School Vouchers Equal Better Outcomes for All

from The Platte Institute for Economic Freedom: 7/2/2013

Indiana Leading the Way on Vouchers

In 1875, the Speaker of the House of Representatives James G. Blaine introduced an amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit the use of state funds at private religious schools. While the amendment failed on the national level, 37 states-including Nebraska-adopted these amendments for their state constitutions.[1] While these amendments have long been an impediment to those who support school vouchers-state-sponsored certificates of specified dollar amounts that parents can use for private school tuition[2]-a recent ruling on Indiana's expansive voucher program indicates that vouchers may not fall under Blaine amendment constraints, which would open the door to vouchers in Nebraska.

The Indiana Supreme Court case examined whether Indiana's voucher program, which is available to low and middle-income families, was constitutional. The court held that it was, as the state funds "do not directly benefit religious schools but rather directly benefit lower-income families with school children."[3] Such a precedent could make it possible for other states with Blaine amendments to introduce voucher programs without violating state constitutions, giving parents more choice and control in how their child is educated.

Twelve states currently have voucher programs, but Indiana's is the most expansive. It is a statewide program with a maximum voucher amount of $4,500 for students in grades 1-8.[4] A family of four earning less than $42,000 annually can receive up to 90 percent of the maximum state voucher; families making up to $62,000 annually receive 50 percent.[5] Since its establishment in 2012, participation in the program has grown 140 percent, jumping from 3,919 students to 9,424. In the Indianapolis area in particular, the number of students receiving vouchers increased 94 percent, from 644 to 1,262.[6] Such results demonstrate a critical need for more educational options for students and parents, and Indiana's response is one to be emulated.

Voucher programs introduce choice and competition into education. With vouchers, private schools are no longer open only to those who can afford it, and the playing field is leveled so parents with limited means that want to send their children to private school have opportunities to do so. In addition, a marketplace of educational choice compels both public and private schools to focus on advancing student achievement and meeting parent expectations.[7] Research also suggests that public schools improved when subject to the competition introduced by vouchers. A study of public schools in Florida found "that public schools subject to more competitive pressure from private schools raised their test scores the most following the introduction of Florida's voucher program."[8] Therefore, the positive benefits of vouchers extend even to those who choose to remain in the public school system in some cases.

Voucher programs have shown success in raising student outcomes in their own right. Students in Washington DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program-which provides vouchers to low-income students through a lottery-had a graduation rate of 91 percent, 21 percent higher than those without vouchers. DC voucher students also had higher student achievement and parental satisfaction, even while spending only $7,500 per pupil, while DC public schools spent $29,409 per pupil in 2010.[9] More than 20,000 students in Milwaukee's voucher program also saw positive results, achieving a graduation rate 18 percent higher than their public school counterparts between 2003-2009.[10]

The Indiana court ruling provides Nebraska a unique constitutional opportunity to implement vouchers and give Nebraska parents more opportunities for their children. Every child deserves to have a choice in where they go to school, and it is time to give all of Nebraska's children that choice.

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[1] Anthony R. Picarello, Jr., School Choice: The Blaine Amendments & Anti-Catholicism, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/BlaineReport.pdf; Blaine Amendments, "States." Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.blaineamendments.org/states/states.html.

[2] Jordan Cash, "Vouchers and Tax Credits," Platte Institute for Economic Research, August 28, 2012. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.platteinstitute.org/docLib/20120823_Vouchers_and_Tax_Credits.pdf.
 
[3] Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Dickson qtd. in Mark Guarino, "Indiana's expansive school voucher program upheld: A model for others?" Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2013. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0326/Indiana-s-expansive-school-voucher-program-upheld-A-model-for-others.
 
[4] National Conference of State Legislatures, "School Voucher Laws: State-by-State Comparison." Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/educ/voucher-law-comparison.aspx
 
[5] Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Dickson qtd. in Mark Guarino, "Indiana's expansive school voucher program upheld: A model for others?" Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2013. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0326/Indiana-s-expansive-school-voucher-program-upheld-A-model-for-others.
 
[6] Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Dickson qtd. in Mark Guarino, "Indiana's expansive school voucher program upheld: A model for others?" Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2013. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0326/Indiana-s-expansive-school-voucher-program-upheld-A-model-for-others.
 
[7] David N. Figlio and Cassandra M.D. Hart, "Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 16056, June 2010. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.nber.org/papers/w16056.pdf.
 
[8] David N. Figlio and Cassandra M.D. Hart, "Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 16056, June 2010. Accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.nber.org/papers/w16056.pdf.
 
[9] Jason Richwine, "D.C. Voucher Students: Higher Graduation Rates and Other Positice Outcomes," Heritage Foundation, July 28, 2010. Accessed June 13, 2013,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/07/dc-voucher-students-higher-graduation-rates-and-other-positive-outcomes; Patrick Wolf et al., "Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Report," United States Department of Education, June 2010. Accessed June 13, 2013,
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf; Andrew Coulson, "Census Bureau Confirms: DC Spends $29,409/pupil," Cato Institute, June 26, 2012. Accessed June 13, 2013,
http://www.cato.org/blog/census-bureau-confirms-dc-spends-29409-pupil.
 
