Parent Empowerment

Social distancing: a perfect opportunity for parents to find out what their children are learning

Jonathan Butcher March 26, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Coronavirus is interrupting life in general and education specifically. As parents in the U.S. adjust to school closures and the potential for their K-12 child’s coursework to continue online, families should come to realize that they will be exposed to more of what their children are learning.

For some, this will be new.

Wall Street Journal editor Serena Ng wrote recently from Hong Kong, where schools have been closed since Feb. 3, that she now can “see every detail of every lesson.” Ng says, “I previously had only a vague idea about what they were learning in school.”

All parents should be able to know what their children are learning, and for those paying attention in the coming weeks, the virus offers a chance for them to do just that. Working parents who juggle jobs and their children’s school activities while managing a home haven’t been neglectful if they don’t know what happened in fourth-period math on a given day (try asking a teenager what happened in class). Some simply have relied on schools to decide on instruction.

For others, this focus on content has been there all along.

March 2-4, the Institute for Classical Education and the Great Hearts Foundation held the National Classical Education Symposium, an event featuring sessions on teaching the Great Books, from “The Confessions of St. Augustine” to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Great Hearts’ charter schools, which started in Arizona and have expanded to Texas, base their curriculum on these works. (You can find a complete list of the books students will be studying here.)

School districts are not always so transparent. As Matt Beienburg at the Goldwater Institute explained earlier this year, even if state law allows parents to review their child’s curriculum, they can do so only on school premises; in some cases and in some districts, there are limits set on when parents can see the material. Again, parents are not lazy if they don’t always know what is in their child’s syllabus.

When parents know what is being taught, they can effectively advocate for meaningful change. The reading wars over phonics versus whole language instruction are still with us today, while the Common Core debates over a national curriculum have simmered in time for everyone to scrutinize the New York Times’ 1619 Project.

The Project, a set of essays accompanied by K-12 curricular materials, “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Slavery and the racism that followed are a blight on our nation’s past, but the Times has taken the idea too far according to many scholars. Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, leading intellectuals and even the Times’ own fact-checkers have criticized the essays, citing inaccuracies.

For thousands of parents, the initiative is not just a problem for someone else’s school. The Times and the Pulitzer Center have successfully advocated for integrating the material into some of the nation’s largest and most-high profile school systems, including Chicago, Newark, Buffalo and Washington, D.C. In Florida, Florida A&M University highlighted the Project in September 2019 and has hosted events on the topic with Florida State University.

Critically, the Times on March 11 issued a correction to a central premise of the essays, saying that not all colonial revolutionaries fought the British to protect the institution of slavery. If the Times heeds other warnings from experts, this modest correction should not be the last. Meanwhile, the Times already has disseminated the original curricular materials to schools.

Developments like these are among the many reasons why the next few weeks of school closures and online instruction are an important opportunity for parents to catch up on what is happening at their child’s school. When parents send children back to brick-and-mortar schools, they should do so ready to raise questions, prepared with more information.

Parents practicing “social distancing” in the coming weeks should use this period to get closer to their child’s school assignments.

March 26, 2020 0 comment

Analysis Courts Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Savings Accounts Featured Parent Empowerment Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice

Fight over education choice pits family against family in Tennessee

Patrick R. Gibbons March 12, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Institute of Justice client Builguissa Diallo plans to use education savings account funds to send her kindergartener to Pleasant View School in Memphis, saying her zoned public school doesn’t meet her daughter’s needs.

Editor’s note: Some of the parties mentioned in this post, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have expressed interest in suing to stop the Family Empowerment Scholarship, a program administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

The legal battle over Tennessee’s new education savings account (ESA) program is causing families and educators alike to choose sides.

On one side are nine parents, a legal guardian and a retired public school principal represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center, who argue the new program is unconstitutional on a plethora of grounds. On the other side, two parents represented by the Institute for Justice are arguing the program is constitutional and beneficial to their children.

The cities of Memphis and Nashville filed similar suits earlier in February.

