by Gloria Romero

The school-choice movement has just surmounted one of its most pervasive challenges. A unanimous Indiana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that state's voucher program, which makes some 500,000 low- and middle-income kids (or, about 62 percent of its families) eligible for state aid to help pay for a private or religious school. The decision cuts to the core of the most profound education debate: What, exactly, does "public" mean in "public education" and who decides?

The court ruled that Indiana is serving valid educational purposes, both by maintaining a traditional public school system and by providing options to it. In other words, that government's role is to ensure that essential services are available to the people – but the government itself does not always need to be the actual provider.

Thus, with voucher laws such as Indiana's, "public" money follows the "public," which is the family directly – not the "publicly" operated schoolhouse. Hence, families get to choose where to spend the public money: on a schooling choice made by them, or on a schooling choice made by a government official.

Historically, the fight over funding in K-12 public education has been interpreted as the strict allocation of public, taxpayer dollars to publicly operated institutions only. Essentially, this has resulted in the protection of monopoly rights of government-run schools. Students are assigned by government officials to a "local" public school, based on ZIP code. This ZIP code-restricted system has largely given rise to today's parent empowerment movement, where more and more parents – especially in inner cities – have fought back against a system that not only assigns them to a particular school, but restricts them from leaving – even if that school chronically underperforms.

Indeed, few incentives exist to transform these schools, which sometimes seem to operate more as massive public-works programs for adults. Charter schools, open-enrollment policies and parent trigger laws have all been based on the fight for greater parent rights in public education. (more…)

Editor's note: Blog stars is our occasional roundup of compelling, provocative or just downright good stuff from other ed blogs (although sometimes we throw in op-eds from newspapers and magazines, too). Enjoy.

Geoffrey Canada: Death to Education Reform

To know me is to know that no one feels more strongly than I do about the importance of transforming our current absurd, destructive educational system.

But the way education reform advocates are going about it is wrong. The problem is that you’re never going to get people motivated to be awesome teachers if they’re part of a giant bureaucracy. The only way you’re going to get people to be motivated to be awesome teachers is, yes, if you give them enough money, but also if they are part of a STRUCTURE and a CULTURE that breathes this kind of achievement and rewards it–rewards it not only financially, but also through an environment that encourages it every day. Why do small startups kick the ass of giant technology companies every day? It’s because, yes, these startups have payoffs, but anyone who knows them will tell you that what really makes them tick is the fact that they are small, tight-knit, and everyone is extremely focused. Information loops close really fast. It’s also what made Harlem Children’s Zone a success. It’s what makes neoliberal attempts to “reform” schools centrally via spreadsheet fail.

The only way you’re going to get good schools, in other words, is if you have a system where the people who have the biggest stake in the education, also have a very direct say in how things are run.

To put it another way, you need radical decentralization and a radical shift to power to parents and children in how schools are run. This can be accomplished through vouchers or through other means. (I actually have my misgivings about vouchers, for a bunch of complex reasons, but I’ve come to believe decentralization really is the key.) You could have a 100% public system if it was also structured so as to enable choice and competition. But the crucial thing is to let a thousand flowers bloom. Full post here. (Image from the thebestschools.org)

Andrew J. Coulson: Uh ... the 'Quality Controlled' Schools Are Worse

Sunday’s Washington Post ran a story titled “Quality controls lacking for D.C. schools accepting federal vouchers.” These are the particular failings chosen for the story’s lede:

schools that are unaccredited or are in unconventional settings, such as a family-run K-12 school operating out of a storefront, a Nation of Islam school based in a converted Deanwood residence, and a school built around the philosophy of a Bulgarian psychotherapist.

It is remarkable that more serious transgressions were omitted. Why not mention the schools in which current and former staff brawl in the parking lot, or students start vicious fights at sporting events? Why not discuss the schools spending nearly $30,000 per pupil annually and yet graduating barely half of their students on time?

The reason the WaPo didn’t mention them is that they are not voucher schools. (more…)

by Gloria Romero

Even while Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Teachers Association barnstormed the state, urging voters to raise taxes with Proposition 30 to support public education and predicting doomsday if the measure fails, a fascinating report from the California Charter Schools Association was released on the growth of charter schools in the Golden State.

Data from the report clearly reveal that change has come to California's public education system.

Charter schools are public schools. They are publicly funded but operate with greater independence, autonomy and flexibility from the burdensome state Education Code which micromanages even the minutia of education practices. Charter schools are typically nonunion, although they can be unionized if teachers vote for a union.

Charter schools were first established in the nation two decades ago, with California becoming the second state to authorize them. Hailed as opportunities for innovation and reform, charter schools began to grow.

Even beyond becoming recognized as "petri dishes for educational reform," the underlying philosophy of parental choice in public education began to take root. In a system where ZIP code is the sole criteria of school assignment, charters began to become a sort of "promised land" for high-poverty, minority families whose children were too often assigned to chronically under performing schools.

One-hundred nine new charters opened in California just this academic year, bringing the number of charter schools to 1,065, the most in the nation. Still, there are still 70,000 pupils on waiting lists. (more…)

As a panel on NBC's Education Nation prepares to discuss the inequality in education quality from Zip code to Zip code, it seems fitting to link to a recent New York Times interview with Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Akron, Ohio, mother jailed after falsifying documents so that she could enroll her daughters in a school district outside her attendance zone.   

Some excerpts:

My home had been broken into in 2006. I decided to enroll my kids using my dad’s address ... He helps raise them ... Everything was fine — at least I thought it was — until the second year. I was very concerned about their safety. I didn’t want them at home by themselves. I was in school. I worked long hours at the university. I wasn’t comfortable with them being that independent ... I did not have an opinion if the schools were at the level they should be or not. That’s not why I did what I did. People do it all the time. My grandparents raised me, so I didn’t think it was a problem because I didn’t give them a fake address or anything like that. Their grandfather is involved in raising them ...

... I never thought I would be prosecuted for it. They said that the education had been stolen.