[10] John Robert Warrem, "Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee, 2003-2009," University of Minnesota, School Choice Wisconsin, January 2011. Accessed June 13, 2013,
http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/29370.pdf.

Common Core - Dangerous for America!

 Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom Issue Paper: commoncore1.doc.  4-13.

BACKGROUND.  Conservatives are legitimately alarmed about the Obama Administration Common Core curriculum pressed onto our public schools.  The regime heavily pushes this curricula through its $4.35 billion 2009 Race to the Top education grant competition bribery.  Many states have embraced Common Core to grab these massive grants.  States that accepted its precepts received bonus points in their applications.  This plan awards points to states that adopt this common set of K-12 standards that are mostly identical all over America. Obama’s Education Dept. has awarded over $360 million to 2 liberal groups to create student assessments in Common Core.  Obama herded states into adopting these standards without time to deliberate on their adequacy, requiring adoption approved by state education dept. officials, if states want to obtain federal waivers from the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.  If Obama succeeds, states like NE will lose federal funds by adhering to their own standards, denied access to Race to the Top federal dollars for refusing Common Core.

  

VALID CRITICISM.  Common Core eradicates local school board control over the K-12 math and English curricula, substituting a lone, federally-imposed curricula that applies to public, private, parochial, and home schools.  Proponents advise that national standards will improve academic performance; however, these new standards evidence no proof that they are better than current NE standards.  No district has tested these standards, which use unproved instructional methods. These standards base on unproved ideas and questionable assumptions.  The job of teaching our kids is too important to depend on untested, common methods pushed by companies that have financial interests in selling textbooks, technology, and academic assessment but not accountable to parents or taxpayers. Several private corporations will make huge profits, with less money reaching classrooms.  Our children will become guinea pigs.  In Massachusetts, adopting Common Core meant dumping academic standards regarded as the best in the nation.  In many states, Common Core standards are inferior to state standards.  There exists no evidence that a federal curriculum brings high academic achievement.  France and Denmark boast national curricula that do not reflect high achievement on international testing.  Contrarily, both Canada and Australia use many regional curricula and show better results.[1]  A Brookings Institution study found that common state standards do little to equalize academic achievement among states.[2]   Instruction is confusing.  Common Core requires pupils to explain a math problem before doing the calculation, complicating the teaching of basic math.  Teachers become confused with the unfamiliarity of teaching this product.  Students do not learn traditional math, like multiplication, until a grade or two later. In Common Core math, kids abandon concrete skills for abstract confusing methodology.  Elementary kids who got “A” grades struggle to explain how they find answers after using mental math in Common Core and get lower grades.  These math standards delay development of key concepts and skills, instructions written at a level confusing to teachers, students, parents, and administrators.  Math standards not well-organized at the high school level, several important topics insufficiently covered, and standards not divided into defined courses. To avoid attention, proponents have focused only on math and English, aiming to eventually extend Common Core to all subjects.  Math standards are inferior.  A math professor, the only mathematician on the validation committee, refused to sign off on the math standards, declaring that they would drop many pupils 2 yrs. behind those in many other nations.  One most tragic change for English classes is the requirement that 50% or more of readings in Grades 6-12 come from informational instead of cultural texts.  Such means that curricula will not include many classic works in American and other literature.  Popular treatises like Common Sense, the Gettysburg Address, and To Kill A Mockingbird are not present, only on a list of reading suggestions.  No research tells that college readiness comes from reading informational items in high school classes.[3]  Conservatives around the country are angry about the secretive process by which Common Core standards became adopted, allowing for few or no public hearings, blocked from the legislative process.  The conservative Cato Institute noted that state lawmakers are surprised when academic curricula become snatched from their prerogatives.  Common Core defines contents for all U.S. K-12 math and English texts and defines what our kids will learn and not learn.  No empirical validation of standards or metric to monitor intended or unintended consequences.  No early childhood teachers or child development experts were included in the K-3 standards formulation process, because Common Core shocked these professionals.  Standard writers had no background in child development or early childhood education.  The Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health & Education Professionals statement criticizing Common Core garnered signatures from over 500 prominent early childhood professionals, like educators, pediatricians, developmental psychologists, and researchers.  The statement read that Common Core conflicts with new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young kids learn, what content they should learn, and the best methods to teach them in kiddiegarden and early grades.  Common Core pilots are disappointing.  One principal told of his school piloting the assessment, whereby the failure rate rose dramatically, particularly among slow learners. 

COMMON CORE TESTING.  After adoption of Common Core curricula, its standardized testing is approaching fast.  No national standardized test can effectively measure what teachers teach in each public school system.  Common Core demands a great increase in testing, much more than the already excessive amount required by No Child Left Behind.  NYC will spend over a half billion on technology, so that its students can take electronically federal tests.  Research proves that increasing testing does not increase achievement.  NE school districts suffer funding squeezes, but Common Core costs billions for new textbooks, infrastructure like high speed networks, new software for additional computers, training, consultants, and tests. 