The program in question, the Tennessee Education Savings Accounts Pilot Program, offers scholarships to low-income and working-class students to attend private schools. Qualified students must live in households not earning more than two times the threshold for the free or reduced-priced lunch program ($66,950 for a family of four) and be assigned to low-performing public schools in districts with at least 10 such struggling schools. Scholarships are worth up to $7,300 and can be spent on tuition, fees, textbooks, tutoring and more.

“Public schools are open to all children, while private schools receiving voucher funds are not held to the same standards,” Nashville mother Terry Jo Bichell said in a press release. Bichell, whose son is non-verbal and has special needs but is ineligible for the scholarship, is suing the state to stop the program.

Natu Bah, who has two sons who are eligible for the program, said in the Institute of Justice’s press release: “I’m defending the ESA program because it will help me provide a better education for my sons.” Bah plans to use the scholarship to send the boys to Christian Brothers High School in Memphis.

The case is another in a long line of voucher lawsuits that focus on state constitution matters to avoid entanglement with the U.S. Constitution in situations where voucher opponents have been thwarted. Though the “Blaine Amendment” issue currently is being debated before the U.S. Supreme Court, Tennessee does not have a prohibition on funding private religious schools. Opponents must argue other state-specific reasons in their efforts to show the scholarship is unconstitutional.

State centric strategies attacking various school choice programs have reaped mixed success. Florida’s first such program was overturned in a controversial and widely panned decision that found the program unconstitutional due to a state amendment intended to increase public school spending. Nevada’s Supreme Court found the ESA program constitutional, but then declared the funding mechanism to be unconstitutional. Washington’s Supreme Court ruled charter schools unconstitutional after digging up a century-old case on “common schools,” an archaic term referring to elementary schools in the 19^th century.

In each case, school choice opponents tossed the proverbial kitchen sink at the program hoping at least one argument would stick with court justices. Tennessee’s case appears no different, with opponents highlighting five different reasons the ESA might be unconstitutional.

The ACLU argues the ESA program:

· Violates the state’s “home rule” provision in the state constitution by targeting Shelby and Davidson counties without local approval

· Violates the “appropriation of public money” provision since the Legislature did not appropriate money to the program when it passed in 2019 (the program won’t enroll students until the 2020-21 school year)

· Violates “equal protection clauses” of the state constitution by diverting funds from public to private schools

· Violates the Basic Education Program (BEP) statute by diverting dollars intended only for public school districts

· Diverts money to private schools that are not required to adhere to the same standards as public schools

But the kitchen sink approach may not stick in Tennessee.

A 1957 case, Fountain City Sanitary District v. Knox County Election Commission, spells out that the state’s “home rule” provision protects “cities and counties,” and that the rule excludes public school districts. BEP is Tennessee’s funding formula for K-12 education, but nothing within the law appears to restrict expenditures to solely public-school districts. In fact, charter schools are funded through this same formula.

Tennessee’s former Attorney General (and Democrat) Robert Cooper even argued that voucher programs pass constitutional muster in part because of the “Supreme Court’s recognition of the General Assembly’s constitutional flexibility in the field of education.”

There is no telling how long Tennessee’s school choice civil war will last in court, but the first hearing is scheduled for later this month.

March 12, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Education Equity Featured Jack Coons Parent Empowerment Parental Choice School Choice

Trusting John Dewey?

John E. Coons March 11, 2020

John E. Coons

The curriculum and the teaching method that are ideal for children have long been in dispute and remain so. Favorite methods range from Montessori to Steiner to traditional classroom lecture, recital and ABCs; the same diversity holds for the perfect content – factual, moral and political.

Many, also, are the professional luminaries who enlighten us on these questions, each confident of this or that solution.

Up to a point, this variety seems quite understandable and even healthy. Long observation of schools of education at various universities convinces me that method and content in pedagogies for children are as little matters of science as are law and the visual arts. We can sometimes (to a degree) recognize the rare classroom teaching genius, but such heroes tend to be inconspicuous in education school.

Nor is their gift always obvious even when they have made it to the classroom. Happily, the great run of teachers are at least competent – and bless them.

The great diversity of teaching style and substance is plainly cordial to the issue of parental choice. Even John Dewey appears to have thought so, and almost said it. That great guru of schooling would be an interested observer of our current debate over the empowerment of low-income parents to choose for their own child.

