Free Republic

On Monday, the education establishment pitched their vision for the public school system to the House and Senate Education Committees. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, State Board of Education President Kurt Liebich, and Idaho Education Association President Layne McInelly took turns extolling the public school system, asking for ever more taxpayer money and, of course, rejecting any suggestion that money should follow students to wherever they get an education. Corporate media, left-wing activists at Reclaim Idaho, and the state’s education establishment have seized upon the term “voucher” as a way to scare families away from supporting school choice....

Oakland, California, is set to give adult residents vouchers to donate to candidates for local office every other year, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Nearly 74% of the city’s voters approved Measure W, mandating that the city biannually send four $25 dollar vouchers to residents 18 years of age and older for donations to mayoral, City Council or school board candidates, the outlet reported. The program will be paid for with city general funds and include legal permanent residents who lack U.S. citizenship. (RELATED: San Francisco Fires Long-Time Elections Official To Meet Its Racial Equity Goals) Seattle enacted a...

All Arizona parents now can use state tax money to send their children to private or religious schools or pay homeschooling costs after an effort by public school advocates to block a massive expansion of the state's private school voucher law failed to collect enough signatures to block it.

As most readers know, Pennsylvania’s race for Senate is one of the most-watched across the country to potentially swing the upper body of Congress back to the GOP, with Democrat candidate John Fetterman facing off against Republican candidate Mehmet Oz in the purple state.Of course, Fetterman’s unforced errors and inability to put on a semblance of a real campaign make for prime fodder for ridicule–since they’re attempting to pass his campaign off as running the way a normal Senate campaign should.One of the most glaring issues is of him not agreeing to debate the Republican nominee–as my colleague Bonchie pointed...

Pennsylvania Senate hopeful John Fetterman (D.) opposes vouchers that let children in failing public school districts attend private and charter schools. But the progressive champion, who lives in one of Pennsylvania’s worst performing school districts, sends his kids to an elite prep school. Fetterman’s kids attend the Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, where parents pay up to $34,250 for a "dynamic" learning environment and an "innovative" approach to teaching. They would otherwise go to schools in Woodland Hills School District, where graduation rates are far below the state average. The local elementary school that serves Fetterman’s town of Braddock is...

The GED Testing Service requires test-takers be 16 years of age or older. However, most states require that a person be 18 years or older. This needs to change: Anyone age 16 or older should be permitted to take the GED. High achieving students deserve the ability to verify their proficiency in key subjects so they can get on with college. Going even further, states should deem that anyone who scores high enough shall have satisfied the state’s graduation requirements and can leave school.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Three parents of children who attend public schools in West Virginia have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s private school voucher law. The suit filed Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court contends the law violates the state Constitution and will siphon money away from public education, news outlets reported. The law was enacted earlier this year and creates a publicly funded savings accounts program called the Hope Scholarship that plans to begin accepting applications in March. The law allows state money to be put into a special account that parents could then spend on private school...

We’ve seen this coming for a while now, like a slow-motion train wreck. After the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration comparing parents to domestic terrorists and even suggesting the PATRIOT Act might be used to reign them in. That turned out to be the last straw for a lot of parents and maybe also for the NSBA. The group apologized for the letter in late October but by that point the damage was done. Within days, five state associations canceled their membership in the national group. By early December the number of associations...

Smearing parents fed up with their kids’ schools as “domestic terrorists” seems to be a wild, incendiary charge with little basis in reality. Yet it’s the basis on which the U.S. attorney general has convened an FBI task force to surveil and intimidate parents who object to what their children are being taught, and how they are being treated, with public tax dollars. The organization that colluded with the Justice Department to create the pretext for chilling voters’ speech has backed down, but the FBI threat remains. School lockdowns have clarified and accelerated the deep, irreconcilable differences among American parents...

“[I]f ever there were a structure systemically keeping African-Americans from getting ahead, it would surely be America’s big-city public-school systems,” writes the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn. Look, for example, at the most recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation’s report card. For the past 20 years, achievement has been broken down by school district level in its Trial Urban District Assessment. Of the 27 U.S. urban school districts that reported their results for 2019—from Boston and Chicago to Fort Worth, Texas, and Los Angeles—not a single one can say a majority of the black eighth...

