What’s the Buzz in Education?

With the 2012-13 school year well under way across the country, it seems that everyone—from Hollywood with the new hit movie Won’t Back Down to President Obama and Governor Romney in the race for the White House—is talking education reform.

So the Schools of Thought blog over at CNN summed up what people are saying about education reform.  So what are the top buzzwords in education reform?  Well the list would not be complete without educational options:

School choice – The different educational options available to parents and students and the extent to which they can take advantage of these options.  School choice is not a new term, but one that will continue to drive the education conversation this school year, especially around election time. It’s a concept that is politically popular, though some opponents question the fairness of vouchers and some point out mixed reviews on charter schools and student achievement.  For most students, their school is determined by their address.  School choice advocates prefer that parents, not ZIP codes, determine what school their children will attend. Among the current educational options available in different districts are magnet schools, charter schools, private schools (with vouchers in some places), open enrollment (where students can attend any school within a district) and homeschooling.  As a result of school choice legislation in some states, some parents are enrolling their children in online classes, while others are opting for “blended learning” – a combination of online and classroom instruction.

We’re glad to see school choice make the five buzzwords along with common core standards, flipped classes, gamification, and massive open online course.  But we’d like to point out the research that shows that vouchers not only help disadvantaged children, but have strong educational attainment rates.

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

The Story the Media Fails to Report: School Choice is a Republican Issue—and a Democratic One, Too

We’ve all heard the misconceptions in media reports about school choice, which we've chronicled in recent weeks.  But the media has it wrong, as Ron Matus points out in yesterday’s The Herald Tribune.

School choice is an issue that is growing more bipartisan everyday—something that fails to penetrate in many of the popular conversations about the issue.  Matus writes that all-too-often, the media writes of school choice support from fringe groups and only the support of lawmakers from a single political party.

The media does not report, however, that the Florida Scholarship Tax Credit has the support of nearly half of Democrats.  Also often not reported, Senator Lieberman stands with Speaker Boehner to protect the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (which also has the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein, Representative Daniel Lipinksi, and former Mayors Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty).  Or, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and a host of Democratic Legislators support New Jersey implementing a scholarship tax credit.  Or that in Louisiana, Governor Jindal signed legislation expanding the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program into law after 45 Democrats in the House and nearly half in the Senate voted for the legislation.

Matus notes that support of school choice is broad.  Many come to support school choice for different reasons from social justice to the free market.  Diversity is good.  And in the end, everyone in support of school choice is really in support of educating children.

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.