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Newswire November 28th, 2017

AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: IT’S GIVING TUESDAY — GIVE OPPORTUNITY! For nearly 25 years, the Center for Education Reform has fought to bring innovation and opportunity to education. It’s important work, which wouldn’t be possible without the support of donors from all regions of the county and all walks of life.

CER’s unique and revamped approach to fusing innovation and opportunity in our aggressive advocacy to the media and to lawmakers has achieved enormous progress, despite well-funded and increasingly aggressive opposition from teachers’ unions, the education establishment and defenders of the status quo. We’ve been a respected leader and unifying force for an extraordinary national effort that reaches lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in key battleground states.

We’ve achieved lasting support for the critical idea of a scholarship tax-credit initiative that would not only help young students but also provide older students with apprenticeships and skills training. We’re collaboratively promoting personalized learning, which puts mastery of subject matter, not time on task, at the center of the learning process. And we’re developing a model rural-education initiative that can be replicated from state to state to bring innovation and choices to people who have little of either.

On this Giving Tuesday, please consider joining us in our efforts to work to ensure that all children receive the education they need to succeed in life and achieve the American Dream.

No donation is too small. We literally can’t do it without you.

LET THEIR VOICES BE HEARD. By now it’s clear to pretty much everyone that the education establishment and its allies and hangers-on have embarked on a campaign of using race as a wedge to divide the edreform movement and discredit the opportunities and options offered by charters. It’s a nasty campaign that requires a robust response, which is why last fall CER moved quickly to marshal a truth squad.

Called “Voices of Color, Voices for Opportunity,” this project rebuts various myths and untruths through the opinion pages of leading news organizations. The latest voice to be heard: Sonia Park, executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition. Read her op-ed in RealClearEducation: “Charter Schools Do Not Further Segregation.”

IF YOU HURRY, YOU CAN STILL MAKE IT. The ExcelinEd 10th Annual National Summit on Education Reform is coming up… this Thursday! More than 1,000 education leaders from across the nation attended last year’s summit, and this year’s gathering in Nashville promises to be equally popular.

The National Summit, ExcelinEd’s flagship initiative, convenes the nation’s leaders in education policy to share what works, what doesn’t and what’s next in education. It provides state and local policymakers, education leaders and advocates with comprehensive information on evolving laws, new trends, successful policies and the latest innovations that are transforming education for the 21st century. Be there! And if you can’t, make plans now for next year.

BROADENING THE TAX REFORM DEBATE. Nobody said the tax overhaul was going to be easy, or that reform would be accomplished in a day. But no matter what finally happens during this legislative session, or how slowly the wheels of change may turn, an important conversation has started — including this letter to the editor of the New York Times by CER’s CEO Jeanne Allen. Jeanne calls for tax credits to support community-based apprenticeship initiatives, career and technical education, workforce development and educational preparedness.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND! An op-ed by the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis — “Stop Talking About the Need for Computer Science and Start Teaching It” – makes a compelling case for what we have been advocating for years: that education, in regard to what’s taught and how it’s taught, must move into the 21st century.

Dean Block writes, “At a time when computers increasingly control every aspect of our daily lives — both on the job and at home — the lessons we teach students must adapt to where the world is going, not where it has been.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.