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Colorado needs more charter schools. We have about 140 now. But many of them are full, and parents keep asking for more. Thousands of families across the state are on wait lists to get into charter schools. On a lighter note today, Denise at Colorado Charters tells us how all those new charter schools we’d like to see could avoid confusion by steering clear of duplicating names. She gives plenty of Colorado examples. After reading through her list, your head will spin. With all the Academies, Pioneers, Frontiers, Excels, and Vanguards, you might think you’re on a car dealer’s lot (or maybe just shopping for car insurance). Denise concludes: In my dream world new charter schools select names that are unique and easy to differentiate. The founders check the Secretary of State’s website to make sure the legal name is available. And, of course, my dream world includes charter founders asking about the feasibility of using a school name before making it official. So here’s a challenge to all those aspiring charter school founders: Pick a name that really sets you apart. How about naming the school after an inspiring national or Colorado historical figure? Whatever it is, find that […]

Our governor has placed a lot of attention on the goal of cutting Colorado’s dropout rate in half in 10 years. To get a sense of what it will take to accomplish that goal, inquiring minds should go check out Diplomas Count 2008 by Education Week. (Thanks to John LaPlante at the SPN Blog for pointing it out.) There’s lots of information at your fingertips, such as: State-specific background reports with easy-to-read information … here’s the report for Colorado (almost 26 percent of students failed to graduate in 2005) A tool to compare Colorado’s P-20 Council to different states’ education alignment councils An interactive mapping tool that allows you to see how successful individual school districts are at seeing kids through to high school graduation Memo to Education Week: The Education Policy Center staff here says what you have put together is a great resource for looking at the dropout issue. But did you know that there is no way to find Colorado’s largest school district (Jefferson County, where I am right now) on your mapping tool? It doesn’t come up in a name search. It isn’t labeled on a map of the Denver metro area. What’s the deal? When […]

Less than three weeks after it cleared the major hurdle of the state senate, Louisiana’s private tuition scholarship pilot program officially has become law: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal [on June 26] signed a landmark $10 million scholarship program into law. The new program will benefit low-income families in New Orleans and marks a major turning point for education reform in the Bayou State. Sponsored by two New Orleans Democrats–Senator Ann Duplessis and Representative Austin Badon–the plan passed both houses of the Louisiana Legislature with bipartisan support. With the new school year fast approaching, it is estimated that hundreds of students will apply for scholarships of up to $6,300 to attend the private schools of their parents’ choice. For the first year of the program, only children in public schools, grades K-3, are eligible to participate. For each additional year, the scholarships would continue to support those students as they advance to the next grade level, with new groups of K-3 students entering every year. This indicates that the program could grow incrementally, and benefit more students each year. The scholarships are reserved for children in families with an income that does not exceed 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines. So […]

Holding back kids who have failed, rather than just pass them on to the next grade and the next teacher, is an education policy that strikes a lot of people as good common sense. But, of course, good common sense does not prevail so often in large public education bureaucracies. Apparently, in some cases, following the law can be a problem for public education bureaucracies, too. The brilliant Jay Greene writes about Georgia school officials who flouted a law that required students to pass a test in order to move up to the next grade: In Clayton County 97 percent of students who failed the re-test to get promoted or simply didn’t take the re-test were promoted to the next grade. When asked about why these students were promoted, the District issued a statement that said, “the philosophy of prior administrators was to promote students who failed and provide them remediation.” Oh. I see. The law says that students unable to pass the state’s test ought to be retained but Clayton County school officials had a different philosophy. Their philosophy was that they don’t have to follow the law. Jay knows this is more than just a problem of disobeying […]

The Friedman Foundation is one of the biggest supporters of school choice for parents in the U.S. Lately they have been going from state to state asking people their views about education. Their most recent stop is Oklahoma. Some of the findings were quite telling: Nearly two out of three Oklahomans are content with current levels of public school funding. A large majority of voters (64 percent) say Oklahoma’s level of public school funding is either “too high” or “about right.” At least 67 percent of the poll’s respondents underestimate the state’s actual per-pupil funding, which suggests that the funding satisfaction level is probably a conservative figure. More than four out of five Oklahomans would prefer to send their child to a school other than a regular public school—only 17 percent say a regular public school is their top choice….< Oklahoma voters value private schools—they are more than twice as likely to prefer sending their child to a private school over any other school type. When asked “what type of school would you select in order to obtain the best education for your child?” 41 percent of respondents selected private schools…. Interestingly, these results are largely consistent with the findings […]

