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Vol. 2 No. 1
The Kentucky Education Digest is a collection of ideas focused on five general themes:
- Basic school choice information
- Parent testimonials
- Best practices from other states
- Home schooling
- Objections to school choice that form the misguided arguments against more educational alternatives.
We invite your input and feedback because we know that healthy debate is the mechanism that produces the ideas that ultimately work.
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Swing the bat for school choice
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New Jersey’s parents may soon have more opportunities to choose which schools their children attend.
A bill being considered by the New Jersey legislature allows corporations to give school-choice scholarships in exchange for tax credits. The bill grants $360 million in tax credits for use in Camden, Newark, Orange and Trenton during a five-year period. It would allocate annual scholarships of $6,000 for elementary pupils and $9,000 for high-school students.
The proposal is endorsed by a diverse group of political, religious and social leaders, including representatives from the African-American and Catholic communities. One of the bill’s primary sponsors is a Democrat.
These leaders recognize what many parents have known for a long time: School choice allows parents more direct involvement with their children’s education and offers competition that forces poor-performing schools to either shape up or face being shut down by a mass exodus of students.
Parents in Camden have already started a school-choice scholarship program – the Camden Parent Challenge Fund – to benefit children from low-income homes, who often are forced to attend failing schools. The proposed tax-credit program could further strengthen the Challenge Fund and provide more opportunities for children – particularly those from urban areas – to receive a quality education.
Just like New Jersey’s Challenge Fund, Louisville’s School CHOICE Scholarships Inc. – a private school-choice program in Louisville – would benefit from legislation endorsing educational liberty in Kentucky.
Since 1998, 1,400 students in Jefferson County have been awarded scholarships by School CHOICE Scholarships. If Kentucky had an initiative similar to the one being considered in New Jersey, even more parents would have the financial means to provide their children with a quality education and a better life.
Kentucky’s own diverse group of political, religious and social leaders should step up to the plate and swing the bat for school choice in the commonwealth.
Sources:
In school-choice movement, one option is going private by Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press, Dec. 10, 2005
School-choice backers rally for bill's passage by Sarah Greenblatt, Home News Tribune, Dec. 6, 2005
Mother: Watching our children struggle ‘truly sad’
Each month, the Kentucky Alliance Digest features a look at school choice from a parent’s perspective. This month’s testimony is from Belfry resident Carolyn Lott.
As the single mother of three learning-disabled sons, I can attest to the need for school choice in Kentucky.
My oldest son Jacob, a recent high-school graduate, is a 19-year-old with a diploma who can’t read at a third-grade level or do mathematics at a second-grade level. It’s truly appalling that no better educational alternatives existed for him. It’s nearly impossible to get my plea for more choices and better alternatives – especially as a single mother in rural southeastern Kentucky – heard.
I would have taken advantage of quality alternatives to provide Jacob with a brighter future via a better education. It’s truly sad as we watch our children struggle. While the diagnoses for my sons are many, few opportunities exist for them to carve a brighter future for themselves.
The classrooms of most Kentucky public schools are not staffed with teachers who have adequate training to educate special-needs children. If our state allowed school choice, I could enroll my children in schools tailored to their unique learning requirements.
For years, I have written letters to politicians pleading for them to enact laws that strengthen the public-education system and allow for more choices, which would benefit those of us with special-needs children. Perhaps more than any other group, parents with learning-disabled children can testify to the ineffectiveness of the “one-size-fits-all” approach found at most public schools.
The problems created by a combination of a poor public-education system and a dearth of choices for parents will only continue and worsen. As parents, we understand it’s our responsibility to push for total accountability on the part of our local and state school boards.
We also recognize that no child should be left standing alone – especially in America, which has always guaranteed its children the promise of a free and appropriate education.
Parents interested in contributing their story can e-mail it to jwaters@bipps.org.
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Honesty is charter school’s best policy
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Despite a population comprised of students almost entirely poor, Hispanic and years behind their grade levels, Downtown College Prep (DCP), a charter high school in San Diego, has achieved amazing improvement and success.
Only 54 of the 102 students enrolled during DCP’s first school year (1999-2000) graduated on time and went on to college. While this may seem like a poor attrition rate, it was actually higher than the area’s city schools.
But DCP’s performance continues to improve to the point that it has become a model for other schools across the nation.
The California Academic Performance Index now ranks DCP in the top third of high schools statewide. More than 95 percent of current DCP students are on track to receive their high-school diplomas.
Columnist Joanne Jacobs, who wrote a book chronicling DCP’s story, attributes the school’s success to a strict traditional curriculum and an environment that offers special attention for its students. As a result, many DCP students previously considered to be lost causes complete high school and attend college.
