Where do the Candidates Stand on THIS Form of School Choice?

With the election just around the corner—and school choice playing a big role in the debates—President Obama and Governor Romney have similar views when it comes to school choice (except, that is, on vouchers).

We’d like to know where the candidates stand on another form of school choice that often does not get the coverage charter schools, voucher programs, and scholarship tax credit programs do: Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

ESAs—the newest form of school choice—currently exist only in Arizona, which created the program in 2011 and significantly expanded it in 2012.  Under the program, students with disabilities, children attending failing public schools, children who are in or have been in foster care, and children of military personnel are eligible to receive their education funding dollars in accounts.  These dollars can be used on a variety of educational tools including, tuition to public or private schools, textbooks, educational therapies, and college courses.

On Forbes.com, James Marshall Crotty argues the free market view in support of these programs.  But ESAs are not the new frontier of school choice because of free market ideals, but rather because these programs give parents real choice in personalizing their children’s education.

Arizona State Senator, Rick Murphy, who sponsored the 2012 legislation that expanded Arizona’s program said, “ESAs…give parents the flexibility to fill in their children’s learning gaps with specialized services, like tutoring or online courses.  There’s not any other tool that allows parents to do that.”

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

Detroit Parents Want Educational Options; When Will the City Catch Up?

Nearly 80 percent of parents in Detroit would choose an educational option other than their child’s assigned public school, according to a survey by The Detroit News and the Thompson Foundation. 

The survey also found an even split among support for different types of educational options:  20.8 percent favored Detroit Public Schools; 23.8 percent for charter schools; 23.5 percent for private schools, and 17.6 percent preferred schools outside Detroit.

Only one in five Detroit residents believes that their child's assigned public school is the best educational setting for that child. Despite not having the full slate of educational options available to families—Michigan has no publicly-funded private school choice options—parents are already choosing alternatives to Detroit’s schools.

It’s time for real educational choice in Michigan, and especially Detroit, where the following statistics are the sad reality for the struggling city (all statistics courtesy the New Detroit coalition):

• Only 3 percent of Detroit’s 4th graders and 4 percent of its 8th graders meet national math standards(source: www.excellentschoolsdetroit.org).
• 2010 Michigan on-time high school graduation for African American students was 58%, compared to Latinos (64%), Native Americans (66%), whites (82%), Asians (88%) and 76% overall.
• Only 2 percent of Detroit’s high school students are prepared for college-level math and 11 percent for college-level reading (source: www.excellentschoolsdetroit.org).
• African-American males in Michigan have the lowest high school graduation rate in the country at 33%. White males in the state gradate at a rate of 74% (source: www.umich.edu).
• The achievement gap continues to persist as evidenced by the 2009 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test – see chart (source: www.michigan.gov/mde).
• Nationally in 2008, the status dropout rate for white persons was 4.8% compared to 9.9% for black and 18.3% for Hispanic persons. “Status dropout rate” is defined as the percentage of 16- through 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and have not earned a high school credential (source: nces.ed.gov).

The survey polled 800 Detroit residents by landlines and cellphones from September 22-25 by Glengariff Group Inc.  The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Want to learn more about public polling on educational choice in cities and states across the country? Download our comprehensive polling report, released last month.

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

Florida Set Goals to Provide More Educational Options for Families

The Florida State Board has adopted a new strategic plan for education in the Sunshine State. And it's predicated upon more educational options.

The strategic plan includes the goal of 17 percent of students attending charter schools or using private school choice to attend private schools. This would include more than 300 new charter schools opening in six years to serve nearly 360,000 students. The Florida Tax Credit Program would aim to serve more than 100,000 students; the John M. McKay Scholarship to serve more than 31,000.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, 9 percent of students in Florida today attend charter schools or receive a scholarship through the Florida Tax Credit Program or McKay Scholarship.

Today, the tax credit program serves 49,000 students and has a waiting list of 9,000 students.  More than 61,000 students are on waiting lists for charter schools.

"This board favors more school choice for individual kids," said board member John Padget.

This is certainly an ambitious goal, and we’d love to see more states set high goals of providing educational options to disadvantaged children.  Florida continues to be the educational choice model for the country.

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

D.C. Mayor Supports Scholarship Program for College Students; When Will He Support D.C. Vouchers?

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray, along with the D.C. Council, created a $1.59 million scholarship program to help low-income District residents attend colleges in Washington, D.C.  The program, called the Mayor’s Scholars Fund, provides $10,000 for students attending private universities, $7,000 for students attending the University of the District of Columbia, and $3,000 for students attending community colleges.