COST TO TAXPAYERS.  Adoption is expensive, and states adopting Common Core jump into an assessment quagmire without estimates on costs.  Local school administrators complain that Obama grants do not cover the requirements, costing much more to implement all the mandates.  The education establishment likewise complained for years about the unexpected costs of No Child Left Behind.  Common Core will repeat this expensive lesson in forcing another underfunded ed mandate on states.  NE probably would not qualify for federal funding now, leaving NE taxpayers to pay the entire bill. 

LEFTIST CURRICULA.  One lesson features a video titled China Rises, that praises the virtues of Chinese communism over capitalism.  The leftist New York Times co-produced this propaganda piece.  Another lesson regrets children inability to vote, as they understand global warming and war better than adults who make world problems worse.  Common Core uses UN programs to institute international curricula. Materials promote “alternative lifestyles,” criticize capitalism, praise labor unions, redistribution of wealth, radical environmentalism, and social justice, and debase of Judeo-Christianity. The liberal progressive school-to-work plan will allow the Obama Regime to put everything in place to plan for future labor markets.  Common Core promotes a model of a command economy and unlimited federal governance.  Proponents want to control our schools, so that our children will become conditioned to accept that the federal government has the right to order them to serve its economic commands.  Government will be the master, not the servant. 

ITS FUNDING.  Common Core has received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other leftwing sources. 

PERTINENT VIDEO.  http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/stop-obamas-common-core-curriculum-standards-progressive-indoctrination-standardization-and-tracking-of-american-children-into-collectivists-little-boxes-videos/

ITS SUPPORTERS.  The leftwing American Federation of Teachers (AFT) endorses Common Core. Several creators of  Common Core standards have accepted employment with testing companies that will accrue millions of dollars developing tests based on the standards they created.

HOME SCHOOLS UNSAFE.  Saxon Math and Math U See both declared that they will align their curriculum, popular among home schools, with Common Core.

INVASIVENESS.  Conservative parents object to violation of student privacy by data mining through assessment means. Common Core creates a student database including test scores, hobbies, family income, voting status, and health records, a violation of individual rights and limited government. [4]  Data mining includes using cameras to evaluate kid facial expressions, electronic seat that judges postures, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse, and a biometric wrap on wrists.

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.  Board members voted 7-1 (John Sieler voted with taxpayers) to pay a consultant company $47,000 to compare NE standards alignment to Common Core, due in October, 2013, a hint that the board majority will embrace the latter curricula.  The State Board of Education must give final approval of state curriculum standards and assessments. School districts should not use Common Core yet, as the state board has not adopted it yet.  We urge taxpayers to contact their state board of education member to pass the following resolution:
 

Notwithstanding any other statute, the state board of education shall not adopt, and the NE Dept. of Education shall not implement, Common Core standards developed by the Common Core Standards Initiative.  Actions pursued to adopt or implement the Common Core State Standards are void.  Common Core State Standards shall not be adopted or implemented without the approval of the NE Legislature.

LEGISLATURE.  Sen. Jim Scheer from Norfolk introduced LB 512, to order the state to accept Common Core national assessments and allow the state board of education to proceed with this curricula. We must lobby our state senators to kill LB 512, then co-sponsor and support legislation to ban NE from adopting and spending money on all activities relating to Common Core, like training teachers or buying materials.  Also, press them to pass a bill to forbid sharing of private student information without parental consent.   

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE.  As awareness of this federal education power grab increases, opposition mounts.  States now realize that accepting Common Core means transferring control of school curriculum to the Obama Regime.  Only Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, and a few other states are steadfastly resisting, and others have withdrawn participation or are considering such.  Common Core violates the U.S. Constitution and several federal statutes that prohibit federal direction, control, or supervision of curricula, instruction, and materials in K-12 schools.  This plan is a serious assault on state sovereignty, a power grab by which the Obama Regime will directly target school districts.  This federal intervention will cripple state, local, and parental authority over curricula and cost states $16 billion in new spending.[5] 

TAKE ACTION NOW.  We still can stop this dangerous scheme to nationalize education and indoctrinate our children.  Do not permit nameless, faceless, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to seize control of NE public education.  Contact your state board of education member and state senator today to stop the progress of Common Core in Nebraska.  Email netaxpayers@gmail.com for their contact information. 

Research, analysis, and documentation for this issue paper done by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, with prior permission granted for its use by other groups in the NE Conservative Coalition Network.  4-13.   C

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[1] Closing the Door on Innovation: Why One National Curriculum is Bad for America. Available at: http://www.k12innovation.com/Manifesto/_V2_Home.html.

[2] “The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: HOW WELL ARE AMERICAN STUDENTS LEARNING?

[3] Common Core Standards, Devastating Impact on Literary Study and Analytical Thinking, Sandra Stotsky, Heritage Issue Brief, Heritage Foundation, December 2012.

[4] Joy Pullmann, managing editor of School Reform News and an education research fellow at the Heartland Institute.

[5] Heritage Foundation. 

Tuition Subsidies Causing Tuition Hikes!!!

