Free Republic

For years, American education from kindergarten through high school has been a virtual government monopoly. Conventional wisdom is that government must run the schools. But government monopolies don't do anything well. They fail because they have no real competition. Yet competition is what gives us better phones, movies, cars -- everything that's good. If governments produced cars, we'd have terrible cars. Actually, governments once did produce cars. The Soviet bloc puts its best engineers to work and came up with the Yugo, the Volga and the Trabant. The Trabant was the best -- the pride of the Eastern Bloc. It...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils. It's a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.

Link to Video Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, and the students and staff at Messmer Preparatory Catholic School were all targets of an obnoxious protest on Friday, August 26, 2011. From this report by the MacIver News Service, it is clear the protesters (Union members, socialists, MPS officals, liberal activists) could learn a lot by emulating the behavior of the children inside the school.

Oh wait, that's not the Tea Party. It's Obama-supporting Democrat-voting* public union teacher protesters -- again.Yes, the Democrat-media complex still smear the Tea Party and anti-Obama conservative Americans as vitriolic and racist, and most recently "the real enemy" who can "go straight to hell." Meanwhile in the real world, actual vitriol and (by the left's own standards) racism occurred at the hands of union protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin both Thursday and Friday.As reported by Milwaukee's local Fox-TV affiliate: Vandals super glued the locks of several doors and a parking gate at Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee. School officials believe the people responsible...

Step Up for Students, the Tampa-based group that administers tax-credit vouchers statewide, said in a press release today that it received more than 33,000 new applications this year before cutting off the process May 21.That's up a ton from last year, and months ahead of last year's cutoff. And it's another strong sign that demand for vouchers among low-income families is rising fast.According to Step Up for Students spokesman Jon East, the group received 22,000 new applications last year between the start of the application period, April 1, and mid September. New applications are filled out by families who aren't already in the program.The number of available...

A Palm Coast rabbi and an Ormond Beach school principal are front and center in a legal challenge filed Wednesday to a 2012 ballot proposal that would repeal Florida's constitutional ban on using public money to aid churches and other religious organizations. Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, who lives in Palm Coast and is the spiritual leader of Temple Shalom in Deltona, and Pine Trail Elementary Principal Susan Persis are among nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Tallahassee. Others include leaders of the statewide teachers union and other school-related organizations and clergy from several denominations. They claim the constitutional amendment,...

DALLAS — At least eight people were hurt when thousands of housing voucher applicants rushed the doors at the Jesse Owens Memorial Complex in Dallas, Texas. An estimated 5,000 applicants waited for hours to receive applications for one of the 3,800 available vouchers. The waiting applicants became a frenzied stampede when officials opened doors to the housing voucher offices earlier than expected. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoiegq52y8

With a stroke of a pen, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker today signed a 2011-2012 state budget that dramatically expands the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to include tens of thousands of working class and middle income families. His signature also means that a brand new school choice program will be established in Racine County. The budget had previously passed the Senate and House on June 17 by votes of 19-14 and 60-38, respectively. "This is incredible news that I know would make Milton and Rose Friedman smile," said Robert C. Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice,...

From June 2006 through November 2010, the woefully cash-strapped Florida Department of Education (DOE) forked over $2.057 million to Julius Brown, former middle school basketball coach and cofounder of a string of obscure sports apparel businesses. The money was in the form of tuition vouchers for kids with physical and learning disabilities to attend the South Florida Preparatory Christian Academy, the Oakland Park K-12 private school of which Brown — a looming and lean former basketball pro with a slug-like mustache — was founder, president, principal, athletic director, and boys' basketball coach. As is customary with schools that receive the...

Bloodsucking Capitalists: Shocking Excerpts Read at Tucson School Board Meeting From A Book Used In The Controversial Ethic Studies Curriculum (Grades 3-12)

An expansive new voucher program, signed into Indiana law today, has been widely praised as a momentous victory for school choice and Gov. Mitch Daniels on the brink of his long-awaited presidential campaign announcement. In reality, the voucher program is a tactical victory for highly constrained choice won at the price of a broad strategic defeat for educational freedom. To see why, consider the bill's regulations. Most people would agree there are some topics about which every child in this country should learn. Historical documents, for instance, that are vital for understanding our shared American heritage: the Federalist Papers, the...

The Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, distinguished himself last week by getting arrested in an act of "civil disobedience" reminiscent of the '60s. The mayor, six council members and more than 40 other protesters were detained by Capitol police for blocking the street to oppose the congressional budget deal that deprived D.C. of federal funds for abortions. They were also protesting a mandate under the same agreement that revives a popular school choice program, the "Opportunity Scholarship Program," which allows poor children in failing schools an opportunity to attend schools they and their parents believe will give them...

Tucson will be affected by a recent favorable ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in preserving Arizona’s school voucher program that is funded by tax credits offered to state taxpayers.

