Tag Archives: lawmakers

A week ago I brought your attention to concerns from Colorado charter school parents and leaders that grant money for facility projects was at serious risk. Public charter schools already face significant inequities when it comes to receiving funds for construction and maintenance. But cutting back the state’s charter school capital construction fund from $10 million to $5 million – as initially proposed by the governor and lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee (JBC) – also put eligibility for federal grant funds at risk, a double whammy. So news like this from the Colorado League of Charter Schools is really good concerning the circumstances: We are excited to report that our efforts at the Capitol, and especially your calls, emails and persistence have paid off. The JBC has revised its proposal and is now recommending that charter school capital construction funding be cut by $2.5 million instead of $5 million. Your efforts helped save $2.5 million in funding for charter schools. We couldn’t have done it without you!

The argument only grows stronger that charter schools work. While some will dwell on the exceptions, the big picture becomes clearer and clearer. A new study by the Boston Foundation finds that in their city “charter school students consistently outperform their peers at pilot schools and at traditional schools.” As Core Knowledge blogger Robert Pondiscio notes, even factoring out the selection bias of more motivated parents shows charter schools doing more to improve student achievement. And the well-read Dr. Greg Forster puts the Boston study in context to note that “charters are an improvement over the status quo, even if only a modest one, as a large body of research has consistently shown.” He observes that “more freedom consistently produces better results, and more unionization consistently doesn’t.” Charter schools are one good way to bring more freedom to the education system so good ideas and practices can blossom while bad ones are rejected.

Economic times are rough. Many state budgets look to be short of money. Having recently passed one of the nation’s most generous tax credit scholarship programs, lawmakers in the state of Georgia have a bold idea they plan to bring forward early next year: Republican State Senator Eric Johnson plans to introduce legislation in January 2009 that would give each public school student a voucher equal to the money the state currently spends on his or her education. The voucher could be used for tuition at the parents’ school of choice — public, private or religious. The Fox News article is talking about universal vouchers, an idea first introduced by the great economist Milton Friedman in 1955. It represents more choice, more opportunity, and a major change to the education system that puts parents and consumers back in charge. Of course, there are critics: [Professional Association of Georgia Educators spokesman Tim] Callahan says voucher programs in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., have failed to deliver promised results, and Georgia lawmakers should focus on strengthening public schools instead of creating incentives to leave them. Too bad Callahan’s statement is misleading. The best research studies show that vouchers help the students who use […]