Alabama: The National School Choice Week nationwide whistle stop tour is making a trip to Alabama (AL.com).
Arizona: The state superintendent of public instruction urges the state supreme court to uphold the constitutionality of education savings accounts (Arizona Daily Sun). District officials in Prescott worry a new charter school will take away its best and brightest students (Daily Courier).
California: Parents in Los Angeles are getting more active in education issues, thanks to the help of civil rights groups, and they are helping decide school budgets and make leadership choices (LA Times).
Connecticut: The Stamford area school district is looking to build a new magnet school to solve overcrowding issues (Stamford Advocate).
Delaware: The Indian River School District will be initiating an advertising campaign aimed at retaining students in the district (Sussex Countian).
Florida: Julie Young, the CEO of Florida Virtual School, says FLVS does not “flunk” in its job to teach kids (Tallahassee Democrat). Miami-area magnet schools don’t provide a lot of information about themselves, frustrating some parents looking at school choices (Miami Herald). Florida’s budget is going to get sandwiched by a growing number of students and retirees unless the education system can improve enough to produce a more productive workforce (redefinED). The city of West Palm Beach is looking to start and run its own charter school to attract residents but one journalist doesn’t think that is fair (Palm Beach Post). The Hillsborough County School District recommends an initial “no vote” on a proposed charter school at MacDill Air Force Basel but the school board will make the final call this week (redefinED, redefinED, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times). Reporting news from across the pond can be tough, but the British newspaper reports “right wing” groups plan to push for vouchers in Florida (the state already has tuition tax-credits and vouchers for pre-kindergarten and special needs kids (The Guardian).
Georgia: The superintendent in Fulton County endorses public school choice for parents (Heartlander).
Indiana: Gov. Mike Pence wants pre-k vouchers (Indianapolis Star).
Illinois: Leaders in Kane County say the school choice provisions of NCLB don’t make sense no district schools make AYP (Kane County Chronicle).
Kentucky: School choice critics are eager to bully but not debate (The Tribune). A survey finds that a majority of residents are undecided about charter schools but like many of the features like school choice and more independence (WFPL).
Louisiana: The Goldwater Institute files an appeal on behalf of the state’s voucher program (The Washington Free Beacon).
Maine: Four new groups apply to open charter schools but the two groups planning virtual schools have been rejected twice before (Bangor Daily, Maine Sunday Telegram).
Minnesota: A critic points to New Orleans and suggests school choice isn’t a long-term solution (The Daily Planet).
Missouri: A school choice critic says public school choice doesn’t improve public schools (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
New York: Manhattan-area private schools are allowing special needs students to enroll as parents seek tuition payments from the school district (Wall Street Journal). Mayor Bill de Blasio promised he would stop allowing charter schools to share empty building space with district schools and this month no charter school co-locations were approved (Capital New York). The Times takes a look at charter schools who currently pay rent for their school buildings and how that impacts their budgets (New York Times).
North Carolina: The state superintendent of public instruction says nothing prevents schools accepting vouchers from opening “schools of terror (WECT). The private school, which made headlines for a student policy which would prohibit openly gay students from enrolling, says it has no plans to accept voucher students or state money (Star News Online).
Pennsylvania: Rep. Margo Davidson, a school choice and voucher supporter, is being touted as a possible Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor (The Inquirer). A new senate bill will cut funding to virtual schools, which already receive just 81 percent of public per-pupil funds, by 5 percent and reallocate the money to traditional public schools. (Americans for Tax Reform). Charter school opponents like the idea of cutting virtual school funding but don’t want to increase charter authorization from 5 years to 10, nor do they want the state to look into improving funding equity between charter and district schools (The Inquirer).
South Carolina: A virtual school holds a talent show (WLTX). Students and families benefit from school choice (Island Packet).
Tennessee: Low-performing public schools in Nashville are losing students to magnet and charter schools (Nashville Scene). Limiting charter schools to solve the Nashville Metro School District’s budget problems is a bad idea (The Tennessean). Do students leave Nashville district charter schools before testing begins? Researchers at Vanderbilt University will find out (The Tennessean).
Texas: Charter schools in the state are improving in quality and with 100,000 students on waiting lists statewide, they are are earning the respect of state legislators as well (Star Telegram).
Washington: Charter school opponents are trying to prevent charter schools from opening across the state, but they appear “unhinged” according to this newspaper editorial board (The News Tribune).
Nation: National School Choice Week is hosting national “whistle stop” events from Newark to San Francisco (KTAR, Business Wire). Why and how parents choose new schools (Education Next). Zip codes should not determine the quality of your school (Huffington Post). Enrollment in for-profit charter schools rises by 50,000 students in one year (Education Week). If Obamacare doesn’t violate freedom of religion, why would school vouchers (redefinED)? With some new computer programs, parents can apply for multiple schools at once and be assigned by random lottery (Education Week). School boards are running into conflicting responsibilities as regulators and competitors of choice schools (redefinED). PISA results show school choice is working; PISA results school choice isn’t working; PISA results seem to show anything the pundits want (Wilkes Barre Times-Leader, Jay P Greene). Centralized control, not Common Core, is the problem with education (Washington Times). Charter schools prove to be an enduring education reform (Education Next).
World: Free schools (publicly funded private schools) are the right idea, says U.K. education secretary Michael Gove (Express & Star). Sweden, where students can choose to attend government or private schools free of charge, saw its PISA scores drop and the usual suspects blame school choice (The Guardian, The Local). A school choice critic down under says choice leads to inequality (Sydney Morning Herald). Another international school choice critic draws broad conclusions from one single test about a complex and highly differentiated systems of K-12 education (The Guardian).
