The Empire Strikes Back Florida's school-choice success terrifies the establishment.

Wall Street Journal | March 25, 2004 | staff

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Florida will be a pivotal battleground this November, but on the crucial subject of education reform the battle in that state is already joined.

In the past five years Florida has delivered real school choice to more American schoolchildren than anywhere else in the country. Which is no doubt why Jesse Jackson was down in Tallahassee earlier this month calling Governor Jeb Bush's policies "racist." He and his allies understand all too well that when poor African-American and Latino children start getting the same shot at a decent education that the children of our politicians do, the bankrupt public education empire starts looking like the Berlin Wall.

This is the backdrop to this week's wrangling in the Florida senate over a bill ostensibly aimed at bringing "accountability" to the state's vouchers programs but which is really aimed at regulating them to death. Yes, there have been embarrassments, notably a "scholarship" operator now being criminally investigated for siphoning off $268,000. As bad as this is, it is small beer compared to the glaring scandal of a public school system in which more than half the state's African-American and Latino teens will never see a high school diploma.

Ironically those fighting vouchers may have a keener appreciation of Florida's significance to the voucher wars than those defending them. With national attention having focused largely on Milwaukee, Cleveland and the District of Columbia, it's easy to forget that Florida now has three key programs. The first are called Opportunity Scholarships, which allow children to opt out of failing public schools. Second are McKay Scholarships, which provide full school choice to special-ed students. But perhaps the most innovative is a corporate tax credit that allows businesses to take a dollar-for-dollar deduction for every contribution to a designated scholarship fund. Certainly in terms of sheer numbers this is the most far-reaching, with 13,000 low-income students now benefiting and 20,000 on a waiting list. Because these corporately funded scholarships are capped at $3,500 per child in a state where the average per pupil expenditure runs around $7,500, each scholarship represents not only a lifeline for the recipient but significant savings for the taxpayer.

A just-released study from the Indianapolis-based Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation highlights Florida's achievements. When the various state programs across America were measured against Mr. Friedman's original conception for vouchers, Florida's programs took three of the top eight slots. And another study, this one by the Manhattan Institute, finds that even kids without vouchers benefit because the competition is pushing Florida public schools to improve.

In response, the teachers unions, pols and bureaucrats opposing any reform have opted for a dual strategy of sue and regulate. On the litigation front, they're banking on the 19th-century, anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment language in their state constitution, on which basis they hope the Opportunity Scholarships will be deemed unconstitutional. If successful, the McKay Scholarships would go out the same legal window--but they're not being directly challenged because the empire understands the bad public relations of targeting special-ed kids.

Meanwhile, they regulate. The accountability bill includes some reasonable provisions (especially in the financial reporting and auditing realms). But its real attraction, as this week's debate demonstrated, was as a vehicle to be loaded up with the kind of voucher-strangling amendments pushed by Democrats Ron Klein and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The good news is that despite this all-out effort to frog-march poor kids back into miserable public schools, the genie seems to be out of the bottle. Even the liberal newspapers that oppose school choice had to concede that a pro-voucher rally in Tallahassee attracted more marchers (if not more favorable media attention) than the Reverend Jackson's protest that preceded it. And that's precisely what has them so worried.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A cry in the black education wilderness

Homeschoolers keep the faith - Is this education - or indoctrination?

Paige's outrageous terrorist charge undermines goals - (But it gets better!)***....(Secretary of Education Rod Paige) He charged the NEA with encouraging a "coalition of the whining." He called other education reform critics "nihilists" and made unflattering comparisons to French U.N. diplomats and racists. Paige impoliticly suggested last year that schools with a religious environment were preferable to public schools with diverse values. ***

[GeronL]

I am glad to read it

[GeronL]

Anyone know where I can read funny/interesting stories about people who tried to run for local office and lost???

[Cincinatus' Wife]

14 States Ask U.S. to Revise Some Education Law Rules .....They asked for permission to use "growth models," in which schools would avoid the federal law's remedies and penalties if they showed academic gains, even if those gains fell short of the amount required for all students to reach academic proficiency by 2014, as the law mandates.

