Author

redefinED staff

Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Course ChoiceCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedSchool ChoiceUnionism

Commentary: 2021 is the year of school choice, education freedom

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

American Federation for Children director of research Corey DeAngelis in a Friday interview with Fox Business extended a “formal thank you” to the American Federation of Teachers for being the driving force in the upswing of parents who are investigating school choice options.

Union posturing, DeAngelis hypothesizes, can be credited with “pushing families down the path of school choice,” resulting in the exodus of 1.5 million students from the public school system this past year and sparking a three-fold increase in the number of families who are homeschooling their children.

Contributing to the surge, DeAngelis notes, 17 states either have expanded school choice programs or have enacted new school choice programs aimed at funding students and families rather than systems.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

School choice programs are an equalizer … We spend over $16,000 per student per year in the government school system. Why not give that money to the parents?

It’s time to free our children from the government school system and the teachers union. We should not have to rely on the decisions of the teacher union bosses … the decisions should be up to parents, and the best way to do that is to fund the student directly.

You can watch the interview here.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Indiana legislator: ‘When choice really works, it lifts up everyone’

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Education Next senior editor Paul Peterson spoke recently with Robert Behning, a Republican member of the Indiana House or Representatives and chair of the house education committee, about new legislation in his state that expanded the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program.

A consistent message throughout the interview was Behning’s insistence that education choice benefits everyone, and that education choice programs must expand beyond urban centers and not be limited to children in poverty and failing schools.

One excerpt from the conversation:

I think that when choice really works, it lifts up everyone. And our data have demonstrated that. Indianapolis probably has the most choice options of all the communities in our state. They have the most charters per capita, and we’ve created other options for them.

We have traditional charter schools, or legacy charters, and we’ve created an option called innovation network charters, which are charters that are located within traditional school buildings. [Both the traditional and the charter schools] have embraced competition, and academic performance overall has actually increased. When you get robust competition, you’ll find that it has uplifted everyone’s performance.

Behning also discussed the long-range efficacy of more adaptable and personalized education options such as education savings accounts.

You can read the full interview here.

To listen to a podcast Step Up For Students president Doug Tuthill conducted with Behning for redefinED, click here.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationEducation PoliticsFeaturedParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Kentucky lawmaker discusses legal challenges to state’s new education law

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Earlier this year, Kentucky State Rep. Chad McCoy carried a landmark education choice bill creating a new tax credit funded program to passage and then participated in an override of a gubernatorial veto. The education choice win for McCoy’s state came at the end of a multi-year political struggle to create the Education Opportunity Scholarship program.

The legislation, HB 563, created a $25 million tax credit scholarship fund giving eligible families the ability to pay for private school tuition, tutoring and other educational expenses. The bill also gave families the option to chooses a different public school district.

Now, the new education bill is facing a court challenge from the Council for Better Education. The case is due back in court for a motions hearing in the coming weeks.

McCoy discussed the legal challenges of this legislation in an In Focus Kentucky segment. Here is an excerpt of his remarks:

Unfortunately, we’ve hit a point in our state’s history where almost every law that we pass, especially when it’s a law that has the opportunity to change the status quo, every one of them seems to end up in court … and it’s kind of interesting, because you know, people want change.

Kentucky ranks, pick the number, pick the category, we’re always at the bottom of every category. And yet we continue to only want to do what we’ve been doing, and that, you know, that’s the definition of insanity … We’ve got to attempt to make the changes I think our constituents want.

This is something that when you talk to parents across the state, it doesn’t matter if they’ve got an R or D behind their name, parents support school choice, and we’ve just got to keep pushing it, and the courts will do what the courts are going to do.

You can watch the full interview here.

You can watch a podcast of Step Up For Students president Doug Tuthill’s interview with McCoy here.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedParental ChoicePodcastSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews education choice advocate Denisha Merriweather on importance of choice for Black community

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill talks to the director of family engagement for the American Federation for Children about her new project, Black Minds Matter, a resource that connects families with Black-owned schools. Launched earlier this year, the initiative highlights inequities in the education system that resemble systemic racism inherent in the criminal justice system.

Merriweather also talks about how the right learning environment changed the trajectory of her life and led her to a commitment to advocating for the expansion of education choice opportunities for all families.

“If you are not interacting with people on a daily basis, hearing their stories, their struggles … the real needed changes they need in their community, you become disconnected. (Supporting education choice) becomes a class issue.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

  • How growing up in a low-income Jacksonville neighborhood and attending a small private school changed Merriweather’s life
  • Merriweather’s employment with the U.S. government and how she became an education choice advocate
  • The birth of Black Minds Matter and why Merriweather has become a vocal advocate for Black-owned schools
  • The disconnect in racial equity activism and the lack of support for educational choice
1 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Charter SchoolsEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

Hillsborough County School Board reverses course on charter school renewal

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Southshore Charter Academy in Riverview is one of four charter schools whose renewals were denied by the Hillsborough County School Board.

