Andrew Campanella and Ashley Ehrenreich
Alliance for School Choice
2010
According to this report, 2009 was “the school choice movement’s most challenging year to date.” While perhaps over-dramatic, this pronouncement does highlight the fact that choice gained ground in some areas while it lost in others. The Pennsylvania and D.C. voucher programs suffered. But new programs became law in Indiana and Arizona, four other states (Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, and Utah) added programs, and four more programs (in Georgia, Ohio, Rhode Island and Wisconsin) survived attempts to dismantle them. Student enrollment in the various types of choice increased 5 percent in 2009 to nearly 180,000. (The authors have in mind vouchers, tax credits and such, not charters and myriad other forms of “public-school choice.”) There’s also some new research here (and some repeat findings from 2008 and 2007), rounded out with the usual heartwarming stories, state profiles, and pictures of children on the picket line. It might have been a tough year, says the Alliance, but they’re ready to declare it a victory. Read round three here.
