"An Oklahoma school is investigating Thursday whether bullying left an Ada girl in a wheelchair," KOCO-TV reports.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Registration set for Edmond 'public' schools
"Preregistration for kindergarten students at Edmond Public Schools for the 2012-13 school year will be March 28 and March 29," The Oklahoman reports.
Parents must bring two proofs of residency such as a current utility bill or mortgage contract, deed or lease agreement and a birth certificate. ... Parents who have applied for transfer to a school outside their neighborhood should preregister at their neighborhood school unless they have been notified their transfer request has been granted.
Yes, that "proof of residency" is critical. (After all, this is Edmond. We can't let just anyone in, you understand.) As the liberal Berkeley law professor John E. Coons has observed,
We still arrange education so that children of the wealthy can cluster in chosen government enclaves or in private schools; the rest get whatever school goes with the residence the family can afford. This socialism for the rich we blithely call "public," though no other public service entails such financial exclusivity. Whether the library, the swimming pool, the highway, or the hospital—if it is "public," it is accessible. But admission to the government school comes only with the price of the house. If the school is in Beverly Hills or Scarsdale, the poor need not apply.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Edmond students discuss drug use
"About half the people who spoke during an Edmond Public Schools forum mentioned drug use in the schools, especially the high schools," Matt Patterson reports today in The Oklahoman.
Andrea Batt, a senior at Edmond North, also spoke. She said her fellow students often talk openly in front of school staff about drug use, but little is done.
“I think it's a really sad situation because everyone knows it's there but everyone feels like they are so powerless to do anything about it,” she said.
Kevin Hill has three children in Edmond schools, including a son who is a junior at Edmond Memorial. Hill said he was shocked to see that several students who were arrested for drug possession off school grounds before the Christmas break took part in extracurricular activities during the break.
"It made me sick to my stomach," Hill said. "I am of the belief that it shouldn't matter whether they were arrested on school grounds. It's not a right to play baseball, or whatever the extracurricular activity is. It's appalling to me that the district doesn't have policies that let these coaches deal with these situations."
Dawn Craft said her younger sister has been bullied for reporting another student's drug use. She said more needs to be done to protect those who report drug use and other rules violations in the schools.
“When that student returned to school after being suspended, the bullying started,” Craft said. “There was stalking and assault and battery. She's the one who did the right thing, and she is the one being picked on and run off. How are any of these students going to come forward when they see that?”
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
'Solyndras in the classroom'
Does “investment in education” produce an attractive return? Most Oklahomans don't think so, and over at Forbes.com Louis Woodhill agrees.
The nation and its people would be much better off today if most of the additional “investment” in education that we have made over the past six decades had been used to create more nonresidential produced assets. GDP, real wages, and our standard of living would all be considerably higher.
Also, imagine if, instead of being given a 2009 education for $158,717, an average student were given a 1967-style education for about $58,000, and $100,000 in capital with which to start his working life. This would be sufficient to start any number of small businesses. Alternatively, if put in an IRA earning a real return of 6%, the $100,000 would grow to about $1.8 million over 50 years.
The huge government “investments” made in education over the past 50 years have produced little more than “Solyndras in the classroom.” They have enriched teachers unions and other rent-seekers, but have added little or nothing to the economic prospects of students. America does not need more such “investment.”
Monday, March 12, 2012
School choice increases student safety
According to a new report from an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School for Education.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Let parents choose how to spend it
A new report from the research affiliate of The State Chamber indicates that Oklahoma public schools spend $9,121 per pupil.
That's a lot. It's time to let that money follow the child. One promising idea is an Education Savings Account, described thusly by Education Week:
Under the program, parents who sign up get a debit card loaded with 90 percent of what would have been the state's allocation to the school district for their child. They can use the money for tuition, textbooks, therapy, or college classes while students are still in high school—or the money can be saved and used to attend college full time after graduation.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
School choice's track record is promising
"Choice's track record so far is promising and provides support for continuing expansion of school choice policies," nine scholars and analysts write in a new essay in Education Week.
[W]e fear that political pressure is leading people on both sides of the issue to demand things from "science" that science is not, by its nature, able to provide. The temptation of technocracy—the idea that scientists can provide authoritative answers to public questions—is dangerous to democracy and science itself. Public debates should be based on norms, logic, and evidence drawn from beyond just the scientific sphere.
That said, science has a role to play. We have diverse viewpoints on many issues, but we share a common commitment to helping inform public decisions with such evidence as science is legitimately able to provide. We do not offer false certainty about a future none of us knows. But the early evidence is promising, and the grounds for concern have been shown to be largely baseless. The case for expanding our ongoing national experiment with school choice is strong.
More Democrats for school choice
"School choice appeals to the best instincts of both political parties," four prominent Colorado Democrats write.
It allows Democrats to adhere to their core principals of equality and opportunity -- so that a student’s zip code does not determine the quality of their education. It allows Republicans to introduce moderate -- and managed -- market dynamics and the beginnings of limited competition in the public school sector.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
What's not to love?
Education Week recently reported on the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account:
Under the program, parents who sign up get a debit card loaded with 90 percent of what would have been the state's allocation to the school district for their child. They can use the money for tuition, textbooks, therapy, or college classes while students are still in high school—or the money can be saved and used to attend college full time after graduation.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Conflict inevitable in school choice Big Tent
In writing and speaking about school choice, I often stress the importance of being ecumenical. There's room in the school-choice coalition for all sorts of options: private-school vouchers and tax credits, charter schools, virtual schools, homeschooling, and more.
Still, we need to recognize that conflict is inevitable. For example, Cato Institute scholar Adam Schaeffer points out that "charter schools often provide a safer, better alternative to traditional public schools. That’s good. Charter schools also destroy private schools, decrease educational options, pull private-school students into the government education system and thereby add significant new costs to taxpayers." Indeed, a new study says charter schools are siphoning students from Catholic schools. So, yes, KIPP schools are saving kids' lives, and we should be thankful for this. But we need to do it with eyes wide open.
Another example is virtual education. I'm a big fan (having hosted an entire symposium on the topic), and can see how it blends nicely with homeschooling, for example (something state Sen. Gary Stanislawski pointed out at the National School Choice Week event last month in Edmond). And yet, as the Home School Legal Defense Association points out, “tuition-free public virtual school from home” comes with strings attached.
What you need to know is: (1) you are required to use books and materials that they have pre-approved; (2) their books and materials are limited and may not suit your student; (3) like books and materials used in every other public school in America, they cannot tell the truth about God; (4) like all other public school teachers, online public school teachers cannot tell your student the truth about God.
As Grover Norquist says of coalitions generally, "We don't eliminate conflict -- we manage it." As the education policy landscape continues to change, school-choice advocates will need to do just that.
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