After compelling testimony and much debate, the Hillsborough County School Board voted 6-1 in a special session this morning to reverse its previous decision and approve charter school renewals for Kid’s Community College Charter High School, Pivot Charter School, Southshore Charter Academy and Woodmont Charter School.

Among those who spoke in favor of the reversal were parents, teachers and students, several of whom called the board’s refusal disruptive and politically motivated.

Florida education officials on July 14 ordered the board to reverse its rejection of renewal applications for the four charter schools. State board members unanimously approved an order drafted by Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran giving the Hillsborough County School District until July 26 to “document compliance with the law” regarding their renewal requests.

Like all charter schools in the state, these schools are public schools that operate with taxpayer funds but are privately managed.

Dre Graham, executive director of independent education and parental choice at the Florida Department of Education, commented at that meeting that any decision ultimately must be based on what’s best for students.

“Our responsibility is to provide an equitable educational experience for students in order for them to become the best versions of themselves,” Graham said.

All four schools serve high percentages of minority students. Woodmont is classified as a Title I school because 100% of its students are economically disadvantaged. Two of the schools had been operating for 10 years, and the other two had been operating for five years. Southshore and Woodmont earned B grades from the state, while the other two earned C’s.

District staff, after conducting a comprehensive review of the charter schools and finding no grounds for rejecting the applications, had recommended all four contracts be renewed for another five years.

Southshore Charter Academy principal Amy Sams and Woodmont Charter School principal Cuwana Lawson, in a commentary published on tampabay.com, questioned the motives of the board in denying the charter applications.

“This group, which has nothing visible to gain or lose by having charter schools that outperform similar district schools in their neighborhoods, claims to be in support of all public school students,” they wrote. “Here’s a fact that they’ve overlooked. Charter school students are public school students too.”

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedParental ChoicePodcastPrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews Oklahoma state Rep. Ryan Martinez on growth of education choice in Sooner State

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill talks to the District 39 representative from Edmond, Oklahoma, about education choice in that state and the recent legislative expansion that will allow thousands of additional families access to an Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship.

Martinez’s support of choice is personal. He believes it helped save his life and enabled him to be the first member of his family to graduate from college.

He discusses with Tuthill how Oklahoma’s education choice system benefits public and private schools alike and shares plans for future choice expansion, including the potential for an education savings account program.

“There’s an adversarial relationship that if you’re for education choice then you hate public schools. That’s not the case at all … I want to do everything I can to make sure we have a robust public education system … This is good for public and private education.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

  • Oklahoma’s recent legislative session and expansion of the state’s scholarship program
  • The benefits of choice in Oklahoma for both public and private schools
  • The tax credit system in Oklahoma and how the program can be improved
  • The state’s efforts to achieve greater bipartisan and rural support for education choice
0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Demographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation EquityEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Louisiana families strongly support state scholarship program

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

St. Michael the Archangel High School in Baton Rouge is one of 128 private schools that participate in the Louisiana Scholarship Program. The program enrolled 6,141 students in 2020-21.

A new poll from the state of Louisiana’s voice for educational choice has found widespread support among families who participate in the Louisiana Scholarship Program.

Nearly 93% of families who utilize the program to provide their children with additional opportunities to attend the school of their choice say they are happy with their children’s academic progress. Ninety-one percent say they are satisfied or very satisfied with their child’s current scholarship school, and nearly all – 97.8% – say their child feels safe in his or her scholarship school.

Additionally, 54.8% are pleased with how their scholarship school handled the COVID-19 crisis.

The Louisiana Federation for Children conducted the survey from March 18-March 31 to evaluate the level of parental satisfaction with the scholarship program formerly known as the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program.

“Facing extreme obstacles, Louisiana Scholarship Program schools created safe learning environments for parents who prioritized in-person learning,” said Ann Duplessis, Louisiana Federation for Children President and American Federation for Children Board Member. “At the same time, families who preferred a virtual education for their children were accommodated.”

The Louisiana Department of Education reported 6,141 students were enrolled in the Louisiana Scholarship Program during the 2020-21 school year. Every child in the program, which was enacted in 2008 by a bipartisan group of legislators, comes from a low-income family, and 85% of students in the program are minority students.

Louisiana lawmakers recently expanded school choice options with the approval of HB 85, which established a statewide reading scholarship program named for the late state Rep. Steve Carter, a former Louisiana House education chairman who died in January from COVID-19 complications.

The program, approved on a unanimous bipartisan vote, was modeled after a similar one in Florida. You can read more here.

To view complete poll results, click here.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail