Archive | February, 2011

A generational split

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On February 28, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

On Sunday, the Washington Post published a 1,500-word story on the split in the African American community in the support of school choice, noting that a younger generation is embracing the idea of publicly funded private learning options for poor, struggling schoolchildren. It’s a cause, however, that’s up against an older generation of lawmakers who believe that a dollar redirected to tax credit scholarships and school vouchers is a dollar taken away from public schools.

After one legend in Virginia’s civil rights movement, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, helped to defeat a measure that would have awarded tax credit scholarships to low-income children, one 18-year-old student at Virginia Commonwealth University who supported the bill, HB 2314, told the Washington Post that “I think Senator Marsh is stuck in the past.”

The 18-year-old verbalized a development that has scarcely received any media coverage in an increasingly volatile debate over school choice: When it comes to tax credit scholarships for low-income students, in particular, African American lawmakers in opposition are at odds with their constituency.

Last August, a survey from Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University showed that African-American parents support tax credit scholarships for low-income students by a margin of 71-9 (others were neutral). All parents supported the option by a margin of 67-12.

While the researchers noted that, overall, support for tax credits has slipped, “the idea remains extremely popular among African Americans,” especially when the scholarships are designed to aid low-income students, as the Virginia bill would have facilitated.

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The New Face of Choice in Virginia

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On February 25, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Virginia is one of several states where parental choice advocates are trying to pass legislation to help low-income families. The challenges in this state are unique, because Virginia has an unfortunate history with choice legislation. In the early 1960’s, as public schools were under court order to integrate, the Virginia legislature passed a choice program that was largely seen as a vehicle for white parents to pull their children from integrating schools. Understandably, several long serving members of the Virginia legislature remember these times and these motivations.

Half a century has passed, and a new generation of parents in Virginia are now looking to the legislature to once again pass a choice bill. This time, African American parents are asking for this empowerment. This recent article from the Washington Post does an excellent job describing this development.

I want to personally thank former Florida House Representative Terry Fields, and former Florida Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson for their efforts in trying to help pass this bill. The sponsor of the bill in the Virginia Assembly called looking for help in persuading members of their legislature’s Black Caucus. When the tax credit scholarship program was created by the Florida Legislature in 2001, only one Democrat—and not a single member of the Black Caucus—voted for the bill. In the 2010 session, when the legislature aggressively expanded the program, roughly half of House Democrats, a third of Senate Democrats, and a majority of the Black Caucus voted in favor. Representative Fields, who was one of the first to convert to the cause, personally went to Richmond to talk to members of the caucus. Senator Lawson, who sponsored several of the Florida bills, published this column in the Roanoke Times supporting the bill.

Although they were not successful this year, as you can see from the Washington Post article, things are changing. Perhaps next year we should send the Rev. H.K. Matthews from Pensacola, Fla., who like Virginia’s Senator Marsh is a hero of the civil rights movement. But unlike Marsh, Matthews supports parental choice for low-income families. In fact, he has called it “an extension of the old movement”. That would be quite a conversation, I imagine.

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Taking the crucifix off the wall

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On February 25, 2011 in Catholic education, Charter Schools, General

In a story published today on Educationnext.org, Fordham fellow Peter Meyer explores the story of the Christian Brothers and the Catholic order’s entry into public education, specifically charter schooling, a story that Meyer describes as “a fascinating tale of grit and determination, about a committed group of Catholics who gave up their icons, statues, prayers, and catechism, ran a gauntlet of church/state hurdles, partnered with a Baptist congregation in one location and weathered an angry black community in another location – and are now educating hundreds of Chicago’s poorest public school children.”

Of course, the issue of whether Catholic leaders can give up their icons, statues, prayers and catechism when taking ownership of a charter school and still maintain their identity has roiled debate in the church, and within the school choice movement. Earlier this year, redefinED host Doug Tuthill probed whether a Catholic school may convert to a charter and still “leave the crucifix up.”

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New Jersey is ready, Mr. Florio

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On February 24, 2011 in Customization, Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Many of you are aware that the New Jersey legislature is considering a tax credit scholarship bill modeled on Florida’s successful program. Sponsored by some prominent Democrats, this bill has inspired spirited debate in legislative committees, at rallies at the Capitol, and in the press. Today, former Democratic Gov. James Florio weighed in with a column published in the Newark Star Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper. I don’t often do this, but I couldn’t resist adding my own comments after the Governor’s (His column is below, and my comments are in italics).

By James J. Florio

The establishment of a system of universal public schools for all American children was a historic event for the world and the key to our nation’s development and prosperity. It provided unmatched literacy levels for our citizens and a commitment to excellence as a national goal. It enabled people from every country to be blended into one people, representing an amalgam of ideas of freedom and opportunity through upward mobility. Our diversity was molded in the public schools and became our strength. [Democracy does require a publicly funded education system that embraces and develops our diverse strengths into a unified whole, but empowerment and customization are necessary for this to occur. Top-down, command and control education systems are the wrong way to go. In this century we cannot expect a one-size-fits-all model, where we assign students to schools by zip codes, to work effectively.]