Why is it a great day for the children of Washington, D.C., you ask? Because with the coming passage of the 2011 budget bill, President Obama will sign into law one of the most successful education programs in Washington, D.C. history: The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program — which was started during the Bush Administration to provide low-income District students with money to attend private schools — was closed by Democrats in 2009, largely because of pressure from the Teacher's unions. The House recently passed a Boehner-authored bill last month — the SOAR Act — to reauthorize the program...

A deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that taxpayers have no legal right to challenge a tax break worth millions to donors supporting private religious schools. The 5-4 decision left intact an Arizona tax subsidy that was enacted because the state constitution forbids direct aid to religious schools.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit challenging Arizona's tax breaks for voluntary donations benefiting private school scholarships, many of them Christian-based. The 13-year-old program provides dollar-for-dollar income tax credits for money given to "school tuition organizations," or STOs. The 5-4 ruling split along conservative-liberal lines. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said taxpayers challenging the program lacked "standing" to continue the suit.

Green Township is being singled out because federal investigators believe the housing authority blocked new public housing there for at least the past two years. More public housing for the poor is likely headed to Green Township and some other communities as part of a deal to resolve a discrimination complaint against Cincinnati's housing authority.

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote today on a bill that would reauthorize a popular school-choice program in Washington, DC. In 2009, the Democratic-controlled Congress allowed the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) to lapse by ending acceptance of new students into the program. Often referred to as the "DC voucher program," the DC OSP provides tuition vouchers to low-income families in the nation's capital, allowing parents to send their children to the private schools of their choice. The new measure before Congress would revive and expand the program. Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of DC Parents for...

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly is considering a proposal that would empower parents whose children are trapped in failing public schools to choose, if they so desire, to enroll their children in a private school and receive a scholarship, or voucher, to help pay the tuition. While the debate swirls, one fact is certain: School vouchers are constitutional under the federal and Pennsylvania constitutions. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of school choice programs like that proposed in SB 1 in 2002 in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. The High Court rebuffed a challenge that Cleveland’s scholarship program violated the federal Establishment of...

I know what you must be thinking as you watch Wisconsin Teachers crusade in Madison for the children: ‘Those teachers must be turning out a world-class product to have the hutzpah to do that!’ No professional organization would just walk away from its duties if it were failing to perform a credible job. Right? That’s probably why they brought the kids to the capitol on the first day, to show off their handiwork. Hmmm, it must have just been dumb luck that the students showing up on Youtube appeared to be a walking cliche’ of teenaged vapidity. (Maybe that’s why...

When it comes to school choice, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are for it and against it. They've been proponents of charter schools but have opposed allowing parents to use tax-funded vouchers to enroll their children in private schools. In 2009 Duncan and Obama allowed a voucher program for 1,700 low-income students in Washington, D.C.—the first federal program of its kind—to expire, although a U.S. Department of Education analysis last year found it had improved graduation rates by 12 percentage points. Now House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is pushing a bipartisan effort to resurrect the program....

“ February 2008, while gearing up for his run at the presidency, Barack Obama told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “I will not allow my predispositions [to oppose vouchers] to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn. We’re losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done…….” His union masters Democrats serve at the pleasure of unions ……… powerful unions are the Teachers Unions across the country. In separate questionnaires submitted to both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, Obama had affirmed his opposition to vouchers which are government scholarships provided...

GOP House Speaker John Boehner and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman introduced legislation Wednesday to revive a school voucher program for District of Columbia students nearly two years after Congress began phasing it out. In a statement Wednesday, Boehner said the D.C. program is a model that can work well in other cities and should be the starting point of any new bipartisan education reform legislation developed with President Barack Obama's administration.

Kelley Williams-Bolar is jailed for lying about her residency to get her daughters into a better school district.

Opponents speak out against tuition vouchers Thursday, January 20, 2011 By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteHARRISBURG -- In his inaugural speech, Gov. Tom Corbett barely hinted at what is sure to become one of the most hotly debated issues of the spring -- "school choice," also known as "tuition vouchers." It would be a major change in how the state funds education. "Our students compete not only with those from the other 49 states, but with students from around the world," the new chief executive said Tuesday. "So we must embrace innovation, competition and choice in our education system." The measure,...

Gov. Brian Sandoval will seek a constitutional amendment in the upcoming session of the Nevada Legislature to allow for public tax dollars to be used in a school voucher program that would include religious schools, a staff member said this week. Senior Adviser Dale Erquiaga, in a briefing with the media on Thursday, said a voucher bill submitted by former Gov. Jim Gibbons will be rewritten by the Sandoval administration. Sandoval intends to pursue the constitutional change, he said. Changing the Nevada constitution is a complex process that would take as many as six years to accomplish, including voter approval....

Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott on Thursday blew the door wide open to the idea of a voucherlike program for all students, saying he's working with lawmakers to allow state education dollars to follow a student to the school his or her parents choose. "So if the parents want to spend it on virtual school, then spend it on virtual school," he continued. "If they want to spend it on, you know, whatever education system they believe in, whether it's this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school, that's what ought to happen."

Contrary to what is best for students, Florida Republicans are once again drawing battle lines over education reform. Gov.-elect Rick Scott fell into the trap last week by appointing an education transition team tilted against traditional public schools and in favor of private schools and tuition vouchers. Scott's education transition team is packed with advocates for private school vouchers, charter schools and changes in teacher tenure. Scott's team includes Michelle Rhee, the controversial former Washington, D.C., school chancellor credited with ending teacher tenure there, and John Kirtley, a voucher advocate who has had repeated success in expanding the state's program...

The struggle for civil rights is over. The good guys won. The battle now is against wrongheaded ‘compassionate’ policies. -Larry Elder Larry Elder goes after both wimpy Republicans, of which there are still far too many and state controlled indoctrination centers in IBD, warning that the monolithic, pro Democrat vote is a “clear and present danger to America.” "Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, treat blacks like children. When a Republican addresses a black audience, you can make book on how long it takes before he refers to Martin Luther King Jr. Either he marched with King or his father did,...

The monolithic pro-Democratic black vote is a clear and present danger to America. As recently as 1956, the GOP captured 39 percent of the black vote. If Republicans can seize just 20 or 30 percent of the black vote, the Democratic Party -- and its ability to pull the country to the left -- could be stopped, if not reversed. "The 'black vote'?" I said to a white Republican politician who asked my advice. "I'll tell you how to go after it, but you won't do it." "Try me," he said. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, treat blacks like children....

Check out today’s ad in The New York Times by the civil rights leader Kevin P. Chavous, chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, condemning President Obama for his failure to support school choice nationwide. (The alliance advocates for vouchers and is supported by several pro school choice foundations, including the Walton Family Foundation.) Chavous asks President Obama to endorse school vouchers, saying that the president himself attended the most elite school in Hawaii because of scholarships. At the risk of being pilloried, I have to point out that the evidence is not strong that vouchers have dramatically improved...

President Barack Obama said Monday morning during a live interview on NBC that his daughters couldn't get the same quality education at a District public school that they currently get at their private school. Obama says the schools in the District of Columbia are "struggling," though he said there have been some important steps made in the direction of reform. The president's daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend the Sidwell Friends School, an elite private school. Public schools in Washington have faced criticism for their low test scores and high graduation rates. The president took a question from Florida resident Kelly...

No, not that v-word. V . . . as in vouchers. They might as well have been a couple of Soviet apparatchiks in 1955 discussing implementing better production procedures in diesel-engine factories. You can talk all day about “best practices, “what works,” blah, blah, blah. But there’s only one thing that has or will ever worked to improve the quality of any product, from football teams to cars to education: competition. The only way to introduce real competition into education is via vouchers: giving parents and children real choice and making all schools—from government ones to parochial to private—compete on...

A bill that would allow more public schools to offer seats to out-of-district students has passed the Legislature and is awaiting Governor Christie's signature. The idea for the expanded school choice program was tried out on a pilot basis. While still in the trial stage, it led to the creation of the Academies@Englewood, which drew students from other school districts and was aimed at desegregating Dwight Morrow High School. But the new legislation is unlikely to have much of an impact in North Jersey where most cash-strapped schools are operating at capacity and officials say they are not in a...

Along with its usual claims that cuts will destroy schools, the Web site of the United Federation of Teachers marks the union's 50th anniversary by paying strange homage to a firebrand founder, Albert Shanker. It does so by saying that, "In a movie, Woody Allen once described Albert Shanker as a mad bomber who destroys the world." The union apparently sees this lone sentence as high praise for its late boss. The movie was "Sleeper," a 1973 hit where Allen, director and star, wakes 200 years in the future. Amid gags about dehumanizing machinery -- remember the Orgasmatron? -- Allen...

Few organizations are as consistently liberal as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), especially when it comes to matters of church and state. The ADL devotes an entire page on its Web site (www.adl.org) to church-state separation and wants the "wall" between the two to remain as high and impenetrable as possible, believing that to lower it would have a negative effect on both. Which makes it remarkable that the executive committee of ADL's Philadelphia chapter has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution endorsing vouchers that would allow children in underperforming schools in poor neighborhoods to escape to schools that would...

TRENTON -- A Senate committee approved legislation today creating scholarships for students to attend private schools during a raucous hearing held in front of the Statehouse Annex building. Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly students from private and charter schools, gathered to rally for the bill. Supporters said it provides students a chance to leave failing public schools, while opponents said it undermines the public school system. The bill (S1872) could fund $24 million in scholarships for up to 4,000 children the first year. After five years, up to 20,000 children would receive $120 million in scholarships, they said. More money would...

