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A lawsuit is challenging Idaho officials who contend the state constitution forbids use of the Bible in a charter school opening this fall. The Alliance Defense Fund has filed an action against the Idaho Public Charter School Commission on behalf of Nampa Classical Academy, which, the ADF reports, was threatened with the revocation of its charter if it uses the Bible or any other religious documents or text as part of its curriculum resources. "The Bible shouldn't be singled out for censorship in public schools, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that it is entirely constitutional for...

Villaraigosa joins rally in support of schools resolution August 25, 2009 |  2:12 pm Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa added his voice to a rally in support of a plan to give charter schools access to 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Villaraigosa spoke outside district headquarters before a crowd of at least 2,000 charter-school parents and supporters who drove or were bused in for the occasion. Most wore light blue shirts emblazoned with the slogan: “My Child, My Choice.”“We’re here today to stand up for our children,” Villaraigosa...

August 17, 2009 Dear xxxxx: The Caps Hurt Kids rally is at the Bell Tower in Richmond's Capitol Square (9th and Franklin Street) at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Certain rules do apply to events at the Capitol: No parades are allowed on Capitol Square (We'll be playing music, but resist the temptation to form a Conga Line). No stick-holding placards will be permitted (bring a sign, but no stake). No food may be served. No parking will be available on Capitol Square. No signs or other items are permitted to be placed on the Capitol Square fence. Please remember these...

A new charter school planning to open this fall in Idaho has come under fire since it publicly announced one of the textbooks students will be using is the Bible. Unlike a typical public school, the Nampa Classical Academy has the freedom under Idaho's Public Charter School Commission to develop its own curriculum. Students will be taught, for example, Latin and Western civilization, but it's the school's choice to use the Bible as a historical and literary text that has ignited a public firestorm. At a meeting of the Public Charter School Commission, parents stood and argued for and against...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is set to announce on Friday a competition for $4 billion in federal grants to improve academic achievement in U.S. schools, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Obama wants states to use funds from the competition, dubbed the "Race to the Top," to ease limits on so-called charter schools, link teacher pay to student achievement and move toward common U.S. academic standards, the Post said. Charter schools receive public funding but generally are exempt from some state or local rules and regulations. They are operated as an alternative to traditional public schools.

PHILADELPHIA, PA—Kevin O’Shea, 50, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty today to mail fraud, theft from a federally funded program, and filing a false tax return, stemming from his role in defrauding the Philadelphia Academy Charter School (“PACS”), announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy. O’Shea admitted to stealing between $400,000 and $1 million from PACS by: (1) using approximately $710,000 in PACS’ funds to purchase a building in the name of his purported non-profit business; (2) demanding kickbacks from PACS vendors; (3) submitting for reimbursement at least $40,000 in fraudulent invoices for personal meals, entertainment, home improvements, and gas and telephone...

During its late conference held during the Independence Day holiday weekend, the National Education Association took up a series of new resolutions that targeted charter schools. The union was looking for ways to reign in the success of charter schools to make their own woeful attempts at education in the public schools look better. The union was also looking for ways to cash in on charter school's success as well as for a way to get more union oversight into them. But, here is the thing: when they work, charter schools work because they have less union meddling involved in...

Some D.C. public charter schools continue selective admissions practices that discourage special-needs students from enrolling, and students citywide with possible disabilities still face delays in special education evaluations, a federal court monitor said this week. "Charter schools . . . generally have not enrolled students with significant disabilities who required extensive hours of special services or education," the monitor, Amy Totenberg, wrote in a report prepared for a court hearing yesterday.

As the Obama administration pushes for more charter schools, a teachers' union is pushing for a bigger role in them. It's a new development for the charter school movement, a small but growing — and controversial — effort to create new, more autonomous public schools, usually in cities where traditional schools have failed. On Tuesday in New York, the United Federation of Teachers expects to formalize a contract with teachers at Green Dot New York Charter School in the Bronx, a high school run by Green Dot, a nonprofit group that operates charter schools. Ten other New York charter schools...

