Free Republic

Allie Winegar Duzett, Last week, the United States Department of Education awarded $50,000,000 to the Charter School Grant Program, to “replicate and expand” high-achieving public charter schools. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, over the next five years the grants are expected to serve 76,000 students, in 127 new and 31 expanded charter schools. In the past, grants of this nature were only given to start-up public charter schools—so public charter schools that were already set up and functioning were denied funding. The support for public charter schools is indeed heartening—and not limited only to the federal...

It’s the film the teachers unions don’t want you to see. The revelatory documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” opened Friday to parents’ cheers — and union howls. The film follows five families trying desperately to escape failing traditional public schools in favor of charter schools — and it profiles education reformers rebuilding a national school system that’s in ruins. The unions panned the flick, naturally: It exposes how they drag kids down into the swamp, spotlighting how bad teachers are passed from school to school and how all-but-automatic tenure allows even the worst teachers to stay on the job. But...

It's the movement that could revolutionize America's schools. •The shocking state of our schools •Meet the children from the film *snip* ~ ~ ~ School Choice: What Are Your Options? ### School choice options available to parents have increased dramatically in recent years. There's a growing national sentiment that promoting competition in public education may spur schools to improve and that parents who invest energy in choosing a school will continue to be involved in their child's education. How much choice do you have? It depends. The amount of choice varies from one school district to another and varies from...

One of the most compelling conservative books I have had the fortune to read is “Crazy Like A Fox” One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City, by Dr. Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely. Ironically it was not written as a “conservative” book but conservative principles naturally erupted throughout this memoir of a brave educator that spun trash into gold. I found myself cheering as this politically incorrect America Indian pioneer took over the American Indian Charter Public School in Oakland, California, that was failing in every measurable aspect, a cesspool of illiteracy, and single-handedly brought it to the fifth ranked...

Ever wonder why the teachers unions hate charter schools so much? Here's one reason. State test scores this week showed 100 percent of eighth-graders in the Harlem Village Academies achieved proficiency in science and social studies. By contrast, in Harlem's traditional public schools, only 35 percent of eighth-graders made the grade in science, and 22 percent in social studies. This continues a trend: New York charters -- public schools that operate free of union work rules and bureaucratic mandates -- are wildly outperforming their traditional counterparts in student test scores, graduation rates, college acceptances and other measures.

<p>'What's funny," says Madeleine Sackler, "is that I'm not really a political person." Yet the petite 27-year-old is the force behind "The Lottery"—an explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of public education opening nationwide this Tuesday.</p> <p>In the spring of 2008, Ms. Sackler, then a freelance film editor, caught a segment on the local news about New York's biggest lottery. It wasn't the Powerball. It was a chance for 475 lucky kids to get into one of the city's best charter schools (publicly funded schools that aren't subject to union rules).</p>

Along with its usual claims that cuts will destroy schools, the Web site of the United Federation of Teachers marks the union's 50th anniversary by paying strange homage to a firebrand founder, Albert Shanker. It does so by saying that, "In a movie, Woody Allen once described Albert Shanker as a mad bomber who destroys the world." The union apparently sees this lone sentence as high praise for its late boss. The movie was "Sleeper," a 1973 hit where Allen, director and star, wakes 200 years in the future. Amid gags about dehumanizing machinery -- remember the Orgasmatron? -- Allen...

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,...