School vouchers and tax credit scholarships may not always improve participants’ standardized test performance, but a growing crop of studies suggest they are cost-effective when it comes to encouraging economically disadvantaged students to pursue a college education. Two recent Urban Institute studies, one on Milwaukee and the other on Washington,[Read More…]
Tag: D.C. vouchers
‘Year of educational choice’ ends on a down note for D.C. vouchers; what now?
The year of educational choice — which saw a record number of scholarship programs created or expanded in states across the country — came to a disappointing end at the federal level. Last week, Congress approved an omnibus spending plan that leaves a closely watched voucher program in the nation’s capital in limbo. This is far from a fatal blow[Read More…]
Teacher union opposition to D.C. vouchers unfair to the facts
The Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program is up for re-authorization in Congress. The voucher program has been shown to help disadvantaged students. But that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from trotting out their usual talking points. The night before the House voted 240-191 to reauthorize the program, Washington Teachers Union President Emily[Read More…]
Another Democratic lawmaker for school choice – Algie Howell, podcastED
Algie Howell is a former public school teacher, a former school board member and a Democratic lawmaker from Virginia. He also happens to be a firm supporter of parental school choice – so much so, in fact, that he used a provocative term last week – “brainwashed” – to describe[Read More…]
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President Obama should ‘get out of the way’ of D.C. voucher program
Kevin Chavous, a senior advisor to the American Federation for Children, criticizes President Obama in this recent Washington Post op-ed for not supporting the Washington D.C. voucher program and suggests a new approach for Term 2: I have long been a supporter of the president, and I continue to applaud many of[Read More…]
In Obama’s Term 2, a historic opportunity to expand parental school choice
President Obama has often called on us to be true to who we are as a people, as Americans. And in his second term, he has the opportunity to transform the education system back to our core – to where parents are primarily in charge of children’s educations. We have[Read More…]
School choice push revs up in Arkansas
One of Arkansas’s top school choice advocates, Laurie Lee, is on the road this month in her home state, visiting 28 cities in four weeks to spread the gospel of education reform. Arkansas ranked No. 5 among states in an Education Week report that gave it a B- overall. The[Read More…]
Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Kumbaya
Liberal Democrat Michelle Rhee and conservative Republican Jeb Bush shared a stage at the RNC in Tampa today and suggested that despite the hyper partisanship on so many issues, there is increasingly common ground when it comes to education reform. “This is a chance for a Switzerland,” said Bush, the[Read More…]