Perhaps you can appreciate my parents trying to keep me occupied at a busy restaurant with something old-fashioned like Tic Tac Toe, or better yet, a chance at Angry Birds on my dad’s phone. Games are great and can be lots of fun. But gaming the system to hurt students? That’s just wrong. A quick stop today over at Jay Greene’s always-enlightening blog (I have to say that ever since he told everyone I have “one of the best education blogs, period”) led me to two separate stories with an intertwining theme: How students with disabilities are counted can limit access to educational options OR can malign programs and schools that provide those opportunities. Very telling stuff.