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
Pennsylvania’s EITC
Spending the weekend in Pennsylvania got me thinking about their Educational Improvement Tax Credit- EITC- program, that has become a model for school choice and has given tens of thousands of PA families access to educational options they wouldn’t have had in the past.
The EITC program was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the PA legislature in 2001, making the state the first to approve a tax credit for education aimed at corporations.
The PA REACH Foundation (Road to Educational Achievement through Choice) is a great resource for lawmakers, parents, or anyone interested in learning more about the program, how it is set up and how it benefits students and families.
HB 996, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC), provides companies with a 75% tax credit for donations to a non-profit scholarship or educational improvement organization. The tax credit increases to 90% if the company commits to making the same donations for two consecutive years.
The program has proven so successful over the past 8 years, that it has continued to gain bi-partisan support as lawmakers have continued to expand the size of the program, helping more families to access educational options that best meet their needs.
$44,666,667 million is appropriated annually for scholarship organizations, $22,333,333 million for innovative educational improvement programs in public schools and $8,000,000 for a separate pre-kindergarten scholarship program.During 2007-08, 44,000 children across Pennsylvania benefited from EITC scholarships and countless numbers of children in public schools benefited from innovative programs that would have likely have gone unfunded.
Hello, my name is Sekou and I’m a sixth grader at the Nativity School. It is much different from public school and I enjoy going to there for many reasons. One reason is because there are smaller class sizes so you can hear more. Also, there are no girls to distract you or get you in trouble since there are all boys who can play rough. Another difference is that the classes are hard, and you have to study more and if you don’t do your homework, you get detention. Additionally, some of the teachers are nice, especially Mr. H, who talks about football for boys who like sports. I also like homeroom because we talk about sports and can talk to our friends.
Friedman Foundation: Dramatically higher parental satisfaction in Florida tax credit scholarship program
The Friedman Foundation has released a study of parental satisfaction with the Florida tax credit scholarship program, and the results speak for themselves. Parents are report signifcantly more satisfaction with the schools that they are able to choose versus their prior public schools.
From their press release:
Parents participating in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program report dramatically higher levels of satisfaction with academic progress, individual attention, teacher quality, school responsiveness, and student behavior when compared to the public schools their children previously attended, according to a study released today by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
Some of the highlights of their finding include:
- 80 percent of the parents are “very satisfied” with the academic progress their children are making in their current private schools, compared to 4 percent in their previous public schools.
- 80 percent are “very satisfied” with the individual attention their children now receive, compared to 4 percent in public schools.
- 76 percent are “very satisfied” with the teacher quality in their current schools, compared to 7 percent in public schools.
These is good news- especially for these families who seem to be much happier with the schools that they are able to select for their children. We think that all families deserve to have the chance to feel “very satisfied” with the education their child is receiving. To take a look at the rest of the findings, the full report is available on the Friedman Foundation’s website.
Encouraging School Choice News from Arizona
Arizona families got some good news last week as the Governor and legislature took action to protect school choice tax credit programs.
The Alliance for School Choice reported:
School choice initiatives that benefit Arizona’s children and taxpayers were strengthened last night, when Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation to improve two scholarship tax credit programs.
Brewer signed legislation that eliminated the “sunset” provision on the state’s Corporate School Tuition Organization Tax Credit. Enacted in 2006, this program allows corporations to receive tax credits for donating to nonprofits that offer scholarships so that low-income children can attend private schools.
The legislation also expanded the base of businesses that can contribute to the program by adding insurance companies—which pay premium taxes, not income taxes. This year, nearly 2,000 children benefit from the program.
This is great news for Arizona families, students and taxpayers. Let’s work to have Virginia follow Arizona’s leadership on education reform!
In signing another bill, Brewer allowed individuals to make paycheck contributions to School Tuition Organizations on a weekly or monthly basis—instead of in just one sum of $500. This legislation—which provides more efficient access to education donations for Arizona’s taxpayers—will likely expand the number of donors to the program. The program benefits more than 27,000 children this year.
Indiana Joins Growing List of School Choice-States
Great news coming out of Indiana late last night, as the legislature approved and Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a new scholarship tax credit program, giving students and families access to educational choices.
This is great news for Indiana families, as their state becomes the 11th (including DC) to provide school choice programs.
Let’s continue working to add Virginia to that growing list and provide Virginia families access to meaningful school choice options!
School Choice Virginia Applauds Favorable Action on HB1965
January 26, 2009
School Choice Virginia Applauds Favorable Action on HB1965
– Delegate Chris Saxman’s School Choice Measure Approved By House Finance Committee —
RICHMOND – Today in Richmond, the House Finance Committee voted 12-9 in support of Delegate Chris Saxman’s (R-Staunton) HB1965: Public/Private Education Investment Tax Credit. Following the approval of the bill, the Committee then referred the bill to the House Appropriations Committee to consider the fiscal impact of the measure.
HB1965 creates individual and business tax credits for donations made to qualifying scholarship organizations, which award scholarships for students to attend the public or private school of their choice. The legislation also provides the tax credits for donations to public school foundations as well. HB1965 is similar to school choice legislation that has been approved by the House of Delegates in each of the past four legislative sessions.
“I am very pleased that the House Finance Committee has again acted favorably on legislation that will be an important first step to ensure that every child in Virginia has the opportunity to succeed and to receive an education that will best meet their unique learning needs,” said Delegate Saxman. “In addition to considering the benefits school choice can provide students, in this difficult budget year, I think it is also extremely important that we also look at the cost-savings that this program can have for the Commonwealth. For example, Florida recently found that their similar tax credit program saves the state $1.49 for every dollar invested. It’s a win-win program.”
