India's School Choice Movement

India is pushing forward with a school choice campaign. They have noticed an increase in the quality of private schools and a decrease in the quality of the state run public schools. The article, "A Ticket to Better Education" sounds awfully familiar to the state of the education system in the U.S. Interesting...the U.S. is not the only place that seems to pump money into education with no positive upswing.
An excerpt from the Business.com article feels like something I could write about here! I suppose it is reassuring to know that people all around the world are thinking choice is needed.

You advocate school vouchers as part of the campaign. What are the advantages of these vouchers?
We started out four years ago trying to figure out how much money the government spends per child in government schools. No official figures were available. When we did our research, even while taking the official enrolment figures at face value (which are generally fudged), we were surprised by our discovery. The school education system seemed like a black hole where money was being heavily pumped, with no tangible results. With the amount that the government spends per child in cities like Delhi [Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,700] the child could be sent to extremely good schools. This reinforced our faith in the project. "Fund students, not schools," became our slogan to the government.

The vouchers provide not just choice to students but also equality of opportunity. With the vouchers, even poor parents have a choice about which school their children go to. If the parent does not like the school, she can take her child along with the voucher to another school. Under the voucher system, money follows the student. Schools — government or private — to get the voucher, have to compete and satisfy the poor parent. Parents decide and parents choose, not government bureaucracies.

Given their performance-based payment system, vouchers encourage competition among schools, thereby helping to improve the quality of education. We are convinced that the voucher system is the best way to improve the quality of education and bring about greater accountability in the public education system.

Court Says Public Schools to Pay for Private

When a child with special needs is not getting what they require and deserve at their public school, what options do they have? Homeschooling, private school, or simply live with it. However, for many families, these are not easy options to work with. Now the courts are seeing this problem and giving these parents some light at the end of their tunnel.

Court says public must pay for private special ed

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has ruled that parents of special education students who opt for private school instead of trying the public system cannot be barred from seeking public reimbursement for their tuition costs.

The court ruled 6-3 Monday in favor of a teenage boy from Oregon whose parents sought to force their local public school district to pay the $5,200 a month it cost to send their son to a private school.

Federal law calls for school districts to reimburse students or their families for education costs when public schools do not have services that address or fulfill the students' needs. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the nation's special education students are entitled to a "free and appropriate public education."

To read the rest of this AP Story, click here

School Choice Rally: Sends Strong Mesage

The strong support for school choice programs is proven in Washington DC. The school choice rally last week was successful and productive. What else can be done to make the message any clearer? Parents and students demand educational options!

Caroline Hoxby To Speak at SLU

Caroline Hoxby, a charter school scholar, will be speaking tonight at St. Louis University through a joint SLU and Show Me Institute speaker's series. She researched charter students in Chicago and New York, comparing their achievement levels to those of district students. Charter schools give great advantages to many students, especially disadvantaged students.
From the St. Louis Post 'The Grade': (click to read entire article)

Charter schools in Chicago, New York better serving disadvantaged students, Hoxby says

By David Hunn

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Stanford University Professor Caroline Hoxby is speaking at St. Louis University tonight about her research comparing charter school students to district students in New York and Chicago.

Her talk will focus on what she’s learned from her study of over 100 schools — the biggest study of charter school affects so far, she says — and how charters are teaching educators what works for disadvantaged students in American cities.

The Grade interviewed her last week for a preview of her speech. The following answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Special Child, Special Needs

Here is my story. I am a mother of three wonderful, beautiful, and amazing children. The middle child, Tryce, age 8, has high functioning autism. As any parent of an autistic child knows, they do have different needs than children without autism. For that matter, each one of my children has different needs than the others. Unfortunately, my autistic child needs just a little extra help than my others.
Here is where my ultimate frustration lies: all three children attend the same elementary school, ranging from grades 1st-6th. While not my top pick, is where the invisible lines designate my child's attendance. Tryce is not succeeding here, like I know he can, while my other two are doing wonderfully. Here are my options...move across those district lines and uproot my kids from their school so Tryce can attend a school better fit for him, or stay there and watch while Tryce falls through the cracks. We cannot afford the $30,000 a year for the special needs private school so we are left making this decision.
What kind of education program do we have in this state that will not allow me to choose another school for my child? Does the state government really think they know what is best for my baby? All I ask is for parents be given some choices when it comes to their child's education.