Posted by Jason Bedrick - Oct. 24, 2012

 

In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama pledged to make college more affordable. President Obama kept his promises to increase grants and expand loan forgiveness, but the cost of attending college continues to rise. As the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center reports today, tuition at public universities rose 4.8% this year. While tuition didn’t grow as fast as in previous years, tuition continues to rise faster than inflation and growth in family income. And, as we know, student debt is exploding. Graduates of the class of 2011 carry an average of $26,600 in student loan debt, up 5% from the class of 2010.  Nationwide debt from student loans exceeded $1 trillion this year,  surpassing all other forms of debt that Americans carry, including credit card debt and auto loans.

The Obama administration’s plan to make college more affordable has involved a massive increase in taxpayer subsidies to students. Even after adjusting for inflation, federal subsidies to higher education have more than doubled in the last decade to over $49 billion in 2011-12. The largest increase occurred in 2009-10 when the federal government’s share of tuition aid dramatically increased from 33% to 44%, with federal spending growing 167% from $26 billion to $44 billion.

Four-year degrees are increasingly expensive but the payoffs are not guaranteed. To pay off the student-loan debt and earn a decent return on investment for the time and money spent on college, graduates expect access to more and better-paying jobs. Increasingly, this hope is in vain. The New York Times reported last year that 22.4% of college graduates under age 25 were unemployed. An additional 22% were working in jobs that did not even require a college degree where their average annual income was under $16,000. Those fortunate enough to find jobs have discovered starting salaries down 10% on average from $30,000 in 2007-2008 to $27,000 in 2009-2010. Moreover, some studies have shown that four-year college students who rank near the bottom of their class earn about the same as those graduating near the top of two-year community colleges, further calling into question the universal value of a bachelor’s degree. It is no wonder then that Pew Research finds that 57% of Americans no longer believe that college is worth the money.

So is more money the answer? Actually, it is a part of the problem since colleges raise tuition in response to increased tuition aid. As my colleague Neal McCluskey explained in his testimony before Congress:

 According to data from the College Board, between the 1981-82 and 2010-11 school years, inflation-adjusted aid per full-time equivalent student — the bulk of which came through the federal government — rose from $4,418 to $13,914, a 215 percent increase. Meanwhile, real tuition and fee costs at four-year colleges grew roughly apace. At four-year public institutions prices expanded from $2,242 in 1981-82 to $8,244 in 2011-12, a 268 percent ballooning. At four-year, nonprofit private institutions prices rose from $10,144 to $28,500, a 181 percent leap.

It is, of course, difficult to conclude definitively from simple aid and price comparisons that aid fuels price increases. But a growing body of research controlling for variables outside of aid supports the hypothesis that aid has an appreciable inflationary effect, though study results vary by type of aid and institution.

It should come as no surprise that subsidies raise prices. Fortunately, there are now a growing number of innovative alternatives to traditional four-year colleges that have the potential to dramatically reduce costs while providing a quality education. Instead of subsidizing the expensive, inefficient and too-often ineffective status quo, government should just get out of the way.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/mr-president-tuition-subsidies-are-the-affordability-problem-not-the-solution/ 

In U.S., Private Schools Get Top Marks for Educating Children

Public schools score lowest in terms of perceived education quality

by Jeffrey M. Jones - August 29, 2012

Seventy-eight percent of Americans say children educated in private schools receive an excellent or good education, more than say that about four other types of U.S. schooling. At least 6 in 10 say parochial schools or charter schools provide a quality education, while far fewer say that about home schooling or public schools.

These results are based on Gallup's annual Work and Education poll, conducted Aug. 9-12. For the first time Gallup asked Americans to rate -- based on what they have heard or their own experiences -- the quality of education U.S. children receive in various schooling situations.

Public schools get a relatively poor rating, even though the vast majority of American children are educated in public schools. The poll finds 83% of parents with children in grades kindergarten through 12 saying their oldest child attends public school, compared with 9% who say private school, 4% home school, and 2% parochial school. The poll did not assess the percentage of children attending charter schools, a relatively new type of school.

Parents of school-aged children generally rank the various school types in the same order, although they are somewhat more positive about the quality of public school education -- 47% say it is excellent or good -- than the broader adult population (37%).

Democrats More Upbeat About Public Schools

There are political differences in how respondents rate the quality of certain types of schooling, with Republicans much more positive about home schooling and, to a lesser extent, parochial schools, than are Democrats. In turn, Democrats are more positive about public schools than are Republicans.

The net result of these differences is that Democrats are slightly more positive about the educational quality of public schools than of home schooling. However, Democrats still view private, parochial, and charter schools as providing better education than public schools.

Americans' Continue to Be Dissatisfied With K-12 Schooling in U.S.

The relatively low rating for public schools is likely an extension of Americans' broader dissatisfaction with kindergarten through grade 12 education in the United States. The Aug. 9-12 poll finds 44% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the quality of education U.S. students receive; 53% are dissatisfied. Only once in the 13-year history of this question, in 2004, have more Americans been satisfied than dissatisfied.

But American parents are always far more positive when asked to rate their own child's school -- with 75% this year saying they are satisfied. Seventy-five percent of public school parents are also satisfied with their child's schooling.

The percentage satisfied with their own child's education has never been lower than 68% since 1999, compared with a maximum satisfaction level of 53% for U.S. education more generally.

