School Choice Week has grown from 150 events in 2011 to more than 11,000 events coming up this week around the country. They range from kids from Newark Prep Charter School ringing the bell to open the New York Stock Exchange Monday morning to thousands of kids doing the official dance with their yellow fleece scarves.
I spoke about the right of children to attend excellent schools at one of the first events four years ago – about 25 people at a bar in Hoboken, N.J. on a snowy January night. Some people in the community were shocked that I – an elected member of the school board – would speak at a school-choice forum. A few spies showed up to listen to the speech and report back. At the next school board meeting the president diverted from the agenda to announce that I had gone rogue and was not speaking for any of them, as if that were my plan. Since I left the board in 2013, the majority members have pressed a lawsuit against Hola Charter School, one of three charters in town, to keep it from expanding to seventh and eighth grades. Throughout the country, parents are fighting for the right to educate their children their way. And there remains a broad coalition of anti-choice advocates who want to reduce or eliminate education alternatives.
As School Choice Week kicks off, here’s a list of nine things that you need to know about education issues around the country.
1. The findings from the American Federation for Children poll released last week indicate that 69% of Americans support the concept of school choice, 63% support private school choice in the form of vouchers and 76% support public-school charters. “The findings of this poll reflect what we saw in the 2014 midterms and what I am seeing in communities across the country – a demand from parents for more options in deciding how their children are educated,” says Kevin Chavous, AFC’s executive counsel.
2. More than 100,000 students use vouchers to attend private schools, according to the Center for Education Reform. Tax-credit funded scholarship programs are available in 14 states and the District of Columbia and help pay tuition for about 190,000 student.
3. There are nearly 6,500 charter schools with more than 2.5 million students enrolled, according to the National Alliance for Public School Charters. Half of all charters are in four states: California, Texas, Florida and Arizona.
4. The Center for Education Reform ranks the charter school movement in each state from A to F based on a system that includes points for funding, autonomy and “teacher freedom.” The As are the District of Columbia, Minnesota (home of the first charter in 1991), Indiana, Michigan and Arizona. The Fs are Virginia, Iowa and Kansas. Nearly 300 students are on the average charter school waiting list. Another finding? Charters on average get 64% of the funding of their district public schools, $7,131 versus $11,184.
5. There are eight states that still don’t allow charter schools: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Vermont, West Virginia, Alabama and Kentucky. Mississippi and Washington have recently changed their laws to allow charters and many are in the pipeline. Change may be coming to Nebraska, where Republican Governor Pete Ricketts, who favors charters and vouchers, in November beat a Democrat opponent who was against them.
6. Charter schools go out of business. The National Alliance for Public School Charters’ report last year notes that about 200 public charter schools that were open in 2012-13 did not open their doors the following year. The reasons for the shut-downs include low enrollment, financials problems and below-par academic performance. The Center for Education Reform says that of the approximately 6,700 charters that have ever opened, 1,036 have closed since 1992.
7. Charter schools are getting better results. A study of Texas charters issued last month by the Cato Institute says the improvement is due to three changes: the least-effective schools are the ones most likely to close, the schools that open out-perform those that close, and the schools that remained open during the 2001-11 period got better. The Evolution of Charter School Quality notes that as the sector matures, there’s less student turnover and students become more selective in picking their schools. “As schools improved, more successful charter school management organizations expanded and many less effective schools left the market,” according to the report.
8. For the first time, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution recognizing National School Choice Week. Sponsored by Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina, the resolution calls for Americans to “raise public awareness about the benefits of opportunity in education.” He had 10 co-sponsors including possible Republican presidential contenders Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, as well as one Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California.
9. The nation’s two biggest teachers’ unions spent $60 million to defeat pro-school-choice candidates in the November mid-term elections, according to the Washington Post. The American Federation of Teachers represents 1.6 million members and the National Education Association has 3.2 million members. They unsuccessfully targeted Republican candidates including Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. Their only major victory was the ouster of unpopular Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett. In the days leading up to the election, NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia went on a “six-state blitz to pound the pavement with educators and candidates,” according to the union’s statement.
