Free Republic

Proponents of school choice are sharing in President Trump’s first major legislative victory, the signing of the Republican tax reform bill on Friday. Under the to-be-updated tax code, thanks to a provision introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas,, parents will be able to use 529 plans, a form of savings account, to pay not only for college, as is currently the case, but also toward expenses for K-12 schooling, including private school tuition. The provision originally included home schooling costs, but was stripped from the final bill after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that part ineligible under budget reconciliation rules —...

Parents who attend church weekly, have a college degree or higher, earn $75,000 per year or more, are a Republican or conservative are among the parents least likely to send their child to a public school, according to an analysis by Gallup. By contrast, those who seldom or never attend church, have no religious preference, or have a household income of $30,000 or less are most likely to send their child to a public school, according to Gallup. “Eighty-five percent of U.S. parents of school-aged children have a child in public school, while 9% send their child to private school,...

An ultra-Orthodox girls’ elementary school in London may be forced to close after failing to meet government standards because it does not teach about homosexuality and transgender issues. The Vishnitz Girls School, a private elementary school in the London suburb of Stamford Hill, failed three consecutive inspections from UK’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) according to a report released last month. Although the school received a positive review in almost every area, it failed the inspection because “they do not teach pupils about all the protected characteristics, particularly those relating to gender re-assignment and sexual...

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - Public school advocates are suing to block the state of Michigan from helping private schools with the cost of complying with state requirements such as immunization reporting and safety drills. The lawsuit will be filed later Tuesday in the Court of Claims. The Michigan Association of School Boards and groups representing school administrators and others said at a news conference that spending $2.5 million in the current state budget on nonpublic schools is unconstitutional.

Germany’s private schools are violating the constitution by picking students according to their parents’ wealth, a new study has found. The result is increasing social segregation and elitism, the authors say. German state governments are allowing schools to disregard an article of the country’s constitution designed to ensure that a mixture of social classes are able to attend private schools, according to a new study by the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). Article 7, Paragraph 4 of the “Basic Law” guarantees the right to establish private schools as an alternative to state schools — but only subject to their approval...

President Obama’s lack of self-awareness was on full display when he spoke at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit at Georgetown University today and criticized people who send their kids to “private schools” and “private clubs.” A panel including Robert Putnam, professor of public policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute were discussing ways to overcome poverty. Obama stated that those who have economic advantages are withdrawing from societal common areas. He claimed those who socially separate themselves are contributing to a sluggish economy that lacks opportunity. The hypocrisy...

All children deserve to be safe at school. Yet it turns out that New York City does not provide kids who attend private schools with the same level of protection as those at public schools. That’s not only unfair, it’s unsafe. And it ought to change. As matters stand, only public schools in the city are eligible for NYPD school-safety agents. Private schools must provide security officers on their own dime. And while child-safety is an issue no decent school would ignore, the fact is many private schools struggle to cover the costs of adequate security — and sometimes the...

The constant debate of how to fix public education is far from over. However, The Heritage Foundation came across new research for an improved education policy. heritage foundation index of cultury and opportunity Jennifer A. Marshall, Vice President of the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity, discussed new research to better the failing education system for children in low income areas. While the Center for American Progress argues that government needs to increase funding for better education, the Heritage Foundation suggests a different approach. “The charts on public school test scores [over time] are the most boring ones in the...

The SAT college entrance exam will no longer require a written essay or penalize students for wrong answers, part of a major overhaul announced Wednesday.

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice recently published an analysis entitled, “More Than Scores: An Analysis of Why and How Parents Choose Private Schools.” The study took a look at the Georgia GOAL scholarship system, in which parents would get money from the state (i.e., a school voucher) in order to send their children to private schools. The GOAL’s oversight entity, the Georgia Education Expense Credit Program, is structured in a way to give tax credits for contributing to a “qualified Student Scholarship Organization (SSO).” An individual can receive a tax credit for contributing up to $1,000, a married couple...

