Sentences with phrase «opponents of school choice programs»

To justify this ban on special education for children in religious schools, Washington relied on state constitutional Blaine Amendments — the same unfortunate relics of 19th - century anti-religious bigotry that opponents of school choice programs rely on to thwart educational opportunity.

Despite their sordid history, Blaine Amendments are today used not only by Washington to deny educational opportunities for children with special needs, but also by opponents of school choice programs to deny parents the right to select the schools that are best for their kids.

Despite this growing consensus, opponents of school choice programs persist in their attempts to spread fear among parents and the general public by falsely accusing these programs of undermining local public schools and of further restricting educational access.

The main two arguments used by opponents of school choice programs are that (1) such programs enable parents to withdraw both their children and their children's education funding from public schools and that (2) this loss results in further financial strain and worse education in public schools.

Not exact matches

The prediction comes from both proponents and opponents of the tuition - voucher measure, which, by providing parents with $ 900 for each student enrolled in a private or out - of - district public school, would be the most extensive choice program yet adopted by any state.

But Wisconsin state senator Russ Decker, a leading opponent of vouchers, has argued that the program gives money to children who would attend private schools anyway and declared, «You've got a lot of additional money going into the choice program that we could better use funding public education statewide.»

School choice opponents long have understood that a regulatory barrage is the first step in the ultimate goal of killing such programs.

Opponents would claim that the inclusion of religious schools among the choices for parents violated the separation of church and state, required by the federal constitution, and they challenged the program in court.

And voucher opponents have been creative in identifying a wide variety of constitutional provisions, having nothing to do with religion, under which to challenge school choice programs.

Last week, several news outlets circulated a report by the U.S. Department of Education's research division that found negative results for students who participated in the District of Columbia's Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the only private school choice program for low - income children in Washington, D.C. Predictably, opponents of school choice descended on the report to tout it as evidence that school choice does noProgram (OSP), the only private school choice program for low - income children in Washington, D.C. Predictably, opponents of school choice descended on the report to tout it as evidence that school choice does noprogram for low - income children in Washington, D.C. Predictably, opponents of school choice descended on the report to tout it as evidence that school choice does not work.

Opponents have hamstrung school - choice programs at every turn: fighting voucher programs in legislative chambers and courtrooms; limiting per - pupil funding so tightly that it's impractical for new schools to come into being; capping the number of charter schools; and regulating and harassing them into near conformity with conventional schools.

School choice opponents have seized on these findings as evidence that these programs are ineffective and even harmful while advocates point out that Louisiana is heavily regulated, the first few years of an evaluation tell only the worst part of a story (i.e. there are transition effects), and that we should be careful about a heavy - handed focus on test scores.

In defense of Arizona's new school choice programs, Dick's research (described on page 4 of this newsletter) directly undercut our opponents» assertion that the new choice programs were both unprecedented and dangerous.

WILL's President and General Counsel, Rick Esenberg, and Executive Vice President, CJ Szafir, write in The Weekly Standard, on how the ACLU and other opponents of Wisconsin's school choice program used the Obama Department of Justice to investigate and derail the oldest - in - the - nation program.

As a large number of New Hampshire's nonpublic schools are religious, opponents of school choice have challenged the program under, among other things, an 1877 amendment to the state constitution frequently referred to as a Blaine Amendment.

But as with the Blaine amendments, as I said, these can be construed — they don't have to be, and frequently have not been, but they can be construed — in just the same way that the opponents of parental choice programs wanted the federal Establishment Clause construed, and would like the Blaine amendments construed, namely, to apply to assistance to families that use that assistance to attend a religious school, in a free and independent choice.