The 185 students who received news of their scholarships over the summer were surely elated to get significant financial assistance for attending the city’s universities—both public and private.  But others, including the Mark Lerner writing in The Washington Times, are remarking on the contradiction of the Mayor’s support for the Mayor’s Scholars Fund, but strong opposition to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Earlier this year, President Obama zeroed out funding forthe D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in his 2013 budget and Gray also made clear that parental choice is no longer a priority of his administration.  In his proposal, he breached a promise made to the charter school community by failing to close the funding disparity between charter schools and traditional D.C. public schools, as required by law.

The Administration—and Mayor Gray both opposes the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and follows the Administration’s lead on the program—argue that funding should only go to public schools, despite the fact that as many as 17,000 students are on waiting lists to attend charter schools and the voucher program continues to be oversubscribed.  The question is, why is it ok for college students to receive government money to attend private universities, but children in poor-performing K-12 schools can’t receive a scholarship to attend private schools?

As Mark Lerner writes, you’ll have to ask Mayor Gray.  To us, it doesn’t make any sense.

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

The New News on Dyslexia: Steven Spielberg, New fonts, and HBO

Last month, Steven Spielberg opened up about being diagnosed as dyslexic five years ago.  While he was diagnosed as an adult, Spielberg speaks about the struggles of learning to read and being bullied in school.  What helped him overcome his struggles?  Making movies and his parents’ dedication to ensuring that he received the education that best fit his needs.  Every night, Spielberg says in his first interview about his dyslexia, his parents worked with him and reviewed his homework. 

And while James Redford, not Steven Spielberg, is the director of a new HBO documentary on dyslexia called The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia, which premieres on Monday, October 29, both have a lot to say on the subject matter.  The film profiles students and famous faces including Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, all of whom have thrived despite—and sometimes in part because of—their dyslexia.

Today, we still don’t know a lot about dyslexia.  But we do know that people with dyslexia have normal and healthy brains that work differently. There are more tools nowadays to help students struggling to learn to read, including a new font called OpenDyslexic, which weighs letters down to make them easier to read.  And of course, there is a private school voucher program in Mississippi that began this school yearfor students with Dyslexia.

The Presidential Debate and Choice: A Brief Appearance

Just a few days after we urged the Commission on Presidential Debates to pose questions to the candidates about education, the topic made a surprising but much-needed appearance during last night’s presidential debate.  In a segment on the role of government, moderator Jim Lehrer asked President Obama and Governor Romney about the federal government’s responsibility to improve public education.

Both candidates pointed to the success of the President’s Race to the Top initiative, as well as their support for teachers.  While there were some jabs—it was a presidential debate, after all—the two candidates also differed on the substance of their education stances.

Romney called for more educational options:

My own view, by the way, is I've added to that. I happen to believe, I want the kids that are getting federal dollars from IDEA or Title I— these are disabled kids or poor kids or lower-income kids, rather, I want them to be able to go to the school of their choice.

So all federal funds, instead of going to the — to the state or to the school district, I'd have go, if you will, follow the child and let the parent and the child decide where to send their student.

The former Massachusetts governor went on to say:

The right answer for government is say, How do we make the private sector become more efficient and more effective? How do we get schools to be more competitive? Let's grade them. I propose we grade our schools so parents know which schools are succeeding and failing, so they can take their child to a — to a school that he's being more successful.

I don't want to cut our commitment to education. I wanted to make it more effective and efficient. And by the way, I've had that experience. I don't just talk about it. I've been there. Massachusetts schools are ranked number one in the nation. This is not because I didn't have commitment to education. It's because I care about education for all of our kids.

If You Could Pose One Question...

...to either of this year's presidential candidates, what would it be?

We here at School Choice Now! have thought of that ourselves recently, which is why we reached out to folks from President Obama and Governor Romney's campaigns to find out what they think about educational choice. The respective campaign responses (or lack thereof) may or may not surprise you, but either way, it gives you insight into what both candidates think about educational choice, as well as what we'd ask if we had a say in this year's presidential debates.

We even sent our proposed questions, along with an explanation of why this issue is so important to our country's future, to the Commission on Presidential Debates as well as the debate moderators.

Take a look at our letters to them, to each of the campaigns, as well as the responses, by clicking here.

And be sure to watch the first debate this Wednesday, October 3 at 9 p.m. EST! It takes place in Denver, CO, and will be moderated by PBS NewsHour host Jim Lehrer. The topic is domestic policy, so who knows...maybe an education question or two will make it in!

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MAG