Free Republic

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 Historical documents, for instance, that are vital for understanding our shared American heritage: the Federalist Papers, the...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...