Choice in L.A. and editorial board support for school choice?
Sorry no new posts yesterday- we were in Richmond most of the day for a wonderful meeting of many of our coalition partners to update everyone on school choice efforts in Virginia. We greatly appreciate everyone taking the time to attend and participate- and a special thank you to those folks who drove several hours to attend the meeting. We did share some updates on Twitter yesterday- if you aren’t following us already, we hope you will check it out!
We do have some very exciting projects that we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so we hope you encourage you to stay tuned.
In other news, a few headlines from around the country on the education reform front:
The Press-Register: ACT results show the need for choice
It’s about time that Alabama and Mississippi provided educational alternatives for minorities who live in low-income urban centers.
School choice programs have taken root in Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., and other cities. In some cities, children from poor families can use publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools. Thirty-nine states have charter schools — independent public schools that have been freed from most bureaucratic regulations.
Polls show most blacks support school choice, including voucher programs. Again, this isn’t surprising, given that many black children are trapped in failing public schools.
The shame is that Alabama and Mississippi are in the minority of states that provide little or no choice for parents. Alabama doesn’t even allow charter schools. Mississippi’s charter school law, which severely restricted charters, expired in July.
Consumer choice drives competition, innovation and quality in the private sector. Parental choice would shake up the education establishment and become a powerful force for change.
Alabama and Mississippi need to unleash that force for the benefit of students who are falling by the wayside in the current system.
The Citizen-Times: Shrink achievement gap through choice in education
Waiting lists are a familiar theme for North Carolina’s public charter schools, which currently remain capped at 100 despite waiting lists reportedly in excess of 15,000 families. While all public charter schools in Buncombe County reached expected growth goals last year, the county still has only three public charters. The Obama administration’s strong endorsement of public charter schools, particularly those targeting the achievement gap, compels North Carolina to demonstrate progressive charter school policies to compete for federal funding. More importantly, the state has a moral obligation to its children, especially those from poor and working-class families.
All in all, it should come as no surprise that North Carolina parents–regardless of race or income–are increasingly concerned about their children’s education. After all, a sound educational system is the cornerstone of a sound economy. Until our state embraces true school reform, you can expect to see a continued push for more parental school choice and quality options for all children in North Carolina.
Los Angeles Times: Vote could open 250 L.A. schools to outside operators
In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses — including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities — to charter groups and other outside operators.
The plan, approved on a 6-1 vote, gives Supt. Ramon C. Cortines the power to recommend the best option to run some of the worst-performing schools in the city as well as the newest campuses. Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte dissented.
The vote occurred after a tense, nearly four-hour debate during which supporters characterized the resolution as a moral imperative. Foes called it illegal, illogical and improper.
The action signals a historic turning point for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has struggled for decades to boost student achievement. District officials and others have said their ability to achieve more than incremental progress is hindered by the powerful teachers union, whose contract makes it nearly impossible to fire ineffective tenured teachers. Union leaders blame a district bureaucracy that they say fails to include teachers in “top-down reforms.”
“This is about Freedom”
School Choice Virginia Chairman, Delegate Chris Saxman, joined Joe Thomas on WCHV yesterday morning to discuss school choice. The two had a great discussion about education reform and parental choice in education.
If you missed it, you can listen to the segment online here.
Thank you to Joe Thomas for inviting Del. Saxman to appear on your show!
Tune In Tomorrow
School Choice Virginia Chairman, Delegate Chris Saxman, will be a guest on WCHV’s Joe Thomas Show tomorrow morning at about 6:30am. Tune in to hear the discussion on school choice efforts in Virginia!
Saying No to the Status Quo
So we know that this summer we’ve been doing a lot of blogging about school choice news from around the country. But that doesn’t mean are just sitting back and accepting the status quo here in Virginia. As Virginia students get ready to head back to school, we wanted to take a quick moment to update you on some of the things we’ve been working on here at School Choice Virginia as well.
We have had a busy summer, growing our coalition of school choice supporters across the Commonwealth. Our friends from the Alliance for School Choice have made some great introductions as well, and through them, we’ve been connecting with a number of great organizations and associations throughout Virginia. As we are always looking to expand our coalition, we look forward to involving these groups in our efforts and will continue our outreach to new groups as well. If you or an organization you represent would like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you!
As many of you have also noticed, we’ve been expanding our presence online this summer as well. Many of you have already joined us on Facebook, and just this month we have also joined Twitter- where you can follow all the latest news and information. If you aren’t already receiving our E-newsletters, we invite you to take a moment to sign up online. As well as our online presence, we’ve worked to keep school choice and education reform in the news as well. Recent stories in the Richmond Times Dispatch and The New Dominion underscore the need for education reforms in the Commonwealth.
