Texas: The State Board of Education votes to urge lawmakers to reject school vouchers - or any other mechanisms that reduce funding to public schools (Texas Tribune). Orthodox Jews, Catholics and leaders of other religious groups joined forces with private school advocates to rally for tax credit scholarships(The Yeshiva World News).

California: L.A. mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel, who wants to be the "education-reform mayor,'' supports parent trigger and other reform measures (Los Angeles Times). More from the Huffington Post.

Colorado: The Senate approves a bill that adds $1 million for charter school construction (Associated Press).

Washington, D.C.: Former students and faculty of Sidwell Friends, the elite private school that has educated children of presidents and members of Congress, want to open a charter school - and have Sidwell's support (The Washington Post). A report by the Walton Family Foundation shows the District's charter schools received about $13,000 less in per-student funding in 2011-12 than traditional public schools (Washington Examiner).

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia is the latest city to rally for school choice with more than 200 parents, educators and other charter supporters demanding district officials allow the expansion of at least 20 charter schools (NewsWorks). Also, the city's Mayor Michael Nutter asks the governor to approve more funding  for city schools, including reimbursing districts for dollars spent on charter schools (NewsWorks).

Florida: Facing a tuition crisis, Jewish day school educators and religious leaders lobby Tallahassee for expanded school choice (Lubavitch.com). Lawmakers are trying to give district schools some of the same flexibility as charters, but still within union agreements (redefinED). This charter school almost didn't happen - and now it's one of the leading science schools in the state (redefinED).

Louisiana: New Orleans school officials consider an enrollment plan that, eventually, will allow some charters to hold seats for students who fit the school's mission - like a military academy. Opponents worry it will lead to cherry-picking high-achievers (The Lens). State Rep. Katrina Jackson has proposed a bill to allow public school students to recite the Lord's Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance (KATC). Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice touts Gov. Bobby Jindal's efforts to reform Louisiana's schools (The Times-Picayune). (more…)

No essay titled the “Voucher Rabbit Hole” needs to be treated as though it were a search for academic truths, but Grand Prairie educator Jerry Burkett would better contribute to the current debate in Texas if he weren’t so fixated on Georgia.

To be sure, Georgia’s tax credit scholarship has been insufficiently accountable to taxpayers and has invited some abuses the Legislature took an important step toward fixing last week. But we should no more judge the fitness of all private scholarships based on the law in Georgia than we would judge the integrity of all public schools based on the cheating scandal in Atlanta.

In the same 2011 Southern Education Foundation report from which Dr. Burkett quoted so extensively, the foundation contrasted the practices it criticized in Georgia with a program directly to the south.

“The neighboring state of Florida,” the foundation wrote, “offers an example of a tax‐credit educational program that has evolved and improved over the last few years. As a public‐private venture, it has begun to require more effective measures for public accountability and educational performance from all entities and all private schools that take tax‐diverted funds to support student learning.”

Florida is now serving 51,000 low-income students with the largest tax credit scholarship program in the nation and, more importantly, offers an extensive public record on educational and financial impact as it completes its 11th year. Since I work for the nonprofit that oversees the scholarship and since Dr. Burkett mostly neglected it, let me offer some independent findings that could ease his fear of falling. (In Florida, we fear sinkholes instead of rabbit holes.)

First, we know the students who seek the scholarship are among the poorest and lowest-performing students in the state. The Florida law restricts the scholarship to students whose household income qualifies them for free or reduced-price lunch, which is 185 percent of poverty, and the average this year is only 6 percent above poverty. We also know through five years of state-contracted research that the students who choose the scholarship are the lowest performers from the public schools they leave behind. (more…)

Indiana: The state supreme court rules vouchers constitutional (Indianapolis Star). The decision could set a precedent for other states with Blaine amendments (ABC News). More coverage from StateImpact Indiana, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post. In the ruling's aftermath, the Senate Education Committee approves a proposal to expand the program in one way (RTV6), but not as far as originally proposed (Indianapolis Star). Republicans are split over how to grow the program (Evansville Courier & Press).

Tennessee: Anti-Muslim sentiment surfaces in the Tennessee voucher debate (Murfreesboro Post).

Georgia: Lawmakers increase the cap on the state's tax credit scholarship program (Atlanta Journal Constitution).

Texas: Education Commissioner Michael Williams says more school choice won't mean a mass exodus from Texas public schools (Associated Press). Lawmakers consider speeding up the parent trigger (Texas Tribune). Once an outcast education sector, home-schooling is on the rise (Amarillo Globe-News).

Louisiana: Voucher applications are up 20 percent despite legal uncertainty (Baton Rouge Advocate). More from the New Orleans Times Picayune. (more…)

In a blog entry last week, “I’m rethinking my opposition to school vouchers. Convince me,” Nicole Stockdale, the assistant editorial page editor at the Dallas Morning News, said she is grappling with whether to support school vouchers.

What stimulated Nicole’s dilemma is a bill in the Texas Legislature to allow low-income families to use tax credit scholarships (often referred to as school vouchers) to pay private school tuition and fees. She deserves a serious reply to her challenge, and, given I am president of a Florida nonprofit that administers the country’s largest tax credit scholarship program for low-income children, I thought I’d try.