Implications

Americans are much more inclined to believe students in private, parochial, or charter schools receive a high-quality education than to say this about students in public schools and those who are home schooled. Americans in general are not highly satisfied with the state of public schooling in the United States, although that is probably not a commentary on their own child's school and schools in their local area because Americans have historically been quite satisfied with each of those. Rather, Americans may just have a general sense that U.S. public education is not where it needs to be, perhaps due to news media reports that American students lag behind students in other countries in basic academic skills.

Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 9-12, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

For results based on the total sample of 236 parents with children in grades kindergarten through 12, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±8 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/156974/private-schools-top-marks-educating-children.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

Louisiana's Bold Bid to Privatize Schools

By Stephanie Simon - June 1, 2012

Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.

Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.

The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others.

Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.

"We are changing the way we deliver education," said Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican who muscled the plan through the legislature this spring over fierce objections from Democrats and teachers unions. "We are letting parents decide what's best for their children, not government."

BIBLE-BASED MATH BOOKS

The concept of opening public schools to competition from the private sector has been widely promoted in recent years by well-funded education reform groups.

Of the plans so far put forward, Louisiana's plan is by far the broadest. This month, eligible families, including those with incomes nearing $60,000 a year, are submitting applications for vouchers to state-approved private schools.

That list includes some of the most prestigious schools in the state, which offer a rich menu of advanced placement courses, college-style seminars and lush grounds. The top schools, however, have just a handful of slots open. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners. As elsewhere, they will be picked in a lottery.

Far more openings are available at smaller, less prestigious religious schools, including some that are just a few years old and others that have struggled to attract tuition-paying students.

The school willing to accept the most voucher students -- 314 -- is New Living Word in Ruston, which has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding.

At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains "what God made" on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.

"We try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children," Carrier said.

Other schools approved for state-funded vouchers use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; Bible-based math books that don't cover modern concepts such as set theory; and biology texts built around refuting evolution.

TEACHERS WEIGH LAWSUIT

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that vouchers can be used for religious education so long as the state is not promoting any one faith but letting parents choose where to enroll their children.

In Louisiana, Superintendent of Education John White said state officials have at one time or another visited all 120 schools in the voucher program and approved their curricula, including specific texts. He said the state plans more "due diligence" over the summer, including additional site visits to assess capacity.

In general, White said he will leave it to principals to be sure their curriculum covers all subjects kids need and leave it to parents to judge the quality of each private school on the list.

That infuriates the teachers union, which is weighing a lawsuit accusing the state of improperly diverting funds from public schools to private programs of questionable value.

"Because it's private, it's considered to be inherently better," said Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. "From a consumer perspective, it's buyer beware."

To date, private schools have not had to give their students state standardized tests, so there's no straightforward way for parents to judge their performance. Starting next year, any student on a voucher will have to take the tests; each private school must report individual results to parents and aggregate results to the state.

The 47-page bill setting up the voucher program does not outline any consequences for private schools that get poor test scores. Instead, it requires the superintendent of schools to come up with an "accountability system" by Aug. 1. Once he does, the system cannot be altered except by legislative vote.

White would not say whether he is prepared to pull vouchers from private schools that do poorly on tests.

He pointed out that many kids applying for vouchers are now enrolled in dismal public schools where two-thirds of the students can't read or do math at grade level and half will drop out before they graduate high school. Given that track record, he argues it's worth sending a portion of the roughly $3.5 billion a year the state spends on education to private schools that may have developed different ways to reach kids.

"To me, it's a moral outrage that the government would say, 'We know what's best for your child,'" White said. "Who are we to tell parents we know better?"

That message resonates with Terrica Dotson, whose 12-year-old son, Tyler, attends public school in Baton Rouge. He makes the honor roll, but his mom says he isn't challenged in math and science. This week she was out visiting private schools. "I want him to have the education he needs," she said.

The state has run a pilot voucher program for several years in New Orleans and is pleased with the results. The proportion of kids scoring at or above grade level jumped 7 percentage points among voucher students this year, far outpacing the citywide rise of 3 percentage points, state officials said.

Studies of other voucher programs in the U.S. have shown mixed results.

In Louisiana the vouchers are available to any low- to middle-income student who now attends a public school where at least 25 percent of students test below grade level.

Households qualify with annual income up to 250 percent of the poverty line, or $57,625 for a family of four.

Statewide, 380,000 kids, more than half the total student population of 700,000, are eligible for vouchers. There are only about 5,000 slots open in private schools for the coming year, but state officials expect that to ramp up quickly.

NO FISCAL ANALYSIS

Officials have not estimated the price tag of these programs but expect the state will save money in the long run, because they believe the private sector can educate kids more cheaply than public schools.

Whether those savings will materialize is unclear.

By law, the value of each voucher can't exceed the sum the state would spend educating that child in public school -- on average, $8,800 a year. Small private schools often charge as little as $3,000 to $5,000 a year.

Yet at some private schools with low tuition, administrators contacted by Reuters said they would also ask the state to cover additional, unspecified fees, which would bring the cost to taxpayers close to the $8,800 cap. The law requires the state to cover both tuition and fees.