In addition, Virginia’s state-wide and House of Delegates elections are heating up, so we are watching the candidates closely on their positions on education reform and school choice. We have noted that both candidates for Governor have been talking about charter schools, and we will continue to post news and information here on the blog, and invite you to share any news from any of the candidates in Virginia related to education.
Tomorrow we’ll be meeting with many of our coalition partners in Richmond as we gear up for the fall. We have lots of exciting projects in store, so we hope you’ll check back often to find out all the details!
“Choice Proponents Play a Solid Game”
More on this later, but we wanted to quickly share with you a great column from Richmond Times Dispatch Columnist Bart Hinkle that ran in today’s paper.
In today’s column, “Choice Proponents Play a Solid Game,” Mr. Hinkle takes a thoughtful and careful look at the debate about school choice in Virginia. He writes, in part:
Del. Chris Saxman has been championing school choice for years, so he answers the standard criticisms of choice proposals with the celerity of a chess grandmaster going through the motions of the Ruy Lopez.
Don’t vouchers and tuition tax credits drain money from the public schools? No — carefully constructed, they would actually increase per-pupil funding for public K-12, he explains.
…
Saxman adds another point: With greater school choice, “ultimate accountability rests with the consumer.” Rich parents already can choose which private school to attend. Middle-class families already buy houses in neighborhoods where the public schools are better. Poor families are stuck with the school they’re assigned to — unless they have a mechanism such as the popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, or Milwaukee’s well-known voucher program, to vote with their feet as well.
The full article is available online, and is certainly worth a read.
Best for kids or best for bureaucracies?
Our apologies for being a little late in posting this letter to the editor of the Washington Post, from Chris Braunlich, Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Mr. Braunlich has been closely involved with School Choice Virginia from the beginning, and here he explains “Why Virginia Needs Charter Schools.”
Charter schools are an important part of a vibrant system of parental choice in education. As we have argued many times, education should not be limited to a one-size-fits-all model. A diverse state, with students with diverse learning styles and interests, requires diverse educational models to give every student the right environment they need to succeed.
Sadly, the Virginia Education Association- the teacher’s union- continues to stand opposed to giving students and families educational choices. We believe that all teachers want their students to be successful- so why is the union that supposedly represents these teachers standing in the way of educational choices that could help all students to succeed?
Mr. Braunlich writes, in part:
Particularly disappointing was Ms. Boitnott’s preoccupation with arguing what’s best for bureaucracies, rather than what’s best for kids. She cited a recent Rand study but ignored its conclusion that charter high school students are eight to 10 percentage points more likely to enroll in college than their traditional public school counterparts.
Last year, more than 17,000 Virginians did not graduate on time. Among at-risk students, nearly 30 percent of students disappeared between ninth and 12th grades. In places such as Petersburg, more than 40 percent of all students dropped out.
Quality charter schools have demonstrated effectiveness in helping those students succeed. Shouldn’t the teachers union focus on bringing quality charters into the commonwealth, rather than finding new excuses to keep them out?
Lifting Students Up
Chairman of School Choice Virginia, Delegate Chris Saxman, was recently invited to give the Commencement Address to the Summer Session Corps of Cadets at Fishburne Military School.
We asked him if we could share his remarks on the blog, as we felt that in many ways they embodied why we fight so hard for school choice. We want every student to have an educational environment where they are being “pulled up,” rather than “pulled down” by a variety of factors. Every child needs to have the opportunity to be in an environment that helps them stay on the path towards a successful future- surrounded by folks willing to “dive into the deep end and get him to the sides when others are trying to pull him under.”
To us, school choice is about ensuring every child can have the chance to be pulled up.
Thank you to Del. Saxman for allowing us to reprint his remarks.
Thank you Colonel.
It is indeed an honor and a privilege to be with you today at the commencement ceremony of Fishburne’s Summer School.
When we first brought up the idea of summer school to our son, his response was predictable. He said, “What did I do wrong?” We answered, truthfully, “Son, you haven’t done anything wrong. But we think you would benefit from this program.”
We were right. While William is a very good student, we began to see just how dangerous the world of a teenager is these days. The forces arrayed around young people today are daunting and relentless.
We knew we wanted a school environment that pushed our son up instead of pulling him down. We want our son challenged – in the right direction.
I explained it like this to William. I told him that he was swimming in the deep end of the pool. There were people on the side cheering him on, and there were people in the pool pulling him under. Many of his friends were trying to pull him under instead of helping him to the side of the pool. We told him that we could not stand by on the deck of the pool simply cheering him on. We had to dive in and get him to the side of the pool before he was pulled too far under. He seemed to understand that visual. Gentlemen, it is the people facing you on the hill behind me that are cheering you. It will be the members of your family, those here today, that will be pulling you out. It is the “friends” back home who, unintentionally in many cases, will be pulling you under.
