Tag Archives: Topic: School Choice

Fox News / Live Shots: “Like many parents who home-school, Voydatch believes in the importance of teaching the basics of reading and writing. But she also believes in the importance of a religious education . . . ‘The judge,’ explained Simmons, ‘said that Amanda reflected her mother’s rigidity in matters of Faith, and that because of that rigidity she needed to be ordered into government run schools.’”

Walter Russell Mead writing in The American Interest: “As the blue social model gradually falls apart and American society casts restlessly about for something to replace it, charter schools may be on the cutting edge of the social transformation about to take place . . . they are doing at least as well as the schools we have — and they are pointing the way to the kind of political and social transformation that can take us past the stagnant and dysfunctional world of Big Blue Bureaucracy into something more sustainable and more hopeful.”

ABC: “Kelley Williams-Bolar was convicted of lying about her residency to get her daughters into a better school district . . . Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad. ‘When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else,’ Williams-Bolar said.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to subsidize religious schools in the District of Columbia would undercut civil rights and civil liberties and add to the federal budget deficit, while failing to improve education, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

Chicago Tribune: “Hundreds of charter school supporters and detractors are expected to attend a Chicago Public Schools board meeting Wednesday, hoping to influence a vote on whether to open more of the independently run public schools.”

Arizona Republic: “Gov. Jan Brewer unveiled a new website Monday that aims to help parents choose the best education options for their children. The governor announced the creation of arizonaschoolchoice.com as part of National School Choice Week.”

Washington Times: “House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, plans to meet President Obama‘s call for bipartisanship and education reform by restoring a D.C. voucher program that the president killed.”

St. Louis Review: “A bill filed in the state House of Representatives would amend the Missouri Constitution to offer parents a stipend for educating their children at any accredited K-12 school in Missouri, including Catholic schools. The proposed amendment, HJR 10 sponsored by State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, would also repeal current language in the state constitution that prohibits assistance to any activities that support a religious creed or religious school.”

Bluegrass Institute: “Unfortunately, there’s not much to celebrate in Kentucky, one of only a handful of states without public charter schools. So far, the bosses who run the teachers unions have succeeded in strangling efforts by parents and conscientious legislators to secure for Kentucky parents the freedom to send their children to the public school that best fits their individual needs.”

Kyle Olson writing at Townhall: “The growing school choice movement provides parents a way out of Lewis’ schools and into schools that do whatever it takes to make sure kids are prepared for life beyond graduation. It’s too bad the same can’t be said of Lewis’ Chicago Public Schools. And it’s too bad they fight like mad to block parents from having options.”

Washington Times: “Count Bill Cosby as a big fan of school choice. With Congress and the White House gearing up for a major battle over the future of education policy, the comedian who famously criticized academic failings in the black community added his voice Wednesday to that of House Speaker John A. Boehner and others who want to give parents a bigger say in their children’s education.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The voucher proposal, announced last week by state Sens. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, and Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, would allow low-income students from ‘persistently poorly performing’ public schools to switch to other public or private schools — and receive taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay their tuition. Proposals in the 1990s had broader reach.”

Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “The first-ever National School Choice Week is underway! This week, January 23rd – 29th, school choice advocates from across the country will host events and highlight the benefits of educational freedom.”

Associated Press: “As cash-strapped school districts lay off teachers and close campuses, publicly funded charter schools are flourishing and altering the landscape of public education.”

Sacramento Bee: “Opposition is mounting against a proposal to create a network of charter schools in Sacramento County. Area school board members and union representatives say their concern is that local control is being thwarted by Margaret Fortune petitioning for 10 charter schools with the Sacramento County Office of Education and not individual school districts.”

NorthJersey.com: “The state on Tuesday approved 23 new charter schools, including a controversial Hebrew immersion school for children in Englewood and Teaneck, and a virtual high school for Paterson students.”

Sheboygan Press: “Sheboygan Area School District officials are putting the brakes, ever so slightly, on expanding the district’s charter school program amid concerns by some that they’re creating a two-tier educational system where more motivated and affluent families are fleeing neighborhood schools for programs that more closely fit their children’s needs.”

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: “2010 proved to be quite a year for charter school legislation, with several states making positive changes.” | 2011 report

MyCentralJersey.com: “A bill that would create the state’s first school voucher program and offer scholarships to students in low-performing school districts is scheduled to be considered Thursday in a key Senate committee.”

