MIAMI – Christopher Bermudez likes plants. Like, really likes plants. The thought of reviving a droopy sprig of mizuna inspired the 17-year-old to riff: “When you kind of have faith in the plants, and you keep taking care of it, and you see it spring back up to life, that’s[Read More…]
Tag: educational choice
From public school teacher to rebel for educational choice
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – First day of school. Pick-up time. As 375 giddy students clotted in The Foundation Academy courtyard, Nadia Hionides, the K-12 school’s founder and principal, made the rounds. She asked returning students how their summers went. She asked the new ones if they made new friends yet. One[Read More…]
Go & grind: School choice gives this principal a platform to inspire
MIAMI – Little Havana is in a hurry. Long before dawn bathes the palms in soft light, thousands of workers stream from neighborhoods where modest homes are tucked in tight as pastelitos in a Cuban bakery. Ignition. Traction. Acceleration. Past the store fronts with the proud Latin names. Past used[Read More…]
Customization is now arriving
Teaching customized to the developmental needs of each child has been the dream of K-12 educators for over a hundred years. When I was in graduate school in the 1970s, we talked continuously about the need to abandon the one-size-fits-all, assembly-line instruction that permeated public education. But we didn’t know[Read More…]
Parent: Education savings account gives us freedom, flexibility, hope
We thought redefinED readers would enjoy the following essay about Florida’s Personal Learning Scholarship Account by Tampa, Fla. parent Mary Kurnik. It originally appeared in the summer 2015 issue of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, and is re-published with the magazine’s permission. The PLSA is an education savings account (ESA) administered by[Read More…]
The end of “school choice”
The annual American Federation for Children conference is one of the country’s largest gatherings of school choice advocates. So it was notable, during the most recent conference in Orlando, that speakers regularly used the terms “parental choice” and “educational choice,” but not “school choice.” This shift in semantics reflects an[Read More…]
It’s opening day for new parental choice program in Florida
One parent told us it was a blessing. Another said it was like winning the lottery. Another said she and her son, an eighth-grader with autism, had “finally won.” Today marks the start of a new K-12 scholarship program in Florida and maybe even a new era in parental choice[Read More…]
Brickman: Course choice can modernize, customize education
Imagine if parents could pick and choose individual courses for their children, from an endless array of different providers, in the same way they now pick and choose other products online. Michael Brickman, the national policy analyst for the Fordham Institute, says that world may not too far in the[Read More…]