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ROLE  MODELS “R” US. The importance of positive role models in forming character and improving school performance in kids is undisputed.   In a piece that shows – yet again - charters’ positive impact on disadvantaged students, a study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute shows that black students in charter schools are more likely to have black teachers than their peers in traditional public schools. The charter students also showed academic gains, especially in math. So please remind us, charters hurt poor kids how?

KIDS CAUGHT IN CHARLOTTE’S WEB. Parents in South Charlotte want the opportunity to send their kids to a popular charter (magnet) school – whether or not they live in the “right” zip code.  Nope, say the educrats on the school board, we know best. Most of the students must live in the zip code, but we will magnanimously allow a few outside the zip code to attend. A zip code should not be a prison for kids stuck in underperforming schools.Yet more 20th century thinking punishing 21st century students in need of options and excellence.

GRANNY KNOWS BEST. The backward thinking in Charlotte may be a reflection of the hostility toward choice and innovation demonstrated by Tar Heel state Governor Roy Cooper. He has proposed ending the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship program  which allows low-income families to send their children to a better school.  A report on Cooper’s antipathy toward education excellence quotes at length a concerned – and wise - grandmother with 3 grandchildren in the program. Her grandson, suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, which makes social interaction difficult, was able to get a disability scholarship along with the Opportunity Scholarship. “That will allow him to have a little one-on-one help for him. He’s very intelligent, just sometimes misses the social cues. And I think being in a school like this will help,”  Here’s hoping the legislature listens to granny.

MYOPIA BEACON HILL.  One of Massachusetts’ most successful schools – of any type – is the Alma del Mar Academy in New Bedford.  The school wanted to expand to serve students and families in other, close by neighborhoods. The sad reaction of the legislature – firmly in the grips of the establishment educrats and unions – was horror and blocking the expansion.   CER’s Founder & CEO Jeanne Allen took them to the woodshed  in a blistering response.

ABE WOULD BE PROUD. Proving the power of parental involvement in voicing support for school choice of all kinds, parents, grandparents and friends in Illinois achieved a significant victory when they preserved the state's Scholarship Tax Credit despite open opposition from Governor J.B. Pritzker. The Land of Lincoln not only listened to the adults, but empowered its students with meaningful education options…dare we say of the people, by the people and for the people.

HOME OF CHOICE MOVEMENT SHINES AGAIN.  Milwaukee is widely acknowledged to be the birthplace of the modern school choice movement, thanks to the Herculean efforts of then Governor Tommy Thompson. It recently notched another victory for underserved kids with the graduating class atChristo Rey Jesuit High School. Every student in the class will be the  first in their family accepted to college.   All 85 graduates received at least two acceptances to four-year colleges. Almost all the students are Hispanic, and almost all attend the school on taxpayer-funded vouchers through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.  After all the rhetoric and political posturing, THIS is what education choice and options are all about.