In his definitive “My Pedagogic Creed,” written in pre-voucher days, Dewey offered these foundational pearls:

“ … the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; … it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home.”

“ … it is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in this home life.”

Today’s public school professional might snicker. Dewey could have foreseen very little of life as it would come to be lived in the “inner city” of today where home is too often a place and environment to be escaped. Yet, is it absurd to wonder that one detriment of that very urban crisis may be the conscriptive style of those city schools whose leaders have, in the last hundred years, seemed more in tune with Plato, who despised the contribution of the home and parent, than with Dewey?

What would be the level of responsibility and authority among low-income parents of the city today if, during the 20^th century they had, like the rest of us, experienced the dignity and responsibility of the choice of school for their own children?

But, conceding the civil calamity wrought by the urban school of the 20^th century and today, might our trusting of today’s parents merely risk compounding the consequences? If we try to fix it all by trusting the poor, will the newly empowered parent prove already hopelessly corrupted, making the urban scene even worse with his new options? No doubt there would be plenty of parental mistakes; these could be expected as the fruit of our long disabling of the poor.

Worse, several generations of mistrust might prove to have been dehumanizing beyond repair. Can we be certain of the effect of the sudden experience of authority? Still, choice would at least allow the parent to learn by mistake and experience. Mothers and fathers have done well so far with the opportunities already given them in various states to decide for their own child.

I see no alternative but the adoption of systems of subsidized choice that are designed, step by step, year by year, to reach at last a universal empowerment of the poor. America cannot afford another century of the present regime of abduction by the state. The social structure of our public schools is poisonous, but it can be fixed. It will take time and patience, but there is no alternative.

March 11, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Education Equity Education Politics Education Savings Accounts Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship McKay Scholarship Parent Empowerment Private School Scholarships School Choice Special Needs Education

Proposed funding cap in Arizona would deprive thousands

Matthew Ladner March 9, 2020

Matthew Ladner

Katie Swingle, mother of a child with autism, spoke before the Florida Senate Education Appropriations Committee in March 2015, imploring lawmakers to expand education choice options for children with special needs.

If you need to make a choice between reading this post or watching the video featuring the mom pictured above, please watch the video. Katie Swingle explains why families with children with special needs require and deserve access to education choice. Her story demonstrates why depriving them of choice is a terrible thing.

Sadly, there is an effort underway in Arizona to do exactly that.

Arizona’s Save Our Schools group has proposed a statewide ballot initiative that would create an overall participation cap on Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Program of 1 percent of the total student enrollment of the public school system. Once that cap is reached, students other than those with disabilities, including Native American children, those who have been in the foster care system, are zoned for D- or F-rated public schools, orphans and dependents of active duty military service members among others, would be purged from participating.

Upon completion of this purge, the program would lack the ability to serve additional special needs students. Last week, I noted that 1.7 percent of the total public school enrollment in Florida makes use of private choice programs for children with disabilities. I should further have noted that Florida has a waitlist of students with disabilities for the ESA program.

Historical program data allows us to assess the length of time it would take for the proposed cap to deny access to disadvantaged students if something like it were to be applied in Florida. As a thought experiment, imagine Florida’s multiple-choice programs debuting as a state-funded program in the same year that the McKay Scholarship program debuted.

This next part will require you to suspend your disbelief. Imagine a group of advantaged urban Floridians who exercise choice in their own families managing, from the outset of choice, to implement a cap in Florida for disadvantaged students. Floridians, of course, would find it nearly impossible to live with such a level of moral hypocrisy.

In Florida’s actual experience, lawmakers created a voucher program for students with disabilities and one for children in failing schools, followed by a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students. Our thought experiment involves envisioning Florida following closer to the Arizona ESA experience: a single program starting with students with disabilities. A few years into the program, the Florida lawmakers of our thought experiment add low-income students into the eligibility pool for the state-funded program. Okay. So, how long would it have taken for the SOS cap to have purged disadvantaged students in Florida?

Let’s look first at the McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities.

