Displaying 31-60 of 95 results
Commentary
4.6.2023
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Can we have both school choice and shared institutions?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

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.

Commentary
2.16.2023
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

Why I’m wary of universal education savings accounts

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

In the fast-moving, highly energized world of school choice and parent-empowerment advocacy, education savings accounts are the hottest thing since vouchers, maybe even hotter. Ten states already have them in some form, and a dozen more legislatures are weighing bills to create them. But Finn is wary, particularly of the free-swinging, almost-anything-goes version known as “universal” ESAs.

Commentary
2.9.2023
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Give parents wide latitude on ESA uses—and give teachers their own accounts, too

Mike Goldstein

Recent news stories have pushed the narrative that parents are using education savings accounts to buy items of questionable educational value and relevance, including chicken coops, trampolines, and tickets to SeaWorld. But perhaps ESAs’ permissiveness is a feature, not a bug—and perhaps officials would be wise to go one step further and give teachers their own accounts.

Commentary
2.6.2023
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Parent navigators are worth the investment for school choice supporters

Travis Pillow

From 2015 to 2018, the start of spring meant I could expect to hear from parents across Florida. At the time, I worked for Step Up Students, the Florida-based organization that administers the nation’s largest education scholarship (i.e., voucher) program. My job was not in customer service. I was the editor of a blog focused on school choice issues.

Commentary
2.2.2023
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

How much education is a public responsibility?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

So many of our debates about paying for higher education hinge on conflicting views of what’s the taxpayer’s responsibility and what’s the recipient’s. These days, that’s also true of pre-schooling and it also arises, albeit in different form, when we fight over vouchers, tax credits, ESAs and such. Is it society’s responsibility to pay for private schooling or is it the family’s?

Commentary
1.26.2023
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice

Public dollars, private schools

Robert Pondiscio

For the vast majority of America’s children, going to school has changed little from their parents’ generation, even their grandparents’: Where you live is where you learn, in a school run by your local public school district.

Commentary
1.12.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Rural school choice is more common than you think

Robert Pondiscio

A common observation made by critics of school choice is that it has little to offer families in rural communities where the population isn’t large enough to support multiple schools, and where transportation is already burdensome. I’ve made the point myself, and I’m a school choice proponent.

Commentary
12.15.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Private School Choice

Voucher lotteries and college enrollment outcomes

Jeff Murray

Authorized by Congress in 2004, the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) is one of the longest-standing voucher programs in the nation. It is also the only federally-funded one. While its fortunes have changed as congressional and executive branch leadership has switched parties over the years, the program has endured.

Commentary
10.13.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Cultural sensitivity for me but not for thee

Robert Pondiscio, Elli Lucas

Imagine a close-knit community whose members take care of and look out for one another; enjoy strong, tight-knit families with many children, close social ties, and a deep sense of purpose and belonging; and seem mostly exempt from crime, suicide, substance abuse, and other such problems. Are the habits and institutions by which this community prepares its members for adult life successful?

Commentary
7.21.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

In a time of crisis, Catholic schools offered a choice, not an echo

Kathleen Porter-Magee

“New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected,” the Economist tweeted recently to promote a

Commentary
7.7.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The swirling private-school universe

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The universe of private elementary-secondary schooling in America today is diverse and confusing, with innumerable twists and turns in efforts to use public funds to help families access schools that suit them—including private schools of all colors and stripes. But the virtue of these institutions is that they’re different, which also means very different from each other. Which complicates the quest to deploy public dollars to assist families to choose them.

Commentary
3.10.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Could Great Hearts Academy change the face of private education?

Robert Pondiscio

Remote learning is hard to love. The nation’s forced experiment in online education the past few years has been a disaster for kids. Educators and parents alike have come to view virtual learning as a necessary evil at best, an ad hoc response to a national crisis.

Commentary
2.24.2022
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The hypocrisy of school districts saying they’re “open to all”

Jessica Poiner

Opponents of school choice regularly criticize private schools for not taking all comers, contrasting them with traditional public schools, which they claim are open to all. But that’s not true in many places, especially wealthier suburbs, where public schools are typically restricted to students who live within geographic boundaries. Attending them requires a hefty mortgage and property taxes or sky-high rents that are out of the reach of low- and middle-income families.

Commentary
2.3.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Did public education have it coming?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

In many ways, the educational failures of the past several years—including those caused by the pandemic—were far worse than they needed to be because of long-standing characteristics of American public education. Namely, the tendency to place employees’ interests first, the disempowering of parents, and the failure to innovate.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Americans have lost trust in public schools

Robert Pondiscio

Editor’s note: This essay was first published by The 74.

Commentary
11.4.2021
Accountability & Testing, Private School Choice

The complexities of accountability and private school choice

Jessica Poiner

Among its many educational impacts, the pandemic has reenergized efforts to expand private school choice. States like Ohio, where it already existed, have expanded eligibility and increased funding.

Commentary
10.21.2021
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice

How do parents use education savings accounts?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Whether due to the pandemic, political opportunism, popular demand, or a combination, education savings accounts (ESAs) are enjoying much attention and growth

Commentary
10.1.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The impact of voucher programs: A deep dive into the research

Pedro Enamorado

Last month, my colleagues Mike Petrilli and David Griffith had a conversation with Patrick Wolf, a leading school choice scholar at the University of Arkansas, about the impact of voucher programs on the Education Gadfly Show podcast.

Commentary
9.30.2021
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Use pandemic recovery funds to empower both schools and families

Bruno V. Manno

Covid-19 school shock disrupted our way of doing education, unbundling the familiar division of responsibilities among home, school, and community organizations. Nearly every parent of school-age children had to create from scratch a home learning environment using online technology and rebundling school services to meet their needs.

Commentary
9.16.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

School choice is a better instrument for racial justice than critical race theory

Daniel Buck

The outlook has gotten bleak for the anti-racist and CRT movements in U.S. classrooms, as Americans saw these ideas in action and largely recoiled from them. But there's another K–12 strategy for achieving racial justice: school choice.

Commentary
8.27.2021
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

A bright future for open enrollment

Matthew Ladner

“Hi. Welcome to the future. San Dimas, California. 2688.” Rufus, played by George Carlin, thus opened the American film classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure by explaining that, in the distant future, everything is great. The water, air, and even the dirt is clean.