Tag Archives: Private Schools

Federal law requires that private K-12 schools have access to federally funded “equitable services” through their local school districts. Our most recent paper outlines the various services and funding available to private schools and provides real Colorado examples of how private schools participate in federal programs.

As you all know, I like to write. We’ve tackled all sorts of policy and politics here on Ed is Watching, usually in the form of blog posts written by yours truly. But even at five years old, I know something important: Sometimes it’s better to just shut up and listen. That’s what I plan to do today as you enjoy this Heritage Foundation video about the power of educational choice. But first (you didn’t really think I wouldn’t say anything at all, did you?), I do have to say one thing. I wrote not too long ago about what Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, could do to advance the cause of educational opportunity in America. High on that list is the reauthorization—and maybe even the expansion—of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The only federally funded private school choice program in the nation, the OSP has helped and is helping thousands of low-income kids and families desperate for better educational opportunities. Sadly, the program has been left in existential limbo as the Obama Administration and its allies worked against it in previous years. Mrs. DeVos has a real opportunity to breathe new life into the OSP […]

It’s almost Christmas, friends! I can’t wait to see what I got—though it may be a lump of coal given my fire-breathing posts over the last several months. Regardless of what I get, I have a special policy present for you: new poll data on school choice! A couple of weeks ago, my Independence Institute friend Ross Izard highlighted some interesting new research in a Choice Media story of the day: The #StoryOfTheDay is brought to you by @RossIzard, Senior Education Policy Analyst at the Independence Institute: Poll Shows Private and Charter Parents More Satisfied Than District Peers. #SchoolChoice, #PrivateSchools, #CharterSchools, #EducationReform, #EDReform, #Schools, #Education, #Educational, #MomLife, #Mom, #Dad A video posted by Choice Media (@choicemediatv) on Dec 14, 2016 at 2:10pm PST The data included in this particular analysis comes from the annual, nationally representative Education Next poll, which we discussed back in August. There’s all kinds of interesting stuff to learn from that poll, including the fact that school choice appears to be gradually changing into a Democratic issue. That’s actually not terribly surprising given the importance of educational choice to many primarily Democratic constituencies, though some progressive leaders have yet to get the message. This new look […]

Yesterday, I posted my wish list for last night’s presidential debate. It was admittedly unrealistic to expect the candidates to address my specific concerns, but I don’t think it was unfair to expect the candidates to talk about how we’re going to improve the situation for the 50 million children in the American K-12 public education system. Even so, I worried aloud yesterday that the candidates might completely ignore what I think is the most important domestic policy conversation in the United States. Sadly, those concerns turned out to be well founded. If you missed last night’s debate, you can watch the whole thing here. If you’re more the reading type, you can check out the transcript here. Or, if you value your time and sanity, I can sum up the entire event with the following GIF: via GIPHY There were many things about last night that I found disheartening. Chief among these was the near-total refusal to speak about K-12 education or acknowledge the power of education to help solve many of the problems the candidates were asked to address last night.

Well, friends, the 2016 legislative session is officially a done deal. I’ll have an official wrap-up (autopsy?) for you next week, but for now we can all breathe a little easier knowing that the crush of state-level education politics will recede for the most part until the fall. That leaves plenty of time to nerd it up, and nerd it up we shall. Let’s get the policy party started today with a new study out of the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform. Written by M. Danish Shakeel, Kaitlin P. Anderson, and Patrick J. Wolf, the study takes a look at the effects of private school choice programs around the world. Or, rather, the study looks at studies on the effects of private school choice programs around the world. That makes it a “meta-study.” Today’s lesson in impenetrable academic jargon: Studying studies yields meta-studies. You’re welcome. Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: I have a love-hate relationship with meta-studies. On one hand, comprehensive examinations of previous research are enormously valuable for those of us who swim in policy waters. On the other hand, they can easily fall victim to cherry picking, or the tendency […]

Hello, fellow education policy explorers! It’s 4:15 on a Friday afternoon, and your favorite little edu-wonk has quite a few things left to accomplish before he heads into a fun-filled weekend. Unfortunately, that means we aren’t going to have time for an in-depth conversation today. But never fear!  The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has swooped in to save the day with a new video about the importance of allowing families to access educational opportunities their kids need. The video is all about a little girl named Mia, whose dyslexia has made school particularly tough for her. Unable to find the help she needed in the public schools, Mia’s mom eventually placed her into a private school. Mia’s finally getting the necessary support to overcome her learning disability, and she’s thriving in her new environment. Yet Mia’s mom makes clear that while their family was fortunate enough to have the resources to access quality private education, many other families are not so blessed. For kids like Mia whose families can’t access high-quality private educational options when they need them, the outcomes may not be so uplifting. School choice matters, and I don’t just mean that in the abstract or on […]

Another Friday is upon us, my friends. And what a Friday it is! Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and school choice just keeps on flourishing. That’s right, Nevada’s big success wasn’t the end of the story. Arkansas has now come aboard the school choice train! Two days ago, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed House Bill 1552 into law. With a quick wave of the magic gubernatorial wand, Hutchinson breathed life into the Succeed Scholarship Program—a move that brought praise from friends of choice. The program is designed to provide private school tuition scholarships to kids with special needs.

As you all know, I love policy field trips. And I especially love those field trips when they are about something as fun as school choice. Maybe that’s why I had so much fun at today’s Senate Education hearing. Well, the very end of it, anyway; I showed up a little late. My little legs can only carry me so fast! So what exactly happened in Senate Ed today? The committee heard Senator Kevin Lundberg‘s bill on tax credits for private school tuition, which is known to political nerds as SB 045. Feel free to read the bill if you’d like (it differs significantly from the tax credit scholarship programs we’ve talked about before), but here’s the quick and dirty version: The bill would allow taxpayers enroll their children in a private school (or who provide a scholarship for other children to do so) to receive a tax credit in return. It also would allow credits for parents who use home-based education for their children. As one might expect, the bill drew its fair share of fire. Democratic senators Andy Kerr, Michael Merrifield, and Michael Johnston all offered amendments to the bill. These included a requirement that private school students […]

I like feeling safe. My parents like knowing I’m reasonably safe from all kinds of violence when I go to school, too. A lot of times where we live, we can take that kind of school safety for granted. But as a new report co-produced by the Heritage Foundation and the Lexington Institute (PDF) chronicles the dangers many students face in D.C. Public Schools and the need for greater choice: In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education reported that 11.3 percent of D.C. high school students reported being “threatened or injured” with a weapon while on school property during the previous year—a rate well above the national average…. The data reveal that during the 2007–2008 school year, police responded to more than 900 calls to 911 reporting violent incidents at the addresses of D.C. public schools and more than 1,300 events concerning property crimes. The data reveal a wide variance in the locations of these reported incidents. Some public schools with high rates of 911 calls are located within high-crime neighborhoods. In addition, while one should use these data with care when comparing the relative safety of public, charter, and private schools, this data set shows that a drastically higher […]

Updated for clarity Over at the Britannica blog, Dan Willingham wonders aloud if school choice might be a bad policy not effect positive change in the system through competition because many parents won’t make the “rational” decision: The logic of school choice seems obvious. If parents selected their children’s schools, they would not choose bad ones, so bad schools would not be able to survive. Schools would have to improve or close, just as a store that offers poor service will lose business to a store that offers better service. Here’s my problem with that logic: I think it’s highly likely that many parents will choose bad schools. (H/T Core Knowledge blog) You’re welcome to go ahead and read Mr. Willingham’s entire entry. But I think Jay Greene has done the best job of providing a rational objection: