The New York Times, in yesterday ’s Sunday magazine, jumped headfirst into the ed reform movement with in a lengthy article about, among other things, the shrinking power of the unions, and the growing realization from politicians that unions are on the wrong side of this issue.
Archive for the ‘National News’ Category
Ed Reform in the NYT
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Marching for their future
Thursday, March 25th, 2010A colleague sent us this powerful photograph from a recent march in Florida. Thousands of parents, children and educators marching for school choice.
They marched to support a bill that will strengthen Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, that provides funds to low-income families to attend one of 1,300 qualified private schools. There are currently 28,000 students taking advantage of these scholarships.
Betsy DeVos
Monday, February 1st, 2010ACE was proud to host Betsy DeVos for a special businesswomen’s luncheon on February 1, 2010 at the Denver Country Club.
A special thanks to the Host Committee and our Luncheon Sponsor A. Line Boutique.
Host Committee
Betty Arkell, Kendall Bailey, Judy Cain, Cathy Carpenter Dea, Debbie Donner, Sidney Gates, Emily Keimig, Laurie Leprino, Michelle Livingston, Anne McCarthy, Susan Morrice, Heather Mulvihill, Diane Padalino, Laurie Richardson, Jeanne Saunders, Janice Sinden, Michelle St. Pierre, Jennie Virgilio, Bonnie Vivian, Kristi Wells, Krista Wolf
Betsy DeVos
As a leader in both the political arena and the national school reform movement for over two decades, Betsy DeVos combines a passion for equal opportunity in education with significant political experience.
As a board member of the Advocates for School Choice, a national advocacy organization for the school choice movement, and as a board member of the Education Freedom Fund, a Michigan-based scholarship organization she has led with her husband, Betsy has devoted significant time and energy to ensuring that children from disadvantaged families have educational options and hope for a brighter future.
She was also instrumental in bringing about the emergence of political action on behalf of school choice when, in 2001, she founded the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), a Michigan-based political action committee which was the precursor to All Children Matter and which led the fight to build a bi-partisan coalition of supporters for charter schools in Michigan’s legislature.
Betsy has been deeply committed to working with both Democrats and Republicans to ensure that every child has equal access to a quality education. Betsy’s vision for All Children Matter is to continue building and expanding a bi-partisan political coalition that advances education reform and equal opportunities in education for all children.
Experienced in the private sector, Betsy DeVos is Chairman of The Windquest Group, a privately held small business founded in 1989.
Betsy is also very active in the community and currently serves on a number of national and local boards, including the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Kids Hope USA, The Acton Institute, and Compass Arts.
A graduate of Holland Christian High School, Betsy received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration/Political Science from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Betsy and her husband, Dick, have four children, aged 25 to 16. They reside in Ada, Michigan.
Dr. Howard Fuller
Friday, November 20th, 2009School choice advocate Dr. Howard Fuller was in Denver this week at the request of the Piton Foundation and the Donnell-Kay Foundation.
Dr. Fuller has long been a friend of ACE and sat down to be interviewed for our latest video. By fighting for expanded parental choice for four decades, Dr. Fuller has developed a way of articulating the need for reform that people understand and can relate to:
“On Feb. 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina A & T sat down at a lunch counter and demanded to be served. Here in 2009 … we can have four students go sit down at a lunch counter where they are welcome but they can’t read the menu. My question is, how in the world did we get here? How could this be?”
Dr. Fuller was speaking to an audience of educators and parents at Manual High School, and EdNews Colorado covered the event.
More from Dr. Fuller:
“This question about educating our children isn’t just a moral issue, which it is. It isn’t just a social justice issue, which it is,” Fuller said. “It is really an issue that deals with, how do you sustain a democracy?
“One thing I’ve learned over all of these years is that many people support change as long as nothing changes,” Fuller said. “We go to these conferences and we discuss change and we make the mistake of thinking that the discussion constituted the change.
