What should be done when a beneficial service or product is in such demand that many who want or need it can’t get it?
In business, the answer is obvious: Increase supply to satisfy all of the demand.
Not so in government, in this case the New Jersey public education establishment. Its answer to more parents and students seeking to use the state’s school choice program is to limit statewide participation to about 5,000 students a year, maybe indefinitely.
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Noel Candelaria, president of the Texas State Teachers Association, criticized school choice reforms in a recent guest column.
As an advocate for school choice, I have to agree with his criticisms that some school choice programs in the past have been too small and have only benefitted some children. I believe that the best program for Texas would be education savings accounts that would allow every child in Texas, public or private, rich or poor, black, white or brown to take their share of their education funding to the school of the parents' choice, public or private.
ESAs would be a voluntary program, but in the best-case scenario, they would be available to every Texas child.
Keep reading this article here.
“I haven’t met many self-directed teenagers,” said a frustrated high school teacher during a recent presentation.
As we contemplate the vast problem of teenage disengagement and the apparent low level of self-direction, we have to ask, “Is it our kids or our schools?”
We’ve seen enough high engagement schools where most teens were self-directed to suggest that it may be the design of American secondary schools that’s the problem—not the kids.
For a century, the primary design meme of American schools has been compliant consumption. Students read, practice and regurgitate in small chunks in siloed classes in regimented environments. Low levels of self-direction shouldn’t be surprising—it is inherent in the traditional secondary school design.
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Laptops, tablets, and apps are just some of the latest tech tools that teachers are using to spark students’ interest in STEM disciplines, which include science, technology, engineering, and math. Other trends include moving away from traditional face-to-face instruction and toward more hybrid learning opportunities, including online instruction and hands-on projects. Instructional videos and coaching courses have become instrumental elements within education and the overall development of today’s youth. All of these new technologies and approaches will produce stronger fundamentals and increase interests within STEM education.
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Roseburg area students who are members of the online public charter school Oregon Connections Academy baked cookies Thursday morning and then delivered them to Roseburg Fire Department firefighters.
Several teachers and students worked together in the Westside Christian Church in Roseburg to bake more than four dozen sugar cookies.
Kris VanHouten believes this is not only a great curricular opportunity for students of the academy, but also a way to show appreciation for what firefighters do for the community.
“The firefighters are away from their families more than most would want to and they do that to protect us and keep us safe. I wanted them to know that we appreciate that,” VanHouten said.
VanHouten said she wants to show kids that firefighters are people who should be respected and not feared.
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NICOLLET — A blanket holds special meaning to 16-year-old Hailey Sherwood of Nicollet.
Her foster parents, now her adoptive parents, bought her a Winnie the Pooh blanket when she was first brought to their home at six months old. She's kept it ever since, holding it dear and sleeping with it every night.
"I use it as a security blanket," she told the Mankato Free Press. "It's something that makes me feel safe and comforted."
Entering a new foster home can be a scary experience for children. Knowing this, Sherwood came up with a project to help them feel the same comfort she felt growing up.
Read more about this great project here.
Modern technology connects us and allows communities to share resources in unprecedented ways. Virtual education leverages these connections to provide everyone, regardless of geographic location, access to experts and high quality learning experiences. As technology has improved, virtual education has evolved to become a tool that helps close gaps in high schools and colleges.
Quality online learning programs provide rigorous curriculum, meaningful teaching resources, and access to specialized programs, such as industry training for students, schools and teachers.
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Is school choice the only way to save the U.S. education system?
David S. D’Amato, a policy advisor at the Heartland Institute, thinks so.
In a piece that manages to invoke both John Dewey and Murray Rothbard, D’Amato makes the case that the “dynamism and innovation America’s schools so desperately need cannot come from a failed socialism that promotes more centralization, technocracy and bureaucracy.”
Read the whole thing here.
Conservatives support school choice. However, rural elected officials, many of whom are also conservative, generally do not.
There’s an inherent conflict in this that partly explains why the broad issue of education reform has made some progress in Texas in recent years but the narrower issue of school choice has not.
School choice offers a fundamental question: Should there be competition in public education? The only serious answer to that question is “yes.”
Asked another way, who would oppose competition? The answer is the opponents of school choice, who are generally made up of liberals, school districts, teachers’ unions and some rural Republicans who do not believe school choice options currently exist in rural areas.
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In order to foster a variety of innovative and high-quality education options for all students, universal access to education savings accounts (ESAs) should be the goal of policymakers in every state.
ESAs are flexible spending accounts that parents can use to purchase a wide variety of educational goods and services, including private school tuition, tutors, textbooks, homeschool curricula, online courses, educational therapy, and more. Parents can also save unused funds for later educational expenses, such as college tuition.
This Special Report explores how ESAs expand educational opportunity and hold education providers directly accountable to parents; it also explains several common types of regulations that can undermine the effectiveness of the program and how they can be avoided.
Read more here.