Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than just buildings. Left with scarce resources and personnel, local government in New Orleans became weak and ineffective in the aftermath of the flooding. Five years later, the rebuilding of New Orleans is far from complete, but reformers can point to at least one major accomplishment: …
Our friends at ReasonTV have put out a great new video highlighting the strides that have been made towards school choice in New Orleans following the Hurricane Katrina disaster. As ReasonTV Editor Nick Gillespie says in the video, few people could have predicted the improvements in education that would result, but …
What happens when parents have the opportunity to exercise choice and send their children to private schools? Children get an education that best meets their unique needs, and taxpayers get to put some hard-earned dollars back in their pockets. Per-pupil annual expenditures in New Jersey public schools now average $17,000, …
Tucker Carlson takes it to the teachers unions and the administration for phasing-out the highly successful and popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. “D.C. Public Schools aren’t bad, they’re the worst.” Carlson notes that the D.C. voucher program is “a direct challenge to the teachers’ unions. Here are kids who aren’t …
A new study released this week by the Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences found that participation in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program “raised a student’s probability of completing high school by 12 percentage points, from 70 percent to 82 percent, based on parent reports.” The news is a …
School choice efforts took a substantial step forward yesterday when Oklahoma’s Democratic Governor Brad Henry signed into law the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Act. Special needs children in the state will now be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice through the help of …
Earlier this week Politico‘s Ben Smith reported on how tough economic times are leading politicians from both parties to start attacking government unions. Smith writes: They’re the whipping boys for a new generation of governors who, thanks to a tanking economy and an assist from editorial boards, feel freer than …
Tomorrow, a new documentary, The Lottery, will premier in Washington, DC. The film is based on the Harlem charter school lottery: a luck-of-the-draw process to determine who of thousands of vying New York City children will be offered 475 charter school slots. Specifically, it tells the stories of four New …
The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program presents states with a choice: adopt national standards for academic performance, or refuse desperately-needed federal dollars. The problem? National standards only standardize mediocrity, while taking power over educational choices out of the hands of parents and local school boards and transferring it …