Charter Schools Can Help Open Doors

Charter schools are a great way of expanding options for our children. While I wish there were more options available for special needs children, at least charter schools can give those children more options to look into other than the traditional public schools that may not service their needs.
However, currently, only Kansas City and St. Louis are allowed to have charter schools.

"School Choice is a Social Justice Issue"

Life is filled with many issues that are viewed as simply one sided partisan political issues. School choice is, without a doubt, one issue that needs to be removed from this. Opponents will keep trying to throw their negative spin on it but the school choice movement needs to be stronger than the opponents' negativity.

Several states have passed legislation that allow for a variety of school choice paths. One way to allow for choice is through tax credits. These programs, whether they support special needs children or lower income students, give those children a chance at getting a better education. Howard Fuller, who I have seen speak once, is an incredibly passionate man. He beliefs all children deserve a better education and will stop at nothing to keep the fight strong.

This opinion piece, from the ArizonaStarNet, demonstrates how a tax credit program can effectively help many students. Missouri has tried to get similar legislation passed, but unfortunately, the opponents have spread their negative propaganda and succeeded. The reality needs to seep through their messages...our children are depending on us.

School tax credits deserve more support
Tucson, Arizona Published: 12.02.2008
'School choice is the social-justice issue of the 21st century." The first time I heard these words was not from a politician, but from Howard Fuller, a pioneer in the school-choice movement. Fuller, now a professor at Marquette University, was addressing a small group of educators at Notre Dame this summer.
Fuller contends that school-choice programs enable lower-income students to opt out of poorly performing urban schools and enroll in better performing private schools. It is my experience that Fuller's contention is right on the money, and plays out every day in our Catholic schools.
'School choice is the social-justice issue of the 21st century." The first time I heard these words was not from a politician, but from Howard Fuller, a pioneer in the school-choice movement. Fuller, now a professor at Marquette University, was addressing a small group of educators at Notre Dame this summer.
Fuller contends that school-choice programs enable lower-income students to opt out of poorly performing urban schools and enroll in better performing private schools. It is my experience that Fuller's contention is right on the money, and plays out every day in our Catholic schools.

Shouldn't Children Take Presedence over Unions?

The school choice debate has been further fueled by the presidential race, the strong opposition to choice by president Elect Obama, and the inability to promote real change within the schools. Democrats claim to be strong supporters of public schools and the children they serve. While they may now have more power now to stimulate serious change, they are still servants to the unions. The teacher unions have millions of members, millions of dollars, and strong lobbying means. The Democrats thrive of this group's backing and support. The party serves to support the jobs and the adults running the show, but in doing so, removes the possibility of real change. There are, of course, people within the party, who are willing to show strong support for change; Democrats for Education Reform has been growing and publicly stood up against the unions. Now, we will wait in limbo to see what our new president will do.

The Wall Street Journal's Change Our Public Schools Need lay out what needs to be done within the Democratic party in order for schools to really have change:

Democrats also have to get serious about school choice. The unions oppose it because they don't want one student or one dollar to leave the regular public schools, where their members teach. So the Democrats have been timid and weak in putting choice to productive use -- even though their constituents are the ones trapped in deplorably bad urban schools, whose futures are being ruined, and who are desperate for new educational opportunities.
If children were their sole concern, Democrats would be the champions of school choice. They would help parents put their kids into whatever good schools are out there, including private schools. They would vastly increase the number of charter schools. They would see competition as healthy and necessary for the regular public schools, which should never be allowed to take kids and money for granted.

