Arizona: A school board member in Gilbert proposes a district-wide voucher program (East Valley Tribune).
California: Charter schools now enroll 8.4 percent of the state's student population (Ed Source).
Colorado: Big bucks back education reformers in school board races (Denver Post, Daily Sentinel, Politico). Education reformers in Douglas County and Denver win re-election (Denver Post, Education Week, Our Colorado News). Voters turned down a tax increase that would have allowed non-profit charter schools to share in capital funds (New York Times). Could the Douglas County School Board move school choice mainstream (Daily Caller)?
D.C.: School choice is changing one life at a time (Daily Caller). D.C. charter school rankings have been released, showing 12 percent are low-performing with more than a third scoring as top performers (Washington Post).
Florida: Education reform and school choice may have played a role in Florida's continuing improvement on the NAEP test (redefinED, redefinED). Low-income children attending Florida's charter schools outperformed the statewide public school average for their peer group (Jaypgreene.com, Edfly). 10 lessons from Florida Virtual School (Education Week). Online courses with unlimited enrollment, called MOOCs (massive open online courses), are becoming popular in Florida (Tampa Bay Times). The state run Florida Virtual School is suing Florida Virtual Academy, arguing the similar name will confuse parents and students (WFTV).
Hawaii: An audit revealed the Department of Education was wasting millions on the food service program so the state told charter schools to find their own source to provide nutrition programs for low-income students (Huffington Post).
Kansas: The Friedman Foundation and Kansas Policy Institute testified before the state board of education on the need for school choice and education reform (Topeka Capital Journal). (more…)
The U.S. Department of Justice says it filed suit against the voucher program in Louisiana because it was concerned about potential resegregation in some school districts. But a look at the racial makeup of schools in one of those districts shows the absurdity of the department’s case.
The DOJ complaint highlights a few districts to show that in some cases, vouchers were causing more segregation. For example, the DOJ writes:
“In 2011-2012 Celilia (sic) Primary School in St. Martin Parish School District enrolled a student body that was 30.1 percent black, 16.4 percentage points lower than the black composition of St Martin Parish School District as a whole. In 2012-2013 Celilia (sic) lost six black students as a result of the voucher program, thereby increasing the difference between the school’s black student percentage from the district’s and reinforcing the school’s racial identity as a white school in a predominantly black school district.”
Jason Bedrick of the Cato Institute has done a good job showing the movement of black and white students in these districts, due to vouchers, changes the racial makeup about 1 percentage point. That is hardly a major change. Indeed, as Jason points out, six black students leaving with vouchers out of more than 200 black students probably won’t be noticed. However, this movement is in the opposite direction desired by the DOJ. The racial makeup is moving away from the district average.
Clearly a 1 percentage point change is where the department draws its line in the sand. So with that, I present to you the only graph you need to see regarding the DOJ suit. It shows the percentage of black students attending each of the St. Martin Parish elementary schools:
Alabama: 719 students transfer schools under the new school choice law, with 52 attending private schools (AL.com, Dothan Eagle).
California: AB 917 will make it even harder to convert a public school to a charter school. Currently the law requires half of all teachers to approve the conversion but the new bill would require half of all employees - regardless of whether they teach students - to approve the conversion (Fox and Hound Daily). California charter schools are turning to grants to stay afloat and afford capital expenses (Fresno Bee).
Indiana: The state attorney general issues an opinion which states special education voucher students attending private schools can continue to receive special needs services from local public schools (Courier Journal). A new report ranks Indiana No. 1 for education reform (Eagle Country Online). A faith-based alternative private school has been approved to accept voucher students, but only one student will apply for a voucher since the state already paid for the education of the other students (Chronicle-Tribune).
Louisiana: Some school choice students face an hour-long bus ride to school, but their parents say it's well worth it (The Advocate). The state files to delay the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against the fledgling voucher program (The Advocate, Times-Picayune).
Massachusetts: More than 40,000 students are on wait-lists for charter schools and the Boston Herald editorial staff weighs in, blaming the size of the wait-list on Democrats who caved to pressure from charter school opponents and created artificial barriers to enrollment and growth (Boston Herald). (more…)
