Sparking the evolution of education choice
All over the country, new private school choice programs are being created, more of the last remaining holdout states are beginning to allow charter schools, and a growing number of students are enrolling in educational options chosen by their parents. But, on our latest podcast, Jim Blew, who served as the[Read More…]
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Advanced Placement. More Pasco students are taking AP classes, and their performance is improving. Gradebook. Advocacy. StudentsFirst is winding down in a total of five states. Education Week. Acceleration. State Sen. John Legg talks up the benefits of collegiate high schools in the Lakeland Ledger. Testing. A Collier County teacher is fired, accused of[Read More…]
Michelle Rhee’s education reform group is scaling back its Florida operations, saying it wants to focus on policy battles elsewhere. StudentsFirst will maintain a nominal presence in the state, but it’s pulling out most of its policy and outreach resources. Some of its leadership positions in the state, including state[Read More…]
Florida’s Urban Leagues and education advocates are teaming up for a series of town halls later this month that will include discussions on the growing number of learning options available to minorities. The attention to education is nothing new and has always been a cornerstone of the Urban League’s mission to help minorities[Read More…]
From the beginning, when my children were barely out of pull-ups, I was a school-choice mom. Living in a rural area, surrounded by cows and NASCAR flags, I insisted on driving 45 minutes one way, every day, so my kids could attend a Jewish preschool. Despite massive headaches caused by[Read More…]
I am grateful to Rebecca Sibilia and Sean Gill for their thoughtful response to my blog post encouraging Michelle Rhee to replace her failing schools model of school choice with an approach based on equal opportunity. Rebecca and Sean defended StudentsFirst’s support of the failing schools model on pragmatic grounds.[Read More…]
Editor’s note: This guest post from StudentsFirst is authored by Vice President of Fiscal Strategy Rebecca Sibilia and fiscal policy analyst Sean Gill. We appreciate Doug Tuthill’s recent redefinED post challenging StudentsFirst to consider supporting voucher or tax-credit scholarship programs that aren’t just limited to what he describes as the “failing schools”[Read More…]
In recent weeks, Tony Bennett, Florida’s new education commissioner, and Michelle Rhee, the CEO of StudentsFirst, offered conflicting rationales for supporting school choice. Bennett told participants at a National School Choice Week event in Tampa, Fla., that school choice is a necessary condition for equal opportunity and social justice. Low-income[Read More…]
