The Foundry

Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

• Budget 2011: Freezing Opportunity – New Budget Means the End of School Choice for Many

  Posted February 5th, 2010 at 2:00pm in Education with 1 comments

  The president’s proposed FY2011 budget increases funding to the Department of Education by $3.5 billion. But despite this significant increase, his budget effectively cuts the freedom of choice and educational opportunities from the lives of children living in the District of Columbia. What began last year as a low-profile attempt to quietly phase out the [...] More

• School Vouchers in Milwaukee: Safer Schools, Higher Graduation Rates

  Posted February 5th, 2010 at 11:30am in Education with 3 comments

  Regular readers of the Foundry are probably aware that the federal government’s school voucher program in the nation’s capital, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, is benefiting students by improving school safety and providing higher academic achievement. We thought you’d probably like to know that they’re finding the same trends in Milwaukee, home to the [...] More

• Lieberman, Collins Rally for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program

  Posted February 4th, 2010 at 1:19pm in Education with 1 comments

  This morning, families, students and community members gathered at the Capitol to show their support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is currently being phased-out by the Obama administration. Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins hosted a press conference to discuss the impact of the successful program, which has greatly improved the academic [...] More

• Budget 2011: Crushing Dreams for DC Vouchers Students

  Posted February 3rd, 2010 at 5:30pm in Education with 5 comments

  President Obama’s FY2011 budget confirms his administration’s plans to phase out the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. There are two clear indicators of this in the budget: the elimination of future funding for the program and the effective consolidation of the “three-sector approach” into two sectors. With regard to the elimination of funding, page 1244 [...] More

• Innovation Missing from President’s Educate to Innovate Program

  Posted February 3rd, 2010 at 1:00pm in Education with 0 comments

  The Educate to Innovate campaign recently announced by President Obama may become the latest addition to the Department of Education’s hall of inefficient and costly federal programs. The President revealed a plan to increase taxpayer funding for teaching programs by $10 million and lauded a promise by 75 public universities to graduate thousands of new [...] More

• Media Continues to Ignore Head Start’s Failing Evaluation

  Posted February 2nd, 2010 at 4:00pm in Education with 11 comments

  Credit the Pittsburgh Tribune Review for being one of the nation’s first newspapers to editorialize about last month’s national Head Start evaluation, which found that the program provided children with zero lasting benefits. They editors write: “That it took the feds more than 40 years for a proper analysis suggests it’s the spending that matters, [...] More

• Budget 2011: $173 Billion in Subsidies Won’t Solve College Affordability Problem

  Posted February 2nd, 2010 at 11:30am in Education with 0 comments

  Who was it who said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? According to the Department of Education, the Obama administration’s budget proposes: “$173 billion in loans, grants, tax credits and work-study programs to help students go to college.” But experience has shown that [...] More

• Budget 2011: Education Spending Skyrockets

  Posted February 1st, 2010 at 6:30pm in Education with 13 comments

  The President’s FY2011 budget request calls for significant increases in education spending and, as promised, the Department of Education is exempt from Obama’s so-called spending freeze. At a briefing today at the Department of Education, words such as “historic” and “bold” were used to describe the President’s budget. Secretary Duncan stated that the FY2011 budget represents [...] More

• Budget 2011: With Head Start Failing, White House Proposes $9.3 billion for New Preschool Program

  Posted February 1st, 2010 at 4:00pm in Education with 2 comments

  While the federal government already spends as least $25 billion on the existing 69 preschool and child care programs, the Obama administration is calling for #70—proposing $9.3 billion for a new “Early Learning Challenge Grant”. As we wrote last year, the Early Learning Challenge Grant fund would push states to spend more on preschool [...] More

• Is Increasing Education Spending Really Good News?

  Posted January 29th, 2010 at 5:58pm in Education with 3 comments

  We received an email today from Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “By now, I expect you’ve heard the good news,” the Secretary wrote. “…at a time when most government spending is frozen, the President proposed a significant increase in discretionary spending for education in his fiscal year 2011 budget.” We were tempted to respond: What [...] More