If the McKay Scholarship program had been the only choice program created, it would have exceeded the 1 percent cap by itself in 2013. After 2013, additional special needs children would have been denied access. Of course, it wasn’t the only program; Florida lawmakers also made low-income students eligible to participate in choice.

The combination of McKay and the tax credit program would have exceeded the SOS cap around 2004. “Let them eat cake,” the cap supporters would tell the tens of thousands of low-income families piling onto waitlists.

This isn’t the end of the story, however. Florida also created a special needs ESA program in 2015. This is the program used by the all-too-real mom in the video.

Every single one of these families, including the Swingle family, would have been denied choice under an SOS cap. Arizona’s ESA program is only a few years of growth away from reaching the proposed cap.

Supporters claim the cap will not impact current beneficiaries, but it clearly will. Moreover, there are thousands of Arizona students with disabilities today, and many more yet unborn, who would be denied access through the proposed cap.

March 9, 2020 0 comment

Customization Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Parent Empowerment School Choice Spotlights

Hispanic homeschoolers on the rise

Ron Matus February 27, 2020

Ron Matus

Convinced she could provide her children with all their educational needs, Evelyn Reyes turned to homeschooling eight years ago and realized she could combine education time with family time. Watch the video at the end of this post to see how it all comes together. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. – Inside Evelyn Reyes’s ranchette, the dining room doubles as classroom. While black bean soup simmers on the stove, Reyes uses flash cards to work on letter sounds with Nathaniel, 4, and Abigail, 2, while Jordan, 13, does Bible study; Alysson, 11, works on reading; and Matthew, 15, logs into a coding class through Florida Virtual School.

The dining room is only one piece of the Reyes education program. But a family learning together in its own cozy digs gets to the heart of why Reyes, who is Cuban-American, and her husband, who is Nicaraguan-American, decided to leave traditional public schools eight years ago and go the home school route.

“I only have 18 years to train them, and build good character, and build in forgiveness and kindness and service,” Reyes said. “I understand the order of (traditional schooling), but it wasn’t something for us. The things that were the most important to the school system weren’t the most important things to me.”

The Reyes family is the face of a trend.

Jordan Reyes, 13, has turned his passion for nature into an entrepreneurial venture, raising chickens and selling eggs from the Reyes’ home as part of his homeschool curriculum. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

According to the latest federal numbers, the number of Hispanic homeschooled students rose from 265,000 in 2012 to 444,000 in 2016, a 68 percent increase that far exceeds enrollment growth of Hispanic students in public schools. Over that span, the percentage of homeschooled students who are Hispanic spiked from 15 percent to 26 percent.

Home education parents in Florida have noticed the change. When Reyes first started home schooling, she didn’t see many Hispanic families at the annual convention of the Florida Parent-Educators Association. Now she sees hundreds.

“I don’t feel like the only one anymore,” Reyes said. “More Hispanic families are thinking, ‘I can do this.’ ”

“The interest is there,” said Jennylina Duperon, another homeschool mom in the Tampa Bay area. She’s been homeschooling her 7-year-old twins, Andres and Andrea, for three years. “The Hispanic communities are starting to explore the idea more.”

Why isn’t exactly clear. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, said he is unaware of any studies or surveys exploring the reasons behind the uptick.

Hispanic home school parents interviewed by redefinED cited many of the same factors as other home school parents. Safety. Negative influences. Too much testing. They said Hispanic families want more flexibility to balance school and family. They want more emphasis on character and faith. (Interestingly, the most recent federal surveys also showed a dip in the percentage of homeschool parents who find it important to provide religious instruction.)

It helps a lot, the Florida parents also said, that they don’t have to go it alone. They noted the growth of co-ops and other resources that can orient newcomers and supplement their educational programs. Once a week, Reyes drives her children to a co-op site in a neighboring county so they can take classes ranging from anatomy and personal finance to music and painting.

But are there reasons that might be more Hispanic-centric?

Matthew Reyes, 15, engages in project-based learning as part of the homeschool experience, growing and transplanting milkweed with an eye toward selling the seedlings. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

“We are such family-oriented people. We are all about being together,” said Duperon, who is Dominican-American and whose husband is Puerto Rican. “My mom can home school my kids on days I have doctor’s appointments. They get that time with their kids. It’s beautiful. If there’s a rise (in Hispanic homeschoolers), I think that’s part of it.”