In the separate mini-voucher program due to launch in 2013, students across Louisiana, regardless of income, will be able to tap the state treasury to pay for classes that are offered by private vendors and not available in their regular public schools.

White said the state hopes to spur private industry to offer vocational programs and apprenticeships in exchange for vouchers worth up to $1,300 per student per class. Students can also use the mini-vouchers to design their own curriculum, tapping state funds to pay for online classes or private tutors if they're not satisfied with their public school's offerings.

State officials will review every private-sector class before approving it. They are still working out how to assess rigor and effectiveness.

The state has not done a formal fiscal analysis, but public school advocates say subtracting the costs of vouchers from their budgets is unfair because they have the same fixed costs -- from utilities to custodial services -- whether a child is in the building four hours a day or six. White responds that the state is not in the business of funding buildings; it's funding education.

While public schools fear fiscal disaster, many private school administrators see the voucher program as an economic lifeboat.

Valeria Thompson runs the Louisiana New School Academy in Baton Rouge, which prides itself on getting troubled students through middle and high school. Families have struggled to pay tuition, she said, and enrollment is down to about 60 kids.

"We're a good school," Thompson said, "but we've been struggling fiscally."

The vouchers have brought in a flood of new applicants and the promise of steady income from taxpayers. Thompson enrolled 17 new students in two days last month and hopes to bring in as many as 130. "I'm so grateful," she said. "You can't imagine how grateful."

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-education-vouchers-idUSL1E8H10AG20120601

Indiana School Voucher Program Saves Money

From Nebraska Federation of Catholic School Parents - Parent Advocate

Vol.19, Issue 2 - May 2012

Indiana's new school voucher program has increased options for 4,000 low-and-middle-income families to attend private schools of their choice.  Now the program is saving money for the state due to transfers from public to private schools.  Do you need proof?  The Indiana Department of Education recently announced that the first year of the voucher program will result in $4.2 million in annual savings statewide.  This money is being redistributed to public schools statewide.  School choice is a win-win situation for private and public schools.

www.nebcathcon.org

Government & Tax $$$ Drive Scientific Opinion

April 26, 2012 - by: Gary DeMar

In 2006, then climate change enthusiast James Lovelock believed that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” The 92-year-old scientist is now in the recanting phase of his life. He admits that some of the language in his 2006 book Revenge of Gaia had been over the top. He admits that if he were writing today he would be more cautious.

It’s a little late now that laws are being implemented to curtail what was said to be “scientific fact.”

More than a century ago, John William Draper made the unsupported claim that scientific “opinions on every subject are continually liable to modification, from the irresistible advance of human knowledge.”[1] This wasn’t true then and it’s not true today.

In reality, many new scientific theories are often opposed by scientists for any number of reasons. There is continued scientific debate over the causes or even the reality of human-caused global warming, whether oil is a “fossil” fuel or a renewable abiotic resource,[2] the medical benefits of embryonic stem-cells, and much more. A lot of it has to do with grant money.

These debates can be downright hostile as charges and counter charges are lobbed from scientific strongholds where the claim is made that there is no room for debate. Consider the Inquisition-like reaction to those who question the certainty of global warming:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism [over global warming] have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis. . . . In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.[3]

Some have gone so far as to propose that “global warming deniers” are aiding and abetting a global holocaust and should be prosecuted. Australian columnist Margo Kingston “has proposed outlawing ‘climate change denial.’ ‘David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial,’ she wrote. ‘Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’ Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the ‘global warming . . . Holocaust.’”[4] These arguments are being made by those within the secular scientific community. Follow the money.

There’s a new Inquisition in operation. If you don’t hold to the agreed-upon theories, then you will not be hired, and if you already have a position, there is a good chance you will lose it if you express your opinion, especially if that opinion goes against a theory that might jeopardize money that flows from government grants. Stephen Jay Gould has written: “The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”[5] Scientists are just like everybody else. They want the same things.

We shouldn’t be surprised that climate scientists might fudge the evidence to keep the grant money coming in. Who’s really getting harmed? Anyway, the kids need new shoes and an investment portfolio so they can get into the best universities to learn how to game the system.

Gary Sutton, writing in an online article for Forbes, makes the point:

 

You can’t blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.[6]

Of course, they can be blamed when they claim that they are doing real science, there is no contrary evidence, and what contrary evidence they do find they suppress it. So the next time someone dogmatically asserts that the majority of scientists believe in Global Warming, ask your antagonist how much grant money he’s getting?

Notes:


1.John William Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1875), vi. [↩]


2.Jerome R. Corsi and Craig R. Smith, Black Gold Stranglehold (Nashville, TN: WND Books, 2005). [↩]


3.Richard Lindsen, “Climate of Fear: Global-Warming Alarmists Intimidate Dissenting Scientists into Silence,” The Wall Street Journal (April 12, 2006): www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 [↩]


4.Brendan O’Neill, “Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech” (October 6, 2006): www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/ [↩]


5.Stephen Jay Gould, “In the Mind of the Beholder,” Natural History (February 1994), 103:14. [↩]


6.Gary Sutton, “The Fiction of Climate Science,” Forbes.com (December 4, 2009). [↩]

http://godfatherpolitics.com/4900/the-new-inquisition-against-scientists-who-disagree-with-theories-that-have-the-support-of-the-government-and-tax-dollars/

Critical Race Theory Pushed in Omaha and Nation's Public Schools

“Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.” 
- Obama

With Breitbart's release of the elusive "Obama/Derrick Bell's Critical Race Theory" video on March 8th, it has come to national attention the administration's push to introduce "Critical Race Theory" (aka: Racist Indoctrination) into public school systems across the country.

