School Choice Comfort
by Robert Holland
(1) Philadelphia's turning over of failing public
schools to private managers on an
unprecedented scale.
Jeb Bush's landslide re-election as governor of
Florida secures what has become School Choice
Central in the never-ending experiment that is
American federalism. Arizona is the only other state
that comes close to matching Florida in the array of
public/private education choices offered families.
(2) The U.S. Supreme Court's June 27 ruling in the
Zelman case from Cleveland that nothing in the
U.S. Constitution bars parents from choosing to
use publicly funded vouchers to send their
children to religious schools.
(3) The initial impact on public-school districts of
the parental-choice provisions of the federal No
Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by
President Bush on Jan. 8.
Jeb Bush's signature A-Plus reform offers a
voucher to students stuck in chronically failing
public schools. Had his foes (notably, the anti-
choice teacher unions) succeeded in defeating
Gov. Bush at the polls, that voucher innovation
could have been imperiled. However, an even
larger Florida voucher program, the McKay
Scholarship — which in fact has become the
largest school-choice program in the nation in just
four years — likely would have survived.
The common thread is that government is
becoming less of a monopoly provider of education
and more of a purchaser of educational services
that enjoy consumer confidence and have track
records of success. This approach has wide
acceptance in Western Europe, where government
grants often support parents' choices of public or
private schools.
Named for its chief advocate, the president of the
Florida Senate, McKays are vouchers for children
who have been labeled as learning disabled and
fitted with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).
Should parents be dissatisfied for any reason with
how their child's IEP is being implemented, they
may use their subsidy in the form of a McKay
Scholarship to transfer their children to a private
school or a different public school. McKay
Scholarships have soared from just two in a 1999
pilot to more than 8,000 last year. Whether
because of the program's popularity or the unstated
relief of public school officials to be bidding farewell
to supposedly hard-to-teach students, the teacher
unions have not filed lawsuits to challenge this kind
of voucher.
As recently as a few years ago, the United States
was considered to have a state-dominated
educational system that shunned virtually all choice
and competition. However, when a German policy
group, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, held an
international conference on choice last month, it
focused on fast-growing gains in school choice in
America as an inspiration for German reformers.
Soon America may be School Choice Central.
--excerpted from The Washington Times
Letter From A McKay Scholarships Parent
The reason for this letter is to give you thanks! This
scholarship has made such a difference in my son’s
life!
The first thing that changed was his self-esteem. He
was in SLD because his reading was very poor. But
things just weren’t getting better. And though I can’t
say exactly what was being done that was so
different, I can say that class size and challenging
him has changed him.
He still needs help with his spelling and reading, but
he does not think he’s stupid any longer. And now,
he wants to read. He is actually going to school
everyday. There are no fights in the morning!!!
Your scholarship has helped mold and insecure boy
into a confident young boy, and it has helped make a
mom a better mom, because wanting to learn has
made homework and evenings, as well as mornings,
more enjoyable.
Thank you,
Jane Raborn
With the altered political balance in Washington,
the McKay voucher now could become a model for
reforming IDEA nationally using the liberating
principle of school choice.
Adding to its status as School Choice Central,
Florida also has a corporate tax credit for
contributions to private K-12 scholarships, and 232
public charter schools. However, the gains for
school choice in 2002 go far beyond what's
happening in one state or the returns from one
election.
During 2002, three major policy movements
converged into a force for reforming U.S.
elementary and secondary education:
Notes from a Homeschooler
My name is Andrea Willingham. I am twelve
years old and homeschooled.
I've been
homeschooled with my brother and sister for
about nine years, so I've never been to public
school. But I don't mind, because I think
homeschooling has done more for me than
anything else could have.
Homeschooling has provided me the opportunity
to become a pianist and to enjoy learning with my
family. It opens doors
otherwise be hidden.
My fourteen year old sister and I learn pretty
much the same stuff together. Though I'm only
twelve, I'm in the 8th grade and my sister is in the
9th. My brother is in the third grade, though he's
nine. That is one thing that is good about
homeschooling -- you can learn at your own pace
and not be made fun of. You can just be who you
only the basics, but it gives you
are and still fit in!
I also like homeschooling because, if you find you
really like or are interested in a certain thing, you
can study it more and educate yourself on it. I
believe that homeschooling is (in most cases) the
best form of education you can get. It teaches
you not
perspective on the world.
to reveal talents that might
Making Strategic Investments in Promising
Educational Practices.
Like today’s best
entrepreneurial foundations, this office will
support promising programs and—working with
the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement—rigorously evaluate their results.
It will practice “venture philanthropy” through
the strategic management of dozens of
competitive grant programs, and also through
the Fund for the Improvement of Education.
This office will become the Department’s expert
in leveraging competitive grant programs for
maximum learning and maximum impact, and
will aggressively disseminate findings about
“what works” to the educational field
Providing Leadership for Parental Options,
Information and Rights.
Under the No Child
Left Behind Act, parents play a crucial role in
the improvement of our schools. Greater
parental options are enhanced under the law,
including expanded public school choice,
charter schools, and supplemental educational
services. The law also recognizes that greater
options must be combined with more
information, as informed parents are true allies
in the movement for better schools. OII will
combine and coordinate programs related to
parental options and education, including
programs for charter schools, magnet schools,
public school choice, non-public education and
family educational rights, and will coordinate
the public school choice and supplemental
services provisions of the new law with OESE.
The Choice Office Welcomes Nina Rees to
the US Department of Education Office of
Innovation and Improvement
Nina S. Rees is Deputy Under Secretary for the
Office of Innovation and Improvement. The newly
created office oversees the administration of
approximately 25 competitive grant programs that
support educational innovation, broadly
disseminates the lessons learned from these
programs; helps to make strategic investments in
promising educational practices; as well as providing
leadership for parental options, information and
rights. Working with the Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education, she also coordinates the
implementation of the public school choice and
supplemental services provisions of the President's
No Child Left Behind Act. The Office of Innovation
and Improvement has a program budget of $2 billion
and a full-time staff of approximately 100.
Focusing the Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education on Large-Scale
Reform.
Another benefit of the creation of OII
is that OESE will be free to focus on its major
formula programs, the centerpiece of No Child
Left Behind. A majority of the Department’s K-
12 funds flow through these programs,
including Title I, Reading First, the Teacher
Quality State Grant, and more. By transferring
the smaller competitive programs to OII, OESE
can focus entirely on school improvement writ
large, providing technical assistance to states
and districts to ensure accountability for results
in return for greater flexibility and local control.
At the same time, the competitive programs will
receive greater attention.
Relieving the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement of
Programmatic Responsibilities.
Moving grant
programs to OII will allow OERI to focus on its
core missions of supporting research,
evaluating educational interventions, and
collecting statistics.
The Office of Innovation and Improvement serves as
the entrepreneurial arm of the Department of
Education, making strategic investments in
promising practices and widely disseminating their
results. It will also lead the movement
for greater
parental options and information in education, and
will free other offices to focus on their core missions.