Ray with the research institute said there might be something to that. “I don’t know research on Hispanic family ‘closeness,’ “ he wrote in an email, “but I hear it and experience it.”

The homeschool trend lines sync with others involving Hispanic parents and education choice.

In Florida, one of the most choice-friendly states, the number of homeschooling families rose to 97,261 last year. The state doesn’t track demographics behind homeschooling. But the number of Hispanic students using the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the nation’s largest private school choice program, climbed to 39,475 last year, up from about 22,000 five years ago. (The program is administered by nonprofits like Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.) Over the same span, the number of Hispanic students in Florida charter schools grew from 87,656 to 134,220.

This is not an aberration. In last year’s Education Next poll, Hispanics were more likely than white or black respondents to support charter schools (53 percent for, 26 percent against); tax credit scholarships (67 percent to 18 percent); and vouchers for low-income students (69 percent to 26 percent). When it came to “universal” vouchers for all students, black and Hispanic respondents both showed lopsided support, with 62 percent for versus 29 percent against.

Demi Leyva, a former public school teacher in Miami Lakes, is homeschooling her sons, William, 9, and James, 6. She said another factor for Hispanic and black homeschool families might be that they’re more likely to be zoned for schools they feel are underperforming and unsafe.

“Hispanics tend to be overprotective,” said Leyva, who is Cuban-American. “And guns, and shootings, and bullying, and violence, is out of control in some areas.”

Alysson Reyes, 11, practices her measurement skills by making different varieties of slime and is learning business skills by selling it. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

Leyva said in her case, the big reason for homeschooling was “real education” with family.

“Homeschool allows you to have time with your family to explore the world,” she said. “If you’re rushing, rushing, rushing (with education), it takes a lot of the family life out of your life. My kids can help me load the dishwasher. They can take a break and go fish in the lake. They have time to do that in a regular life.”

Back in Tampa Bay, Reyes said kids’ learning shows on TV gave her a false expectation that traditional schooling would include a lot of hands-on science, field trips, outdoors fun. But in her experience, that wasn’t the case. At home, her three oldest work on long-term science projects that hew to their interests. (See the video for more.) For breaks, they head to the pond out back to identify wading birds and look for baby alligators.

With Mom in on the adventure, they’ve even had close encounters with a couple.

“How are they going to learn,” Reyes said, “if they don’t explore?”

February 27, 2020 1 comment

Advocate Voices Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Education Equity Featured Parent Empowerment Parental Choice School Choice

Okay ladies, now let’s get in formation

Catherine Durkin Robinson January 29, 2020

Catherine Durkin Robinson

Parent activists gathered in New Orleans recently to brainstorm statements that will serve as a constitution for a National Parents Union spanning diverse voices intent on signaling to elected officials their desire for education choice.

Editor’s note: At the midpoint of National School Choice Week, Step Up For Students’ executive director for advocacy and civic engagement offers her thoughts on a grassroots education choice group launched to exert political influence in the labor union model. You can read about the group’s founding and principles in an article in The 74 at https://www.the74million.org/article/mothers-of-invention-frustrated-with-the-educational-status-quo-and-conventional-parent-organizing-two-latinas-gave-birth-to-a-national-parents-union/.

“Did they just quote the Black Panthers?” I looked around, confused. “I am at an ed choice conference, right?”

I attended the first convening of the National Parents Union recently in New Orleans and found myself asking this question over and again.

As a lifelong organizer and former history teacher, I’ve found a lot to learn from the Black Panthers. I’m just not used to current colleagues who agree.

For years, I lamented the lack of community among those of us advocating, organizing and mobilizing for education choice in this country. Annual conferences are overwhelmingly conservative, white and male, attended mostly by lawmakers, lobbyists and think tank types.

Not really my jam.

So I concentrated on the work, growing advocacy at Step Up For Students, the scholarship administration organization that hosts this blog, to eventually run a team of organizers who’ve been helping nearly half a million parents, faith leaders, students, alumni, teachers and supporters to protect and defend their education options – whether those options include vouchers, scholarships, charters, magnets, homeschool, virtual programs, district schools or, as is often the case, a combination.

