RT @PEFNC: Opportunity Scholarships are being debated now by NC legislature. ACT NOW!: Text SOS to 52886 and ask your legislator to support…13 hours agoReplyRetweet
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RT @achilders_SF: Study finds charter funding inequity still pervasive- an avg of $4k less than traditional public http://t.co/rPNwp62eid v…14 hours agoReplyRetweet
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RT @ChoiceMediaTV: South Carolina Senate OKs Tax Credit Scholarships http://t.co/K4MugCBc5r @SCPCSD @SCRG @scpolicycouncil #EdReform #Schoo…15 hours agoReplyRetweet
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Lousiana voucher bill wins bipartisan support

By on March 23, 2012

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted 61-42 Thursday night in favor of a sweeping voucher bill, and despite the initial media narrative, the measure won significant bipartisan support. Twelve of 45 Democrats, including six black Democrats, shrugged off tremendous pressure and voted for House Bill 976.

The Louisiana vote is another sign that school choice and parental choice initiatives are being embraced by folks across the political spectrum. It’s also another sign that the dominant story lines need to be adjusted to reflect that reality.

Two weeks ago, a significant number of Democrats in the Florida Legislature made a similarly courageous vote – in their case, to expand the state’s tax-credit scholarship program. But as it was in Louisiana, that important detail was missing from news stories.

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Low-income parents are also underdogs in ed reform

By on March 23, 2012

Everybody loves the underdog except when it comes to education reform. More than a week after the Florida Senate rejected the parent trigger bill, the story line is now David v. Goliath, with David (played by established parent groups like the Florida PTA and Fund Education Now) squeaking out a victory over Goliath (starring Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, and the Republican-dominated Legislature.)

The truth is, titans clashed while David was en route to his second job.

The underdogs who are lost in this narrative are low-income and working-class parents. They have virtually no one in their corner as they deal with conditions in their schools that would spark outrage – and quick remedies – if they happened in more affluent schools.

To take teacher quality and equity as an example: High-poverty schools have the highest teacher turnover rates, the most rookie teachers, the most out-of-field teachers, the most teachers who failed certification exams, the fewest board certified, etc.  We all know how destructive that is, year after year, kid after kid, generation after generation. And yet, it’s just kind of accepted. Continue Reading →

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In parent trigger debate, teachers unions sounded an awful lot like management

By on March 22, 2012

I started teaching in the fall of 1977, and by the winter of 1978 I had become a union organizer. A law authorizing public employees to participate in collective bargaining had passed a few years earlier in the Florida legislature, and public educators were actively organizing themselves into unions.

Management was hostile toward our efforts. They asserted that unions would pit teacher against teacher, and teachers against management. They said collaboration was the key to improving our working conditions – not the adversarial relationships that are inherent in unions. They set up teacher advisory councils and said we didn’t need unions. They said we had input through the councils.

Management always uses these arguments to fight union organizers, which is why I wasn’t surprised they surfaced during the recent parent trigger debate in Florida. The parent trigger legislation is part of an effort by progressive Democrats to begin unionizing parents in school districts, and management is opposing their efforts. But it’s ironic that teachers unions are also opposing parent unions and using the same arguments management used against them in the 1970s. Continue Reading →

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Michelle Rhee: Vouchers should be limited, ‘heavily regulated’

By on March 21, 2012

Michelle Rhee clarifies her position on vouchers, tax-credited scholarships and education savings accounts in this interview with Sean Cavanagh at Education Week. To sum up: She thinks they should be limited to low-income students. And there needs to be transparency and accountability. “It has to be a heavily regulated industry,” she told Cavanagh. “I believe in accountability across the board. If you’re going to be having a publicly funded voucher program, then kids have to be taking standardized tests. We have to be measuring whether kids are academically better off in this private school with this voucher than they would be going to their failing neighborhood school. If they’re not, they shouldn’t get the voucher. … I’m about choice only if it results in better outcomes and opportunities for kids.” Full post here.

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More choice for low-income parents shouldn’t be limited to charter schools

By on March 21, 2012

John Kirtley, chairman of Step Up for Students and one of the hosts here at redefinED, offered some thoughts on parental choice and parental empowerment over at Fordham’s Board’s Eye View blog today. Here’s a taste:

Parents must be truly empowered, however. They can’t just be empowered to choose charters, as some reformers believe. In most states, there is a surprisingly large inventory of private schools that are already serving low-income children. In some of these places there are few charters—sometimes (but not always) because the district is slow to authorize them. In Duval County, Florida, for instance, the district has only thirteen charters despite its large size (over 150,000 students). And not all of them serve low-income children. By contrast, there are over 100 private schools in the county that serve low-income children under the state’s tax credit scholarship program.

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Businesses, teachers unions benefit financially from status quo in education

By on March 21, 2012

Editor’s note: Corporate greed! Profits! Privatization! Shout the same, alarming buzz words enough – as critics of education reform are doing – and it defines the debate. But as Doug Tuthill, a former teachers union president, argues in this post, businesses benefit more from the status quo in education than they will from expanded parental choice.

Public education would not exist without the products and services provided by for-profit corporations. Every year, for-profit corporations receive billions of tax dollars from school districts to build schools and supply them with desks, books, computers, pens, pencils, paper, calculators, buses, crayons, and power to turn on the lights. And yet school choice critics continue to assert that giving parents more schooling options is a plot by for-profit corporations to make more money.

I don’t buy it.

The profit margins of businesses providing goods and services to public education are greater under the current command-and-control system because the costs of sales and servicing contracts are lower when the customers are large, centrally controlled organizations.  My friend Jean Clements, who is the teachers union president in Hillsborough County, Florida, was the first person to explain this to me.

