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The Kentucky Education Digest is a collection of ideas focused on five general themes:
We invite your input and feedback because we know that healthy debate is the mechanism that produces the ideas that ultimately work.
As the list of states – and even countries – that offer school choice grows, Kentucky still does not provide an exit strategy for children in failing schools.
State policymakers who remain wary of the effects of educational liberty should keep in mind that many countries are reaping the benefits of competition, including better academic performances by existing public schools.
A new study published by the Cato Institute, University of Newcastle professors James Tooley and Pauline Dixon found that roughly two-thirds of all students in the rural villages and urban slums they visited in India, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya shun free government schools. Instead, most of these families choose to send their children to private schools, even though it often means paying a fee.
In three poverty-stricken government districts in Lagos State, Nigeria, the professors found an estimated 75 percent of the school children enrolled in private schools.
Tooley and Dixon also discovered that raw scores from student-achievement tests “show considerably higher achievement” in private schools when compared to the outcome in government schools.
In Hyderbad, India’s fifth-largest city, means scores in mathematics were 23 percentage points higher in private schools recognized by the government than in government-run schools. The gap with English scores was even greater.
And they achieved these goals even though their teachers usually are paid about half – sometimes even less – than what their counterparts in government schools earn.
The astounding success – and remarkable cost-benefit – of competition in some of the world’s poorest communities should make passing a school-choice law a no-brainer for Kentucky.
Sources:
“Private Education is Good for the Poor: A Study of Private Schools Serving the Poor in Low-Income Countries,” by James Tooley and Pauline Dixon, Cato Institute, Dec. 7, 2005.
“What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries,” Edited by David Salisbury and James Tooley, Cato Institute, 2005.
Each month, the Kentucky Alliance Digest features a look at school choice from a parent’s perspective. This month’s testimony is from Bowling Green residents Jim and Tracy Waters
As Kentucky parents, we have woefully few choices when it comes to providing a quality education for our children. Before Arianna, the oldest of our three daughters, was ready to begin school, we considered all available options.
Since we were not independently wealthy, we could not follow the path of well-to-do families and enroll her in an expensive private school. Yet we want Arianna to receive a quality education that allows her to have the kind of firm foundation she needs to succeed in life and face challenges that await her generation.
As we considered our options, we were amazed at how few choices we actually have in Kentucky. Without charter schools, vouchers, tax credits or parent-controlled open-enrollment agreements, we could either put our daughter in the public school located in the neighborhood where we lived, or teach her at home.
Since we as parents feel responsible for our children’s future and want to give them the best possible chance for success, we chose to accept the challenge of home schooling.
It was a good decision. Our daughter learns in a safe environment – absent the bullying, violence and drug activity that goes on in too many public schools. And she has a strong curriculum that neither is dominated by historical revisionists nor teaches values contrary to our family’s beliefs.
Who knows? If Kentucky had offered quality choices, then perhaps we would have found a public or charter school that met our standards for Arianna, or that would for her two younger sisters, who begin their schooling in a few years.
At the very least, parents like us who choose not to send our children to public schools should receive a tax deduction for the money we spend on purchasing curriculum and other home-schooling items. Allowing such deductions likely would encourage more parents in our state to choose the home-schooling path and give their children a better education.
Parents interested in contributing their story can e-mail it to jwaters@bipps.org.
Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program remains an undeniable success and one of the most thriving school-choice policies in the nation.
Since 1990, the program has allowed low-income families to send their children to private schools. Enrollment in the program has skyrocketed since the voucher plan's inception. The number of students enrolled in the program grew from 340 during the 1990-91 school year to more than 14,800 during the current school year.
The fact that the enrollment cap is 15,000 students, combined with the continuing interest in the program – as indicated by the number of families signing up each year, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle supports legislation that would raise the cap by 7,500 students. Passing the bill would create school-voucher eligibility for 22,500 students.
Critics of school choice must find it frustrating to find legitimate ways to attack Milwaukee’s program. After all, parents are signing up their children in droves; public schools are improving their educational performance and graduation rates, private schools are thriving and the city’s urban neighborhoods are experiencing renewal.
What legitimate criticism can stand in light of such accomplishments?
