bobby jindal Archives - NextSteps: Step Up For Students

Alabama: The Rev. H.K. Matthews, a civil rights icon now living in Alabama, says school choice is an extension of the civil rights movement (AI.com).

Colorado: The Douglas County School District offers private school vouchers for students but some residents, policymakers and journalists can't see anything but conspiracy theories (Our Lone Tree News). Fifteen new charter schools open statewide for the 2013-14 school year (The Gazette).

Connecticut: State Superintendent of Schools William McKersie wants public school choice and more digital learning for students (Greenwich Post).

Florida: Education leaders urge the governor to overhaul the school grading system again (which also applies to charter schools) (Tampa Bay Times). Florida Virtual School is facing hard times as program revenue drops 20 percent (Education Week). Charter schools are under scrutiny from the Department of Education after a ban on charging additional fees and requiring volunteer hours from parents (Tampa Bay Times).

Louisiana: The U.S. Department of Justice files suit to block the state's new school choice program, arguing it violates court ordered desegregation (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Advocate). The Black Alliance for Educational Options and Gov. Bobby Jindal both say the scholarship program provides a vehicle for low-income students to escape failing schools and that the Justice Department should drop the lawsuit (Education Week, Huffington Post, Weekly Standard). The Washington Post editorial board calls the DOJ lawsuit "appalling" (Washington Post). "Course choice" is underway in Louisiana (Education Week).

Louisiana: Supreme Court rules that the funding method for the state's expanded voucher program is unconstitutional (The Advocate). Gov. Bobby Jindal calls the ruling a victory because it didn't dissolve the overall voucher program (The Times-Picayune). More from the Washington Post and Education Week.

North Carolina: The Senate approves a bill that creates a charter school oversight board (Associated Press). Another bill aims to provide funding for school innovation programs that link schools and districts with businesses, community colleges and universities (News & Observer). A low-performing charter school pays its top administrator $187,000 a year and his wife, $120,000 (WCNC). Researcher finds charter schools are more racially segregated than public schools (WCNC).

Washington, D.C.: Demand for charter school seats seems to be highest for early-childhood programs and for schools rated high-performing (Washington Post). Education Chancellor Kaya Henderson introduces a new hybrid school that calls for a charter school to run a traditional school (Washington Post).

Oklahoma: Congressman Tom Cole introduces legislation to allow homeschool families a tax deduction for certain expenses (Associated Press).

South Carolina: The state receives 18 charter school applications for the 2014-15 school year (The State).

Florida: Private schools that accept tax credit scholarships look to improve parent engagement (redefinED). Digital learning bill calls for study of course-choice options (redefinED). Legislators approve bill that allows online learning companies better access to public funding (Miami Herald). (more…)

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…)

Washington: The new Charter School Commission is attracting candidates from across the state and beyond, including Liz Finne, a lawyer and director of the Center for Education Reform at the Washington Policy Center. The governor and other leaders expect to choose nine volunteers by March 6 (Associated Press). A coalition of educators and community groups filed a legal challenge that questions the constitutionality of Washington's new charter schools law (Associated Press). More from Education Week.

Colorado: With more than 80,000 students enrolled in 190 charter schools, charter leaders try to clear up misconceptions about the school choice option (Reporter-Herald). Douglas County's Choice Scholarship Program does not violate the state Constitution, rules an appeals court. The outcome could have wide-ranging implications for whether vouchers can be used statewide (Associated Press).

Alabama: Legislators approve tax credit scholarships for students attending failing public schools (Associated Press). More about the "legislative bombshell'' that Republicans called historic and Democrats said was a sleazy "bait and switch,'' at AL.com. And the site offers a primer on the Alabama Accountability Act.

Idaho: Khan Academy will provide math, physics and history classes in 47 public, private and charter schools this fall, making Idaho the nation's first proving ground for statewide implementation of the free online educational content and teaching model (Associated Press).

Michigan: A report measuring charter school performance statewide calls the Eastern Michigan University-authorized schools the second worst system in the state. EMU says the report doesn't take into account that the schools serve some of the state's toughest communities (Ann Arbor.com)

Editor's note: "Blog stars" is our occasional roundup of thoughtful stuff from other ed blogs and sometimes a newspaper or two.

From a Shreveport Times op-ed: Nearly all of us have had an experience where we were stuck in a class in which no matter how many times the teacher explained a concept, we just couldn't grasp it. Our friends around us may have understood, but it just didn't make sense to us. The class whisked along, we fell further behind, and the frustration mounted. What if we had had the chance to take the class online, at our own pace, with concepts explained multiple ways until we grasped it?

