Economist Craig Newmark makes a good point about opposition to the burgeoning charter school movement in North Carolina:

Janet Cowell, D-Wake County, is quoted in the Raleigh newspaper as saying that North Carolina shouldn't have more than 100 charter schools--the current legal cap--because "Until you can ensure a standard of quality, it's hard for me to justify lifting the cap."

The same article reports that Franklin Academy, a K-12 charter school in Wake Forest, currently has a waiting list of more than 1000 students.

Question to Ms. Cowell: doesn't that look like a "standard of quality" to you?

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 09:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Illinois School Choice Initiative, a grassroots project of The Heartland Institute, is laying the groundwork to provide educational opportunities for children in Illinois. To this end, the Initiative seeks to educate the public on the advantages of school choice.

Throughout 2006, the Initiative is hosting a monthly "Educational Choice Speaker Series 2006" featuring national school choice experts. Speakers so far have included Milwaukee School Board president Kenneth L. Johnson, Virginia Gentles (Florida's top school choice official), Lawrence Patrick of BAEO, president and CEO of the Hispanic CREO Rebeca Nieves-Huffman, and Robert Enlow, the executive director of the Friedman Foundation. These individuals represent some of the nation's leading experts in school choice policy.

And now the Initiative is reaching beyond the borders of Illinois. It is publishing an audio weblog with its monthly speeches. The format is extremely user-friendly, and the speeches are extremely informative and accurate in diagnosing the problems in education and moving this country closer to an education system that empowers parents and increases student achievement. Go give it a listen.

Posted by Evan Feinberg at 10:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yet another Democratic leader is on-board with school choice. Last week, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) signed legislation to create a tax credit for contributions to organizations that then distribute the money to students as scholarships for private-school enrollment. Here are the details, courtesy of the Friedman Foundation:

The program establishes a 65 percent tax credit for individuals who make contributions to approved school tuition organizations (STOs), which then distribute scholarships to families to be used at a school of their choice. To qualify, families must have an income that is at 300 percent or below of the federal poverty level. STOs must spend 90% of funds raised on scholarships, and scholarships may not exceed tuition at the child’s private school. In addition, while the program will be capped at $2.5 million for 2006, the cap will rise to $5 million for subsequent years.

Dan Lips has devoted several of his Education Notebook columns to looking at the partisan politics of school choice:

Historically, Democrats opposed school choice initiatives, but a growing number of them, many whose constituents are trapped in the nation's worst public schools, are reconsidering. Democratic state legislators are sponsoring similar legislation in New Jersey and Maryland . In Ohio , State Rep. Dixie Allen, a Democrat, is backing a measure to expand the state's school voucher program. And with the support of several prominent Democrats, Wisconsin lawmakers recently expanded the Milwaukee school voucher program by 50 percent.

And now there's Iowa.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 11:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In an interview with National Review's Kathryn-Jean Lopez, Heritage chief Ed Feulner waxes on eliminating the Department of Education and, perhaps quixotically, on our own softball team's future prospects:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: I remember piles of "Backgrounders" on shutting down the Departments of education, labor, etc. all over Heritage back when I was an intern there. Does their continued existence depress you? Do you consider any of that unfinished business or is it a lost cause?

Ed Feulner: Of course it's depressing. It is depressing because parents who want to provide better opportunities for their children get lost in a huge one-size fits all government bureaucracy. It furthers the mistaken belief that the solutions to our problems will come from government in Washington. Our country faces some serious problems and we need to remember that the innovative solutions to these problems will come from the American people, and that they evolve through our federal system at the local and state levels, not from some paper-pushing federal bureaucrat lost in a government labyrinth from which Theseus couldn't escape.

Is it a lost cause? Let's just say there are a lot of horses that have already escaped the barn. Yet, at the end of the day, the American people want a system that works. So I believe that slowly we will start to see control of education moving from bureaucrats in a centralized government building back to the people who care most about our children — their parents. And as we move in that direction, hope springs eternal that we'll be able to bulldoze the Department of Education. The location would be a perfect spot for some softball fields where the Heritage team could again be league champions.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 09:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)