Nicole identified three traditional anti- school vouchers arguments she wanted help refuting:

By allowing low-income students to have the same schooling options as more affluent students aren’t we delaying the process of improving ineffective district schools?

This is not an either-or proposition. All schools should be engaged in continual improvement, but this is not a rationale for denying low-income families access to additional schooling options.

Researchers studying Florida’s tax credit scholarship program found urban district schools improved when our program was first introduced. They hypothesized that the possibility of losing students caused these district schools to focus more attention on meeting the needs of low-income students. This same study also found the district schools most impacted by the loss of scholarship students - Florida now has about 51,000 high-poverty students on scholarship - had proportionally higher test score gains among their own low-income students.

So in Florida we’ve found that both the low-income students on scholarship and the low-income students who remain in district schools are improving at the same time. This finding confirms that different students are successful in different environments, that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for helping students learn. The relationship between the school and the child is the key. That’s why allowing all parents - including low-income parents - to match their children with the schools that best meet their needs is so necessary.

What about students who don’t choose to attend magnet, charter or private schools? Will we end up with non-magnet district schools comprised only of students from apathetic families? 

Researchers have found Florida’s tax credit scholarships attract some of the state’s highest poverty and lowest-performing students. In essence, our program does the opposite of creaming. (more…)

Texas: Sen. Dan Patrick's school choice bill makes an ambitious attempt to expand charter schools, lifting the statewide cap on the number of charters and requiring school districts to sell or lease underutilized classrooms or other facilties to charter operators (The Texas Tribune). More on the bill,  including possible concessions by Patrick on the charter cap ( American-Statesman). Patrick cries in committee as he advocates expansion of school choice (Associated Press).

Louisiana: A $5 million federal training program offers $50,000 grants to teachers to help turn around failing schools. The program will serve either as a stop-gap while more charter schools ramp up to provide students with better learning options, or as an alternative approach to fix a failing system with the selected district schools operating similar to charters (Education News). A mother's struggle to find a quality school for her sons points to a key failure in New Orleans’ lauded choice-based system: options abound, but they're not always reputable ones (The Lens).

Arkansas: A Senate committee votes down a proposal for a tax credit scholarship program (Associated Press).

Florida: A parent trigger bill clears a third House committee and heads for a House floor vote (redefinED). Charter school lobbyists focus this legislative session on winning state money for maintenance and facilities, or, the right to use empty space in traditional public schools free of charge (Tampa Bay Times).

Tennessee: A voucher bill forwarded as a broader alternative to Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal is withdrawn (Associated Press). But the debate continues over how many children the program should serve (Memphis Commercial Appeal). Pressed with the need for charter operators in his district, one state lawmaker is considering a proposal to allow for-profit charters; Rep. John DeBerry says the idea is to help well-meaning operators with the business-side of running charter schools (The Tennessean). The Walton Family Foundation is investing $1 million to help create four new charter schools in Memphis (Memphis Business Journal).

Georgia: A parent trigger bill is pulled amidst concerns from Republican lawmakers (Atlanta Journal Constitution). Proposed legislation could force school districts to consider parent petitions to turn non-failing public schools into charters (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). A proposal to expand the state's tax credit scholarship program clears a key House committee (Atlanta Journal Constitution). (more…)

Alabama: Gov. Robert Bentley signs the tax credit scholarship bill into law after the Alabama Supreme Court lifts a restraining order from a circuit court judge that prevented the bill from being sent to him (NPR). More from AL.com. The Alabama Education Association is running ads accusing lawmakers of betrayal for approving the bill (Sand Mountain Reporter).

Indiana: Gov. Mike Pence tells a crowd of several thousand school choice supporters that vouchers and charter schools are key pieces in ed reform (Indianapolis Star). More from  Associated Press, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Evansville Courier & Press. The proposed voucher expansion raises concerns about cost (Associated Press).

Pennsylvania: Lawmakers are set to consider several bills that would alter funding formulas for both virtual and bricks-n-mortar charter schools (Pittsburg Post Gazette).

Wisconsin: The state is holding back voucher funds from five Milwaukee private schools it says have financial and/or reporting issues (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Three private schools that lost accreditation continue to receive voucher funds because of a loophole in state law (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Ohio: Gov. John Kasich proposes to hike charter school funding by 4.5 percent (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

Florida: One city in Florida turns its district schools into charter schools in an effort to boost quality (redefinED). A prominent Democrat helps lead the effort (redefinED). More than 600 gather in Orlando for the Black Alliance for Educational Options' annual symposium (redefinED). Legislation to require safety alerts for private schools clears two more hurdles (redefinED).

Tennessee: Gov. Bill Haslam's voucher proposal clears the House Education Committee (Associated Press). But a Republican senators puts forward a broader, alternative proposal (The Tennessean). The Rocketship charter school network plans to open eight schools in Nashville, beginning next year (Getting Smart). Nashville school district officials are stunned (The Tennessean). They also worry about the financial fallout of a bill that would create a statewide charter school authorizer (The Tennessean). (more…)