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By Chris Quinn
My San Antonio
November 30, 2014

Education analyst group Niche has looked at public school districts in San Antonio, Bexar County and surrounding counties and ranked them by order of proficiency in several key categories.

The districts were graded on the following: academics, health and safety, teacher quality, diversity, facilities and resources, extracurricular activities and sports.

The group’s findings resulted in this list of the 50 best school districts in our area.

The ratings were part of a larger list that ranked 8,738 school districts across the country. According to the Center for Education Reform, there are a total of 13,588 public school districts in the U.S.

You can read more about the rankings and the methodology used at www.niche.com.

By Kara Kerwin
Leader/Observer
November 19th, 2014

Too few of our modern-day state leaders appreciate the absolute role they must play in bringing about substantive change in America’s schools.

Even with more than half of states electing reform-minded governors who have either proven to be champions of reforms during their tenure or have run on platforms that don’t shy away from being vocal about putting parents and students first, it’s imperative all leaders come to appreciate good governance and reach across the aisle for the sake of children.

After all, it’s how some of the boldest reforms were born, such as charter schools in Minnesota in 1991.

Charter schools educate over 2.5 million students nationwide today, yet despite the fact that 42 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, the reality is that charter schools are expanding in low numbers still in many states as demand for educational options increases, as the average charter school wait list has grown to nearly 300 students.

State leaders are the key to improving education and creating an environment that will allow charter schools to meet the growing demand for excellent educational options. It’s imperative that newly elected leaders understand what education reforms like charter schools are, and what they aren’t, as myths and misinformation continue to plague media coverage and permeate public psyche.

One of the most common misconceptions is that charter schools are privately funded institutions. A 2013 survey from the Center for Education Reform (CER) found that only 20 percent of Americans correctly identified charter schools as public schools.

Charter schools are in fact independent public schools that are held accountable for student results. And, they do this with 36 percent less funding compared to their traditional public school counterparts.

Another common falsehood is charter schools “cream” students, when the reality is a majority of charter school students are non-white, or minority students. According to CER’s 2013 Survey of America’s Charter Schools, only 45 percent of charter students are white, while 52.5 percent of public school students are white.

Additionally, 61 percent of charter schools serve a student population where over 60 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Perhaps the biggest myth charter schools face today is that they aren’t accountable. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Unlike all other public schools, charters must be proactive in their efforts to stay open. Calls for more charter regulation and oversight in the name of “transparency,” even from fellow colleagues in the education reform community, are misguided, as charter schools actually have more oversight and evaluation than traditional public schools because of their contracts with authorizers.

Over-regulating charter schools would convert charters from autonomous, grassroots laboratories of innovation to the very schooling entities from which they seek to break away. The hallmark of charter schools is autonomy and performance-based accountability.

It’s crucial that even those who support charter schools remember this, and don’t fall prey to letting a few bad apples result in loving charter schools to death via unnecessary regulations.

Nearly 20 percent of all charter school closures occur because a school failed to meet acceptable student performance levels according to CER’s “State of Charter Schools: What We Know – And What We Do Not – About Performance and Accountability.”

In Michigan, for example, 22 percent of charter schools ever opened have been closed, far out-pacing the national charter school closure rate of 15 percent.

Finally, the importance of a strong charter school law cannot be understated in creating a vibrant charter school sector. Strong laws generally consist of multiple and independent charter approval bodies known as authorizers, no caps on the number of charter schools allowed, operational and fiscal autonomy, and equitable funding.

In states with multiple and independent authorizers, stronger, more objective oversight is used to ensure that successful charter schools remain open and those that fail to perform are closed. States with multiple authorizers were home to nearly 80 percent of the nation’s 5,400 charter schools in 2010-11.

With over 1 million students on charter school waiting lists nationwide, demand for charter schools is clear. In fact, 73 percent of Americans support the concept of charter schools.

After over 23 years of seeing these autonomous public schools in action as viable educational alternatives for children, it’s imperative newly elected leaders separate fact from fiction when it comes to charter schools, and educate their colleagues in state legislatures to ensure that myths and misinformation does not get in the way of uplifting educational opportunities for America’s children.

Read more:Leader-Observer – Separate Fact From Fiction on Charter Schools

Staff Reports
The Lebanon Democrat
November 21st, 2014

WASHINGTON – Tennessee ranked No. 28 out of all U.S. states and the District of Columbia when it comes to giving parents fundamental power over their child’s education, according to the fifth edition of Parent Power Index, released recently by the Center for Education Reform.