Public School Improving Because of Choices

The one debate always given by school choice opponents is that school choice will derail the public schools. I have always known that not to be true; but as we all know, some people will never change their minds. Interestingly enough, not every school choice piece is designed in the same manner. While some offer private school as an option, others do not. Additionally, some use private donations to fund the scholarships, as in the case with certain tax credits. Opponents will claim it would help the children who choose to change schools, but not the ones that stay. The argument from choice proponents is that when children have choices, they relocate and get better education, AND the failing schools will have no option but to compete for their students....they would have to improve.
According the the U.S. News, Education Section, the city of Baltimore is experiencing great improvements because of the school choices families are given:

A Turnaround for Baltimore Schools
November 18, 2008 04:15 PM ET Jessica Calefati Permanent Link Print
Enrollment in the Baltimore City Public Schools system has increased for the first time in nearly 40 years at a point when many urban school districts are struggling to compete with the allure of private and suburban schools.
Andres Alonso, the school system's chief executive officer, says Baltimore City has about 82,000 students enrolled this year, 750 students more than last year. Though Alonso will not know the exact number until his estimates are certified by the state a few weeks from now, he says he is certain of an increase, however big or small. He attributes reversing the regular, steady enrollment declines of 2,500 to 3,000 students a year to the growing variety of school choice options available to parents.
Since he arrived in 2007, Alonso has used community outreach as a tool to improve the Baltimore City schools and increase enrollment. He says he has personally attended more than 100 PTA and PTO meetings to seek feedback about the schools from the community. When parents told Alonso they supported independently operated public charter schools, he responded by opening 25 such campuses. When parents indicated they were unhappy with the city's middle and high school options, Alonso opened six new schools.
"We understand that the traditional school setting does not work for many students, which is why this celebratory mood signals so much," Alonso says. "Parents are voting with their feet and showing us they support the changes we've made with their children in mind."
Alonso publicly expressed his excitement about the city's increased public school enrollment by throwing a party at M&T Bank Stadium earlier this fall in celebration of the achievement. The nature of the enrollment declines in Baltimore had been so huge and so consistent that Alonso considers what's happening now a "monumental" success.
"With parents feeling more ownership of the city's schools, they will be more invested in what we have to offer," Alonso says. "That said, I know it's on us to provide attractive options that offer advantages for their children."

Economy Makes Life Even Harder for Some

The downturn in the economy can make any family or individual struggle. People are looking for ways to cut back spending, increase savings, and up their income. Sometimes it works and other times, it does not.
Families with autistic or other special needs' children are also facing hard times...possibly more than other people. Getting treatment and education should not be something added to those stresses, but unfortunately, it is. An article in the SeattlePi portrays the struggles one family is experiencing during this turbulent time. Their 6 year old son suffers from autism and the family has had to cut back on the expensive treatment he was receiving. Notes from his teacher showed multiple orange circles, indicating that their son was repeatedly acting out.
"I feel that Aaron is more affected by this than anyone in the family," Renee Ott said as she sat at her kitchen counter. "Why I cry at night is because of him."
What if...they could send their child to a specialized school instead of the school he currently attends? Perhaps, they wouldn't need all the extra treatments and could get everything in the school. Why shouldn't they have the option to send their child to a school, private or public, that could handle every need of the little boy?
Children from all walks of life, from all cities and states around the U.S. would benefit from programs like these. It would not only save the parents money, but it would also help the schools that are no doubtingly spending thousands on just a handful of children. The children could attend a school that can educate and treat effectively and efficiently.
With special needs children, comes many obstacles, why shouldn't they at least have one thing going smoothly?