Oakland, California's American Indian Public Charter Schools are quickly gaining a reputation. Well, two reputations, actually. One reputation is for being aggressively anti-union, and weeding out teachers who try to peddle New-Agey education philosophies. The other reputation is for delivering the best education in California... ranking in the top 4 in the state, and the only top California school serving inner-city kids

Spitting in the eye of mainstream education Dave Getzschman Students sit in detention at American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland for offenses ranging from getting up during class or skipping a problem on a homework assignment. Students who misbehave in the slightest must stay an hour after school; if they misbehave again in the same week, they get more detention and four hours of Saturday detention. Three no-frills charter schools in Oakland mock liberal orthodoxy, teach strictly to the test -- and produce some of the state's top scores. By Mitchell Landsberg May 30, 2009 Reporting from Oakland --...

The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains. That’s why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.” Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools...

"This afternoon, more than 1,000 students, parents, and concerned citizens gathered across from city hall to rally in support of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. A number of prominent D.C. leaders spoke, including former mayor Anthony Williams and former councilmember Kevin Chavous....."

President Obama will seek to extend the controversial D.C. school voucher program until all 1,716 participants have graduated from high school, although no new students will be accepted, according to an administration official who has reviewed budget details scheduled for release tomorrow. The budget documents, which expand on the fiscal 2010 blueprint that Congress approved last month by outlining Obama's priorities in detail, would provide $12.2 million for the Opportunity Scholarship Program for the 2009-2010 school year. The new language also would revise current law that makes further funding for existing students contingent on Congress's reauthorization of the program beyond...

Washington, D.C.'s school voucher program for low-income kids isn't dead yet. But the Obama Administration seems awfully eager to expedite its demise. About 1,700 kids currently receive $7,500 vouchers to attend private schools under the Opportunity Scholarship Program, and 99% of them are black or Hispanic. The program is a huge hit with parents -- there are four applicants for every available scholarship -- and the latest Department of Education evaluation showed significant academic gains. Nevertheless, Congress voted in March to phase out the program after the 2009-10 school year unless it is reauthorized by Congress and the D.C. City...

APRIL 15, 2009 The Union War on Charter Schools As New York shows, they want to kill any education choice. By JAY P. GREENE On education policy, appeasement is about as ineffective as it is in foreign affairs. Many proponents of school choice, especially Democrats, have tried to appease teachers unions by limiting their support to charter schools while opposing private school vouchers. They hope that by sacrificing vouchers, the unions will spare charter schools from political destruction. But these reformers are starting to learn that appeasement on vouchers only whets unions appetites for eliminating all meaningful types of choice....

In his new book, Work Hard. Be Nice., Jay Mathews claims that the Knowledge Is Power Program is the "best" program serving severely disadvantaged, minority-group students in America today. Let me begin—before I'm denounced as a traitor to the cause of educational reform—by saying that I'm inclined to agree. The improbable story of how KIPP was founded in 1994 by David Levin and Michael Feinberg, two young Teach for America alumni in Houston, is thrilling and worthy reading. KIPP's mission has been akin to putting the first man on the moon: an all-out education race, requiring extraordinary, round-the-clock dedication from...

FRESH evidence of charter schools' success should put President Obama on the spot: Will he put his muscle where his mouth is? This month, Obama issued a direct challenge to the more than two dozen states like New York that have arbitrary, teachers-union-imposed "caps" on the number of charter schools they allow to operate. But if he's serious, he's going to have to put force behind his words. Charter schools have a track record as labs of innovation and high-achievement but the unions hate them, because . . . well, because charters' teachers are rarely unionized. A new, wide-ranging report...

Senate Democrats have dealt a setback to a Republican-sponsored school voucher program that gives schoolchildren in the nation's capital the chance to attend private schools. The Senate voted 50-39 along mostly party lines to reject a bid by Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign to extend the program beyond the 2009-2010 school year. That leaves in place a provision contained in a huge spending bill that requires Congress and the Washington, D.C. government to re-approve the program. Republicans say that is likely to kill it. About 1,700 mostly low-income and minority students kids receive the $7,500 vouchers, which offer an alternative...

President Barack Obama embraced merit pay for teachers Tuesday in spelling out a vision of education that will almost certainly alienate union backers. A strategy that ties teacher pay to student performance has for years been anathema to teachers' unions, a powerful force in the Democratic Party. These unions also are wary of charter schools, nontraditional educational systems that they believe compete with traditional schools for tax dollars. Obama, however, also spoke favorably of charter schools, saying that where they work, they should be encouraged....