Who will think of the children?
As we mentioned yesterday, back-to-school time means education is making headlines. A few more for your consideration today:
From the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives’ PolicyBlog: Won’t Somebody Think of the Children!?
Jim Roxbury brought to my attention a quote by Governor Rendell that “the one group that has no lobbyist here in Pennsylvania is our children” as well as too a commenter, who suggest that children have plenty of lobbyists, including those from school boards, agencies that get taxpayer funding for programs ostensibly serving children, and the PSEA lobbyists.
Sorry “edstem”, but Governor Rendell and I agree on this. And I am glad he has finally come around to the view that those that feed at the trough of taxpayers - and in particular the PSEA - are no friends of children. In fact, outside of child predators and Miley Ray Cyrus, no one does more to exploit children than the teachers’ unions. The PSEA uses its influence to undermine school choice, promote strikes, and oppose merit pay and reforms to improve school performance.
From The Examiner: Study backs vouchers for special education
Offering vouchers for students diagnosed with special needs to attend private schools leads to fewer diagnoses and could save state and federal dollars, according to a new study by the pro-school-choice Manhattan Institute.
More than 20 percent of D.C. public school students are diagnosed with learning disabilities, compared with about 12 percent in Montgomery County and about 14 percent in Fairfax. Educators have long worried that failing districts label students as disabled when, in reality, they are behind academically for other reasons.
Vouchers could help the District, according to the study’s authors, because the city has a disproportionate number of special needs students and is obligated to send about 2,400 of them to private and boarding schools, which sometimes cost nearly $100,000 per student per year.
And from the Heartland Institute, September’s School Reform News is now available online. School Reform News is a great publication sharing lots of news and information about education reform and school choice efforts from around the country. Check it out- lots of great articles including:
- Fight Underway to Save DC Voucher Program
- Florida Expands Corporate K-12 Tax Credit Program
- Iowa Expands Tax Credit Scholarship Program
- Private Choice Program in Colorado Beats State Graduation Rate
Competition is key to education excellence
We have said it before, competition is key. Competition pushes everyone to be better.
When it comes to education, the status quo isn’t working. But the good news, more and more are taking up the cause that what we need in education is radical reforms and greater competition.
In this column by US Congressman Tom Tancredo in the Rocky Mountain News, the Congressman makes the case for education reforms.
“I am a former public school teacher, and like it or not, education is a product. As we all know, you don’t get a better product by stifling competition or imposing a rigid regime of government protectionism.
If we want a better product when it comes to education - higher educational achievement levels by our school graduates - our government policies must be geared toward satisfying the consumer: students and their parents.”
Tancredo goes on to challenge the status quo mentality of the unions and urges free market- not big government- solutions to improving educational opportunities for all students.
“If history has taught us anything, it is that solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems have come only when we have unleashed the power of the free market. The answer to the education problem, simply put, is more choices for parents, and more competition by schools for students. It is not another ambitious big government “solution” put together by the same special interests that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo - a status quo that even Romer and Ritter admit leaves our students lagging far behind youngsters from Seoul and Singapore as they enter a newly competitive global economy.”
