School choice – which gives parents control over where the public dollars earmarked for their children’s education will be spent – is the most promising education reform in the United States today. Among reform proposals, it alone transfers power over basic education decisions from bureaucrats to parents, providing poor children in the worst school systems […]
A number of weeks ago, the Calvert Institute released the first of its new Calvert Issue Brief (CIB) series. These in-depth studies of the concerns of the day are available to all institute donors upon request. We realize, however, that time is limited for many readers. Therefore, space permitting, the institute shall in future also […]
There can scarcely be a soul in Maryland convinced by Governor Parris N. Glendening’s (D) rationale for his plan to pump $250 million or so of state money into the Prince George’s County school system over the next five years. The funds will supposedly be used for any new school construction required if the school-busing […]
State of Arizona ——— Senate Engrossed House Bill House of Representatives Forty-third Legislature First Regular Session, 1997 House Bill 2074 An Act Amending section 43-1021, Arizona revised statutes; Amending Title 43, Chapter 10, Article 5, Arizona Revised Statutes, by adding sections 43-1087 and 43-1088; relating to individual income taxation. Be it enacted by the legislature […]
Arizona’s public education establishment has gone on red alert, talking about a possible lawsuit or ballot referendum as a strategy to derail a $500 income-tax credit for private-school scholarships. Governor J. Fife Symington III (R) signed the measure into law on April 7. For many parents now worried about low test scores, high drop-out rates […]
Anti-Choice Some weeks ago, a Calvert reporter went to a conference jointly hosted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and People for the American Way (PFAW), a liberal organization founded in 1980 by Norman Lear. The NAACP/PFAW marriage goes under the name, “Partners for Public Education,” a partnership whose mission, […]
When they met last spring for the “Education Summit II,” the nation’s governors and several prominent corporate executives hoped to light a fire under American education. It needs it. The meeting’s co-chairmen, IBM chief executive Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. and Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson (R), started out under no illusions. Gerstner pointed out that […]
One of the education establishment’s defenses of its poor performance (in relation to private and parochial schools) is that non-public schools are selective. That is, private and parochial schools may choose their own students, leaving the most difficult students for the public schools to deal with. This is used as a rationale to justify annual […]
At the same time that Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke (D) was announcing plans to appoint a task force to explore different options for providing school choice for parents, a new group was being chartered in Maryland – a Baltimore version of the Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation (known as CEO America). Like the original group, […]
So how are vouchers doing?” asks columnist Clarence Page in a March 15 piece in the Baltimore Sun, preposterously titled, “A Reality Check on School Vouchers.” “Unfortunately,” he opines sternly, “the marketplace produces disasters along with miracles.” School choice falls into the former category, apparently. Two — yes, two — of the private schools participating […]