WorldNetDaily: “Judges at the European Court of Human Rights for more than six months have ignored a separated Swedish family’s plea for justice and reunification, and advocates for Christer and Annie Johansson say now it’s time for the citizens of the world to demand action . . . ‘I am absolutely astonished that they haven’t replied to any of the applications that [ADF attorney] Roger [Kiska] filed for Christer and family and sent him a case [number]. They haven’t replied to my fax letter of September 29, in which I inquired about the application,’ [Ruby Harrold-Claesson, the president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights] said in a statement to the HSLDA.”

Pioneer Press: “In the past week, two defendants in an American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota lawsuit over an alleged incursion of religion into public education have asked for the suit’s dismissal — for very different reasons.”

Regions.ru (Google translation from Russian): “The fundamental right of parents – to choose education for their children,” – said John Anthony Simmons, a lawyer associated with the Christian human rights organization «Alliance Defense Fund». – “The court has no right to send children to public school just because she thinks that her religious beliefs should be diluted by others. A lower court had done just that.

OneNewsNow: “Voydatch’s attorney, John Anthony Simmons, an allied attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, says the court modified the child’s school placement at the request of the father. ‘And the rationale that it used was that the child [and the mother] had religious beliefs . . . that were abhorrent to the father and that essentially were too narrow,’ says Simmons, ‘and that those opinions needed to be corrected . . .’”

Bloomberg: “Daniels used about half of his 30-minute State of the State speech Tuesday night to promote his education proposals, including an expansion of charter schools, vouchers to help parents send their children to private schools and limits on teacher union contracts.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Gov. Rendell urged his successor Tuesday to not cut education spending in the state’s next budget, and came out against a proposed voucher program that would help low-income students from low-performing schools attend either private schools or public schools in other districts.”

IndyStar.com: “A survey released Monday by a foundation advocating for school vouchers says Indiana voters are more likely than voters surveyed in six other states to say public schools are on the wrong track and would choose private schools if they could.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Because the latest graduation rate went up 5 percentage points from the previous year for both Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and MPS students, the report contends that choice (also called voucher) students were 17% more likely to graduate from high school than children in MPS over the past two years of the study . . . MPS officials continue to question the accuracy of “Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee,” funded by School Choice Wisconsin, a voucher advocacy group.

Last week, ADF allied attorney John Anthony Simmons appeared on the Vicki McKenna Show to provide an update on this case: In the Matter of Kurowski and Kurowski (Voydatch). | MP3 audio 17:50 mins

Bluegrass Policy Blog: “In a historic vote, the Kentucky Senate approved legislation on January 7, 2011 to create charter schools in Kentucky. This historic event marks the first time charter school legislation has met the approval of either chamber of the Kentucky Legislature. It is an important step forward in an effort long supported by the Bluegrass Institute to provide the commonwealth’s students and parents more educational options and control.”

Religion Clause: “The New Hampshire Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments (video of full arguments) in a divorce case that has gained national attention through the publicity given to it by groups that see it as an important religious freedom test.”

Andrew Cohen writing at Politics Daily: “Unfolding Thursday in Concord, N.H., was yet another chapter in the sad story of a family involved in a high-conflict divorce. It is the frustrating example of two parents fighting one another for control of their child’s education. And it is a compelling lesson about home schooling and public education, religion and the role of the courts, in determining a child’s course of learning . . . The judge had applied the wrong legal standard, the ADF attorneys argued, and the guardian was biased against Brenda and Amanda because of their deeply held religious beliefs.”

Bluegrass Policy Blog: “Senate Bill 3 from the current legislative session was voted out of the Senate Education Committee this afternoon and now heads to the Senate floor for consideration tomorrow.”

CBN: “The New Hampshire Supreme Court is considering whether it should force the 11-year-old daughter of a divorced couple to attend public school . . . ‘The (lower) court went beyond the disagreement between the parents and offered the opinion that the child was being raised with rigid religious views and had not had the opportunity to be exposed to other points of view to challenge these views,’ ADF attorney [Joseph Infranco] said.” | Article includes a short CBN News video report that excerpts a phone interview with Infranco.