While only six states earn rankings above 80 percent on PPI, Tennessee scored 66 percent.

Parent Power Index is a web-based report card that evaluates and ranks states based on qualitative and proven state education policies. The higher a state’s grade, the more parents are afforded access and information about learning options that can deliver successful educational outcomes for their children.

“While it’s true some states have made progress, it’s not nearly enough to meet demand. Simply put, we need more learning options available to more families, and we need them fast,” said Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform. “Out of the [more than] 54 million K-12 students nationwide, only an estimated 6.5 million students are taking advantage of charter schools, school choice programs such as vouchers or tax credits, and digital or blended learning models. With the United States’ school-aged population expected to grow at unprecedented rates in the next 15 years, how will our school system be able to meet demand when we already have wait lists for charter schools and oversubscribed scholarship programs?”

A median PPI score of 67.4 percent (Delaware) showed how poorly most states have implemented policies surrounding charter schools, school choice, teacher quality, transparency and online learning, the five main components that comprise state PPI scores. Mississippi, ranked 20th, made the most progress, moving up 21 spots and breaking into the top 20 states after being in the bottom 11 states on previous analyses.

“With 36 governor races this November, including in Tennessee, it’s time enacting parent-empowering policies take front and center, especially when only 33 percent of Volunteer State eighth graders are proficient in reading and 28 percent are proficient in math,” Kerwin said. “America’s future depends on states’ ability to enact good policy to accelerate the pace of education reform and grow new and meaningful choices for parents.”

The PPI education scorecard can be found at parentpowerindex.com.

This year’s Parent Power Index takes into account CER’s first-ever voucher and tax credit scholarship rankings and analysis, School Choice Today: Voucher Laws Across the States Ranking and Scorecard 2014 and School Choice Today: Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking and Scorecard 2014.

By Dave Umhoefer
PolitiFact Wisconsin
November 21st, 2014

Gov. Scott Walker’s re-election on Nov. 4, 2014, drew plenty of love from conservative commentators bullish about his chances to make a splash in the 2016 presidential race.

“The Nation Needs President Scott Walker in 2016,” shouted a headline over a story by Richard Cromwell in The Federalist, an online magazine.

But not everyone on the right was leading cheers.

Same magazine, different take: “Winning Re-Election Doesn’t Mean Scott Walker Is Ready For 2016.”

The author of that Nov. 11 piece is the managing editor of the magazine, Joy Pullmann, an education researcher at the conservative Heartland Institute based in Chicago.

Pullmann has dogged Walker on several issues, including what she views as his belated shift to oppose the Common Core state standards for schools.

One week after Walker topped Democrat Mary Burke, Pullmann — a former teacher and self-described “born and raised Wisconsin farm girl” — again was talking down Walker’s accomplishments.

She argued his moves to boost private schools with public money, cut taxes and all but end public-sector collective bargaining were half measures. Aside from going after public employee unions, she argued, Walker has been too nice and too passive.

In particular she cited “a pitiful 500-student increase to Milwaukee’s voucher program, the nation’s oldest, because Walker couldn’t get his own party members to back a real expansion despite full control of Wisconsin’s legislative and executive branches.”

She added:

“Whoop de doo. In Indiana, Mitch Daniels’ voucher program is approaching 30,000 students two years after opening. He knew how to work with his legislature — and they ain’t any less ornery and squishy than Wisconsin Republicans.”

Did Daniels — a Walker favorite who served two terms as governor ending in 2013 — spectacularly outdo Walker on school vouchers despite favorable political conditions for the GOP in Madison?

At first glance, the programs appear pretty similar.

Wisconsin currently pays for 29,683 students to attend non-public schools. In Indiana, the figure also tops 29,000.

But most of the growth in the Wisconsin program long pre-dates Walker, while Indiana has surged to Wisconsin’s level in just four years. Daniels won passage of the program in 2011, the same year Walker’s first term began in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, vouchers were born 25 years ago through a Milwaukee-only program. It was a pioneering effort nationally in the use of public tax dollars to enable parents to send their children to private and/or religious schools.

It was under Walker that the program expanded beyond Milwaukee, to more than 25 municipalities.

But Pullmann alludes, accurately, to the fact Daniels was able to get vouchers approved statewide right from the get-go, while Walker settled for a gradual and limited expansion even with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a 2012 recall win under his belt.

She misstates some facts and undersells Walker’s record on vouchers, though, in saying he won a mere “500-student increase to Milwaukee’s voucher program.”

