Serving the public interest, an institution struggles in hard times
In 1981, sociologist James S. Coleman made the claim that tuition barriers to private schools are "certainly harmful to the...
Read More >Reject the failing schools model of choice. It does nothing but divide.
For several months, the political leadership of Pennsylvania has shown increasing bipartisan support for school choice, particularly for scholarships that...
Read More >Robinson: New education paradigms require a transformation of public education
The Cooperative Catalyst team this morning introduced the uniquely creative mind of Ken Robinson, whose animated presentation on new education...
Read More >Quality Counts and the new economic reality on agenda for roundtable talk
Edweek.org will be live-streaming an all-day roundtable discussion of education in a new economic reality, surrounding the publication's release of its latest Quality Counts report.
Read More >Rhee: Elevate teaching, empower parents, spend wisely
Rhee unveiled the proposal today, breaking down what StudentsFirst referred to as "a call to action and a roadmap for state and local lawmakers ..." Anticipating the polarization her proposals are sure to bring, she prefaced that the agenda "has assembled policies that will improve public education without regard to their point of origin on the political spectrum."
Read More >The cameras focused on Rhee and Scott, but the school was really the star attraction
The school reaches out to an impoverished community, where all students are children of color and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and it delivers on results. In 2002, the state of Florida gave the school a failing grade, based on its dismal core performance in reading and writing. Today, that school has an A – with a nearly identical demographic and the majority of its students are now meeting high standards in those subjects.
Read More >New Orleans, defining public education anew -- through choice
Brian Dassler, principal of the KIPP Renaissance High School in New Orleans, and David R. Colburn, who served as provost from UF from 2000 to 2005 and now runs the university’s Ruben Askew Institute on Politics and Society, note that states and school systems would do well to study the ingredients that lifted the city’s public schools. Central to that success, the pair argues: The school system “provided real choice to all families regardless of their financial means. What had been a luxury afforded only to higher-income families in the past is now available to every parent in the city.”
Read More >One Florida mother shows how choice promotes equity
Gardner supports providing parents with more options, but he sees a disconnect – and, ultimately, a lack of fairness – between the perception of public school choice and the frustration parents experience when facing the admissions criteria school districts have established. He doesn’t address how private learning options can resolve that conflict, but it’s Florida’s program, in particular, that can help bring fairness to a process that supposed to empower the parent.
Read More >Tuthill on teacher empowerment: charter schools encourage teachers to start their own shop
Williams wants to introduce his own charter initiative in Alabama and asked Doug for advice on how he should proceed. Doug's reply: Don't let your opponents falsely claim that an expansion of schoool choice is an attack on public school teachers and public education.
Read More >The liberal nature of vouchers? Look to your history.
While it was economist Milton Friedman who submitted the idea for school vouchers in his 1955 essay, “The Role of Government in Education,” the voucher movement got a jumpstart soon afterward from liberal intellectuals and activists and Democratic lawmakers, particularly from Harvard social scientist Christopher Jencks, Berkeley law professor John Coons and Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Read More >