1. Princeton House Charter School
        1. Princeton House Charter School
          1. Building a School
          2. Choice Movement

 
The Florida Board of Education
Supports the Universal
Pre-Kindergarten Amendment
The Florida Board of Education supports the
Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program is an
important move for school choice, as well as a
benefit to all Florida children.
A Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program allows
parents to become involved with their child’s
education earlier than ever before. Parents are
afforded a choice regarding their child’s
readiness for kindergarten, and an opportunity to
offer them a quality program that will prepare
them for a positive learning experience.
The move toward a Universal Pre-Kindergarten
Program underscores Florida’s belief that
parents are best equipped to make decisions
regarding their child’s education.
Under this
program, parents will have a choice between
public and private early childhood education
providers.
They will be able to choose the
setting that best serves their child and their
family. Furthermore, no family will be forced to
enroll their child in the program; it is a true
parental choice program.
Every child in Florida deserves the chance to
succeed. A key factor to success later in life is
early childhood education.
Children offered
access to early childhood programs will have
 
Better overall readiness to start school.
?
Higher student achievement at all
educational levels.
?
Less chance of repeating a grade and
better school attendance.
?
Higher earning and education
attainment.
Florida's current school readiness system serves
almost 135,000 eligible children under the age of
5. Almost 60,000 of these children are 4-year-
olds, with 58 percent served by community or
center-based providers and 42 percent served in
school-based programs.
Princeton House Charter School
Princeton House Charter School (PCHS) opened
its doors in 1996, as a result of the pursuits of
three mothers who were seeking to provide the
best possible program for their children with
autism. The school began as a non-profit private
school with 6 students and quickly grew into a
nationally recognized program incorporating the
"best practices" in the field of autism by a team of
the most highly qualified and experienced
teachers and therapists in the area.
In 1998, Princeton House reincorporated as a
state funded charter school allowing access of its
program to children of all economic backgrounds.
In August 2001, PHCS expanded its program to
include a new and innovative concept of "reverse
inclusion.” Typical children are joining our autistic
children in the Princeton House classrooms,
providing a wide range of opportunities for all
students.
The benefits to all PHCS children are significant.
Typical students are serving as role models to
develop language and social skills for autistic
children. Friendships are developing, and typical
children are learning that differences are an
acceptable part of our environment. Reverse
inclusion allows autistic children continual
classroom support without becoming overwhelmed
within the setting of a large regular education
classroom. Typical children also benefit from the
smaller classroom size, which encourages more
direct instruction and individualization.
This article excerpted from www.princeton-house.org.

 
Building a School
Choice Movement
J. C. Bowman
Political success requires unity. Achieving unity
is perhaps the most difficult task of all in
generating a vital and successful school choice
strategic coalition. It takes substantial effort,
particularly in the early life of a coalition, to
create that unity and to develop an effective
style of operation.
A strategic coalition is a coalition that is effective
politically on a sustained basis. It gets results
over time. It is durable. Sustainability is vital to
success. We are not in a short-term fight. Our
opponents use a three-prong strategy to defeat
us. They try to block legislation. When we
prevail, they take us to court not just once, but
over and over. And they try to smother our
victories through regulation.
Consequently, school choice supporters face
formidable odds. Our opponents are tenacious,
relentless, single-minded, and well-financed.
They have a highly developed infrastructure at
the local, state and national level. And they
focus on a single goal:
to stop school choice.
We, in contrast, are a loose federation of people
who don't always agree, whose resources are
limited, and who too often forget the importance
of unity. Our opponents exploit these
weaknesses. To defeat them requires that we
work overtime to reduce risk and improve the
prospects of success. Communication with each
other will be a key determinant to our success.
We must set clear goals. We must value focus
and unity of purpose. We must function as a
team. We must work to include, not exclude
others, a challenge when we may not agree on
any other issue. We must act effectively,
because we trust each other. And we must act
because we believe that every child in Florida
deserves the best possible education and every
chance to succeed.
Fighting to Ensure
that No Child is Left
Behind
2002-2003 Public
Charter Schools Conference
Building Bridges to ensure that
NO CHILD is LEFT BEHIND
October 29-31, 2002
at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Studios
Conference Theme and Purpose
The event,
Building Bridges to Ensure NO CHILD is
LEFT BEHIND
, has been designed for charter school
community stakeholders to come together for two and
one-half days to dialogue, share successes and best
practices, clarify legislative intent (federal and state),
and discuss research regarding charter schools from a
national and local perspective.
Early Registration Deadline:
October 15, 2002
Hotel Reservation Conference
Rate Deadline:
September 28, 2002
For more information, please visit the Choice Office
website at
www.floridaschoolchoice.org
.
School Choice Benefits All Florida Children
Opponents of School Choice have argued that
children choosing to remain in a failing public school
would be consigned to educational failure. The recent
occurrences in Miami-Dade indicate otherwise.
The Miami Herald reported major staff changes in
Miami-Dade’s four failing elementary schools.
Teachers who were not performing at a high enough
standard were transferred out of the schools.
he
schools are now focusing on hiring and retaining
talented teachers. Salary bonuses have been added
for reading specialists. Three of the failing elementary
schools have seen a turnover in principals and/or
assistant principals.
Part of the stimulus instigating these changes: two of
the failing elementary schools lost over one third of
their students to private schools or higher performing
public schools under the Opportunity Scholarship
Program.
School choice forces school improvement.
Which is
good for
ALL
Florida children.
T

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