Free Republic

The future of charter schools in New York hangs on negotiations between City Hall and teachers union President Michael Mulgrew. This is perverse. The United Federation of Teachers is fighting to limit the growth of charters even as the state's application for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top money demands letting the number of schools expand. Mulgrew's strategy has been to give the nod to upping the charter cap while trying to make it all but impossible for a sponsor to open one of these privately run, publicly funded academies. For example, by creating barriers...

On Capitol Hill, all eyes have been focused on the House, as efforts to pass healthcare reform have grown increasingly dramatic. But a less-watched debate began in the Senate Tuesday, which offered a second chance for the Washington, D.C. private school voucher program that Congress phased out last year. The effort, however, was quickly squashed by a vote Tuesday night, with most Democrats voting against it along with Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised in January that he would allow debate about the program on the Senate floor. And on Tuesday, the Senate began considering...

Memo to Republican Leaders: Republicans should exploit the HUGE advantage they have in education. Everybody knows, deep-down, that it's liberals who are screwing up the schools. Let's start shouting this from the rooftops! Every day! The linked article, published almost a year ago, gives all the basic points. Please pass this along to candidates, campaign managers, etc. (I have 100+ articles on the web explaining how the Education Establishment is dumbing down the country. I can usually explain what various policies actually achieve, versus what is promised.)

On the final day of the National Education Association’s convention last summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that these groups find objectionable.” Chanin’s glowing portrait of the NEA was wildly wrong, of course, but so...

Remember that the schools in New Orleans were a tragedy long before Katrina. ...In the 1970s, Mickey Landry and his wife both taught in New Orleans. “We used to come home and joke that the best thing that could happen to the Orleans Parish school system would be for someone to blow it up and start all over again.” Frustrated, Landry left New Orleans, but stayed in education, eventually running a prestigious private school in Colorado. Landry was lured back to post-Katrina New Orleans by the opportunity to run a school without the bureaucratic constraints of the old Orleans Parish...

For the second time in six months, a promi nent researcher has put New York City's public charter schools under a microscope and found that, overall, they're outperforming the city's traditional public schools.

December 2, 2009School Choice and the Common Good of All Children by Kevin E. Schmiesing Ph.D. The United States justifiably celebrates its pluralism. The mandate to find unity in diversity—e pluribus unum—is predicated not on the premise that all peculiarities of creed or color must be washed away; instead, it insists that all such cultural and social differences must be respected. Part and parcel of this freedom is the right of parents to educate their children as they see fit. Like all rights, this one carries with it a duty: to prepare the child adequately for participation in society by...

What began as an experiment in 1992 has become 5,043 charter schools in 39 states and the District of Columbia, providing nearly 2 million American families with opportunity not available in the public school system. Jeanne Allen, president of The Center for Education Reform, said parent demand fueled the rise. "No other form of school choice has provided such a dramatic impact on the lives of so many students," she said, "and no other reform has had the teeth to push conventional public schools to be better like charters have."

We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now—that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed. 20 November 2009 On the last day of the National Education Association’s convention this summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that...

Kevin Chavous is an African American and former Democratic city council member from Washington, D.C. He says he’s an Obama supporter, but he is distinctly unhappy with the president. Elections may have consequences, but no one expected that the White House would be so brazenly petty as to allow poor minority children in the nation’s worst school district to become the victims of political score-settling. That’s exactly what happened when the Obama administration killed off the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program several months ago. Of course, if the White House thought that it could pay off the powerful teachers’ unions, and...

A Charter for Achievement Allie Winegar Duzett, October 20, 2009 While bureaucrats everywhere puzzle over how to make public school test scores look good, one charter school principal has figured out how to make them go up without score keeping gimmicks. Ben Chavis is a unique man with an uncommon background: he grew up as a sharecropper on a Native American reservation in North Carolina, and today he leads and operates an impressive charter school—for fun. Every year, Chavis donates his salary back to the school, and uses the money to take the oldest class of children to visit Washington,...

The Patrick administration urged approval of a controversial Gloucester charter school earlier this year, over the fierce objections of city residents and the advice of state specialists, based not on its merits but because it would further the governor’s political agenda, according to a recently published e-mail.

Another respected poll is out that shows the American public overwhelmingly favors school reforms opposed by the union that is misnamed the National Education Association. On two issues in particular, the public is far ahead of the NEA. The annual poll, released late last month by Phi Delta Kappa International, a professional association for educators, in conjunction with Gallup, demonstrated strong majority support for charter schools and merit-pay systems for teachers. But the power-hungry union consistently puts roadblocks or stultifying restrictions on these reforms. The poll found that nearly two out of three Americans favor charter schools. The NEA, however,...

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...