Monday morning updates
Hope that everyone had a nice weekend. A few headlines this morning to start off the week.
K12 Leads the Way Back To School
Virginia-based business, K12 Inc, is “the nation’s leading provider of proprietary curriculum and online school programs for students in kindergarten through high school (K-12), is engaged in the largest back-to-school effort in the company’s history. With innovative web-based courses, over 2,000 online school teachers, and the delivery of more than 1,500 tons of education materials, K12 is bringing school directly to tens of thousands of students in the U.S. and across the world.”
We’ve said it before- school choice is about more than just one “choice,” it’s about innovation and creating a vibrant educational system with lots of choices to meet the unique needs of all of our children. K12 Inc is playing an important role in that.
The K12® virtual school program combines an award-winning curriculum – using engaging online lessons and hands-on education materials – with professional teachers, advisors, and state-of-the-art technology that connect students to a vibrant world-wide school community. This gives K12 students the opportunity to receive a complete education in their home, on the road, or wherever an Internet connection can be found.
DCPS Enrollment at 37,000, charter facility allotment must be restored
Despite Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s prediction that there would be 45,000 students in her system this term, an increase from the 44,681 that attended last year, it looks like the flood gates allowing parents to enroll their children in charters shows no sign of closing. Bill Turque of the Washington Post reports today that DCPS enrollment dropped to approximately 37,000.
These figures represent a decrease 17 percent decrease for DCPS and mean that charters now educate 43 percent of all public students in the nation’s capital at just over 28,000, a 10 percent increase over last year.
There is now no excuse for not restoring the extremely painful reduction in the Mayor’s current budget of the charter school facility fund. Remember that Mr. Fenty proposed cutting these dollars by $24 million in a scheme to pay schools only what they were currently spending on space. The Council put back $16.7 million of the allotment resulting in charters receiving $309 less money per pupil this term.
But it is much more expensive to teach a kid in DCPS compared to a charter.
Jay P. Greene’s Blog: The Special Ed DC Bubble
We mentioned last week the Manhattan Institute’s new study by Drs. Jay Greene and Marcus Winters on the impact of special education vouchers.
Dr. Greene has another informative post on his blog, noting that, “One of the (many) problems with education policy analysts is that a large number of them live in or around Washington, D.C.”
He goes on to elaborate:
The problem is that people tend to generalize from their immediate experiences. If something happens to you, you hear about it from people you know, or you read about it in your local paper, you tend to think that’s the way it is for everyone. So, DC education analysts are always at-risk of drawing policy conclusions based on incredibly atypical experiences.
Which is very true- and not just for DC education analysts.
More on Special Ed Voucher Study
We mentioned it this morning in the news clips that the Manhattan Institute has released a new study by Drs. Jay Greene and Marcus Winters examining the impact of special education vouchers.
Countrary to what some had predicted, Winters and Greene found that ”offering disabled students special education vouchers reduces the likelihood that public schools will identify students as disabled.”
Jay Greene shares more about the study on his blog today, and gives some insight into the findings.
The reason special education vouchers restrained growth in disabilities, rather than exacerbate it, is that the vouchers check public schools’ financial incentives to identify more students as disabled. Public schools may get additional subsidies when they shift more students into special education, but if they then make students eligible for special education vouchers, they risk having those students walk out the door with all of their funding. It makes the public schools think twice before over-identifying disabilities for financial reasons.
Read more from Jay Greene’s blog or read the full report from the Manhattan Institute.
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
It’s that time of the year…
Back to school season, that is. And back to school season means lots of news about education.
A few more headlines worth a read:
From the Washington Post: Age-Old Problem, Perpetually Absent Solution: Fitting Special Education to Students’ Needs
Here we go again. Is there an alternative, some innovative way to help kids like Miguel? Special education vouchers? Charter schools for the learning disabled? The old way is rutted, bumpy and slow. It is not taking us very far. We need something new.
From Baugh Humbug!: International Support for DC School Choice
In a surprise demonstration, representatives from the four corners of the world distributed pamphlets to passers-by in the China Town area of Washington DC.
With the principles of human rights and individual liberty as their foundation, five volunteers from Turkey, Mexico, Afghanistan, Argentina, and Maine and New Mexico, USA met in the early morning with Virginia Walden Ford, Executive Director of DC Parents for School Choice, a grassroots organization working to prevent the end of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.
From In the Lobby: Could School Choice Impact the Race?
Could school choice and education reform be the issue that shakes loose some traditional Democratic constituencies?Both independent Chris Daggett and Republican Chris Christie clearly think so.Both have come out for school choice, vouchers and more charter schools. Daggett goes farther and wants to abolish tenure.That puts the two candidates in the same camp as a group of urban parents, politicians and ministers who are fighting for better education in city schools. It also puts them at odds with the NJEA and Gov. Corzine, who oppose school choice.
How can we give working families genuine choice in education? Choice exists for those blessed with talent or geography or wealth, but for most it’s an illusion. Even where alternatives are available, they’re either carbon copy comps (maybe with a superficial ’specialism’ in drama) or religious schools requiring regular church attendance until your kid’s ‘confirmed’. The traditional Labour response is “we’ll make all schools excellent so all kids get the best education possible”. The madness of this mantra is never unpacked and curiously, no costs or timescales for achieving ‘excellence everywhere’ are ever given. It amounts to “don’t rock the state school boat, the model’s not changing”. “Education, education, education” was New Labour’s mission; it’s a pity we never discussed how to deliver on it.
Choices for special needs
School choice a special pick parents make
Public schools do an excellent job of providing a free and appropriate education for most children who are enrolled in special education programs. Every special needs child deserves the best education possible.
But as Leon has experienced, one difficulty in the public school can ruin a child’s future —- and an entire life.
That’s why we will continue to see parents flock to school choice programs such as the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship.
Parents can make the best decision where their son or daughter should attend school and what environment is best.
It is enormously challenging to be the parent of a child with special needs.
Hopefully the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship is bringing some sense of normalcy to children and their parents who are finding hope in smaller classrooms, different schools and happier educational environments