And that's an improvement. According to a new report released by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a non-profit educational organization, 59 percent of campuses around the country severely restrict free speech. These campuses maintain restrictions on students through speech codes and other policies. Here are the main findings from the report: 59% (58.6%) of the 427 schools surveyed have speech codes that clearly and substantially restrict protected speech. (FIRE labels these “red light” schools.) Another 35.6% have “yellow light” policies that overregulate speech on campus. This represents a nearly 17% decline in red light schools from six years...

People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them. Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves. Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools. I call them "government" instead of "public" schools because not much is "public" about them. Members of the public don't get to pick their kids'...

A new cornerstone piece on public education by Allison Benedikton on Slate.com titled, "If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person," was shocking but consistent and clearly revealed that liberals value the word “education,” as long as the word “public,” precedes it. According to the author, public schools continue to fail because parents are sending their children to private schools, instead of public schools. Parents who spend their hard earned money to send their children to private schools are in fact destroying the fabric of America’s public education: which is immoral. For liberals, abortion is...

California Senate Bill 131, which is ostensibly about protecting victims of child sex abuse, forces private schools to defend claims of sexual abuse as far back as 40 years ago, but exempts public schools from such claims. Because of the Democratic super-majorities in both houses of California, there is no way to stop the passage of the bill. As Valerie Schmalz wrote in Catholic San Francisco: The California state Senate narrowly approved a waiver of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse damage lawsuits – a bill that could have a devastating effect on nonprofits including Catholic Charities and...

Private religious schools perform better than public schools, and public charter schools performed no better than regular public schools, according to a new study by William Jeynes, professor of education at California State University at Long Beach and senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton. Jeynes spoke Monday with The Christian Post about the study. He found that religious, mostly Christian, school students were a full year ahead of students who attend public and charter schools. The results of his research were recently published in vol. 87, issue 3 of the Peabody Journal of Education in an article titled,...

It seems freedom of association and religious doctrine, and the juxtaposition thereof, are concepts destined to elude liberals’ grasp. That’s the inescapable takeaway from The New York Times’ report on trouble at Boston College, where the Jesuit school’s administrators have decided to crack down on an unofficial student group dedicated to free condom distribution: “While we understand that you may not be intentionally violating university policy, we do need to advise you that, should we receive any reports that you are, in fact, distributing condoms on campus, the matter would be referred to the student conduct office for disciplinary action...

Sometimes private contractors see schools and their multi-million dollar budgets as great sources of potential revenue. And because schools rarely employ people with business sense or experience, they sometimes hire contractors to perform major projects without seeking competitive bids or doing thorough background checks on the companies.Then the cost overrun bills start arriving and more tax dollars than necessary go out the door.In Hillsborough, New Jersey, school board members were recently “shocked” and “insulted” that the district’s architectural contractor recently submitted invoices totaling about $19,000, according to the Hillsborough Beacon.Apparently there was some confusion about what the contactor should charge...

Is it possible for charter schools to increase educational options and diversity in the public school system but decrease diversity overall; to spend less money than regular public schools but cost taxpayers more overall, and to outperform regular public schools but decrease achievement overall? Unfortunately, it is not only possible but is happening in cities across the nation. This mix of intended and unintended outcomes is what’s known as the “charter school paradox,” which hints at the uneasy place these relatively new educational options have in our society. But it is only a paradox if we take a narrow view...

The Washington Times reports: “Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.” “In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.” “In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent;...

Instead of saving up for their sons' college education, Bill Dunham and his wife are taking out loans for high school. Their eldest son will begin ninth grade at a school in Boston where annual tuition runs around $10,000 -- and they already pay $5,000 a year for their younger child. A project manager for a mechanical construction company, Dunham says the schools referred him to lenders who specialize in pre-college education loans. He's taking a loan to cover his son's full high school tuition, which he plans to repay over two years. "If we had the money, we'd pay...