I occasionally travel to other states to help folks develop their own organizing programs, meeting colleagues who were, not all the time, but often progressive, female, and multi-racial.

I am grateful the National Parents Union brought so many of us together in one room.

Finally.

National Parents Union is a new, female-driven organization that is sick to death of negotiating with the status quo while their children suffer in substandard schools. Like those who traveled from every state in the union to attend, co-founders Keri Rodrigues and Alma Marquez, are bold. Unapologetic. Fierce.

This makes people nervous.

All kinds of people.

Those with a vested interest in zip code-based schooling who can afford a certain house in a certain district look down their noses at those who dare to suggest that system isn’t working for everyone.

Privileged liberals who insist they know best, because always, don’t they?

Let’s not forget those on our side of this movement. They will wring their hands and say we should be more inclusive, all the while not following their own advice. You see, they’re used to and enjoy speaking for people who are more than capable of speaking for themselves. They will hear about this conference and subtly suggest tactics that will dilute this strong message. To make rightwing folks more comfortable.

Here’s a suggestion: How about you trust and work with us the way we’ve trusted and worked with you all these years?

Just an idea.

And cue the usual suspects from the left – men and women – who want to discuss funding and faulty statistics, anything except families in crisis and a movement of parents empowered to change how things are done.

They’d rather condescendingly (and cruelly) deny them agency, saying parents in pain are stupid and easily manipulated. It’s not the first time we’ve heard this – but it’s getting old.

More than 100 of us are over it and no longer interested in remaining silent.

We got together in New Orleans and discussed material from the ACLU in a session called “Civil Disobedience.” We attended another called “How to be Disruptive” led by Christina Laster, Education Chairwoman for NAACP.

Two organizations officially fighting our movement.

Some might wonder how that’s possible.

No one organization or movement can, or should, speak for everyone. No group has ever completely been on point when working to end generational poverty or advocate for the disenfranchised. Too many groups get cozy with those in power and become complacent.

As an Irish, Jewish, feminist, agnostic, democratic-socialist who supports education choice, I’m no stranger to nuance. I gave up the idea of finding groups that encapsulate me a long time ago.

Instead, I find activists who respect and appreciate what I bring to the game – and then we build a coalition.

You know, like the good old days. When cooperation among different groups made us all stronger.

The National Parents Union is bringing it back. Conversation. The art of listening. Bipartisanship. This conference was an open and inclusive happening, participants not at all interested in talking a good game without action and seemed to understand there is strength in diversity of thought.

When an attendee asked Laster why she continued to work for an organization that called for a moratorium on charter schools, she said what I often say to people who ask how I can volunteer for Bernie Sanders.

“I’m fighting for change from within.”

Most women, no matter our ethnic background, get it. We can’t afford the luxury of quitting and walking away. We work behind the scenes to change hearts and minds. That’s how our grandmothers fought for the right to vote, after all, and it’s how we get things done in our communities today.

Nobody goes it alone.

This group called on us to seek assistance from our ancestors. They quoted Frederick Douglass and stood to welcome Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X’s daughter, when she spoke with us. NPU’s co-founders encouraged us to go back home and fight, secure in the knowledge that we have an army on our side.

Sisters. Brothers. Co-conspirators.

Activists who aren’t playing the vouchers vs. charters game. Opponents will not divide us. Warriors for one side and one side only: parents and their right to choose the best education for their kids.

If there is any learning opportunity for National Parents Union, it’s this: Be ever more open to different activists who could be our allies in this struggle, not just those fighting the school to prison pipeline, as important as that is. We must actively involve and hear from parents of disabled children as well as the LGBTQ community, to name just two groups fighting to eradicate discrimination and oppression.

I think Rodrigues and Marquez understand and appreciate that.

Let’s review:

Activists who quoted the Blank Panthers, Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz and Frederick Douglass. ACLU tactics. NAACP-led session. Progressives, former teacher and labor union organizers. Obama administration officials. Celebrating civil disobedience, disruption, revolutionary ideals. A female-driven organization. Minority majority. All at a parent, not lawmaker, education choice conference.

