Vol. 1 No. 10

The Kentucky Education Digest is a collection of ideas focused on four general themes:

1. Basic school choice information
2. Parent testimonials
3. Best practices from other states
4. 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.

• School Choice Information
• Parent Testimonials
• Best Practices From Other States
• Objections to School Choice

Past Failures, Future Success

What can be done about the multitude of failing public schools where bad test scores, violence and inept teachers are an everyday occurrence? After exhausting all traditional options, school administrators are more open than ever to turning failing public schools into charter schools.

Charter schools are public schools with a high degree of independence from existing rules and regulations. A policy of turning failing traditional public schools into charter schools does have a track record of success.

For example, Thomas Edison Elementary School in San Francisco was the prime example of a poor performing school during the 1990s. Edison’s test scores plummeted even as surrounding schools improved their performance. Students were constantly wandering the school’s hallways, fighting or cutting classes.

Faced with no other known options, Superintendent Bill Rojas contracted out management of Thomas Edison to Edison Schools Inc., a private for-profit company. The school has since made remarkable progress.

Before management was taken over by Edison Inc., Stanley Schianker, an outside evaluator, called the school “educationally bankrupt” and said that this was “the most dysfunctional elementary school that I have seen in my 35 years as an educator.” After Edison Inc. took over, Schianker visited the school again and noted its significant improvement.

“Parents appear happy with the school’s turnaround,” he said. “After all, they must feel a sense of jubilation to have their children in a safe school rather than in a chaotic environment where real danger was ever present.”

Unfortunately the option available Superintendent Rojas that led to Thomas Edison’s transformation does not even exist in Kentucky, which is one of only 10 states without the option of charter schools.

Kentucky school administrators should be allowed to turn failing traditional public schools into charter schools – at least when all other options fail.

Sources:

“What are they, how they’re run, where does the money come from,” Cincinnati Enquirer

“Threatened by Success” by Joanne Jacobs, Reason Foundation

Home-schooling Parents: All Families Deserve a Choice

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 Tim and Kim Waggoner, who home school their two children, Tabitha and Gabriel.

As parents who have home schooled for 12 years, we have a multitude of experiences to support our strong conviction that all Kentuckians deserve school choice.

For one thing, the individual attention given to our children continues to pay off in the advancement of their skills in reading, language arts and social studies. Our 16-year-old daughter Tabitha runs her own Web site and has goals of being a published author. The site includes portions of a new book – her third work of fiction – that Tabitha, who aspires to study in London, is writing.

Some might say that these are unrealistic goals for a teenager, but we believe it is totally foolish to put limits on a child’s goals. We also believe it is unwise to oppose school choice for all Kentucky parents.

School choice offers the promise of expanding the horizons of thousands of Kentucky youngsters as public schools are forced to change their thinking in order to compete with private programs and home-schooling parents.

Because of the flexibility of home schooling, we were able to continue with Tabitha’s schedule even when we had to spend a great deal of time at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for one of eight surgeries performed on our 8-year-old son Gabriel, who was born with spina bifida. Now the storm has lifted and Gabriel has shown tremendous improvement to the point that he leads a full life, including participating in basketball, baseball, 4-H, spelling and geography bees.

Since we have the choice of schooling Gabriel at home, we can make sure he has the social, medical, physical, moral and psychological support he so desperately needs.

Expanding school choice is important. We believe all Kentucky families deserve the opportunity to choose the path that best fits their needs while providing their children with a quality education and brighter future.

Parents interested in contributing their story can e-mail it to jwaters@bipps.org.

Ohio Creates Scholarships, Expands Voucher Opportunities

His poll numbers may be low, but Ohio Gov. Robert Taft is pushing ahead with his school-choice agenda. Taft recently signed into law a new school-choice program that provides students in failing schools with scholarships to escape mediocrity.

He also expanded two existing voucher programs. Clint Bolick, president of the Alliance for School Choice, says Taft’s actions mean Ohio now has the nation’s largest voucher program.

But the most important aspect of Ohio's new legislation appears to be the statewide scholarship program, which applies to students enrolled in schools that have been in “academic emergency” for at least three consecutive years.

Education Week reported in its July 13 issue that 117 of Ohio 3,917 public schools have been in emergency for two years. Beginning in fiscal year 2007, up to 14,000 students could be offered scholarships worth $4,250 to $5,000.

The new legislation also expands Cleveland's school-voucher program during fiscal year 2007. Not only is the amount of vouchers increasing – from $3,000 to $3,450 – but they are now being offered to students in grades 11 and 12 instead of the previous policy, which limited eligibility to K-10 children.

In addition, the new legislation beefs up the Autism Scholarship Program by increasing the amount each student can receive from $15,000 to $20,000. It also removes the cap on the number of autistic student who can receive this scholarship.

Students enrolled in the voucher programs also will now be required to take the same standardized test as children in Ohio’s public schools to compare performance.

Ohio Gov. Taft is making good decisions that will ultimately improve public schools in his state. Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher should consider making similar bold moves to help improve our state’s public schools.

Who knows? School choice could raise both governors’ miserably low poll numbers and prove once again that good policy is even better politics.

Sources:

“Lessons from Maine Education Vouchers for Students since 1873” by Frank Heller, Cato Institute

“Ohio creates one of the nation's largest voucher programs” by Kate McGreevy, Heartland Institute

School Choice is Not a Sign of the Apocalypse

It’s not unusual to find teacher unions demonizing school choice. They often propagandize and spout off fire-and-brimstone sermons about the evils of school choice.

Forrest Stone’s column on the National Education Association's (NEA’s) Web site warns readers that privatization will wreck public schools. The columnist says that school choice does not jive with the “concept of democracy.”

Perhaps Stone should study the history of our great country. Great men who loom large in our history had no public-school education. Luminaries such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt received private education or were self-educated yet rose to the highest office in the land.

In the past, when public schools were under the control of local government, they served children well as parents were involved in determining academic and disciplinary policies. However, state and federal bureaucracies now clamp down on public schools, leaving parents with little say in how their children’s schools are run.

Parents, not bureaucracies, should have control of public education. School choice, which hands control back to parents, is working in other states and is needed in Kentucky.

Just as some people thought that the end of the world was coming at the turn of the millennium, so an increasing number of Kentuckians now realize that competition will result in revitalizing – not destroying – our public schools.

Sources:

“School Choice vs. Privatization” by Forrest Stone, National Education Association

For more info on NEA objections to school choice read: The Worm in the Apple by Peter Brimelow.