..............In addition to Alaska, California and Connecticut, the states that signed the letter were Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington.****

[GeronL]

2014. lol

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Edison scores a much-needed victory (private companies to run public schools)*** Edison, a New York-based education management company, is in the third year of a $30-million, five-year contract to manage six elementary schools and a middle school in disadvantaged areas for the Clark County, Nev., School District. The elementary schools reported that their math scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills increased by at least six percentile points in every grade, with the fourth-graders making a particularly impressive gain of 12 percentile points, moving from the 30th to the 42nd.

Comparable elementary schools in the district with similar student profiles also rose, but at a slower pace.***

[Lancey Howard]

Godspeed to the children of Florida in their death-match against the education mafia and its Democrat allies.
I sure hope the children can win this war against these powerful and corrupt enemies..

[GeronL]

Its just a company managing a public school. Its still a public school. There is no real competition there, they just try to be more efficient.

[The Raven]

Nothing in the editorial about the results!!

Vouchers WILL be regulated to death, however - as they suggest.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

...Its still a public school. There is no real competition there, they just try to be more efficient

Anything to rattle the status quo and put the myth to "We don't have enough money!" is progress. Drip, drip, drip. More and more parents will start paying attention. They will see, acknowledge and move away from failed public instruction - whose union members are the number one contributor to the Democratic Party.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I sure hope the children can win this war against these powerful and corrupt enemies..

The future of our country depends on these children.

[BfloGuy]

For a look at what's happening up North, check this article in today's Buffalo News. Charter schools are mushrooming up here. Not everyone's happy.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks for the LINK!

[BfloGuy]

My pleasure. Local talk-radio spent the day on this one.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What D.C. Can Expect From Vouchers *** Next year the nation's first federally sponsored voucher program will begin offering private-school scholarships to students in D.C. public schools. Whether students who receive these vouchers will benefit is no longer a central issue in the debate. Several studies using random assignment research designs -- the same quality design used in medical research -- show that voucher recipients fare better when they switch to a private school. Instead, the central question is whether vouchers will improve the education of D.C. students who remain in public schools.

Some suggest that vouchers will hurt public schools by draining them of talent and resources. Others suggest that vouchers will improve public schools by making those schools "earn" the revenue their students generate by improving educational quality rather than risking losing it to the voucher program. The research on school choice programs suggests that vouchers are a catalyst for improvement more than they are a drain on the ability to improve. Where school choice has been expanded, public school test scores have improved. ..........***

[The Raven]

>>Some suggest that vouchers will hurt public schools by draining them of talent and resources

Year's back - I had a bevy of liberal neighbors. The above was their constant argument.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Much of the talent has fled after three years of teaching. They're bored by the level of intellectual stimulation and the high levels of abuse.

"Persistently dangerous" - School-safety rankings - or just black marks?***At the heart of the discrepancy may well be a reluctance on the part of educators to report campus crime fully. A survey by the National Association of School Resource Officers found that 89 percent of school police believe crime is already underreported. "It's the scarlet letter in education today," says Mr. Trump. "Administrators have said to me privately that they would rather be academically failing than be a dangerous school."***

[Concentrate]

More and more parents will start paying attention. They will see, acknowledge and move away from failed public instruction - whose union members are the number one contributor to the Democratic Party.

Don't hold your breath. The teachers' unions will only bring to bear what parents will support and no more. They're not stupid. Well, you know what I mean.:)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

....hey're not stupid. Well, you know what I mean.:)

They'll have to start questioning that phony "My Kid's A STAR at _______" bumper sticker when they can't pass an exit exam. Not all will, they'll blame it on the test or the school's plumbing but a lot of them won't. Higher and higher property taxes will get their attention, if nothing else does. And as a last resort, maybe they'll look around and see they're the only ones left, and wonder why.

[Concentrate]

bump.