Jacobs says the school’s policy of being honest with students also helps its performance.
“No time is spent inflating self-esteem,” she writes. “ … Any sign of progress is commended, but nobody gets ‘student of the month’ just for being a nice kid. After awhile, it’s obvious that students who do the work do improve.”
Without a charter-school law, DCP’s success cannot be duplicated in Kentucky’s urban communities, where too many students attend failing schools.
Lawmakers should approve policies that allow the commonwealth’s children to avoid being forced into one-size-fits-all schools that don’t always implement the best educational practices.
Instead, Kentucky’s students – especially low-income kids from the inner city – should have a choice. They should be able to attend schools that accommodate their needs and offer them a way out of failure and poverty.
Sources:
“A charter school success story is inspiring” by Linda Seebach, Scripps Howard News Service, Dec. 23, 2005
“F No Es Fabuloso?” Beating the Scholastic Odds” by Joanne Jacobs, Tech Central Station Dec. 6, 2005.
Academic community extols home-schoolers’ performance
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Michael Viscardi’s story is remarkable.
Viscardi, a 16-year-old home-schooled student, recently won the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology – no small feat considering he was competing against 100,000 other teens for a $100,000 scholarship.
Not all home-schooled students will achieve this level of academic success. Yet Viscardi’s accomplishments point out that children educated at home are making their presence known in academic circles.
A 1998 study of more than 20,000 home-schooled students’ test scores – the largest study of its kind at the time – found that home schoolers perform significantly higher than their counterparts in public and private schools in all subjects and at every grade level when compared to the national average.
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) Web site at www.hslda.org offers many examples of how home schoolers have also taken top honors in well-known robotics competitions, national essay contests as well as science competitions, geography and spelling bees.
Such achievements have not escaped the eyes of top college and university recruiters.
The HSLDA reports that an admissions officer at Harvard University commended most of their home-schooled students for doing “very well.” Also, an administrator at Ball State University (BSU) reported that 80 percent of first-time home-schooled freshman were admitted to one of the school’s upper levels of admission, with 67 percent being admitted to the highest level, known as the Honors College.
“They tend to be very involved socially on campus, especially in groups relating to their academic major and in student religious groups,” said the BSU administrator.
More than ever, our society is taking note of the level of achievement by home schoolers. Some are amazing, some are smaller in scale.
But then, achievements by those who don’t win big competitions are not considered small if you ask their teachers, who also happen to be their parents.
Florence resident Stephanie Graham, a home-schooling parent, wrote this article.
Sources:
“16-Year-Old Updates 19th Century Mathematical Law,” ABC Person of the Week
“Home Schooling Works – Pass it on!” by Michael Farris and Lawrence M. Rudner, Home School Legal Defense Association
“Home Schooled Students Excel in College” by Christopher J. Klicka, Home School Legal Defense Association
Are teachers’ unions really about the kids?
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Find a story in the newspaper about objections to school choice, and you will probably also find a quote from an official employed by a teachers’ union protesting about how offering parents educational liberty will wreck public education.
The labor-representative’s mantra also will usually include other outlandish claims, including assurances that unions are “for the kids.” Parents and citizens concerned about our nation’s public-education system should not believe the propaganda imparted by union officials.
Time after time, words and actions have revealed that teachers' unions are not “for the kids.”
For example, a Washington D.C. grand jury found that the former president of the local American Federation of Teachers had embezzled nearly $5 million in teachers’-union dues. The teacher allegedly used the money to live a high-class lifestyle, purchasing such items as new Cadillac automobiles, mink coats and other high-roller items.
Her actions certainly could not be construed as being “for the kids.”
Teachers’ unions also are the cause of adverse incentives in public schools, including guaranteeing job security in exchange for union dues. This makes it nearly impossible for an administrator to fire an incompetent teacher.
Representatives of teachers’ unions offer cynical portrayals in public in their dedicated effort to dim the future prospects of school choice.
These labor bosses know are fully aware that many poorly performing teachers among their constituency may lose their jobs if competition is allowed among schools. So, it’s not really about the kids – is it? It appears that teachers’ unions exist primarily to protect their members – even to the point of hurting the chances of students in the classroom.
Competition strikes directly at the heart of the current rule that bases most public-school teachers’ salaries on seniority rather than performance.
This policy may be near and dear to the hearts of labor bosses. However, it does little to help increase the future prospects for public-school students who are increasingly falling behind their competitors in the global marketplace.
Sources:
“Audit Says Union Lost $5 Million To Theft” by Justin Blum, The Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2003.
“The Harsh Truth about Public Schools,” a book by Bruce N. Short, Chalcedon Foundation, 2004.