This isn’t your daddy’s movement anymore.

Finally.

January 29, 2020 0 comment

Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Legislation Featured Gardiner Scholarship News Parent Empowerment School Choice

Hundreds rally at Capitol for Gardiner Scholarship expansion

Lisa Buie January 21, 2020

Lisa Buie

Students, teachers and parents from across the state descended upon the Florida Capitol Tuesday to petition for education choice and Gardiner Scholarship expansion. Photo: COLIN HACKLEY

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED AT 2 P.M.

TALLAHASSEE – Marsy Miller’s son, Ian, struggled for years to keep up with his classmates. Mainstreamed at his district school, Ian, who is on the autism spectrum, needed behavioral therapy, one-on-one attention, tutoring, and a smaller classroom environment.

Miller was ready to give up on Ian’s school by the time he reached fourth grade. But she never gave up on Ian.

Fortunately, neither did Florida lawmakers, who in 2014 approved the Gardiner Scholarship program to help Ian and other students with unique abilities.

“It opened up a world of opportunities for Ian,” said Miller, who was among hundreds who attended a rally at Waller Park near the Capitol today to thank lawmakers for creating the scholarship and to ask for an expansion to help more students.

“The scholarship has changed Ian’s life,” Miller said, explaining that it enabled him to attend a private school that was better able to meet his needs and receive therapy that helped him become more independent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis welcomed rally attendees, including families, educators, education choice advocates and lawmakers, calling the Gardiner Scholarship “a lifeline for a lot of families in Florida.”

“We’re going to work on the wait list this year,” he said. “We really believe all parents need to find the best school for their child.”

Students from Ridge Manor Christian Academy in Hernando County play games while waiting in the civic center ahead of the Gardiner rally. The school brought 96 students to petition for Gardiner Scholarship expansion. PHOTO: Lisa Buie

Created in 2014, the Gardiner scholarship serves more than 13,000 students with certain special needs, including autism, Down syndrome and spina bifida. The Florida Legislature appropriated an additional $23 million in funding for the Gardiner Scholarship program in 2019, pushing Gardiner funding to $147.9 million and allowing it to serve at least 2,000 more students.

Despite the expansion, more than 3,000 students remain on a waiting list.

A bill filed by Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, which passed the Senate Education Committee Jan. 13 by an 8-0 vote, would add a new category to the Gardiner Scholarship for art, music and theater classes or lessons, broadening the ability of Gardiner recipients to participate in these activities in addition to activities currently covered under the part-time tutoring category. It also would allow funds to be spent on educational summer and after-school programs not limited to programs specialized for students with unique abilities.

Additionally, it would allow students who turn 3 after Sept. 1 to apply and would give them the ability to be placed on a waiting list so they have priority after renewal students when scholarships are awarded the following year.

Senate President Bill Galvano assured rally attendees that the scholarship’s future was secure.

“We will always support the Gardiner Scholarship,” he said.

State Rep. James Bush III, D-District 109, one of six Democrats who voted in favor last year of the Family Empowerment Scholarship program, promised to remain a champion of education choice.

“I believe that one size does not fit all,” he said. “If children are going to be successful, we need to empower parents. If we are going to save the next generation, parents must be included.”

He added: “You have a friend here in the House. I stand forever with our children.”

Sally Hazelip, principal of North Florida School of Special Education, introduced rally attendees to three students with unique abilities, one of whom is preparing to compete in basketball in the state Special Olympics.

“We set the bar high,” she said. “We also believe our children should have the same opportunities that other kids do. Gardiner helps them financially. Gardiner offers them hope. I am grateful, and I ask the Legislature to please increase the funding.”

Five-year-old Madison Walker’s message to rally attendees: Opportunity gives me love, peace, connection. Madison attends Ridge Manor Christian Academy. PHOTO: Lisa Buie

The Gardiner scholarship differs from other state scholarships in that it allows parents to personalize their child’s education by directing money toward a combination of programs and approved providers. Approved expenses include tuition, therapy, curriculum, technology and a college savings account. Unspent money can roll over from year to year.