Thanks to Act 2, a law that Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law in the spring of 2012, a student attending one of the state's lowest performing schools — those with a grade of C, D, or F — now has the right and the funding to take courses from any of the 45 state-approved high-quality course providers, so long as the student takes at least one course in her "home" district school. Students at schools graded an A or B will also have the right to take any online course that their local school does not offer, thereby expanding a student's course options, and a district could also decide to allow a student to take any online course through the program. ...

As every parent knows, every child has different learning needs at different times. If we hope to have all children succeed in school and life, then we need a system that can personalize for their different needs. While the world has changed, however, our schools have not. Instead we have an education system that mandates the amount of time students spend in class but does not expect each child to master her learning. The result is that students don't receive the support they need to master each subject before they move on to the next one. This creates gaps in every child's learning — gaps that haunt them later in their schooling. Full op-ed here.

From Jay Mathews' Class Struggle blog: Twelve years ago, I stumbled across a story that seemed too good to be true. A Catholic high school in Chicago ensured its financial survival by having students help pay their tuition by working one day a week in clerical jobs at downtown offices.

This was a new idea in U.S. secondary education. New ideas are not necessarily a good thing, because they often fail. But the creator of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School was an educational missionary named John P. Foley who had spent much of his life helping poor people in Latin America. I was not going to dump on an idea from a man like that without seeing how it worked out.

More than 90 percent of the students at the original Cristo Rey school were from low-income families. Few had been subjected to the pressures of big-city offices. But they received proper training for their clerical assignments. As the experiment proceeded, they realized the writing, reading and math skills they were learning in school were relevant to their new jobs — and their work experience would help them find jobs to pay their way through college. Full column here.

From Thomas L. Friedman at the New York Times: LORD knows there’s a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education. (more…)

Florida: Incoming Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett talks about the idea of voucher students being required to take the same standardized tests as their public school peers (Tampa Bay Times' Gradebook blog).

Texas: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sees expanded school choice as part of a legislative agenda that aims to make Texas the most conservative state in the country (Associated Press). The pending fight over vouchers highlights a difference over the best way to fund schools (Dallas Morning News).

Tennessee: A possible school voucher program will be a top issue for Gov. Bill Haslam and state lawmakers next year (The Tennessean).

New Hampshire: The state's new tax credit scholarship program will again be the subject of debate - and potential legislative action - next year (New Hampshire Public Radio.)

Massachusetts: A new Pioneer Institute report opens a debate over the value of school choice options, specifically tax credit scholarships and education savings accounts, for Jewish day schools (Masslive.com)

Washington D.C.: Fewer than half of the city's charter schools employ nurses (Associated Press).

Delaware: Three charter schools delay opening next year, citing start-up costs and problems securing locations (Delaware Online).

Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair, co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

A district judge ruled Friday that Louisiana's statewide voucher program is unconstitutional because of the mechanism it uses to send public funds to private entities, prompting groans from school choice supporters, cheers from teachers unions and promises of an appeal from Gov. Bobby Jindal.

"Today is really significant," said Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, according to Reuters. "What the governor was doing was unprecedented and unconstitutional under Louisiana law."

The reaction from Jindal: "Today's ruling is wrong headed and a travesty for parents across Louisiana who want nothing more than for their children to have an equal opportunity at receiving a great education," he said in a statement reported by the New Orleans Times Picayune. "That opportunity is a chance that every child deserves and we will continue the fight to give it to them."

Here is a transcript of Jeb Bush's speech at the RNC tonight, according to prepared remarks. (He deviated from the script at the beginning to address this issue.)

This election is about the future of this nation. We can shape that future with what we do here, with what we do November 6.

That starts with a strong economy, a smart energy policy, lower deficits, and a president who puts America's workers and job-creators first.

But to have a great future - a secure future - a future that is equal to our potential as a nation, we need to do something else.

We must make sure that our children and grandchildren are ready for the world we are shaping today.

As a candidate and Governor, I visited over 400 schools. I saw children read their first sentences. Solve their first long-division problems. Explore the miracles of chemistry and physics.

There are many reasons to believe America's future is bright, but also reasons to worry.

Of 34 advanced nations in the world, American students rank 17th in science, 25th in math.

China and India produce eight times more engineering students each year than the United States.

We say that every child in America has an equal opportunity. Tell that to a kid in whose classroom learning isn't respected.

Tell that to a parent stuck in a school where there is no leadership. Tell that to a young, talented teacher who just got laid off because she didn't have tenure.

The sad truth is that equality of opportunity doesn't exist in many of our schools. We give some kids a chance, but not all.

That failure is the great moral and economic issue of our time. And it's hurting all of America.

New Hampshire: Charter schools in the state are expanding rapidly. (Concord Monitor)