Four years ago, I asked Jean why her union refused to sell union memberships to private school teachers. Her answer? She would lose money. Jean said the membership revenue she would receive from teachers in small, non-district schools would not cover the costs of negotiating and servicing their collective bargaining contracts.

Large school districts allow teachers unions to spread their costs across a large number of members, which is why large districts are their preferred market. It’s also why unions are so opposed to public education occurring in schools not owned and managed by school districts.

I suspect the same economy-of-scale issues influencing Jean’s business decisions are also relevant for Dell, Pearson and Apple. Continue Reading →

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Report: Tax credit scholarships (“vouchers”) will save Florida taxpayers $57.9 million next year

By on March 20, 2012

Critics of Florida’s tax credit scholarship program often say it’s a “drain” on public school funding. But yet another credible report underscores how much that’s not the case.

The little-known “impact” report, issued last week by Florida’s Revenue Estimating Conference, brings genuine financial context to the scholarship program, which helps low-income K-12 students. It says, with a degree of professional precision, that the Florida Tax Credit scholarship will save taxpayers $57.9 million next year (line 55, page 36).

That number is at odds with the financial lament of some opponents, such as Rep. Dwight Bullard, a Democrat from Miami-Dade. In his passionate opposition to HB 859, a bill that that expands the program and now sits on Gov. Rick Scott’s desk, Bullard told his colleagues the scholarship “has cost all of your respective school districts million and millions of dollars in lost revenue” and tried to pit scholarship schools against district schools.

“We’re talking about funding a program that, yes, we can all agree is successful,” Bullard said. “We can always point to the fact that it helps low-income and minority students get out of a bad situation and get into a better one. … But here’s the question: When are we going to stop adding to the bad situation that they’re trying to run from?”

Bullard’s plea to increase funding for public schools is sincere and commendable, but his attempt to use scholarships as a foil is neither. Continue Reading →

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Darrell Allison, parental choice leader in North Carolina – podcastED

By on March 19, 2012

North Carolina lawmakers took parental choice to new heights last year by removing a cap on charter schools and creating a tax credit scholarship program for students with disabilities. But all signs indicate they’re not done yet – and that a tax credit scholarship for low income students may be next on the agenda.

A dozen North Carolina lawmakers visited Florida on a fact-finding trip last week. They heard from former Gov. Jeb Bush and John Kirtley, chairman of Step Up for Students, which administers Florida’s tax credit program for low-income students. They met Florida lawmakers and corporate leaders who support it. And they visited the Miami Union Academy, a participating private school with nearly 300 students.

“Let’s be honest: When you talk about a state in our nation that has a lot of sunshine, a lot of innovation and a new frontier in ed reform, it’s the state of Florida,” said Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina.

Allison, who also made the trip, along with some North Carolina business leaders, said strong, bipartisan support for last year’s choice legislation in NC is a hopeful sign that the adversarial tone that characterized so many past debates about choice is beginning to lose its edge. For North Carolina families, he said, that’ll be a good thing.

“Around the kitchen table, that discussion is different than at the policy table, right?” he said. “Mom and Dad are not really thinking about Republicans and Democrats and philosophy. They’re just trying to make sure that Johnny has the best school option that they could possibly have.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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redefinED roundup: Voucher plan advances in Alaska, Florida Virtual School gets more scrutiny and more

By on March 19, 2012

Alaska: Voucher bill gains ground in the legislature. (Alaska Dispatch)

Florida: Florida Virtual School, a national model, comes under more scrutiny for its effectiveness. (Education Week.)

Indiana: Indiana Supreme Court agrees to hear voucher case. (Associated Press) More competition from school choice means school districts must step up marketing, a columnist argues. (Lafayette Journal & Courier) All-boys charter school coming to Indianapolis. (Indianapolis Star)

Minnesota: Big money being poured into school reform campaigns. (Minneapolis Star Tribune) Continue Reading →

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Rep. Richard Corcoran, sponsor of Florida tax credit scholarship bill – podcastED

By on March 16, 2012

Behind the scenes, this year’s bill to expand Florida’s tax credit scholarship program (which passed the House and Senate and is awaiting Gov. Rick Scott’s signature) sparked a bit of a stir in the choice community. The reason: It opens the door for private schools that accept tax credit scholarships to voluntarily administer the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test – the state’s main standardized test.

Some private school supporters fear the requirement in HB 859 will pave the way for an FCAT mandate on private schools. But state Rep. Richard Corcoran, the bill’s sponsor, says in this podcast that he doesn’t see that happening. He also explains why he did include the provision – and it’s an interesting argument given that many critics of the program think the lack of an FCAT requirement gives private schools an unfair advantage over public schools.

“When you talk to some of these private schools, a lot of them are losing enrollment during these difficult economic times because parents have to cut somewhere with their salaries being so devastated,” Corcoran said. “And one of the things they’re doing is, they’re pulling their kids out of private school and putting them in public school, and they’re saying to these private schools, ‘Well, we really like the Christian aspect or the parochial aspect, but the academic stuff, we don’t know if it’s much different, so we’re going to do this (go public).’ “

“And I think one of the things these private schools would like is to be able to say, ‘No, if you look at our scores on the FCAT versus your (public school) scores on the FCAT, there’s a tremendous difference.’ And hopefully that will increase enrollment, not decrease it.”

Corcoran’s thoughts on testing requirements, which he goes into more detail about in the podcast, should be of interest to school choice observers everywhere. As vouchers and tax credit scholarships get considered in other states, there is plenty of debate about where the lines should be drawn so the interests of students, families, schools and taxpayers are balanced.

On a different note, Corcoran makes a prediction about the parent trigger bill that the Florida Senate shot down last week on a 20-20 vote: “I’d be shocked if parent trigger doesn’t pass next year … and I’d be shocked if it doesn’t pass with bipartisan support.”

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