Newswire – May 21, 2019

FIGHTING BACK.  Doing his part in the continuing war on educational opportunities for disadvantaged kids, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has submitted a budget that will end the state’s “Opportunity Scholarship Program”. The program currently provides up to $4,200 per school year to low income students  – currently over 9,500 participate – to attend any school they wish. Savvy businessmen, knowing the need for qualified graduates entering the workforce, are fighting back. We say it’s about time, and hope this is just the first salvo of a full fledged counter-offensive. 

SCHOOL KIDS HELD HOSTAGE IN MICHIGAN. $50 million in already approved and received federal grants intended to open more charter schools in Michigan is being held hostage by anti-charter, anti-choice bullies on the state school board.  The real hostages here are the school kids who are being trapped in failing schools. The education bullies are so fierce that even a Democrat member of the board who lives in Detroit, where more than half the students attend charter or private schools, abstained from voting. Suffer the little children.

FRESH AIR IN THE MOUNTAINEER STATE. West Virginia was the site of a typically ugly union strike against school kids earlier this year. The only good thing to come out of it was that in an unguarded moment the state’s AFT President admitted the strike wasn’t about salary or class size, but was really about eliminating charters. Two top education researchers recently set the record straight about charters and exposed the unions’ deception and duplicity.

EPIC ACHIEVEMENTS  FOR EPIC CHARTERS. EPIC Charter Schools in Oklahoma has 231 students inducted into the National Honor Society (NHS).  The current NHS President at the school is walking, talking evidence of what charters do for kids of all backgrounds.  As one educator at the school says “a priority for us is to create an academic model that is conducive to student success”. What a concept.

BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT. And also wisdom.  In explaining his support of school choice, New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut got maximum impact from minimal verbiage in saying  “I’m a supporter of school choice because I’m a supporter of children.”  Wish we had said that…oh, we have!

EXCELLENCE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.  Like most charter and choice proponents, Commissioner Edelblut has the facts to back up his words. Just last week the Academy for Science and Design charter school in Nashua was named New Hampshire’s top high school for 2019. The school’s director engaged in a bit of understatement saying “We know we have a really special place here”.  Bravo to the Academy for Science and Design for proving, yet again, the value and excellence of charters.

AT 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHARTERS GOING STRONG IN UTAH.  Charter schools in Utah just celebrated their 20th anniversary and are thriving in the Beehive state.  This is one place where district and charter schools have a symbiotic relationship, helping each other get better through competition. As one charter President puts it “Competition has been a fabulous thing because everybody had to step it up. Our local school districts step it up; we constantly step it up. I think it’s a win-win situation for the students”. Hmm, a “win-win” for students.  Are you listening, union bosses?

MATH CHALLENGED IN FLORIDA.  We’re not trying to be snarky, but charter-choice critics in Florida really need some remedial math help. A hyperbole and hysterics filled report from – you guessed it – the Florida Education Association claims that charter & private schools will cost other public schools nearly $1 billion in the next five years.  In the words of Colonel Sherman Potter, horse hockey. The facts – inconvenient as they may be for educrats and their friends, are here and here. Spoiler alert – Florida spends about $10,300 per pupil in traditional public schools while the state pays $7,300 per charter pupil. Nice round numbers.  Easy to understand. Unless you’re purposefully myopic.

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