WorldNetDaily: “The Supreme Court in New Hampshire today was asked to reverse a lower court decision that ordered a homeschooled student who was ‘well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level’ into a public school because she was too ‘vigorous’ in defense of her Christian faith. ‘Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children,’ said John Anthony Simmons, an attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund.”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “A home school case being argued in the New Hampshire Supreme Court Jan. 6 is a window into the kind of subtle bias against Christianity that permeates our modern institutions. Only, in this case it’s not even subtle. The reasoning of a lower court is a jolting revelation of how Biblical Christian values may be publicly marginalized.”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on AFR Focal Point with Bryan Fischer to discuss the NH Homeschool case. | MP3 audio 11:09 mins

Charisma: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) allied attorney John Anthony Simmons will argue before the high court on behalf of the girl’s mother, who is objecting to the judge’s order on appeal.”

Christian Post: “Over 2 million children are being homeschooled in the United States, a new study finds . . . The New Hampshire Supreme Court is set to hear a custody case on Thursday involving a homeschooled girl that was ordered by a state judge to enter public school after a guardian ad litem testified that the girl vigorously defended her Christians beliefs . . . ‘Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children,’ said John Anthony Simmons, an Alliance Defense Fund-allied attorney representing the girl’s mother.” | ADF News Release

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney John Anthony Simmons and ADF Senior Counsel Tom Marcelle will be available for media interviews following oral argument Thursday before the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the case of a home-schooled girl ordered into a government school by a state judge.

LifeSiteNews: “As the modern-day homeschool movement confidently marches forward into its fourth decade, colleges and universities are opening wide their doors to welcome its mature, prepared graduates to their ranks. Homeschoolers score an average of 37 percentile points above the national average on standardized achievement tests and typically score above average on the SAT and ACT, statistics that apparently have caught the eye of college admissions personnel.”

LifeSiteNews: “In a new study released today the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates there are over 2 million children being homeschooled in the U.S. in 2010.” | The NHERI research is available for download here.

NYT Discussion: “Will the idea succeed in the new Congress, given some conservatives’ longtime opposition, on the grounds that the credits might open the door to more government regulation of education? How would such a system work? Is it a threat to public education, as its critics claim?”

See especially the contribution of the Home School Legal Defense Association’s William A. Estrada: “A federal income tax credit for educational expenses would help all parents provide greater resources for their children. Tax credits are superior to vouchers because the family keeps its own money and is not the recipient of federal funds. This eliminates any First Amendment concerns if a family purchases religious educational materials, or any danger of federal control coming along with the money.”

My San Antonio (AP): “‘I have never been aware of any case that includes such a broad-based censorship,’ said [David Cortman], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘In our opinion, it violates the federal constitutional rights of the teachers and the students.’”

WorldNetDaily: “Unspecified psychological studies or evaluations have been ordered for a jailed father who, in violation of the procedures of the government-run social services that instructed police officers to abduct his then-7-year-old son because he was being homeschooled, took him home for a visit . . . ‘Despite the ill-advised decision on the part of Mr. Johansson, the only menace here is a government drunk with its own power,’ said Roger Kiska, legal counsel for the ADF.”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Janet Mefford Show to discuss this: Swedish government’s 18-month-long seizure of 9-year-old boy pushing parents to emotional brink. | MP3 audio 19:17 mins

The Manteca Bulletin: “Two weeks after their application for a new charter school was denied unanimously by the Manteca Unified Board of Education, Great Valley Academy officials in Modesto filed an appeal with the San Joaquin County Office of Education.”

Chicago Tribune: “In a letter to school district officials, the ACLU says there’s no proof that separating girls from boys will result in a better education. The union says it doesn’t oppose the public charter school as an alternative to Madison district schools, rather it objects to providing males with different opportunities by separating the genders.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Both locally and across the country, district and charter leaders are wisely setting aside their differences and teaming up to put their best ideas to work to improve student learning . . . Despite their differences and inherent competition for students, it’s in the best interest of all children for educators to identify and deploy the most effective instructional methods, whether they come from district schools or charters.”

Idaho Press-Tribune: “Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed the lawsuit against the Idaho Public Charter School Commission on behalf of the academy, which was threatened with the revocation of its charter if it used the Bible or any other religious documents or text as part of its curriculum.”