When it comes to school choice and education reform, quite often good politics and good policy are at odds with each other. That’s one thing to draw from reading this post from Tampa Bay education writer Jeffrey Solochek about an initiative on Florida’s ballot this year: Teachers unions and their traditional allies filed suit against Amendment 9 two weeks ago, but they aren’t the only ones taking issue. A couple of prominent education researchers also see something wrong here. Jay Greene and Frederick Hess can hardly be accused of being fellow travelers. Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Hess directs education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. But neither are fans of the “65 percent solution.” And neither likes the way Amendment 9 – pushed by Jeb Bush stalwarts on the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission – melds the 65 percent idea with a different policy issue involving vouchers. What exactly is the problem? Well, thanks to the results of numerous top-notch studies, we know school vouchers “are better supported by top-quality empirical evidence than any other education policy.” But the history of vouchers succeeding at the ballot box has been less than stellar. Fresh on […]

This post is a little different than many of the usual ones here, but sometimes it’s good to expand our horizons. My parents say that’s an important part of a good education. Well, anyway, a couple months ago, the Education Policy Center (the whole Independence Institute really) made a new friend in Ethiopian journalist Habtamu Dugo, who fled his homeland to avoid persecution from the government. Here’s a 5-minute video in which Habtamu tells his own story: Now living in the United States, Habtamu recently wrote about the problems with his nation’s education system, particularly how the government’s repressive segregationist policy is so harmful to the ethnic groups not represented by those in power.

The Michigan Education Report, run by a sister think tank Mackinac Institute, highlights an innovative cost-saving, Catholic school model in Detroit: Tuition costs have been cited as a factor in the closing of more than 1,000 Catholic parish schools across the country in the past two decades. The Cristo Rey model addresses that problem by requiring students to spend four days in the classroom and one full day working each week. Their earnings go toward their school costs. In Detroit, the work-study program will bring down the family contribution to an estimated $2,200 per year, according to Earl Robinson, president of Detroit Cristo Rey. The school will work to help parents who can’t afford even that much. The Cristo Rey model not only brings costs down, but introduces students to the working world, helps them develop work ethics, assists them in making career choices and, Robinson pointed out, lets them write a resume upon graduation that includes four years of work experience and four references. At the State Policy blog, John LaPlante suggests this kind of innovation helps to answer the objection that vouchers won’t fully cover private school tuition costs. Those raising the objection could also look to the […]

I’ve told you about examples of charter school success in Colorado and about Denver parents demanding more public charter school options. If you’re new to the scene, however, you might be wondering why there aren’t enough charter schools to meet the demands of parents (and kids like me). In a great post, Colorado Charter Schools guru Denise highlights a teachers union attack on charter schools in Delaware, and then brings the topic closer to home: Don’t expect the teacher’s union to make a frontal assault on charter schools — not when they’re so popular with parents and teachers. Speaking negatively about charter schools would never work. Instead, “limit the number of charters,” which in Delaware means putting a moratorium on the number of approved charter applications and keeping the focus on districts’ losing money. Other strategies could include: Limiting the number of authorizers, or eviscerating alternative authorizers; Raising the application approval bar so high that almost no one can meet the requirements (all in the name of holding high standards, of course); and Ensuring that heavy-handed authorizers retain total control in both the big things and little things. Oh, but that might sound like Colorado and not Delaware… Denise makes […]

It’s exciting to see how much school choice has grown lately (even though it would be better to see some of it happening here in Colorado). I’ve told you about new programs in Georgia and Louisiana just in the past several weeks. Well, if you want to get a sense of all the different private school choice programs out there, you have to check out the Independence Institute’s “Voucher and Tax Credit Programs in the Nation” page. The page has just been updated by Marya, one of the nice people here in the Education Policy Center. I know it’s summer, so I can’t stand to think much about school either. But if you want to get a good historical picture of school choice in the United States, you also should read the newly-updated report by senior fellow Krista Kafer. So check out the updated web page and the updated report. Think of it as your homework assignment: a fun homework assignment. Besides, it’s not really that much to read and it’s not due right away either. Back to the playground!