Yesterday, Breitbart.com reported on a group known as Pacific Educational Group (PEG) who, with the approval of the Obama administration, and under the guise of closing achievement gaps between black and white students, is promoting teaching methods that discourage “black and brown” students from conforming to an inherently “white” -- and therefore racist -- curriculum. PEG also encourages teachers to conform to the presumed cultural backgrounds of students, rather than focusing on norms of assessment and accountability.

A promotional video for PEG explains that the organization targets “white culture” as the source of the problems that minority students face.

Critical Race Theory, which began at the margins of the legal academy, has been picked up by race-obsessed radicals and is being woven deeper into the fabric of government education--with Obama’s apparent blessing, and at taxpayer expense.

Unfortunately, Omaha does not escape the racist agenda.

Many are already aware of the push by the OPS system to begin indoctrination of students and staff. The school district has already spent more than $130,000 in taxpayer-funded federal stimulus money to purchase 8,000 copies of a book pushing racial discrimination, "The Cultural Proficiency Journey".

The book, being pushed by the Progressive Research Institute of Nebraska contends that only those educators who acknowledge the existence of white privilege in America, that "white" is a culture in America and that race "is a definer for social and economic status" can reach proficiency. Those who score poorly on a worksheet are asked in the book what they will do "to align yourself with the values expressed."

Karen Abrams, board president of the Progressive Research Institute of Nebraska, challenged OPS to implement culturally proficient practices throughout its system including hiring more teachers who reflect their students' ethnicities.

read more

It is evident that indoctrination isn't exclusive to our colleges and universities any longer.

Islam and Jihad Being Written Out of 9/11 Attacks in U.S. Textbooks

by Drew Zahn - 3/19/2012

Who perpetrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – a group of men merely fighting “for a cause,” or a band of radical Muslims bent on violent jihad?

According to a new, comprehensive study of 6th-12th grade textbooks used by schools across the country, America’s children are being taught a very different answer to that question than many alive to witness 9/11 remember.

The non-profit organization ACT! for America Education studied 38 textbooks from popular publishers like McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin, for example, to determine whether American schoolchildren are being taught the truth about Islam and its role in 9/11.

The report, titled “Education or Indoctrination? The Treatment of Islam in 6th through 12th Grade American Textbooks,” compares what it found in the textbooks with 275 historical sources, listing 375 footnoted citations, to conclude that America’s textbooks are laced with “historical revisionism.”

“This report shines a bright light on a pattern of errors, omissions and bias in the textbooks reviewed,” explained ACT! for America Education founder Brigitte Gabriel in an email. “To give you just one example of the errors our research uncovered, in discussing the 9/11 attacks, the textbooks typically fail to mention the perpetrators were Muslims or that they acted in the cause of Islamic jihad. In one book the terrorists are portrayed as people fighting for a cause.

“In just a few years after Sept. 11,” she continues, “the history of what happened on that tragic day was rewritten in our school textbooks. Omitting this vital information, that jihad was the motivation for the attacks, makes it difficult, if not impossible, for today’s young teens, who don’t remember 9/11, to really understand what happened that day – and why.”

According to the executive summary of the report, “The full report reveals a pattern of historical revisionism, omissions and bias in the presentation of all aspects devoted to Islam in these textbooks. These aspects include its theology and doctrines, its role as a world religion, its ongoing struggle with Western tradition and its intrinsic anti-Semitism.”

The summary continues, “Textbook errors identified in the report range from egregiously false historical statements to significant omissions and subtle half-truths. Some are blatant and obvious, others are subtle and deceptive. The errors in these textbooks are not grammatical or typographical. They are substantive, significant and often repetitive.”

For example, the report notes the textbook “World History: Patterns of Interaction,” published by McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin in 2007, glosses over the violent birth of Islam and paints its founder, Muhammad, in a glowing light.

“In Medina, Muhammad displayed impressive leadership skills,” the textbook asserts. “He fashioned an agreement that joined his own people with the Arabs and Jews of Medina as a single community. These groups accepted Muhammad as a political leader. As a religious leader, he drew many more converts, who found his message appealing.”

But did Muhammad win converts among and build a peace accord with the Jews? The study’s founders cite several sources and recorded histories in asserting this description is a bald-faced lie.

“This language is a gross falsification of the relationship between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina,” the report states. “Muhammad … expelled two of the Jewish tribes from Medina and destroyed the third, beheading the men and selling the women and children into slavery. This important and essential historical fact of the Medinan period is commonly omitted in the textbooks reviewed, and it is impossible for students to accurately understand the rise of Islam without it.”

The report also questioned the textbooks’ descriptions of jihad.