Walker did cap the increase at 500 additional students in 2013-’14.

But that cap of 500 students is old news; the statewide limit went up to 1,000 new students for 2014-’15.

Also left out of the equation are earlier expansions on Walker’s watch. Walker lifted Milwaukee’s 22,500 enrollment limit in 2011. He also signed the expansion of the program to Racine in 2011-’12.

All these moves combined to allow more than 5,000 new students into the program annually, 10 times the amount Pullmann credits him for.

By contrast, Indiana went from 0 to more than 29,000 in four years. The program there was capped at 7,500 its first year and at 15,000 in its second, but now has no cap. Wisconsin’s program outside Milwaukee and Racine is still capped at 1,000 students, though Walker and legislators have signalled they want to raise that limit in the next term.

Voucher advocate Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform, said Pullmann was right to describe Walker’s approach as incrementalism compared to the Indiana experience.

But “Indiana was in a different position because others had already paved the road,” Kerwin said. Both states fared very well in the Center’s 2014 state scorecard on voucher plans.

Indiana ranked #1 (“a universal voucher program open to all students across the state and no limit on the number of vouchers that can be awarded.”)

Wisconsin tied for #2 (“a much-restricted statewide program, both in terms of income eligibility and number of available vouchers.”)

Finally, the political front.

Walker faced the reality that some GOP senators balked at expanding the program beyond Milwaukee and Racine. He proposed a cap, but one that would expire; legislators made the 1,000-student limit indefinite.

We asked Walker press secretary Laurel Patrick why the Republican governor proposed a cap on out-state enrollment.

“Our office worked with the Legislature and this was the avenue that had the most support, especially due to concerns about funding and the capacity for expansion,” Patrick told us.

Our rating

Pullmann wrote  that Scott Walker “couldn’t get his own party” to back more than a 500-student increase in Milwaukee’s school choice program, but in Indiana, “Mitch Daniels’ voucher program is approaching 30,000 students two years after opening.”

She’s on target on the basic notion of Indiana’s speed vs. Wisconsin’s gradualism, but leaves out or muffs some important details.

We rate her claim Half True.

By Kara Kerwin
Tacoma Weekly
November 19, 2014

There’s a reasonable tendency among Americans to view the education of their kids as an exclusively local issue and distinct to their communities. After all, school buildings are constant fixtures in neighborhoods, sports teams play crosstown rivals and the vast majority of public students still attend schools based solely on zip code.

However, the innovations and flurry of activity that take place in classrooms and communities are guided by the state level policies that govern them, which is why the 2014 gubernatorial election results matter, and could potentially mean substantial improvements to student learning.

A national analysis found that more than half of governors hold encouraging views or have proven track records on promoting the types of choice and accountability measures that will lift student outcomes and give more power to parents in the educational process.

Post-election media reports signaled an overall victory for candidates with fresh ideas on how to make education the great equalizer.

This means that if there are meaningful shifts in policy that facilitate excellent schools, they’re likely to originate from the statehouses and governors’ mansions.

These governors and governors-elect understand that schools cannot be properly held accountable for results if parents don’t have the choice to look around them and find the best educational fit for their child. And the teachers that work hard day in and day out should be rewarded for performing well and going the extra mile for kids.

They appreciate that some students need an alternate environment to master course content, and want to expand charter schools to operate alongside traditional schools, with the necessary autonomy for teachers to cater to particular learning needs.

What remains to be seen is whether state executives and lawmakers appreciate the urgency for action and that the status quo isn’t working for every student. Less than 40 percent of America’s fourth graders can read and do math at proficiency according to national assessments, and eighth graders aren’t faring much better.

At the high school level, the average scores on the SAT remained flat for the sixth year in a row, and only 43 percent of test takers this year met the college readiness benchmark.

Currently, 14 states plus the District of Columbia make school vouchers available to families, with a lesser number of states containing charter school laws that aren’t just in name only, but equitably fund charters and allow for the autonomy they need to truly thrive.

For these reasons, in addition to the principle that parents should have more say over what happens with their child’s education, this election cycle must serve as the catalyst for change to an education system in need of a shakeup.

Because American voters chose to elect real reformers, innovations that have been gaining traction in statehouses could soon become realities. A full one-third of states are currently considering some form of school choice legislation, ranging from creation of new programs to strengthening ones in existence. Now that the voters have done their part, it’s now up to elected officials to finish the job.