Florida’s Board of Education on Friday approved private school vouchers for families unhappy with public school districts requiring masks or other COVID-19-related measures.Parents in the state now are allowed to access vouchers for private schools if they believe pandemic-related rules are “a health or educational danger to their child,” according to the state agency, local media outlets reported.They could request vouchers under provisions that are generally used to protect children who believe they’re being bullied.“‘COVID-19 harassment’ means any threatening, discriminatory, insulting, or dehumanizing verbal, written or physical conduct an individual student suffers in relation to, or as a result of,...

At a time countless students face obstacles that could permanently stunt their learning growth, school choice provides one obvious solution to help mitigate a ‘lost generation.’At a time countless students face obstacles that could permanently stunt their learning growth, school choice provides one obvious solution to help mitigate a ‘lost generation.’ Impact on Suicide RatesThe study, released in December and conducted by a Cato Institute scholar and Western Carolina University economist, used two different methods to examine the impact of school choice on mental health. First, the researchers used examined variations in teenage (i.e., 15-19) suicide rates based on states’...

...A survey conducted by Ipsos/USA Today indicates that a majority of 59% of American parents are more likely to homeschool their children...An earlier poll in April revealed that 40% of American parents are more willing to consider homeschooling....

The nation's two biggest teachers unions say they would consider strikes or major protests if schools reopen without the proper safety measures in place or against the advice of medical experts — raising the possibility of yet more school disruptions. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, previewing a reopening plan first with POLITICO, said funding is needed for a host of public health measures for schools, including personal protective equipment. Collective bargaining, strong enforcement of safety standards and protections from retaliation will be important for teachers and staff so they feel safe to speak up as schools try new...

And on the 28th day of April during the pandemic, I heard God open Heaven, and the angels sang a familiar song, “It is time for these four kids of mine to go back to school.” In a conference call with governors regarding procedures to safely open up the states, Trump suggested that they consider opening up public schools. This is something that parents all over the country are wondering about to various degrees. All joking aside, I think kids should go back to school during May. Students would benefit socially and emotionally a lot more than academically, but I...

Baltimore public schools spend more than $15,000 per student per year, but Democrats Bill Ferguson and Zeke Cohen say they can’t afford to heat the classrooms in January NPR just published this article about how students at Baltimore’s public schools are freezing because the classrooms do not have any heat.One student said she couldn’t feel her feet.Another student said he was wearing four shirts, two hoodies, and a jacket.The same article also says that Democratic State Senator Bill Ferguson and Democratic City Councilman Zeke Cohen both said that the city’s public schools did not have enough money.But like all people who...

Don’t say America wasn’t warned. During the oral arguments for same-sex marriage in 2015, a question came up about the fallout for Christian education. Asked if religious schools could be punished for holding a natural view of marriage, U.S. Solicitor Donald Verrilli was surprisingly honest. ” … [I]t’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is going to be an issue.” Four years later, that prophecy is coming to pass. Out in Maryland, a Christian charter school was told by state officials that it can’t participate in the voucher program anymore because of its...

Thirteen years after Tallahassee attorney Ron Meyer successfully challenged the state’s major school-vouchers program, he is preparing to sue the state again, this time over its newest taxpayer-funded scholarships. A number of organizations want Meyer to represent them in a case to try to strike down the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, which was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis last month. The organizations, which include Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center, argue it is unconstitutional for Florida taxpayers to give low-income and middle-income students scholarships to attend private schools, including religious...

A billboard campaign in North Carolina is taking aim at Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper after his announcement proposing freezing and eventually ending a scholarship program that has benefited minority students—more than 30% of which are African-American, according to North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority. The billboard says the governor is “failing when it comes to helping minority students” and encourages residents to call Cooper to reverse his decision. A group called the Job Creators Network launched the campaign on May 15 following Cooper’s recent budget proposal that included eventually eliminating the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarships Program, a state voucher system...

Florida senators on Thursday passed legislation that would allow more students to use taxpayer-funded scholarships to pay for private-school tuition, a major step toward expanding school choice in the state. Voting 23-17 along party lines, the Senate signed off on a wide-ranging education proposal that would also restructure a controversial teacher-bonus program, tweak other voucher-type scholarship programs and make it cheaper for teachers to get certified by the state. The Senate measure would create a new voucher-type program, dubbed the “Family Empowerment Scholarship” program, which could provide vouchers to pay for up to 18,000 students to attend private schools. Democrats...