During this summer session, I think you all have had experiences that you will laugh and talk about for some time. Our family has one of its own. William was on a team of young men who went out orienteering. Orienteering is when you are given a map and some coordinates and are told to be at the appointed place by the appointed time. There are lines of limitations in this exercise; however, this team did not see those lines during their trek. They misunderstood them and end up 6 miles off course. Thankfully, a supervisor from the school was able to find them unharmed and return them to their point of origination.
This was a great lesson for these boys. They were lost. Then they were found. But did they learn? Did they learn that the lesson was really a metaphor about life? We all get lost. It’s human nature. We will get supervision and course corrections. But will we listen to those that are trying to put has back on the right course and learn from our mistakes? I think, in time, those boys will learn to more clearly recognize those lines of limitations in the future and not get so lost.
Recently, my son asked me who influences my decision making in my political life. Who do I listen to? I had not really thought about that in awhile, since I recently decided not to seek re-election, but I asked him if I should listen to 14 and 15 year olds. He replied, “No, of course not!” I quickly turned it back to him “Then why do you?”
I explained to him that not only did he need a plan or a map to chart his future, he also need an environment that would help him stay on that path. He needed folks willing to dive into the deep end and get him to the sides when others are trying to pull him under. And he needs to learn to return the same to those who are in need themselves.
We are grateful to Fishburne for a wonderful summer program and we are very much looking forward to enrolling William here in the Fall. Thank you again for the invitation to be with you today.
Gentlemen, I wish you the very best this summer. Well done.
Now on Twitter!
We’re all about getting our message out in whatever way we can.
Many of you (almost 900 and counting!) already follow us on Facebook, and now we’ve made the leap over to Twitter as well.
For those of you who use Twitter, we invite you to follow us at http://twitter.com/SchoolChoiceVA.
We’re just getting started, but we hope you’ll stop by and check us out!
Making Headlines
As Congress debates whether to continue the very successful DC Opportunity Scholarship program that is offering nearly 2,000 students in the District the chance at a better education (and has a waiting list of another 7,000 students), others are considering the impact that will have for other school choice programs around the country, including our efforts here in Virginia.
DC Examiner reporter Leah Fabel takes a look at this issue in today’s article, Voucher advocates hope national effort isn’t stymied:
Advocates for private school vouchers outside Washington hope that the likely demise of D.C.’s program won’t kill efforts nationwide.
“My first hope is the program doesn’t end in D.C.,” said Howard Fuller, the former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools who helped craft the district’s nearly 20-year-old voucher program. “My second hope is if it does, it won’t impact programs in other parts of the country.”
Across the nation, proponents are closely watching measures in Congress that require reauthorization of D.C.’s federally funded vouchers used by 1,700 mostly low-income students. The likely requirement signals a death knell to the program, as a Democratic Congress is unlikely to support the traditionally Republican idea.
Read the rest of the article here.
We hope Congressional leaders will do the right thing, and continue to fund the Opportunity Scholarship program so that students in our nation’s Capital will be able to have access to the educational opportunities that they desperately need.
Myths versus Facts
Opponents of school choice are often all too familiar with the “myths” about school choice, something they too often confuse with facts. Even in Richmond when they stand up to oppose legislation that would give families access to greater educational options, they often start using using the myths for reasons, while ignoring the facts.
At School Choice Virginia, one of our missions is to help educate folks on the facts about school choice. The national organization, All Children Matter, has compiled information to help dispell some of the most common myths surrounding school choice.
Their full list is available online here, but some highlights include:
Myth: School choice drains money from public schools, leaving them under-funded.
Answer: Quite the opposite is the case. In most cases, when a student leaves a public school due to a choice program that student’s per-pupil funding remains intact or is only partially removed from the public school. Through school choice, public schools are aided by reduced overcrowding and a reduction in fiscal burdens.
Myth: School choice means abandoning public schools.
Answer: Public schools are a treasured part of American society and, in many cases, offer a quality education for our children. School choice does not always mean that people have to choose private or religious schools. Public schools, including charter schools, are an important part of the school choice movement. Sometimes, choosing a different public school is the best option for a child.
The school choice movement seeks better schools, whether traditional public, charter public, private or religious. The problem is that many schools are failing. Some families have the financial freedom to move to a better public school district or attend a private school, but many more families do not. School choice is the just Answer to this problem.
Myth: School choice, especially tax credits and vouchers, is just another way to benefit the wealthy and help them subsidize their children’s education.
Answer: The wealthy already have school choice. Financial considerations are much less of an issue for them than finding the best school. The only families without school choice are the financially burdened, especially those who cannot afford to move to a better school district. The school choice movement desires to give these families the same freedom that the wealthy already have.
