The 1990 launch of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program marked the dawn of the modern school voucher movement. It was the product of an unlikely collaboration. Conservative acolytes of free-market economist Milton Friedman in the administration of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson aligned with progressive black Democrats like the late state Rep. Polly[Read More…]
Tag: desegregation
Florida schools roundup: Special needs, desegregation, church-state and more
Special needs. WTSP profiles a boy from Ethiopia who benefitted from a special needs scholarship in Florida. Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer the Gardiner Scholarship program. Desegregation. Plaintiffs demanding integration and equity in Pinellas County schools are unsatisfied with improved test scores at troubled elementary[Read More…]
When parents have a choice of schools, what do they prefer?
If all parents had their choice of schools, schools would grow less segregated over time, and people would abandon low-performing in favor of higher-performing ones. That’s the implication of a new study of parent preferences in the nation’s capital, where 22,000 students entered lotteries for more than 200 public schools — nearly half[Read More…]
School integration matters, but so do other reforms
As communities across the country rekindle decades-old battles over racial integration, education reform advocate Chris Stewart argues that other efforts to improve schools and create new options for parents shouldn’t take a back seat. Most black parents are realists. There is no evidence that perfect integration will occur soon, but our kids need[Read More…]
This week in school choice: A better way
This week, we received important reminders about the two oldest forms of parental school choice: The housing market … : [W]hen asked at a news conference in November why the city did not at least do what it could to redraw attendance lines, [New York Mayor Bill de Blasio] defended the[Read More…]
Integration, equity and school choice
In a rich new article in the New York Times Magazine, which may hold lessons for the school choice movement, Nikole Hannah-Jones recounts her decision to enroll her daughter in a segregated public school in New York City. She also describes her own experience, growing up nearly three decades after Brown[Read More…]
Mom challenges Missouri desegregation rules, alleging discrimination
A parent is challenging a desegregation order that was supposed to help integrate public schools in St. Louis, Mo., but is now barring her child from attending a school of his choice. La’Shieka White alleges discrimination against her son, who is black, and wants to enroll in a public school which, ironically, is predominantly[Read More…]
Private schools, choice, and racial exclusion
The population of students attending private schools has gotten whiter nationwide, even as the proportion of Black and Hispanic students in public schools has grown, according to a new report. But the report overlooks some compelling evidence that private school choice programs, particularly those aimed at low-income families, could mitigate[Read More…]