“I have seen so many great schools that are educating the very kids that people say cannot be educated,” Fuller said, then paraphrased Mortimer Adler’s Paideia Proposal. “So what I’ve concluded is … there are no unteachable children. What there are, are adults who have not yet figured out how to teach them.”
Competition, Competition, Competition!
Monday, November 9th, 2009A new paper released by Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute looks at the effects of charter schools within the New York City School District.
The bottom line:
The analysis reveals that students benefit academically when their public school is exposed to competition from a charter.
- In both math and reading, the lowest-performing students in public school benefit from competition from charter schools.
- For every 1 percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter, reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools of students’ departures for charter schools would be negative.
- Competition from charter schools has no effect on overall student achievement in math.
We see the benefits of competition in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. And yet we are the only developed nation with an educational monopoly. Charters - and private schools - represent competition to the public bureaucracy.
This study makes last week’s DPS elections all the more depressing. It will be a travesty if the new Denver school board turns its back on the bold reforms undertaken by Michael Bennet and Tom Boasberg.
We need more studies like this one that show the benefits of competition in our education system.
Coloradan Gets Key Education Post
Thursday, October 1st, 2009U.S. Senator Michael Bennet has been chosen to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the Denver Post reported today.
“The plum position for Colorado’s junior U.S. senator puts him in the thick of health care reform and education policy — two key issues facing the nation,” writes the Post.
We hope he is able to represent ed reformers from around the nation on this critical committee.
Mind the Gap
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
A national report released yesterday shows that the achievement gap between white and minority student academic performance in America persists, despite gains in many states. That minority students (generally low-income, inner city kids) are not receiving the instruction they need and are falling further behind their white peers is one of the most troubling outcomes of our public education system. These are the kids that need a quality education the most, so they can break that generational cycle of poverty.
Locally, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic, however. In Colorado, for example, “black students have gained ground on their white peers on eighth-grade math tests over the past two decades.” Colorado joins Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas as the only states where black student scores grew faster than white students.
But the gap is still wide and vexing to educational experts, and entire generations of minority children are being swallowed up by this achievement gap.
The Denver Post’s rationalizing for this gap is beyond troubling:
Research has shown that education problems begin even before school for minorities and children of poverty. Factors include low birth weight and poor nutrition.
Minority children and those raised in poor households are exposed to more television, don’t read as much, aren’t talked to as much, and have less involvement with parents and adults — all correlations to poor educational performance later in life.
The students ACE serves are 100% low-income and mainly minority inner-city kids, exposed to the same struggles and temptations of poverty, nutrition, gangs, drugs and television. Many were failing in their assigned public school, fast becoming another statistic. But once they enter private school - mostly small, neighborhood schools that are able to give them the attention they need - academic performance improves, parental satisfaction increases, and kids begin to thrive.
It’s the instruction they receive at school that makes the difference, not their birth weight. We need to continue to hold our educational establishment’s feet to the fire, without making excuses.
BREAKING: Indiana parents get more choice
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Indiana lawmakers have approved a $2.5 million scholarship tax credit program and the legislation sits on the governor’s desk for signature - many anticipated he’ll sign this program into law in the coming days.
The priorities of Congress
Friday, June 19th, 2009Two recent stories concerning the priorities of Congress, both involving the dreaded “v” word, vouchers:
Today Congress passed the “Cash for Clunkers” program, which will provide up to $4,500 in the form of a voucher for a clunker that gets less than 18 miles per gallon in fuel efficiency, as long as the car owner purchases a new car that gets 10 miles per gallon more efficiency.
That’s a swell idea… but, meanwhile, the very same Congress is working hard to de-fund the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which awards scholarship vouchers of up to $7,500 a year to low-income children for tuition at participating private schools.
Two unrelated issues, for sure. But it’s hard to miss the irony.
DC program under attack
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009CNN’s Roland Martin calls out Democrats for their efforts to dismantle the DC Equal Opportunity Contract Program, while questions remain about Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s forthrightness on the issue.