Poor Families Deserve Choices Too

In lieu of my normal commentary, I am going to post this article. All children deserve great education, not just the few elite. This comes from Go San Angelo, written by Dan Lips, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
Poor families, not just elite, deserve school choice
Dan Lips Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama has joined a growing club of elected officials who oppose school vouchers for poor families while sending their own children to private school.
In the final presidential debate, the Illinois senator criticized Sen. John McCain's plan to award tuition scholarships to low-income families living in Washington, D.C. He was echoing the sentiment he expressed to the American Federation of Teachers this summer: "But what I do oppose is spending public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools, not throwing our hands up and walking away from them."
But Obama did walk away from public schools when the time came to enroll his own daughters. After serving on the board of a charity that gave tens of millions to public education, Obama decided that Chicago public schools weren't good enough for his daughters. He enrolled them in the private University of Chicago lab school, where elementary school tuition costs more than $18,000 per year.
No one should begrudge the senator trying to give his children the best education and opportunities possible. Avoiding the struggling Chicago public schools was a sensible decision. Illinois reports that 34 percent of Chicago students are scoring below state standards in reading. A recent independent report estimated that the city's high-school graduation rate was 52 percent.
But Obama should recognize the urgent need to give poor children - not just his own children - the opportunity to attend a private school. He should sympathize with the low-income families who care just as much about their children's future, but lack a senator's salary to send their children to private school.
To get a sense of just how many parents in his own hometown are desperate for school choice, Obama should consider the experience of the Children's Scholarship Fund.
In 1998, this non-profit organization announced that it would award 2,500 private school scholarships to disadvantaged kids in the Windy City. To be eligible, students had to be from families whose annual income was below $22,000 per year. Families also had to commit to a partial co-payment: $1,000, on average. Scholarships would be awarded for a four-year period, putting participating families on the hook for $4,000 in tuition payments.
In all, 59,186 children in Chicago - 26 percent of the eligible population - entered the lottery for scholarships. This means that some of the poorest families in the community were willing to commit $236 million out of their own pockets to get their children into private schools.
Obama is just the latest in a long line of politicians who speak passionately about the need to stay committed to public schools, while abandoning those same schools when it comes to their own families. In the 1990s, President Clinton vetoed legislation that would have given poor families in D.C. scholarships for private school, even though he had sent his daughter to the elite Sidwell Friends School. Vice President Al Gore also aggressively opposed vouchers during the 2000 campaign despite having sent his own children to private schools.
A recent survey of Congress found that 37 percent of representatives and 45 percent of senators had sent at least one child to private school. (Nationally, only about 10 percent of children attend private schools.) Yet many of the same members continue to oppose providing the same options for disadvantaged children.
These elected officials often try to demonstrate their support for improving public education by pledging to spend more tax dollars on more programs aimed at fixing schools. But these promises should be of little comfort to families who have no choice but to enroll their children in bad public schools today. Furthermore, years of rising school budgets have yielded little improvement in the nation's worst school districts.
After all, in Washington, D.C., the government spends $13,000 per student, yet half of its eighth grade students failed a national reading test. As Sen. McCain has proposed, disadvantaged children living in the District should be given the power to use their share of school funding to attend a safer and more effective school of their parents' choice.
Obama and many of his colleagues understand how important school choice is, at least when it comes to their own children. Do disadvantaged children deserve less?
Dan Lips is education analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank.

Taking a Stance Against the Status Quo!

Jennifer Friedrich, running for the 157th House District in Missouri, had the courage to step up to the plate and challenge the status quo. With school choice being such a heavily debated topic, I find it endearing she feels she can stand up. The teacher unions and other interest groups can be incredibly intimidating...but she is taking that chance.
Now, to be honest, I don't know much about her other views, but I will commend her stance on educational options.

Taken from Sunday's SouthEast Missourian:
"Education should be a free choice including home schooling. This is another example of taxation without representation. Centralized control has given us an educational system that ranks below most western and many third world countries. The choice belongs to the family and the local community, not a big brother nanny state. Vouchers or other systems should be put in place to help home-schoolers, as they consistently rank highest in quality and results."

When Will the Madness Stop?