Now, we find — through proposed voucher systems — a rejection of our unifying universal educational model. [Not true. Parental empowerment is a part of a new, more democratic model of publicly-funded education. The old model gave taxpayer dollars to a monopoly system that disempowered parents by assigning students to schools by geography. The new empowerment model allows parents to choose from qualified, properly regulated suppliers of many kinds—without preference for who the provider is.] Continue Reading →

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Indiana Dems revolt against a voucher plan that has liberal roots in their state party

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On February 24, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Now into their third day of a self-imposed exile in neighboring Illinois, Indiana’s House Democrats say they want another 11 Republican-backed bills soon to come up for a vote to be “killed” along with the proposed “right-to-work” legislation that initially prompted their flight from the state.

Republicans have offered to dump the latter, but are refusing to yield on any of the other bills, including a proposal to allow low- and middle-income families a public means to choose a private school for their children. House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, a Democrat from South Bend, told reporters that the tax credit scholarship proposal and a bill that limits teachers’ collective bargaining rights are “dealbreakers.”

While it’s common for Democratic leaders to distance themselves from tax-credit and voucher programs, it’s interesting to see Indiana’s Democrats do so. After all, in Indiana, such programs had their roots in the Democratic Party, and those roots don’t go back far. Continue Reading →

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A balance that needs redressing

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On February 24, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General

It’s getting harder to find a nuanced conversation about the Midwestern struggle over collective bargaining, but a recent exchange between David Brooks and Gail Collins of The New York Times gets us closer to a more salient level of dialogue.

Brooks does his best to right-size his colleague, who admits she’s wandered off “to the land of the insanely angry,” but he offers a qualified defense to the Wisconsin governor who started the imbroglio.  “He’s right about the budget issues and the need to restrain pensions,” Brooks said, “but he’s done it in such a way as to force everybody into polarized camps.”

He then directs readers to the Atlantic’s Clive Crook, who identifies a need to trim the supersized influence and power that public-sector unions have exercised over public affairs, but who’s dismayed that the debate in Wisconsin has been cast only as a zero-sum game, a “winner-takes-all” affair:

The question for states and cities is not whether “collective bargaining” is a basic undeniable right, but how much union power in the public sector is too much. Progressives talk as though it can never be enough — or at any rate, that no union privilege, once extended, should ever be withdrawn. Conservative supporters of Walker talk as though public-sector unions have no legitimate role at all. To me, the evidence says that the balance needs redressing.

Of course, our blog addressed perhaps a better way to provide a balance of power: by bringing more, not fewer, voices to the table, at least as it pertains to public education. Either way, Crook is right to address the balance in our discourse as well.

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A public-private accord in Florida with jaw-dropping implications for online learning

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On February 23, 2011 in Customization, Education and Public Policy, General, Technology and Innovation, Virtual Education

A Florida House committee was treated Tuesday to a high-level discussion of digital learning that included the likes of former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise and national education reformer Tom Vander Ark, but the showstopper came from a different duo with a jaw-dropping accord. The policy director for the nation’s leading public virtual school and the president of a leading private virtual education company told lawmakers that competition is the best way to give students new online opportunities.

No, we’re not making this up.

Sitting around that committee room table were Holly Sagues, chief policy officer for Florida Virtual School, and Barbara Dreyer, president and CEO of Connections Academy. Florida Virtual is far and away the nation’s most successful public virtual school, whose 213,926 courses last year represented three times the rate of the next closest state. Dreyer and one of her own private competitors, K-12 Inc., have found common ground with Florida Virtual on a plan that would introduce statewide private providers for all forms of online learning.

They have agreed to a plan that is animated by two basic objectives. First: “To provide students throughout Florida with as many quality online education options as possible and to make those options available to every student regardless of where they live or whether they attend a district school.” Second: “To bring more consistency in the qualifications, funding, and accountability applied to all public and private providers.”

House K-12 Innovation Chairwoman Kelli Stargel is showing clear interest, and substantial legislative groundwork has been laid. Some two dozen online advocates worked collaboratively over the past eight months around those objectives and were able to avoid the acrimony and division that has characterized previous efforts. Their product could make Florida a national model in the arena of online education and includes:

  • Authorizing the state Board of Education to select private companies meeting certain standards to provide online courses or fulltime online education statewide – in direct competition with Florida Virtual School.
  • Bringing consistency to the qualifications, funding and accountability applied to all public and private providers. Some districts currently contract with private companies to provide fulltime virtual programs, and there is currently wide disparity, particularly in funding.
  • Removing the mandate on school districts to provide fulltime programs themselves and letting students choose from Florida Virtual or the private providers.

