Back to School
A Special Section from CER

Issues Support Quick Takes

Issue: NOTABLE SUCCESSES EMERGE IN EDUCATION REFORM: Evidence of improvement among children is joined with policy victories in several venues. But much work remains to be done: GETTING WRITING WRONG -- the latest Nation's Report Card on students' writing skills exposes serious problems across the country.

Issue: Nationwide Reform Must Be A Local Effort
Showing the power of good research and reform ideas which The Center for Education Reform [CER] has driven into the public's minds, Education Secretary Dick Riley endorsed the need for smaller schools and urged all schools to make advanced courses available to all students. CER welcomes the Secretary's endorsement of these important structural reforms, but one should not to assume that additional federal money and mandates will actually bring these reforms about. In this new era of choice and charter schools, CER suggests five powerful actions to legislators and education officials interested in instituting bold and meaningful reform.

Issue: School Choice -- Florida Public Schools Strive to Stay off Failing Schools List; First State-Wide Voucher Program Explodes Myths
The ripple effect of school choice is being felt in Florida, where dozens of public schools have stepped up efforts to improve their programs since the passage this spring of a tuition voucher program allowing schools in failing schools to choose a better education elsewhere. Prior to the A+ Plan, many Florida public schools were coasting on mediocre test scores and social promotion.  Since the first schools made the F List this year, however, schools are rushing to change the way they do business.

Learn more:

Issue: Sinking Standards and the SAT
Once upon a time the SAT was a solid barometer of student aptitude for higher education.  Now the test makers' tinkering has called into serious question the effectiveness of the SAT. Mediocre scores and a widening gap between minorities and whites exposes the weaknesses of the test and our school system.

Learn more at:

Issue: Charter Schools' Success
As the kids go back to school nationwide, an unprecedented number of them will be attending charter schools. CER's up-to-the-minute tally: 1,682 charter schools will open their doors to approximately 350,000 children in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

Learn more at:

Support: Parent Power
"Knowledge is power," and Parent Power! is a monthly newsletter chock full of knowledge for parents who want to know more about the issues that effect their children’s education. Each issue is packed with informative articles that highlight new trends in schooling and offer helpful hints to parents who want to take a more active role in their local schools. August issue now online!

Support: The School Reform Handbook
Here's everything you ever needed to know about how to improve our schools, from making community-based changes to far reaching state reforms. Learn the real scoop on:  what you need to know about your schools; who's really in charge; how to best present your ideas to the school and the community; how to talk to the media; how to organize a meeting; and hundreds of other important points to help an effective reformer. And check out TEN WAYS TO BECOME A SCHOOL ACTIVIST, by Linda Cagnetti, The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 29, 1999, including: "7. JOIN OR START A PARENT GROUP.... The School Reform Handbook: How to Improve Your School, published by the parent-founded Center for Education Reform, is a how-to gold mine on this and much more. [Link to: full article.]

Support: Parents' Plan of Action:
As a parent, what can you REALLY do to impact your child's education? As Back-to-School days approach, you need to define your role and develop a game plan in shaping the educational environment of your child's classroom, the school, and the community to be a source and support for educational excellence.

Support: CER's Here to Help
The Center for Education Reform is here to help. Send us e-mail or contact us at (800) 521-2118. And check out the hundreds of local reform organizations, started by parents, professionals, policy makers and researchers that can help you find the information and individuals to advance your education reform cause. To find one in your community, visit Education Reform Resources and Organizations, with full contact information and many web links. And stay in the loop with our new CER Newswire, a regular email newsletter on the latest in education reform. Subscribe here.

Quick Take: Qualified Teachers and the Kids Who Need Them
"Sooner or later, the teacher shortage will force serious change in how people enter the profession and how they're compensated. We're not quite desperate enough yet, because the kids with the least competent teachers have the parents with the least clout." Joanne Jacobs, San Jose Mercury News editorial board. [Link to excerpt.]

Quick Take: The Rainbow Grows
Willie Breazells was, until recently, head of the 800 member Colorado Springs, CO NAACP. However, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, Breazells was forced to resign because he wrote an article in support of school choice, in which he said that the "status quo leaves the poorest kids who need the most help...trapped in our very worst schools." He says the overwhelming majority of the local NAACP membership wanted him to stay but he resigned under pressure from the main office; three others of the 11 member executive committee also resigned in support. Breazell told the Journal, "I was kind of lynched, so to speak.... If you don't have the group-think mentality you won't last."  The National NAACP has a strict anti-voucher policy, and other African American leaders and legislators who have broken ranks with the NAACP over school choice say that it is not hard to glean from where the NAACP's strong stance against vouchers comes: they get a large portion of their funding from the teachers unions.

For more information, link to:

Quick Take: A Mother's Outrage
PTA's ANTI-VOUCHER PROPAGANDA: Students at a Michigan school were sent home with an "educational" anti-school-choice leaflet. The leaflet, which had no logo or letterhead but which referred to policies of "our" PTA, advanced misleading and false information about the origin and purpose of school choice and education tuition vouchers.

Quick Take: School Choice
Cleveland families and school choice supporters nationwide are relieved by Ohio Judge Solomon Oliver's decision to finally allow Cleveland's choice children to return to their schools, but are not satisfied that new children are excluded. In protest of Oliver's legislating from the bench, choice activists held candlelight vigils in cities nationwide on August 31st. For more details on the recent court action visit our School Choice page.

Quick Take: Teachers Strike Out
So what does a union do in a city where half of the children don't graduate from high school and there's clearly a widening racial gap in achievement?  In Detroit, they strike.  Citing disagreements over time and demands for higher wages and smaller classes, union representatives left 172,000 children stranded.  Detroit's teachers are torn, but the current union boss says "this is a group that wanted to strike regardless of the consequences." Some of their demands ...

Quick Take: Blob Watch
Blob Watch tracks all the miss-the-point mischief of those Big Learning Organization Bureaucracies.

CER Home Page E-Mail CER CER Publications