Gardiner Scholarship amounts vary according to grade and county. The average amount for most students in the 2019-20 school year is $10,400.

The rally was organized by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that helps administer the Gardiner Scholarship and hosts this blog.

January 21, 2020 2 comments

Advocate Voices Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Featured Parent Empowerment Parental Choice School Choice Voices for Education Choice

Who says parents don’t always choose the best schools?

Catherine Durkin Robinson January 15, 2020

Catherine Durkin Robinson

Recently, Arianna Prothero wrote a column for Education Week titled, “Why Don’t Parents Always Choose the Best Schools?”

This is a sensitive topic, and she handled it well, but I wondered out loud as I was reading: “Who says they don’t?”

Prothero mentions a very specific point of view from a very specific type of proponent for education choice: the argument that competition and market pressure will improve schools more than the government.

I hear this argument a lot, but it’s not the pillar of my education choice movement, nor is it what drives most of the choice parents I work with every day.

When a headline asks parents a question, wouldn’t it be great to highlight real parents answering that question rather than researchers and think tank types?

First, it might be helpful to ask why parents pick schools at all.

Prothero mentions location as a top reason. I disagree.

Parents I’ve organized in Florida list safety as their top concern when researching schools – well over 80 percent. Second to safety is the desire for their children to be around those with shared values – again, because there are fewer bullies in these schools and parents perceive their children to be safer there – and then, down the list, would be location.

Many moms and dads are willing to drive longer distances if it means their babies are safe. That issue takes priority.

Consider this reality: If parents can help their children escape a local school – one the state rates poorly, where stabbings and beatings occur on a daily basis – by enrolling them in a school the state rates similarly or a bit better but where their children are loved and cared for rather than threatened, then yes, that’s the best school as far as the parents are concerned.

And their concerns should be respected.

Who are we to tell them they’re wrong?

There is no doubt we must make it easier for parents to understand the strengths and challenges of different local schools so they can make informed choices. That’s not up for debate. Every locality in the nation deserves this.

So let’s use the knowledge these researchers and think tanks gathered to understand the best ways to do that, creating websites and portals to deliver such a service.

Not too long ago, I was a parent looking for schools and only had at my disposal word of mouth combined with a few in-person meetings with principals for determining the right environment for my children. I did my best.

Their elementary years were spent in a Jewish school because I wanted them in an environment that mirrored the values taught in our home. The upside was a safe environment with rigorous studies. The downside was that most students and every teacher was white, they didn’t have competitive sports teams, or a school orchestra. But it worked for us at the time.

My sons’ middle school was a magnet IB program. The upside was a rigorous curriculum, orchestra and competitive sports. It was also diverse, but there weren’t many Jewish kids. Another downside: Sometimes there were fights in the hallways. On several occasions, local shootings nearby caused the school to be locked down for safety reasons. We considered ourselves lucky the boys were chosen in a random lottery drawing.

Their district high school was known for a wide variety of AP classes and competitive sports teams. But almost everyone was white, and, thanks to wealthy, unsupervised kids, the school had a drug problem. Several children overdosed during my sons’ time there, and two died. Some teachers gave half effort because parents could afford tutors. My sons needed a math tutor every semester. Again, we were lucky. We could afford to move into the neighborhood that fed this school.

This formula, along with virtual classes and dual enrollment, prepared my kids for college, but that’s not a winning recipe for everyone. My parenting skills and judgment were never questioned, probably because I’m a privileged white woman. However, what I wanted for my kids wasn’t unique.

Prothero compared choosing schools to choosing salad dressings. As a mother who’s done both, I can assure you it’s not at all the same. Choosing schools is more akin to choosing doctors or hospitals; there is a weight, or gravity, to this decision-making process that doesn’t at all compare to standing in a store trying to decide between blue cheese and ranch.

Most parents don’t put a priority on improving schools that are doing poorly. They don’t care that K-12 education can’t function like a normal marketplace. Their job isn’t to celebrate competition, it’s to look out for their children.

We need safe schools, where children can discover their true potential and thrive. Parents need help learning about which schools can do that.

And then they deserve everyone’s respect regarding the choices they’ve made.

January 15, 2020 0 comment