You decide: What “works” in education?
The Heritage Foundation’s The Foundry Blog shares: Universal School Choice Prevails – For Sweden. Yeah, you read that right. Sweden.
In socialist Sweden, universal school choice allows every parent to choose the best school for their child. The voucher program, which has been in effect since 1992 and was created to tackle the kind of problems plaguing the U.S. educational system, provides families with the opportunity to send their child to any type of school they like – public, private, religious, or even for-profit. Stuart Butler, Heritage Vice President of domestic policy studies, explains in Washington Times:
“These independent schools, like the public schools, get a voucher payment for each child. They compete vigorously with one other because the money follows the child to the school of his or her choice. Schools must satisfy their customers … or lose them.”
Sure it’s still Sweden, so there are some drawbacks- schools must all follow a national curriculum and testing- but perhaps there is something to be learned from this model. Schools are given control over their programs and teaching styles, and are actually being forced to satisfy customers, i.e. families? Now that is an ed reform that makes some sense.
Meanwhile, back here in the States, we have teacher’s unions and others actually blocking the doors to children at a charter school. As in last week. September 2009! Really? Is that what the world is coming to? Are unions so threatened by competition that they’ll have members yell at children simply trying to get into their school so they can actually learn?!
Pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe it…
What works? You decide.
A look at the state of American education
“Another Cohort of Kids Failed by Government Schools,” by Christopher Chantrill for the American Thinker.
As our children return to school this fall, most of them will do just fine. But many poor and inner-city children will not. Yet we know how to fix the inner-city schools. We have known for decades.
And now in Sweden, of all places, school choice is transforming the education system.
Some day the American mothers are going to have the right that Swedish mothers enjoy. It is the right to wave farewell to the local government school and say: You just don’t care about kids.
Competition is key
As the world watches the best athletes in the world compete in the 2008 Olympic games, it is clear to see that competition makes everyone work harder to be better.
And while certainly education is not the same as sports, the truth about competition remains the same.
The Financial Times of London looks at the state of British education and makes the argument that applying the competitive educational choice model that is proving successful in Sweden would be a positive reform that would benefit British students.
“A great number of young British people leave school lacking basic numeracy and literacy and, even in the recent period of record growth, have tended to drift directly into unemployment. This is a scandal. The British school system needs a radical overhaul.
The leading light in school reform is Sweden. The education system there is funded by vouchers. If parents wish to change school, they have the right to do so, and to take state funding with them. Schools must compete with one another to attract pupils. Any education provider has the right to set up a new school. Competition between schools is the key.”
Competition benefits all schools- public, private and parochial- making everyone work harder to achieve more. And this provides all students a better opportunity to succeed.
“The evidence suggests that adopting the Swedish model would make the average UK school better, and lift weaker schools most of all.”
School choice… in Sweden?
School Choice Grows in Sweden
Originally published by Associated Press.
The Augusta Chronicle, via RedOrbit News
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Schools run by private enterprise? Free iPods and laptop computers to attract students?
It might sound out of place in Sweden, that paragon of taxpayer- funded cradle-to-grave welfare. But a sweeping reform of the school system has survived the critics and 16 years later is spreading and attracting interest abroad.
“I think most people, parents and children, appreciate the choice,” said Bertil Ostberg, from the Ministry of Education. “You can decide what school you want to attend and that appeals to people.”
Since the change was introduced in 1992 by a center-right government that briefly replaced the long-governing Social Democrats, the numbers have shot up. In 1992, 1.7 percent of high- schoolers and 1 percent of elementary schoolchildren were privately educated. Now the figures are 17 percent and 9 percent.