The Desert Rock Voice: “The Alliance Defense Fund (www.alliancedefensefund.org) provided funding to the Home School Legal Defense Association (www.hslda.org) in their effort to assist the Romeikes . . . Two million or about 4% of school-age children in the United States are homeschooled. It’s a much different story overseas.”

KHQ (AP): “A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit by the defunct Nampa Classical Academy against the state of Idaho can proceed . . . Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group of Christian lawyers, are representing the academy.”

Chicago Sun-Times: “Arguing that Chicago Public Schools are ‘broken’ and that parents deserve a ‘choice,’ mayoral challenger James Meeks said Wednesday he would offer $4,500-a-year vouchers to 50,000 low-and-middle-income Chicago families to use toward private school tuition.”

Frederick M. Hess writing at National Affairs: “These would seem to be dark days for the school-choice movement, as several early champions of choice have publicly expressed their disillusionment . . . To many who hold out hope that choice can help fix what ails America’s schools, these hedges and reversals have been startling. And yet, looking back, it is hard to see how they were not inevitable. . . The questions to focus on are when, how, and why deregulation and monopoly-busting improve the quality and cost effectiveness of goods and services — and whether they can do the same for K-12 schooling. What would a vibrant market in K-12 education look like? To what degree has it really been tried? What needs to change in order to bring about such a market, and how would we assess whether it is in fact improving the education received by children in America’s schools?”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss this: Swedish government’s 18-month-long seizure of 9-year-old boy pushing parents to emotional brink. | MP3 12:03 mins

Dropout Nation: “If education is truly the most-important civil rights issue of this era, it means that black churches must play their part in ensuring that every child in the pews and communities they serve are educated in cultures of geniuses. It is as important for them to step up and embrace school reform as it was for them to combat Jim Crow segregation fifty years ago.”

American Federation for Children: “The future for school choice programs across the country brightened dramatically this week in the wake of the election of several new governors and state legislators, strengthening a growing bipartisan coalition for school choice, according to the American Federation for Children (AFC).”

OneNewsNow: “‘This is just really a state drunk with its own power trying to justify a decision that was wrong from the beginning,’ the [ADF Attorney Roger Kiska] contends. ‘These parents are the parents; they have the right to educate their child the way that they think is best for Domenic, and they shouldn’t be punished in this manner.’”

Friends of Domenic Johansson: “To the best of our knowledge, Sweden continues to hold this father in jail. The original information we received said he’d have some sort of trial on December 10th. However, we are now learning that the trial can be held as late as December 14th or 15th and it seems this might be the case. Sweden will NOT take Christer to trial until they have a psychiatric finding assigned to him.”

Boston Globe: “The Boston Teachers Union is accusing city and school leaders of “meeting secretly’’ last week to offer charter school officials the chance to lease city schools slated for closure, even before parents and students at those schools knew their fate.”

Christian Newswire: “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling. That’s exactly what happened here,” said Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who is based in Europe. “Despite the ill-advised decision on the part of Mr. Johansson, the only menace here is a government drunk with its own power. This sad circumstance is what happens when an over-powerful government pushes a parent to the point of desperation, so social services should not pretend to be surprised.” HSLDA, in partnership with ADF, has appealed the Johansson case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch: “. . . The second trend is also fully explicable. Secular leftist states know that if they can get access to children from early on, and for many years, they can easily instill their agenda, their values, and their worldview into the children. And as the state’s ideology and worldview becomes increasingly hostile to that of the Judeo-Christian worldview, then you can expect states to definitely frown upon homeschooling . . . Take a look at Sweden, home of Ikea and Volvos. A couple months ago in June, attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and the Home School Legal Defense Association filed Johansson v. Sweden with the European Court of Human Rights so that that the Swedish government will return a seven-year-old homeschooled boy to his parents. Dominic Johansson was forcibly seized by Swedish authorities from his parents in June 2009 after they had boarded a plane in their move to India. The reason? He was homeschooled.”

Diane Ravitch writing in the Wall Street Journal [full text via Google News]: “Now that Republicans have regained control of the House of Representatives, they must take a stand in the battle for control of American education. The issue today is between those who want to federalize education policy and those who want to maintain state and local control of the public schools.”