The implications for legislation in this state this year are obvious, but the example being set by the Florida Virtual School is something that deserves its own form of awe. This is an innovative public school that has developed markets in other states and nations, and it is showing a disarming level of institutional confidence. At a time when many public educators are conditioned to see private options as an assault on their turf, Virtual School president and chief executive Julie Young is saying, essentially, bring it on. Maybe her real savvy is simply to make sure they all play by the same rules, but her moxy is something to behold.

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Protecting the child by balancing interests

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On February 22, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s consternation over the political power of public-sector unions is certainly understandable, but in the arena of public education we should be careful before we disempower any group. The better option is to bring more, not fewer, voices to the table.

Madison might resurrect its progressive history by allowing parents into a decision-making process that does more than just decide a compensation package for teachers. The thousands of state workers who have descended on the Wisconsin Capitol argue that protecting their ability to bargain for their pay and benefits directly affects student achievement in the classroom. That may or may not be true, but giving parents a legitimate role is one way to make schools more responsive to the needs of families.

This is easier said than done, of course.

Among the more extreme approaches is the kind of parent-trigger law recently exercised in California. Families at McKinley Elementary School in Compton powered their way into a proceeding that has long been the province of school boards and teachers unions. In that case, the Parent Revolution serves as the other union at the table, petitioning for an overhaul so dramatic at the troubled school that a charter operator would take over.

The California Teachers Association is in revolt over the idea, as is the school district, which at one point ordered McKinley parents to take outlandish steps to verify their petitions and now wants to “clean up” the law that empowered them in the first place.

Recent comments from Ben Austin, the Parent Revolution’s executive director, have lessons for Wisconsin:

Our theory of change is not to get rid of unions. We’re progressive Democrats. But they don’t see this as about change. They see it as about power. Continue Reading →

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What Congressional pressure can accomplish

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On February 21, 2011 in Charter Schools, Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews today engaged his colleague, Valerie Strauss, on the merits of Congressional pressure and school reform. While today’s Class Struggle headline may lead the casual reader to wonder if Mathews has now come to advocate for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship — he has not — the more cogent argument is a response to Strauss’ charge that Sen. Joseph Lieberman is “making a mockery of thoughtful school reform” by threatening to cut funds for D.C. schools if Congress fails to revive the Opportunity Scholarship.

Mathews writes:

Strauss quotes a study saying the voucher program, as it is called, has not raised student achievement. But she ignores the fact that another program imposed on the District by Congress 15 years ago, public charter schools, has had marked benefits for D.C. students. Two separate studies by the Washington Post, and other studies by independent scholars, have shown that D.C. public school students with the same backgrounds have done better in charters than in regular public schools.

That is not the case nationally. The results throughout the country show charters and regular schools making similar progress after you average out the many studies of the subject. But we are talking about D.C. schools. If Congress had not pressured a very reluctant D.C. school board to allow charters, the city’s overall achievement level would likely be worse now than it is.

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Legislative Watch: Pennsylvania, Indiana bills get marathon hearings; Virginia measure dies

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On February 17, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

While a Senate committee in Virginia killed a proposed tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students, legislatures in Pennsylvania and Indiana engaged in day-long hearings this week on their respective voucher plans.

Indiana’s HB 1003 cleared its first committee on Wednesday, but not before lowering the income eligibility requirements of prospective scholarship recipients. The Indianapolis Star reports that families with incomes that qualify for free and reduced-price school lunches could get 90 percent of each child’s public school funding to use for private tuition assistance. Families with 200 percent of that income level could get half of their child’s public school funding.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s SB 1 was the subject of a nine-hour hearing Wednesday. The measure would provide tuition assistance to low-income students who, in the first year of the program, attend the “persistently lowest-achieving schools.” But by the third year, low-income children anywhere in Pennsylvania would be eligible.

Tax credit and voucher plans in other states also saw some action this week. They include:

Arizona: SB 1312, SB 1553, HB 2581 and HB 2706 all passed their respective committees Monday;  SB 1553 and HB 2706 are the state’s proposed education empowerment accounts, which according to a senate fact sheet, “requires the State of Arizona to deposit monies to each Empowerment Account equal to ninety per cent of state aid that would otherwise be allocated for a student and computed using all state funding weights.”

Washington, D.C.: S.206, or the Opportunity Scholarship Program, sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, was the subject of a hearing Wednesday of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Among the testifiers was D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray, Kevin Chavous, board chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice.

Other bills we’re watching, and which will be the subject of future updates, include Georgia’s HB 62, HB 1881 and SB 87, and Oklahoma’s HB 1029.

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