Success of D.C. OSP Subject of Wall Street Journal Editorial

Last week, numbers were released showing that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is helping even more students in our nation's capital graduate from high school and go on to pursue higher education. The success of the D.C. OSP program was the subject of a Wall Street Journal editorial this weekend, which called on President Obama to consider supporting the program:

VIDEO: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools CEO Talks Educational Options with WSJ

Check out this video with our friend Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, speaking with The Wall Street Journal about charter schools and the fight to bring more educational options to students in Washington State and Georgia.

Voters in Georgia, already home to two private school choice programs, will vote next month to amend the state constitution to bring back a key charter authorizing board. 

Watch the video below:



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

The Wall Street Journal Calls out Louisiana Teachers Unions for Bullying

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal mirrored our argument that teachers unions in Louisiana are flat-out bullying schools in a letter sent to private schools planning to participate in the statewide voucher program set to begin in the fall:

“[T]he unions have already lost several court bids to delay the voucher program until the lawsuit plays out. Hence, the bullying.”

In ‘Whatever Means Necessary,’ the editorial board rightly points out that not only do vouchers work, but there is overwhelming demand in the Bayou State:

Demand for vouchers has been overwhelming: There were 10,300 applications for 5,600 slots. Despite claims to the contrary by school-choice opponents, low-income parents can and do act rationally when it comes to the education of their children.

[…]

The unions claim that vouchers don't benefit students, but we know from school-choice programs in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere that voucher recipients attend safer schools and enjoy higher graduation rates than their peers in public schools.

Most poignant is the real reason that unions support that status quo and oppose vouchers, according to The Wall Street Journal:

The real reason that unions oppose vouchers has nothing to do with the impact on students and everything to do with the impact on teachers unions. The Louisiana Association of Educators doesn't want students taught by nonunion teachers—even if that means suing in court to make it illegal for a kid in a failing school to attend another school where he might learn something.

We must stop bullying and we must put our children first when it comes to education policy—and the voucher program does just that.


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

In Education Reform Debate, A Tale of Two Media Stories

Many folks in the Washington Beltway woke this morning to a front-page story in Politico giving President Obama a first-term grade on a host of different education initiatives, while also comparing his performance to some of the proposals and recent assertions made by Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

It's interesting in the common ground it finds between the two presidential candidates, but it's conspicuous in what it leaves out -- any discussion of the treatment of school vouchers or other choice measures by either candidate.

And that's not just because that's a place where there's a real difference in each man's approach, but also because expansive school choice legislation has been a part of legislative agendas to a great extent over the last year.

In addition to the seven new private school choice programs last year, two additional programs this year, and the large number of expansions of current programs over the past 17 months, the movement has demanded a great deal of ink in both small and mainstream publications throughout the country.

So why would it be left off the list of education items in today's Politico piece? That's not a question we're able to answer, but not surprisingly, this weekend also featured a stark example of how many in the media are still committed to telling the full story of the role vouchers and scholarship tax credits are playing in the broader education reform narrative.

The Wall Street Journal, which famously referred to 2011 as "The Year of School Choice" midway through last year, this weekend profiled the profound effect voucher legislation is having on Catholic school enrollment and the performance of the students in those institutions.

Editorial Boards Endorse Education Reform in the Form of School Choice

As journalists report on education reform initiatives across the country—the political battles, implementation of new programs, and results—the other side of newspapers are sounding strong support for school choice programs.  In both left-leaning and right-leaning papers, editorial boards are endorsing these programs.

Today, The Chicago Tribune published an editorial praising Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s education reform package recently signed into law, which expanded the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program statewide. 

In “Momentum for School Choice,” the Tribune Editorial Board writes:

The Bayou State is part of a "Top this!" competition among many states to open public schools to competition. Indiana has set up an expansive voucher program that covers students in families that have incomes below $61,000 a year. Wisconsin has expanded school choice programs in Milwaukee and Racine. Ohio will give tuition vouchers to as many as 60,000 students by 2013.

And Illinois? Left in the dust.

A bill that would have offered private school tuition support to as many as 30,000 Chicago kids came close to passing a couple of years ago. The latest version is languishing in the Senate assignments committee.

And that’s not the first time the Tribune Editorial Board advocated vouchers.  In July 2011, the editorial board wrote:

Major school reforms are unspooling in as many as a dozen states, including Illinois. These laws bring the promise of a transformation just as dramatic as — forgive us — anything that Decepticons could manage. (Ask your kids.)

It starts with giving parents more options about where their children can go to school.

The American Federation for Children, a Washington D.C.-based school choice advocacy group, dubs 2011 "The year of school choice."

But Chicago isn't the only place where newspapers are taking notice of the importance of voucher programs.
  

Editorial Boards say "YES" to D.C. Scholarship Program

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and the controversy of President Obama zeroing out funding for the program in his FY2013 budget has sparked strong support for the program.  Supporters on the hill sent a flurry of letters to the White House and U.S. Department of Education, and now a series of editorials are supporting school choice in the District.


Here’s what is being said everywhere from The Washington Post to The Wall Street Journal:

Who will rescue the D.C. voucher program this time?

The Washington Post

April 10, 2012

The administration’s action — which includes a bizarre provision prohibiting students who are unsuccessful in the lottery that allocates spaces in the program from reapplying the following year — would effectively place an arbitrary limit on the number of children able to enjoy the program’s benefits. Why cap the number at the 1,615 students currently enrolled when the program has accommodated larger numbers (1,903 in 2007-08, for example)? Does the administration really want to send the message — much like the one delivered in 2009 when Democrats tried to kill the vouchers — that there is not much of a future for the program?

Surely, it shouldn’t be among the president’s priorities to single out for attack a tiny federal program that not only works — in the judgment of federal evaluators — but also enjoys bipartisan support. If it is, we trust that Mr. Boehner would step in, as he did last year, to save a program that D.C.’s poorest families value for their children.

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Why is Mayor Gray jeopardizing aid for school choice in the District?

The Washington Post

April 13, 2012

Here, in the District, we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of providing quality educational options, through innovative charter schools and our highly successful, federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, through which more than 1,600 low-income children attend quality private schools. But all of that is being threatened by Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D).

The release of Mr. Gray’s 2013 budget proposal makes clear that parental choice is no longer a priority of his administration. In the proposal, he breaches a promise made to charter school supporters by not closing the funding disparity between charter schools and traditional D.C. public schools.

But it doesn’t stop there.