“An Islamic term that is often misunderstood is jihad,” asserts Houghton Mifflin’s 2003 textbook “Across the Centuries.” “The term means ‘to struggle,’ to do one’s best to resist temptation and overcome evil. Under certain conditions, the struggle to overcome evil may require action. The Qur’an and Sunna allow self-defense and participation in military conflict, but restrict it to the right to defend against aggression and persecution.”

“The term jihad is, indeed, ‘often misunderstood,’” the report replies, “primarily because faulty definitions like this are prevalent in academia and the media.

“First, this passage redundantly and incorrectly asserts that jihad warfare is solely defensive in nature,” the report continues. “According to the Qur’an , the mandate of jihad includes aggressive warfare for the explicit purpose of making Islam supreme over the entire world. For instance, Surah 9:5 commands Muslims to ‘fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, And seize them, beleaguer them, And lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)’ (parenthetical in original). Surah 9:29 commands Muslims to make war upon ‘People of the Book [Christians and Jews], Until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, And feel themselves subdued.’”

The report’s executive summary concludes, “It is clear that the textbooks examined throughout this report contain extensive amounts of material that is seriously historically flawed and often unmistakably biased.”


Specifically, the report details dozens of ways in which it contends the textbooks stray from accurately teaching about Islam, including the following list, quoted directly from the report’s summary:

•The doctrine of jihad is omitted, incorrectly defined, inaccurately described, or understated.

•Faulty description of women’s rights under Islam: The oppressive and discriminatory nature of Shari’a law with respect to women is omitted, mischaracterized or understated.

•Omission or minimization of the Islamic slave trade, in sharp contrast with what is typically an extensive and appropriately critical examination of the Atlantic slave trade operated by Europeans.

•Aggrandizement and elevation of Muhammad’s character that is contradicted by accepted historical facts.

•Omission or minimization of Muslim conquest and imperialism, in sharp contrast with what is typically an extensive and appropriately critical examination of European and other imperialism.

•False claim of Islam’s historical tolerance of Jews and Christians.

•Misrepresentation of Shari’a Law in such areas as its applicability to non-Muslims and the separation of church and state.

•False presentation of the Crusades as the cause of the animosity between Christianity and Islam.

•Faulty historical narrative of the Crusades. Muslims in the Holy Land are commonly depicted as innocent victims of unprovoked aggression who were defending “their” lands against Christian invaders, rather than what is historically accurate: (1) that Muslims invaded and conquered the Holy Land centuries prior to the Crusades; (2) that Christians and Jews were victims of Muslim conquest and aggression centuries prior to the launching of the Crusades; and (3) that the Crusades were launched to wrest back control of the Holy Land from the Muslim invaders and conquerors.

•Chronological revisionism of the historical development of Judaism, Christianity and Islam which incorrectly portrays Islam as preceding Judaism and Christianity and the Muslims/Arabs as the indigenous people in the Holy Land, resulting in the delegitizimation of Israel.

•Treatment of Islamism as though it has no origins within classical Islam and Islam’s Holy Books.

•Islamist Holocaust revisionism that attributes the creation of Israel to world guilt over the Holocaust and incorrectly maintains that Arabs were forced to give up land for the survivors of the Holocaust.

•Omission of the fact that the United Nations created a two-state partition for Palestine, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs.

•Omission of the fact that the Arabs refused to accept the offer of an independent Arab state contained in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

•False claim of Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem.

•Omission of the fact that the PLO’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist was and remains a verbal recognition only, contradicted by the unrevised PLO charter.

•Inaccurate claim that most Middle Eastern terrorist groups have roots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

•Omission of the fact that Islamic jihadists target Americans not only for their support of Israel but also for what they consider the “decadent nature” of Western way of life that threatens the spread of Islam throughout the world.

•Failure to explain why the Islamic jihadists targeted the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and to identify the fourth target as the White House.

“Perhaps the greatest disservice done to students,” the report concludes, “is the net effect of the accumulation of these errors — the creation of a faulty historical narrative that not only misrepresents Islam but creates an inaccurate comparison between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and between the Muslim world and the West. Regardless of the issue – slavery, conquest and imperialism, the Crusades, the Arab-Israeli conflict, to name a few – Islam and the Muslim world are not generally held to the same rigor of historical analysis that the textbooks apply to Christianity, Judaism and the West.”

But to many Americans, the politically correct nature of handling 9/11 may be the most surprising.

The report, for example, quotes the textbook “Horizons,” published by Harcourt in 2005: “On Sept. 11, 2001, the United States was the target of a horrible act of terrorism, or violence to further a cause.”

The report explains, “The statement that the 9/11 attack was carried out to ‘further a cause’ is left undefined. There is no mention that the ’cause’ was Islamic jihad.”

It continues, “Rarely are the terrorists identified as Muslims, and the jihadist motivations for their actions are omitted. Omitting these two critical facts leaves students with an incomplete, and thus inaccurate, understanding as to why 9/11 happened.”

ACT! for America Education claims it has sent the executive summary of its finding to over 70,000 state and local school board members nationwide. In addition, the executive summary contains a list of recommended actions on its final pages, for those who, according to Gabriel, want to “wake up America to what this report has uncovered.”