Alabama: Unused education tax credits will be used to pay down the state’s debts (The Piedmont Journal).
Arizona: The Arizona Court of Appeals rules education savings accounts (ESAs) are constitutional (Arizona Daily Star, Education Week, New York Times, Sonoran News).
California: A husband and wife operating a charter school misappropriated more than $200,000 in school funds. The husband is sentenced to 4 years in prison while his wife receives 45 days (LA Times). San Diego’s school district is selling off excess property but the market rate is too high for area charter schools (Voice of San Diego).
Colorado: Denver area public schools collect millions in additional fees from parents (Denver Post).
D.C.: Charter school operators are being accused of setting up for-profit corporations to serve charter schools with high prices (Washington Post).
Florida: Enrollment in Miami-Dade is up thanks to charter schools (Miami Herald). School districts want more control over charter schools, including more power to deny charter applications and restricting where school’s open or whether they serve a specialized need (Sun Sentinel). Some Florida Catholic schools will be using modified Common Core standards while others wait and see what becomes of the initiative (RedefinED). Charter school advocates and supporters disagree on whether or not to have a standardized contract between schools and districts (RedefinED).
Hawaii: Charter school enrollment grows by 2.1 percent, more than double the state’s public school enrollment growth (Big Island Now).
Illinois: Chicago wants more charter schools in overcrowded school zones (Chicago Tribune).
Indiana: Demand for vouchers have doubled as more than 20,000 families have applied for school vouchers, though nearly 600,000 are now eligible for the expanded program (One News Now, Associated Press).
Louisiana: Well, it turns out vouchers won’t be increasing racial segregation as the U.S. Department of Justice claims (Education Next, Education Next, Times-Picayune). The reason is simple: most of the voucher students are minorities (91 percent) and the bulk of these students are already attending highly segregated public schools as we pointed out last week on redefinED. The Wall Street Journal published an interactive infographic on charter schools in New Orleans (Wall Street Journal).
Massachusetts: The Boston Foundation creates an $80,000 annual prize to recognize great charter schools in the greater Boston area (Boston.com). The Race to the Top Coalition wants to see the state legislature pass a bill lifting the statewide cap on charter schools (Patriot Ledger).
New Hampshire: More than 100 scholarships have been awarded this year for the state’s education tax credit scholarship program (New Hampshire Business Review).
New Jersey: 21 school districts in the state have been approved accept students from other school districts (The Inquirer, Courier-Post). The state department of education approved just 3 of the 38 charter school applications (New Jersey Spotlight).
New York: A study from the Center on Reinventing Public Education finds New York City charter schools are not refusing to admit or pushing out students with special needs (Education Week). Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio doesn’t like charter schools but his top choice for school superintendent calls charter schools “engines of reform” (New York Post). New York City public schools spend more per pupil than charter schools (New York Post). The New York State Board of Regents attacks de Blasio’s plan to charge charter school’s rent for using empty public buildings (New York Post).
Washington: Tri-City school districts are not interested in authorizing a charter school within the district (Tri-City Herald).
Wisconsin: A state lawmaker wants to allow more scholarship money to follow special needs students to private schools (WisPolitics).
Nation: Jason Bedrick published a summary of the active school choice lawsuits around the nation (Cato Institute). Stephanie Simon says vouches don’t help students (Politico).
World: Private school operators in the U.K. feel parents are being attacked by the state for making an “unacceptable choice” by sending their children to private schools (BBC). One in ten parents buy a house in the U.K. based on school quality while 1 in 5 parents are willing to pay more for a house near a good school (The Guardian).