Let’s get something straight. School vouchers are pretty much exclusively supported by conservatives and those who actually want kids to succeed. Those against student vouchers are usually unions and government bureaucrats who complain about dollars being “removed” from public education … where kids are indoctrinated. The Chicago voucher system seems to be a step in the right direction, but does it go far enough?

Archdiocese of Washington To Close or Merge Four Catholic Schools In 2008, the Archdiocese of Washington gave up control of seven of its inner-city schools that were struggling financially, turning the facilities into secular charter schools. Dozens of teachers and hundreds of students departed; 1,000 new students signed up. Here's a glimpe of life inside one a year-and-a-half later. By Michael Birnbaum Saturday, January 30, 2010 Two Washington area Catholic schools will close at the end of the school year, two will merge and another is examining its options, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington said Friday. The changes...

CREST HAVEN – Cape May County Freeholders on Tuesday, Jan. 26 were set to pass a resolution asking that the Diocese of Camden reconsider its intention to close Wildwood Catholic High School which is located in the community of North Wildwood. Director Daniel Beyel said, “It would normally be outside the scope of the Board to express any opinions or voice any statements pertaining to the policy or decision making of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the recent decision of the Diocese of Camden to close Wildwood Catholic High School has such far reaching implications to Cape May County that...

Congress appears likely to keep the D.C. voucher program closed to new students but open to current ones, curtailing the hopes of advocates who had pressed for a full revival of the controversial program. The news is buried deep within a thousand-page omnibus spending bill released Monday by a joint conference of House and Senate Appropriations Committee members. The proposal allocates $13.2 million to vouchers and would tighten accountability measures for schools that participate in the program, which provides low-income D.C. students with up to $7,500 to attend private schools. Bringing further upheaval to the program, the Washington Scholarship Fund,...

We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now—that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed. 20 November 2009 On the last day of the National Education Association’s convention this summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that...

More city kids are graduating from high school, but that doesn't mean they can do college math. Basic algebra involving fractions and decimals stumped a group of City University of New York freshmen - suggesting city schools aren't preparing them... "These results are shocking," ... "They show that a disturbing proportion of New York City high school graduates lack basic skills." During their first math class at one of CUNY's four-year colleges, 90% of 200 students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem... Only a third could convert a fraction into a decimal. The lack of math skills means the...

Attorney General Eric Holder tries to kill a TV ad supporting D.C. school vouchers. President Obama isn't taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled. Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad. The 30-second ad, which has been airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and News Channel 8 to viewers in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, urges the president to reauthorize the...

The District of Columbia's embattled school-voucher program, which lawmakers appeared to have killed earlier this year, looks like it could still survive. Congress voted in March not to fund the program, which provides certificates to pay for recipients' private-school tuition, after the current school year. But after months of pro-voucher rallies, a television-advertising campaign and statements of support by local political leaders, backers say they are more confident about its prospects. Even some Democrats, many of whom have opposed voucher efforts, have been supportive. At a congressional hearing last month, Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and vocal critic of...

The Democratic Party has battled for universal health care this year, and over the decades it has admirably led the fight against poverty — except in the one way that would have the greatest impact. Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers’ unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools. President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, are trying to change that — and one test for the Democrats...

Choosing Schools in Nebraska by: Allie Winegar Duzett, October 01, 2009 School choice has long been a topic of debate among those concerned with American education. Should the government have a monopoly over education? Or should Americans instead be allowed to use vouchers to send their children to schools that could compete with the government’s public school system? Paul DiPerna of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice recently interviewed 1,200 “likely” Nebraskan voters to see how residents of the state feel about issues with education, including school choice. The study has a 95% confidence level. DiPerna’s study found that Nebraska’s...

Bluegrass Blues by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 10, 2009 It turns out that not many parents in the Bluegrass state want their children to attend public school. Paul DiPerna, author of School Choice Survey in the State: Kentucky’s Opinion on K-12 Education and School Choice, found that people are not happy with the current public school system. This August 2009 study is of Kentucky voters’ opinions on their state’s school system. Strategic Vision, a public relations agency, conducted this survey by making live phone calls to a random sample of 1,200 likely Kentucky voters. Its screening questions were such as to...

DC Councilman and former Mayor Marion Barry is likely to be arrested today. Barry, a convert to the voucher cause, will be blocking the entrance to the Department of Education building during President Obama's speech to protest the gradual phasing out of the DC school voucher program, according to organizers. The event, organized by Parents for DC Choice, along with Councilman Kevin Chavous, and Dr. Howard Fuller, will target DOE Secretary Arne Duncan, who won't be in the building.