CALIFORNIA YANKEE

School Choice group fights for Florida's private school tax credit scholarship program

The Save Our Scholarships Coalition has launched a public relations campaign against the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Florida's tax credit scholarship program. 

The state's teacher and education workers union, the Florida Education Association -- the largest union in the state and the Florida School Board Association, among others, brought a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the tax credit scholarship program. 

The "save our scholarships" campaign has released a powerful video entitled "Drop the Lawsuit," which ran as a commercial during last night's Florida gubernatorial debate. 

In the video, Denisha Merriweather, a college graduate who urges watchers to save tax credit scholarship program that gives families like hers "more options to find a place that works best for their child's education." Merriweather says the lawsuit "just wrong" and points out that the more than 68,000 children now using the scholarships, come from "mainly minority from low-income families." 

The video ends with her asking for help:

 "Please don't kick them out. Drop the suit and save Florida's tax credit scholarship."

The video was produced by the  Black Alliance for Educational Options, a Washington, D.C. based group that advocates for more school choice and is part of the Save Our Scholarships Coalition.

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Franklin School Choice Fellow

 

New report evaluates performance of public charter schools

 

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has released a report that evaluates the performance of public charter schools in Washington, D.C. and 25 states. "The Health of the Public Charter School Movement: A State-By-State Analysis," looks at the progression and performance public charter school movement. 

The report is the first to provide an assessment specifically focused on each state’s public charter school movement. It ranks the strength of each locale using 15 indicators in three categories: growth, or the overall number of schools available and students served; innovation, defined as the “use of various innovative practices,” such as an extended school year; and quality, measured in additional days of learning for both reading and math. 

Washington, D.C. and Louisiana came in first and second, respectively, earning high marks for offering multiple charter school options for families, serving high numbers of economically disadvantaged youth, and showing strong student achievement gains. Nevertheless, the report suggests that both states ought to make efforts to secure equitable operational funding.

At the other end of the spectrum, Oregon and Nevada occupied the bottom two spots because they serve a low percentage of the state’s population of public school children, and their charters aren’t producing gains in reading and math. For these low performers, the report suggests changes in law that would allow for more in-school autonomy and more accountability.

To be included in the report, states had to participate in the 2013 CREDO study and have at least 1 percent of public school students served by charters.

Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, hopes the Health of the Public Charter School Movement report will serve as a "yearly benchmark of progress in the charter school movement" and that "policymakers will view it as a valuable annual assessment of their state" and consider the policy recommendations to help strengthen their charter schools.

According to Rees the report will assist parents and school choice advocates:  

"The report will help parents by serving as a meaningful indicator of how well charter schools are performing in their state. Most importantly, we believe parents will be interested in the quality metrics each year. As parents decide where to send their children to school, they may also be interested in looking at the growth of their public charter school movements and how innovative their schools are.

Charter school advocates should see the new report as an opportunity to have an honest conversation about the charter school movement in their state. Where there are strengths or weaknesses, this report highlights them, paving the way for future policy discussions and advocacy around growing and strengthening their charter school movement."

The report will also help legislators Rees says, "By taking a look at the ways public charter schools are effectively serving students and identifying opportunities for growth, legislators will be able to design and implement policies that address the needs of the families, students, and charter school communities in their states."

The Alliance acknowledges that improvement can still be made in identifying and collecting comprehensive data on public charter schools. But, in the meantime, the new report offers clarity to a movement that is too frequently plagued by misunderstanding.

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Franklin School Choice Fellow

School choice the hot nonpartisan midterm election issue

 Photo credit: j neuberger via photopin cc

Less than a month until November's midterm election and school choice has become a hot issue. We see it in states such as Arizona  Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, to name a few. 

Kevin Chavous, Executive Counsel for the American Federation for Children, says that school choice is not a partisan issue -- it is increasingly an issue that is bringing Democrats and Republicans together. Chavous is quoted in the Washington Times saying the momentum lies with those in favor of school choice programs:

"Everywhere we have these programs, there’s really the demand to grow them. It is a movement that is not going anywhere. It’s going to continue to grow."

The Times also points out that former state Sen. Ann Duplessis, who helped kill an early voucher bill that came before the state legislature nearly a decade ago, now thinks the tide has shifted since Hurricane Katrina:

"I believe we are at a point now where the traditional, say, African-American Democrat, they get it — we get it now,” she said. “We get it. The goal here is just to ensure that as we innovate, that we can try to get as many of the kids who are being impacted — that we’re trying not to leave anybody behind."

You can watch the Wall Street Journal's Mary Kissel discuss the role school choice is playing in the midterm Senate and gubernatorial elections with American Federation for Children Executive Counsel Kevin Chavous in the following video:

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Franklin School Choice Fellow