When will people realize things need to change before anything will get better? When will they realize the schools are failing the children? It is hard to take a bold stance against something that hasn’t changed in so many years, it is hard to fight against school systems and administrators, and it is hard to stand apart.
Missouri is facing several important house and senate races. We need to pay attention to who is running and what they stand for. We also need to look at those people who attack people positions and look at their misguided reasoning.
The race between Republican Luann Ridgeway and Democrat Sandra Aust for the 17th senate seat sure is worth looking into.
This is taken from the Kansas City Star:
She talks in general about being for children and being for schools,” Aust said, “but that’s not her voting record.”
Ridgeway says she has never voted for school vouchers that would provide tax money to parents to pay for their children to attend private schools. But Aust says that’s misleading.
“She calls it tuition tax credits, but it’s all the same,” Aust said, adding that it takes taxpayer money away from public schools and shifts that money to religious and private schools. “We need to be lifting up our teachers and our schools, and making sure we’re doing everything we can to improve our schools.”
Aust says it is all the same, but it is not. Tuition tax credits do not take money away from the schools, additionally, there are several types of tax credits, it is impossible to lump them all together. The bill from last session would give tax credits to donors who give to scholarship granting organizations. The students would then use THAT money to choose their school. The original school does not lose money. Two scenarios here: Aust truly doesn’t understand the difference, or she does know the truth and is trying to use scare tactics. I bet I know which one it is...but either scenario is disturbing!
Ridgeway said she has sponsored a bill for tax credits to provide scholarships for low income students in failing schools to attend private schools. She believes the Kansas City School District is on the verge of failing. Urban school districts have asked for more money and more time, she said, while students attending them have gotten less than adequate education.
“We have to continue working on improving the system,” Ridgeway said.
We need to elect someone who can also promote change and fix the failing status quo!!!

Education in Missouri…Where Does it Stand?

Story from a Mother.
The job of motherhood is not one to be taken lightly. It requires sincere thoughtful attention, diligent effort, and tireless concern. A mother has to look out for her child and predict every possible issue. Unfortunately, that cannot always happen. Life does not always happen the way you think it will.
When I had my second child, I had the expectations of milestone achievements similar to my first. No doubted, every child is different, but you expect some similarities. But then reality hit me and my second was nothing like my first. Things weren’t quite so obvious at first, but as time went on, we knew something was very different. Then he got diagnosed with autism. While we were somewhat expecting that, it was still very hard to cope. Daily challenges are one thing, life challenges are another. We have both.
Now, looking into the education in Missouri beyond the preschool years, I am facing another crisis. My child is not ready to be mainstreamed yet, but the school says he is. I am his mother and I should have to right to decide his future, not some officials.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2007 found that 69 percent of Missouri 8th grade students were not ranked “proficient” in reading and 70 percent were not ranked “proficient” in Math. Yet, they think my child can be properly educated in this system. It seems fairly obvious even non-special education students are having a rough go. I should have the right to decide where my child spends his days, and if I did, I would chose the private school about 7 miles away, that can better educate my son.

Key Elements

Teaching children with special needs takes an extra talented teacher to know what the child needs. There are special steps in order to make sure the child is getting the education he/she needs, which can be hard to perfect in some situations. Unfortunately, not every public school can provide the child with that type of teacher. This is not to say that private schools can always provide that either. While it may be easy to know what needs to be done, it is harder to actually implement those plans.

According to Education.com, there are several key elements to effectively teaching special needs children:

• A teacher who sets high expectations for the child and who encourages peer interaction and mentoringas appropriate.
  
• Special and regular educators who collaborate in instruction and who have a sense of ownership in the process.
  
• Individualized instruction with decisions based on careful collection and analysis of data focused on measurablegoals and behaviors
  
• Special services are brought into the classroom to facilitate generalization and to prevent stigmatization
  
• A collaborative team approach -including regular and special educators, school administrators, supplemental school personnel, and parents or guardians -is employed to set goals and to evaluate progress of the IEP
  
• An assumption that all children can acquire skills if instruction is modified to help the child succeed
  
• Adapting the school environment by extending school hours or the school year and coordinating with home caregivers.
  
  When children are forced to attend schools (by geographical location or lack of funds to attend others) and not receiving the education they require, they are missing out on windows to their future. Education is the first step in life....from the day you are born, you are learning new things. If a child's brain is not encouraged to grow and grow correctly, it will stagnate and the child's life will forever suffer. Here the scenario changes...there is a private school down the road that has excellent special needs teachers...but the parents cannot afford it. Or the neighboring school district has the best special needs teachers around, but the family lives just outside the borders. Guess who is ultimately negatively impacted by this? The child! Now, imagine if the parents and the child had the choice...wouldn't that be nice?