Free Republic

November 7, 2005: The U.S. Department of Defense sees urban schools as ones of its biggest recruiting obstacles. Not because leftist teachers in some of those schools try to keep recruiters out, but because so many potential recruits have to be turned down because of the poor education they have received in those schools. While only 21 percent of Americans live in rural areas, 44 percent of the qualified recruits come from these areas. What's strange about all this is that the rural areas spend much less, per pupil, on education, but get much better results. Part of this can...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - The public schools in Norfolk, Va., which over the last seven years have steadily narrowed a wide gap between white and black students in reading and mathematics scores, have won this year's Broad Prize, a $500,000 award to the urban school district making the greatest strides in student achievement. The prize was announced on Tuesday at a ceremony at the Library of Congress by Eli Broad, the founder of the Broad Foundation, which is dedicated to improving urban school districts across the country. "In our circles this is really the Nobel Prize of education," Stephen C....

New Jersey, Maryland Need School Choice, Studies ShowIf high per-pupil spending and widespread underachievement are two of the qualities that make a school system an ideal testing ground for vouchers, then Paterson, New Jersey and Baltimore, Maryland are two prime candidates, according to a pair of recently released studies.State Control of Schools Has Failed to Help Paterson, New Jersey Children: Why Not Choice Instead? by Don Soifer and Robert Holland of the Lexington Institute, and A School Voucher Program for Baltimore City by Dan Lips of the Maryland Public Policy Institute show how vouchers could help solve problems in the...