Free Range Longmont: “The Douglas County School District (DougCo) is earnestly considering a voucher program . . . Beyond the evidence that charter schools fail to substantiate their proponents assertions, American United for the Separation of Church and State (AU) has registered their concerns with the Douglas County school board on the religious school component of this proposed Option Certificate Program.”

John Guardiano writing at The Daily Caller: “Did you know that many American public schools have knowingly adopted policies to promote the harassment and persecution of gay students? You didn’t? Well neither did I until I read a piece by one Alex Morgan at FrumForum . . . Morgan’s rationales for school choice are unfair, dishonest and objectionable. Morgan propagandizes on behalf of the gay agenda and, in so doing, commits crimes against the truth.”

Jennifer A. Marshall, director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, writing at ConservativeHome: “Conservatives can set a bold new course on education, beginning with these three priorities for federal reform: Stop the Spending Spree . . . Restore Federalism . . . Promote Parental Choice in Education.”

Pioneer Press: “The ACLU is suing the Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy, or TiZA, in federal court, alleging the school blurs the boundary between religion and public education. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank dismissed a motion by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, or MAS-MN, to disqualify Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney from representing the ACLU in the case.”

The Heritage Foundation: “House Minority Leader John Boehner (R–OH) made quite a statement last Monday when, on his first day back in office post-elections, he took time out to meet with parents and children enrolled in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP). In doing so, Boehner sent a clear signal to D.C. families of his support for school choice in the nation’s capital.”

Dallas Morning News: “Advantage’s state-funded campuses showcase the latest breed of charter schools, born from faith-based principles and taxpayer funds. More than 20 percent of Texas’ charter schools have some kind of religious ties. That’s the case for six of the seven approved this year, including ones in Frisco and Arlington.”

Dallas Morning News: “Today, 70 percent of New Orleans public school students attend a charter school. No other city comes close. (Dallas’ rate is 10 percent and growing.) So educators, lawmakers and researchers are watching for results. One early lesson: The relative freedom of charter schools – they’re independently run and exempt from many state education laws – appears to have been key to an overall boost in student performance in New Orleans.”

Goldwater Institute: “Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance has published a new report on the Arizona tuition scholarship tax credit. The report does a great deal to answer the misleading claims of some of the program’s critics. Vicki Murray of California’s Pacific Research Institute surveyed Arizona scholarship groups and found the tuition tax credit really does expand the options available for middle- and low-income families to educate their children.”

Washington Post: “The next crop of would-be D.C. charter school operators gathered in a gray conference room on 14th Street one night last week, more than 30 hopeful men and women, each with his or her own pitch . . . The meeting was convened by the District’s public charter school board to explain the application process for opening a charter school, a list of requirements that fits into an hour-long PowerPoint presentation.”

The Heritage Foundation: “As a result of last week’s election, 2011 could be a watershed year for education reform and school choice. Many conservative candidates in the states campaigned on returning to local control in education and expanding school choice options for parents. Several states in particular could see significant movement on the education reform front as new leadership takes the helm in the coming months.”

Twin Cities Daily Planet: “Republican Rep. John Kline is likely to chair the powerful House Education and Labor Committee in the new Congress and already he’s drawing fire from both sides of the aisle. Kline caught praise from religious conservatives when he expressed his support for educational vouchers for Washington, DC, parents that will allow them to spend taxpayer money on religious schooling. But he also has drawn the ire of fiscal conservatives by saying he doesn’t intend to push for the elimination of the Department of Education.”

The Heritage Foundation: “Canada might be perceived as having ‘socialized’ education, akin to its ‘top down’ health care system. In reality, several Canadian provinces have a flourishing ‘bottom up’ choice-based primary and secondary education system. The province of Alberta has been especially supportive of school choice. Under the Canadian constitution, education is a provincial responsibility, with which the federal government has not interfered. In Alberta, parents expect—and have—a wide variety of educational options for how to educate their children, a policy outcome that American states should emulate.”

Illinois Family Institute (via Insider Online): “Charter schools are a new kind of public school, attended solely by choice. They must take all comers, irrespective of past performance in school or on tests. Through state law, charter schools are given the freedom to create ‘new look’ schools that break with the outworn, bureaucratic policies of inner city education. Several studies have shown that charter schools in Chicago are outperforming the norm at district-run public schools; there are more than 15,000 students on waiting lists as a result.”