“Across the country, we see states and localities embracing school choice as a way to improve education for all students, and we are committed to making those choices as reality here in Virginia,” said School Choice Virginia Executive Director Whitney Duff. “From Florida to Pennsylvania, Ohio to Arizona, D.C. to Milwaukee, communities are breaking away from the status quo, one-size-fits-all model of education, to give families more options for meeting their children’s educational needs, and the results are proving the success of these programs- both for students and for taxpayers. It is time that we embrace the diversity of Virginia’s students embrace the diversity of Virginia’s students, and implement these forward-thinking reforms to give every student has the best chance at success- regardless of parental income- be that public, private, parochial, charter or home-schooling.”
School Choice Virginia is an organization working to expand educational choices for Virginia families to ensure every child has the opportunity to receive the education that best meets their unique and individual needs. As a 501(c)4, School Choice Virginia is non-partisan and can support specific legislation. In addition, School Choice Virginia works increase awareness of school choice initiatives and to demonstrate to elected leaders on all levels the broad-based support for educational reforms. Visit us online at www.SchoolChoiceVA.com.
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Public? Private? Does it matter?
For too long, many folks have viewed the fight over school choice as a battle of public versus private, instead of a battle to make sure every child has the education that best meets his or her own unique learning needs. Opponents of choice want to try and pit people against each other, as if giving families options is an attack on public schools, rather than giving children hope.
This great article, When private and public meet in class, by Doug Tuthill- a lifelong public educator who has served as president of two local teachers unions, and now serves as president of the Florida School Choice Fund, which oversees tax credit scholarship funding organizations, takes a closer look at what is really at stake.
Public is not always the enemy of private, and Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program is a case in point. This program serves more than 23,000 low-income students and is intended only to offer a different type of learning environment for students who often have the fewest options. It has managed to build bipartisan support over its first seven years, and, in May, the Legislature approved an expansion with the support of a third of the Democrats and half the Black Caucus.
Senate sponsor Al Lawson, an African-American senator who is the Democratic leader in the Senate, said: “When you have a lot of poor kids in your area that need help, and you have people saying, ‘We’re willing to work with these kids,’ it’s hard to say no. … I am the strongest possible supporter of public education. But I know that not every school works for every child.”
Those who claim that public funding of private schools is a Republican attack on public education have short memories. Both Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972 included a tuition tax credit for elementary and secondary school students in their Democratic presidential platforms, and liberal icon Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., was among its biggest advocates. In the 1960s, “freedom schools” served as an alternative to racially hostile school bureaucracies, a point not lost on the Rev. H.K. Matthews, a Florida civil rights legend. “This is a flashback of the old movement,” Matthews told thousands of Tax Credit Scholarship supporters last year on the steps of the old Florida Capitol. “It’s a continuation of the dream.”
The full article is definitely worth the read.
Florida Reports on Cost Savings from School Choice
The folks over at Virginia’s Cost Cutting Caucus (a bipartisan group of state legislators working for a more transparent, accountable and competitive government that will yield better services at a lower cost to the taxpayers) reported today on the report released by Florida’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability on the fiscal impact of their tax credit scholarship school choice program.
The results are not so surprising to us, but still impressive nonetheless: “The Corporate Income Tax Credit Scholarship Program Saves State Dollars.“
One key finding worth noting, the report concludes that for “Fiscal Year 2007-08, taxpayers saved $1.49 in state education funding for every dollar loss in corporate income tax revenue due to credits for scholarship contributions.”
As we have said before, school choice works. It gives parents choices, it gives kids opportunities, and it saves taxpayers money.
Take a look at the report online here: http://www.oppaga.state.fl.us/reports/pdf/0868rpt.pdf
UPDATED: Some Virginia school choice bills for 2009
The 2009 General Assembly session is in full swing. Here are a few of the school choice bills up for consideration here in Virginia this year. Let us know your thoughts!
- HB 1965 Public/Private Education Investment Tax Credit (Delegate Chris Saxman)
- HB 2104 Students with Disabilities Tuition Assistance Grant Program (Delegate Bill Janis)
- SB 956/HB1985 Autism Tuition Assistance Grant Program (Senator Walter Stosch, Delegate John O’Bannon)
- SB 1221 Businesses; tax credits for donations to nonprofit organizations providing educational funding (Senator Mark Obenshain)
UPDATE: We also wanted to mention Delegate Bob Marshall’s HJ641: School choice programs; joint subcommittee to study programs for secondary school students.
Unfortunately with this year’s budget, it appears that new studies will not be approved, however, we appreciate Delegate Marshall’s efforts to provide the Commonwealth further study and consideration of the benefits and impacts of greater school choice for secondary school students.
We will continue to add updates with any additional legislations.
Maryland Responds to Education Survey
The Friedman Foundation has released a new survey of 1,200 likely Maryland voters on K-12 education issues.
The underlying theme of the Friedman Foundation’s Survey in the State series is to measure voter attitudes toward their public institutions, leaders, innovative ideas, and the current K-12 power and priority structure. Two messages emerge from the poll’s findings. First, Marylanders say they are not familiar with various school choice ideas and reforms. A second finding indicates that school choice is not a partisan issue among voters in Maryland.
Cato’s “Liberty” blog notes the following interesting findings of the study:
Maryland spends more than $12,000 per student. Only eight percent of Maryland residents guessed that spending was more than $10,000. Taxpayers have absolutely no concept of how badly they are getting fleeced by the teachers unions.
Education tax credits once again outperform vouchers in popularity. Credits pull in 52 percent support, with 48 percent opposed. Vouchers get just 42 percent support, with 58 percent opposed.
You can read the full Maryland survey report online. You can also find survey reports for other states, including Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee, and Nevada.
