But there appeared to be growing discontent among some Republican lawmakers over the school voucher program, as Rep. Bryan Holloway led efforts to block Stam's proposal by telling his colleagues they «might find it interesting» to look at what
kinds of schools voucher students are picking and choosing.
Not exact matches
Having done this
kind of work myself for many years in San Francisco, I can
vouch for how frustrating it can be, and yet, as a parent or guardian who really wants to make a difference in nutrition and health for an enormous number
of children, there is really no better opportunity than serving on your local
school nutrition parent advisory council.
This year, Immaculate also began accepting the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship, a different
kind of voucher that allows students on Individualized Education Plans to attend private
schools and receive a
voucher worth up to $ 20,000, depending on the severity
of a child's disability.
Moreover, some
kinds of school reform have no fixed protocol, and it is possible to imagine implementing
vouchers, charter
schools, or programs like Comer's or Total Quality Management
schools in many different ways.
Since then, another 28 state legislatures have passed some
kind of voucher program, tax credit, education savings account, or other intervention that provides government aid to students attending private
schools.
That's fair up to a point; surely looking beyond just
vouchers and charter
schools makes sense in a world with many
kinds of choice.
Half
of the states now have a
school -
voucher or tax - credit program
of some
kind, according to the Friedman Foundation, a leading organization promoting private
school choice.
(There is,
of course, a tension between the idea
of the federal government intervening to encourage states and cities to adopt
school vouchers programs and the idea that we need more local control
of education, but Trump is not really the
kind of policy detail guy who is bothered by this
kind of thing.)
But we believe in private
school choice, too — indeed, we believe in every
kind of school choice that works for kids — and have previously mapped the touchy territory
of accountability for «
voucher schools» and advised policy makers on how to deal with these challenging trade - offs and balancing acts.
The Colorado legislature late last month approved, as part
of an omnibus education - reform bill, an experimental public -
school voucher program, the first
of its
kind in the country, experts say.
The moniker dates back to the late 1980s, when Williams broke ranks with her fellow African American and Democratic state legislators to partner with conservatives on Milwaukee's
school voucher program, the first
of its
kind in the nation.
They argue private
schools accepting
vouchers should not necessarily be subject to the law because embedded in
vouchers is a different
kind of accountability, accountability to parents that can choose to take their children, and their tax dollars, elsewhere.
Lighthouse's student body is a small sample size, testing data are not always comparable, and parents who go to the trouble
of getting
vouchers might be the
kinds of parents more invested in making sure their kids do well in
school.
All
of the «options» Florida is offering have the same issues as public education: they are only as good as the quality
of programs & people - administrators, teachers, evaluators, etc. implementing them - and more importantly, in the
voucher plan there are two huge issues: 1) poor and uneducated parents rarely are aware
of the range
of quality and number
of schools available (which I am sure the politicians are counting on) 2) Even if every parent were saavy in the needs
of their child and the
kind of school they should look for, there aren't enough
of those
schools available...
Not only could unregulated
school voucher systems fail to serve the students for whom they are intended, North Carolina could be looking forward to dealing with the
kind of fraud and abuse
of taxpayer dollars that Milwaukee, Florida, and countless other locales have faced should these bills pass with little regulatory provisions.
In Wisconsin, where the state's Milwaukee
school voucher initiative is the first
of its
kind to take hold in the United States, Governor Scott Walker pushed for expanding it to the entire state in 2013.
A first
of its
kind program may be on the way, as Florida lawmakers are pitching a
voucher - like program to help bullied, abused students change
schools.
This isn't the first time lawmakers have tried to pass a
school voucher bill; lawmakers have introduced some
kind of modern - day
voucher program for at least 20 years.
Taxpayer - funded
vouchers have helped thousands
of families escape failing public
schools, but their structure limits their ability to create the
kind of education market system that Milton Friedman advocated at the birth
of the
school - choice movement.
«The ability for
school boards to use charters as
kind of an incubator — I think that's great,» Evers said, who lamented that the public often conflates private
voucher schools with charter
schools.
Ted Sizer:
School vouchers «could cause a
kind of decentralization which would promote diversity, pluralism, responsiveness to the needs
of the community being served and, indeed, even greater efficiency.»
The law also does not require private
schools to disclose what
kinds of teachers they employ (and no teacher need have more than a high
school diploma) and how well their students are faring in their classrooms unless they have more than 25 students who use the taxpayer - funded
vouchers.
While there is substantial academic literature on
school vouchers and while debates continue between opposing camps
of researchers, it's safe to say that
vouchers have not produced the
kind of large improvements in academic achievement that market - oriented reformers originally promised.
Burke's campaign did not respond to my questions about what
kinds of sanctions she had in mind for underperforming
voucher schools and whether she would like to see them applied to traditional public
schools as well.
Luke Messer, a Republican Congressman from Indiana who is a friend
of Mike Pence and who founded the Congressional
School Choice Caucus already suggested that some or all of the money for Trump's school choice program could come from the $ 15 billion the federal government spends on Title I. Grabbing money intended to help public schools that serve the nation's most needy children and turning it into an uncontrolled experiment in vouchers and unregulated charter schools is exactly the kind of project Betsy DeVos would r
School Choice Caucus already suggested that some or all
of the money for Trump's
school choice program could come from the $ 15 billion the federal government spends on Title I. Grabbing money intended to help public schools that serve the nation's most needy children and turning it into an uncontrolled experiment in vouchers and unregulated charter schools is exactly the kind of project Betsy DeVos would r
school choice program could come from the $ 15 billion the federal government spends on Title I. Grabbing money intended to help public
schools that serve the nation's most needy children and turning it into an uncontrolled experiment in
vouchers and unregulated charter
schools is exactly the
kind of project Betsy DeVos would relish.
Trump's most substantial campaign proposal on education was a $ 20 billion grant program that he'd use to encourage states to expand
school choice — giving parents more control over the
kind of education their children receive — including through
vouchers, charter
schools and magnet
schools.
But, as in the case
of the for - profit college sector, the lax oversight
of the
vouchers, along with the loosening
of standards for providing them to students, has perpetuated the
kind of fraud that can be as damaging to special ed students — many
of whom likely were really struggling with reading than actually learning disabled — as condemning them to traditional
school ghettos.