Opponents make lots of arguments against education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarship programs, and other forms of private school choice. But the complaint that schools aren’t required to test their students is generally false. We dig in and set the record straight
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday afternoon to hear a landmark religious charter schools case out of Oklahoma, and it’s a much bigger deal than you might imagine.
President-elect Donald Trump is about to return to Washington with a ragtag coalition, united in their rejection of the status quo. Yet this shared opposition has also led to a rash of infighting over a range of policy issues.
After more than a decade of trying to launch some form of education savings account/tax credit program for parent choice, it looks like Idaho’s legislature is likely to pass legislation this year to get it done.
The Founding Fathers never envisioned that executive orders would be a major policymaking tool, circumventing legislative and executive deliberations, political stalemates, and partisanship. But recent history has deemed them essential levers if there is to be urgent action on the most important matters of the day.
Yes, choice itself is a form of accountability, but “customer satisfaction” isn’t enough when tax dollars are in play—even for private-school choice programs. The public has a right to know that participating students are gaining essential skills. To that end, this post discusses four tiers of escalating accountability and where state policy should land, depending on the amount of taxpayer dollars provided to individual schools, among other considerations.
One of the most interesting and significant findings about charter schools in the last decade—outside of the fact that they tend to outperform traditional public schools (TPS)—is that growin
As the clock winds down towards Election Day, Colorado voters—myself included—face an important decision beyond the presidential contest: whether to amend the state constitution to enshrine a “right to school choice.” To be clear, the Centennial State has a long and proud record on the issue.
Of the school choice options available to many U.S. families today, few embody the spirit of “power to the parents” quite like education savings accounts (ESAs).
On Monday, Donald Trump chose Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, signaling a doubling down on his MAGA brand. As far as education is concerned, this means tapping into broad parental discontent over educational and education-related issues, many of which were turbocharged by the pandemic.
Ten years ago, when Florida launched the nation’s second education savings account program, a beautiful thing happened. Friedrich Hayek would have called it “spontaneous order.” Parents, within days, began forming a multitude of Facebook groups where they traded advice on how to access the accounts, how to use them, and what learning options were available in their area.
In his new book, “The Parent Revolution,” school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis explains the notable plummet in the public’s trust of public education, especially in the past five years. By his telling, school choice is the answer to all that ails us. But he’s likely overselling its healing powers.
The school choice movement continues to rack up dramatic wins nationwide. This growth in “educational freedom,” as many advocates now call it, is a fantastic development. But under the surface of these victories, an important debate is brewing: how to balance the drive for maximum choice with other values, including fiscal responsibility and fairness.
Congress is currently considering legislation to update the way that the federal government funds education research and development.
Many of the conditions that led to the prominence of “no-excuses” charter schools a quarter-century ago have returned. For students, teachers, and parents who have never lost their appetite for safe and orderly schools, it can’t come soon enough.
Examination of Covid-era impacts on students, families, and schools continues apace. Getting a full picture of the fallout, who was affected, and how helps education leaders better direct their resources to serve impacted students.
After handily defeating his Republican rival for the governorship of red-hued Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear is having a moment as a center-left moderate who could run for president in 2028. But we education reformers should curb our enthusiasm because Beshear’s stances are alien to ours.
In a new report and accompanying factsheet, authors Jason Bedrick, Jay Greene, and Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation look into
Microschools exist as a midpoint between homeschooling and traditional schools. Typically, the entire school will only have twenty-five students and one or two teachers—often parents, sometimes former educators looking for a more personal classroom, and occasionally local community members like doctors who have expertise to share.
Recent policy innovations such as education savings accounts, microgrants, and tax credits address some of the financial barriers that prevent families from accessing flexible education opportunities.
America’s school choice moment has finally arrived, but the vast majority of students nationwide still attend traditional public schools—and will for the foreseeable future. Conservatives would be wise to support policies that give families choices within the public education system. Cross-district open enrollment does precisely that, and it has strong bipartisan support.
While national school-choice advocates crow about recent legislative victories in states like Iowa, Utah, South Carolina, and West Virginia, setbacks and struggles simmer in Illinois, Montana, and Idaho.
Thomas Sowell famously quipped that “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.” Even seemingly beneficial policies have repercussions. Reduce the prison population and crime increases. Close schools to prevent the spread of Covid and standardized test scores plummet. What’s more, even historic, society-altering changes come with side effects.
This year’s state legislative sessions, now coming to a close, have yielded a blizzard of high-profile victories on school choice, from the enactment of universal education savings accounts (ESA) programs, to the expansion of private school choice policies to serve many more families, to fairer funding for charter schools.
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the universal ESA programs that are sweeping the nation, but they are worth rooting for anyway because they’ll likely lead traditional public schools to improve.
When Tennessee House Republicans expelled, albeit briefly, two young, Black Democratic lawmakers late last week, it raised a number of unsettling questions—not only about the contours of our politics, but also about the future of educat
A little-noticed event in late 2022 destabilized a pillar of contemporary American K–12 education, namely that all schools considered part of the public system must be secular.
If we put all our education hopes in markets, self-interest, competition, and “invisible hands,” will that contribute to the other fissiparous forces that are weakening the valuable shared assets we inherited from earlier generations? Recent surveys certainly suggest that mounting public support for school choice is coinciding with diminishing confidence in shared institutions and public values of all kinds, including patriotism itself.
In the summer of 2015, I sat at my desk and Googled “health savings account providers.” At the time, I had been in states across the country advocating for creation of education savings account (ESA) programs.
Dear Checker,