In fact, because of school-choice success stories like Milwaukee’s policy, opponents often want to keep parents in other cities and states from even getting a taste of educational freedom. Once families begin to enjoy the benefits of choice, they will never want to go back to an old one-size-fits-all system.
That’s likely what would happen with Louisville families, whose children attend the poorly performing Jefferson County Public Schools and who would likely benefit from a voucher policy much the way that Milwaukee’s families benefit from having such choices.
And, if what has happened in Milwaukee is any indication, school choice in Kentucky would also bring great improvement to our state’s schools.
Sources:
“War against vouchers,” by Andrew Coulson, Cato Institute, Jan. 10, 2006
“Wisconsin school-choice program expanded,” by Sam Lucero, Catholic News Service, Feb. 22, 2006.
The most common concern I hear expressed about home schooling from well-meaning but unknowledgeable people concerns whether children taught at home are socially well-adapted.
I have been researching home-schooling since before my oldest child was born, and can report unequivocally the socialization issue as a positive reason to home school.
In fact, if there is a socialization problem at all in a home school, it’s only because kids have so many activities from which to choose.
An abundance of learning opportunities – everything from science clubs to 4-H to choir to language-immersion camps – ensure that home-schooled kids are exposed to plenty of opportunities to grow both academically and socially.
Home-schooling families also often form groups to take field trips and hold academic contests. Home schooling actually offers more time for children to make friends in activities they choose and enjoy.
Traditional public schools enforce limits on student interaction for large parts of the day. And the socialization they receive often involves primarily negative peer pressure and groupthink. This peer-only segregation is an artificial situation and does not reflect the social structure of the world beyond the educational institution.
In today’s peer-influenced society, children are often over-exposed to adult themes before being properly equipped to handle them. Home schooling helps parents fulfill their responsibility as the gatekeeper of their children’s experiences while their moral structure is still developing.
A recent study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute found that adults who were home schooled as youngsters are well-adjusted socially and involved in their communities. Other credible studies have shown that adults who were home-schooled also score high in self-concept tests, which also indicate a positive social adaptability.
Of course, parents who actually do the hard, but satisfying, work of home schooling their children already knew that!
Florence resident Stephanie Graham, a home-schooling parent, wrote this article.
Sources:
“Home Schooling and Socialization of Children” by Nola Kortner Aiex, ERIC Digest, 1994.
“Common Objections to Homeschooling” by John Holt, The Natural Child Project, 1997.
“Beyond graduation,” Home School Legal Defense Association.
Like King Kong savagely stomping through the streets of Gotham, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is on a rampage against school choice.
Just as Kong uses his brute force to pillage entire blocks of the city, Clinton huffs and puffs that giving conscientious parents a voucher to ensure their children receive a quality education would result in the creation of schools that espouse the violence of the KKK or Muslim extremists.
New York’s junior senator recently tried to claim that school choice, particularly vouchers, fail in other countries. She must be getting her information from the latest teachers-union tribal chiefs to hail allegiance to her presidential bid.
A cursory glance of how school choice is succeeding in most industrialized countries where students often outperform American children in critical academic areas reveals that Clinton’s statements are not based on concrete facts but rather a primal obsession with obtaining the backing of teachers unions. A voluminous amount of easily accessible research clearly shows that school choice is succeeding in rich and poor countries -- from Sweden to Nigeria – and among all cultures and socioeconomic groups.
Interestingly, the Clintons did not allow the supposed sins of school choice to keep them from removing their daughter from the failing public schools in Washington, D.C. and place her in a posh private school.
The senator also ignores the fact that school choice is no longer a partisan issue. Rather, it’s getting bipartisan support, including the backing of others who are not only Democrats but serve with Clinton in the U.S. Senate. Sens. Robert Byrd, Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman all voted to approve D.C.’s voucher plan in 2004.
Just like King Kong’s rampages through Harlem brought about his demise, Clinton’s savage attack on the idea of parents having options to provide better futures for their children could prove to be her political downfall.
Sources:
“Clinton raps vouchers” by Glenn Thrush, Newsday.com, Feb. 22, 2006.
“Unschooled Hillary” by Dan Lips, National Review Online, Feb. 28, 2006.
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