MINNEAPOLIS — As one might expect, the contrast between an education panel hosted by the conservative American Solutions and one hosted by the National Education Association (NEA) is stark. At the downtown Minneapolis Club this afternoon, the Republican Main Street Partnership co-hosted “An Education Forum on 21st Century Skills” with the NEA. Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), co-founder of RMSP, headlined the event, but NEA executive director John Wilson did most of the talking. Like this morning’s American Solutions session, Wilson opened by talking about how the future of the United …
MINNEAPOLIS — Entrepreneur-turned-filmmaker Bob Compton kicked off an American Solutions panel on education by showing a 13-minute clip of “2 Million Minutes,” a documentary that follows six students in India, China and the United States. The 2 million is a reference to the number of minutes a person has in a four-year time frame. Compton’s movie examines how two students from each country choose to spend their 2 million (hint: the U.S. kids spend a lot less time studying). You can watch a preview here. Compton said that education is …
ST. PAUL — There is still not a lot of action on the floor of the convention hall, which is giving bloggers (stationed far above the floor) time to get to know each other. To our right is Hip Hop Republican founder Richard Ivory, who says he is a huge fan of Heritage senior research fellow Ron Utt‘s papers on housing policy. Ivory describes Hip Hop Republicans as those who see that “for far too long, urban areas have been controlled by a Democrat monopoly and ignored by head-in-the-sand Republican …
Under No Child Left Behind, thousands of public school students in the District are eligible to transfer out of their low-performing public school system into a better public school. But the Washington Post reports today that only 34 students have currently applied for a transfer. The story highlights both the limits of the NCLB public school choice option and the need for greater school choice options for D.C. families. Giving families the right to transfer their children out of low-performing public schools was one of the promising provisions of No …
The Washington Post calls out the D.C. government for its continued hostility towards the school choice movement: ANYONE LOOKING for a symbol of the contempt that D.C. officials show toward charter schools need go no further than 2501 11th St. NW. There sits the shuttered Meyer Elementary School. Three blocks away is a crowded charter school that desperately wants to lease the building. Instead, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration is turning the facility over to the Department of Public Works. The charter school wasn’t even allowed to state its case. …
Editorializing on school choice, the Wall Street Journal writes today: EdisonLearning, a private company that took over 20 of Philadelphia’s 45 lowest performing district schools in 2002 to create a new management model for public schools. The most recent state test-score data show that student performance at Philadelphia public schools managed by Edison and other outside providers has improved by nearly twice the amount as the schools run by the district. The number of students performing at grade level or higher in reading at the schools managed by private providers …
In today’s Washington Post, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings makes the case for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that Congress almost shut down earlier this year: An independent study of the program released last year confirms this parental satisfaction. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) found that parents of scholarship children express confidence that they will be better educated and even safer in their new schools. A study by Georgetown University found increased parental involvement and student enthusiasm for learning. The IES study reported academic gains in reading by three student …
Yesterday the Appropriations Committee approved funding for the 1,900 District of Columbia low income school children who receive scholarships to attend the school of their choice. Heritage Director of Domestic Policy Studies Jennifer Marshall highlights some of the voices of the families benefiting from this program: Ayesha McKinney is just thankful for simple things — like clean bathrooms for her daughters. “There’s no reason that children should have to be in an unclean, unsafe environment, because it’s very difficult for them to learn.” Not surprisingly, a recent evaluation of the …
Today the Washington Post continues its strong reporting on the left’s efforts to kill 1,900 scholarships for low-income students in the District of Columbia. The editors write: Among the most maddening arguments used against the D.C. school voucher program is that it hurts the public schools. Any money set aside for vouchers comes on top of a generous federal allocation for the city’s public and charter schools. Any effect of the vouchers on public education has yet to be established or studied. Most of all, which members of Congress would …
Yesterday a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to save 1,900 scholarships for low-income D.C. children from teachers unions intent on killing school choice. The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), warned that this was the last year he would allow low income DC students and their families to choose which schools they wanted to go to. Hopefully, given another year, more promising results will come from the program like this week’s Department of Education study showing scholarship students out performed those in public school on reading scores. The District’s …
