School choice leads to lower crime

Dr. Jay P. Greene (University of Arkansas) points to some interesting research from David Deming, a Harvard student, who found in a recent paper that the school choice lottery program in Charlotte, North Carolina led to lower incarceration rates among African American males who had participated in the program. The effects lasted for several years after the students had left the program.

Read Dr. Jay P. Greene's summary here.
Read David Demming's paper here.

Has the Obama administration surrendered to the teachers union?

A recent Wall Street Journal article notes that the Obama administration has retreated from education reform,

“In the spring, when the White House announced its $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" initiative to improve K-12 schooling, President Obama said, "Any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluations will have to change its ways to compete for a grant." Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters, "states that don't have charter school laws, or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools, will jeopardize their application."

The Administration appears to be retreating on both requirements. The final Race to the Top regulations allow states to use "multiple measures," including peer reviews, to evaluate instructors. This means states that prohibit student test data from being used to measure a teacher's performance may be eligible for the federal funds, even though the President clearly said that they wouldn't be.

Nor are states any longer required to embrace charter schools to win a grant. In June, Mr. Duncan scolded by name some of the states, such as Maine and Tennessee, that don't allow charters or limit enrollment in these independent public schools. Under the final regulations, however, states that prohibit charters can still receive Race to the Top dollars so long as they have other kinds of "innovative public schools." That's an invitation for states to game the criteria by relabeling a few traditional public schools as innovative. “

Teachers union u-turn

The Las Vegas Sun reports that the Nevada State Education Association is now negotiating with Democrats in the state legislature over the issue of student test data being used in teacher evaluations. Just last month, the union was fighting to stop this change. Apparently the bipartisan support (and money) on behalf of the change has broken the union down.

The fairest way to evaluate teachers using testing data is to use "value-added assessment." This method does not penalize teachers based on the aptitude of their students. Instead, each student is compared to his previous score rather than those of other students or some preset benchmark.

Of course, the teacher union also could have simply found those loopholes that Jeanne Allen from the Center for Education Reform claims would neuter the meaningful effects of reform.

Improving teacher quality in New York

The New York State Department of Education is making several recommendations to improve the quality of teachers in New York.

These recommendations include: 1) using value-added assessment to prove teachers have the necessary abilities to acquire initial and professional teacher certifications; 2) allowing the creation of pilot teacher-certification programs with more universities as well as research centers and non-profit organizations; and 3) requiring teachers to demonstrate content knowledge through either higher-level subject-related college coursework, or tougher examinations.

New York, like Nevada, currently has a ban on using student testing data for teacher evaluations. However, New York’s legislature currently has no plan to renew the ban, which is set to expire soon.

Will Nevada try to improve the quality of teachers in the state, or will it continue to push the status quo?

Is Obama full of hot air? Or will he push for real education reform?

Nevada’s restrictions on creating meaningful teacher evaluations based on student test scores mean that the state can’t get a hold of more than $4 billion in education stimulus funds. Or can it?

Obama’s “Race to the Top” stimulus funds program touted charter schools, merit pay, meaningful teacher evaluations and other reforms that would actually lead to improved student achievement. For once, the party of the status quo in education was going to fund programs that work for students, rather than fund programs for adults.

But according to the Center for Education Reform (CER), this “Race to the Top” rhetoric may be nothing but hot air.

"Throughout the entire evaluation formula proposed by the Department of Education's application, reform is deemphasized, and while states that are already doing good work will benefit, so might states that aren't," said Jeanne Allen, president of CER. "It is disappointing to see bold, exciting rhetoric on education reform from the Obama Administration turn into nothing more than lip service."

If true, this is sad news indeed.

Taking on the teachers union

"Chicago Public Schools have a gang problem. The gang, however, is not the BDs (Black Disciples), the gang is not the GDs (Gangster Disciples), the gang is not the Vice Lords and the gang is not the Four Corner Hustlers. The gang is the Chicago Teachers Union."

- State Sen. James T. Meeks, D-Chicago, chair of the Illinois Senate's Education Committee, Oct. 17, 2009.

Yet another Democrat joins the fight against the teachers union stranglehold on public education. Now, Senator Meeks plans to push vouchers and charter schools to improve public education.

Saving the DC vouchers

Virginia Walden Ford, the executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, sent out an e-mail blast urging Americans to help save the D.C. Scholarship Program. The D.C. voucher program offered low-income children scholarships to attend private schools. Research showed that students attending the private schools with the vouchers had higher levels of achievement in reading than students who did not recieve a scholarship and remained in the public schools. Unfortunately, Democrats in Congress have attempted to terminate the program.


She writes,

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — the nation’s only federally-funded school voucher program — is about to be eliminated by Congress.

We have fought tirelessly together for the past six months to save this program, generating more grassroots support for a school choice program than ever before in our nation’s history.

And, while some elected officials who previously opposed the program have indicated that they support the program's extension, I’m worried that the winds are blowing in the wrong direction. This program is now in serious jeopardy — and we’re not talking a matter of months, we’re talking weeks or days before decisions are made.

When I started fighting for D.C. school choice more than a decade ago, I did it because I was worried that my son, William, would fall through the cracks and fail at our local D.C. public high school — which was crumbling. I was a single mom, and I didn’t have the money to send William to a private school. Thankfully, a neighbor sponsored his tuition. His life changed. He thrived in school, and went on to serve our country in Iraq. After that, I joined to fight to bring school choice to low-income families.

To learn more about her effort to save the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, e-mail her at virginiawaldenford@gmail.com or visit the website: http://www.saveschoolchoice.com/stagesite/

Nevada still behind in math scores

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math scores have been released, and not surprisingly Nevada’s students find themselves below the national average. In more bad news, the achievement gap between white and black students has increased. By fourth grade, white students in Nevada have a two-year reading advantage over black students.

There is some good news. The achievement gap between wealthy and low-income students has decreased. The achievement gap between whites and Hispanics has also decreased. The gap is still very large as, by the fourth grade, white students are a year ahead of Hispanic students. Finally, while test scores across the nation have tended to stagnate, Nevada’s students have made modest progress.

Education is far from perfect in Nevada, and we need some serious reform — like more charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, alternative teacher certification, and bans on social promotion — but at least there is some good news on the education front.

Read NPRI’s commentary titled “Math scores mixed” to learn more about Nevada’s achievement on the NAEP math scores.