Education policy has often stumped or scared conservatives. It shouldn’t—we’ve long sided with children and parents against special interests—and especially not now. Federal education policy has all the defects that fueled activists’ ire this election season: skyrocketing spending, bureaucratic meddling and overreach into states’ constitutional authority. And it still leaves American children behind their potential. Washington first ventured into local school policy with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The 31-page, $1 billion Great Society project redistributed wealth to low-income districts, aiming to close the achievement gap …
Michelle Rhee’s tenure as D.C. Schools Chancellor ends Monday. In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, she and Mayor Adrian Fenty published an “Education Manifesto” summarizing their reform legacy and the breakthrough they hope it represents for other troubled school systems. Their rallying cry: Education policy should serve the needs of children, not the demands of adults. That conviction brought Rhee into direct conflict with the Washington Teachers’ Union as she sought to revive one of the worst school districts in the nation. Despite spending $18,000 annually per pupil, D.C. public schools …
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said. Rumors about the demise of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) would come as a similar surprise to more than a thousand scholarship recipients in Washington, D.C., who are attending schools of their choice this fall. It’s true that the DCOSP is in survival mode, but it remains alive to fight another day. Neither the Obama Administration nor this Congress has dared snatch away current students’ scholarships, and the real battle for the program’s future lies …
In the mid 1960s, education policy took a wrong turn, away from America’s founding principles. That was when President Lyndon B. Johnson, as a part of his War on Poverty, created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). It was the first major federal foray into local schools. But the Constitution doesn’t provide for a federal role in education, and public schools had traditionally been under the jurisdiction of local authorities. What’s more, Washington’s intervention seemed to bring out the worst in education governance: State officials became the …
Back-to-school season can be emotional for parents. As Johnny enters a new grade level, it’s one more reminder that not too many Septembers from now it will be time to help him move into the dorm, not just pack his lunch for the day. Parents can, understandably, feel a little sentimental and sad about their children growing up too fast. But that emotion pales in comparison to the angst parents feel about who their child’s teacher will be. A good teacher can make a dramatic difference in a child’s life. …
Last year, GM CEO Rick Wagoner “voluntarily” stepped aside when Washington took over his company. BP is “voluntarily” setting up a $20 billion escrow account. And now, states are being pushed to “voluntarily” adopt national education standards and tests. It all began when the Obama administration used its $4.35 billion Race to the Top competitive grant fund as an incentive for states to adopt standards under development by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers (one of the “education blob” groups that protects the status …
The Obama Administration’s signature K-12 education program, Race to the Top, has gotten a lot of press in the last couple weeks with the announcement of first-round winners Tennessee and Delaware. But for all the hullabaloo and homework it’s created for states, Race to the Top represents only a small part of the overall K-12 education budget ($4.5 billion compared to $46.2 billion in 2010, not to mention $80 billion overall in K-12 funding from the 2009 stimulus bill) and functions outside the existent federal policy apparatus—essentially as the Secretary’s …
“According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home,” The Onion “reports” today. “School-homing,” as the satirical source dubs the fictional trend, would be a witty April Fool’s fib if it didn’t sound so much like the liberal education ideas we’ve heard in the last few decades. The Clinton administration, for example, popularized the idea of “one-stop shopping” for social services at public schools. They also heavily promoted …
President Obama is a school choice success story, and 38 percent of those in Congress have sent a child to a private school. So why are they denying the same choice to low-income parents in our nation’s capital? The Obama administration and Congress have put the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program on a path to elimination. The program provides scholarships to 1700 low-income students to attend private schools. Students are making academic gains, and parents are satisfied now that their children finally can attend safe and effective schools. Ten days …
Lesbians who want artificial insemination should rally to support greater choice in health care. That’s the real story of the recent California Supreme Court decision Benitez v. North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. In Benitez (pdf), the California Supreme Court was forced to decide which is more important: the ability of a lesbian to receive artificial insemination at a particular health clinic, or the religious views of her fertility doctors that a child shouldn’t be brought into the world without a mother and a father. To its credit, the Court …
