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Review: On the Rocketship

July 7, 2014 By

In March 2006, John Danner submitted a charter school application to the San Jose Unified School District, which was filed accordingly by school officials without much comment or fanfare, marking the first attempt to launch what would eventually become the Rocketship charter network.

This seemingly nascent moment however, doesn’t take place until pg. 54 of On the Rocketship: How Top Charter Schools Are Pushing The Envelope written by veteran reporter Richard Whitmire.

To borrow an Internet meme, one does not simply apply to open a charter school, as Whitmire makes abundantly clear in this story full of successes, failures and the culmination of distinct personalities that built Rocketship to what it is today.

Whitmire structures the book with short chapters, in which a different part of Rocketship’s development is told. The eclectic, almost lyrical descriptions of each personality in the Rocketship saga provide the book with a vital human element.

In each section there are brief moments, some more innocuous than others, that piece together Rocketship’s founding, and what drove Danner, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, and other allies to send shockwaves through the American education system.

To be sure, the inspiring stories from Rocketship are characteristic of charter schools both large and small across the country, wherever an elevation of school culture positively affects students.

Arguably the book’s most heartwarming moment was the story of Daniella Martinez, a third grader reading at a first grade level, ambiguously labeled ‘special needs’ by the traditional school she attended prior to Rocketship. Upon first arriving to her new school, Daniella was understandably shy and rarely spoke. The Rocketship reading teacher had Daniella repeat three sentences: “I am smart. I am able. I will read,” creating an incredible turning point. The experience even galvanized Daniella’s mother Karen to become a parent leader and secure a better opportunity for her daughters that she never had.

Within just a few paragraphs, Whitmire captures the remarkably positive cultural shift that so many charter schools offer to students.

Of course, with Rocketship’s successes came setbacks. After bringing in Silicon Valley fixture Andy Stern to crack open the financial books, it became clear that the Rocketship rise would not be as meteoric as some would have hoped, and changes would have to be made to meet realities on the ground. Whitmire delves into much greater detail about Rocketship’s numerous challenges upon venturing out of San Jose.

Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is the intermittent presentation of enacted policies, speeches and announcements during Rocketship’s journey, providing a useful backdrop to the actions taking place in San Jose, Milwaukee, and elsewhere. Whether it’s a brief snippet about Race to the Top or Danner’s predisposition to enter jurisdictions with charter-friendly environments, Whitmire illustrates the importance of policy safeguards and strong laws that allow for quality charter growth.

Through the use of a single case study in Rocketship, Whitmire effectively issues commentary on the state of charter schools writ large, what’s working in districts nationwide, and how to truly make charters and the students they serve ready for liftoff.

On the Rocketship: How Top Charter Schools Are Pushing the Envelope is available here.

Filed Under: Commentary, Edspresso

Honoring Independence

July 3, 2014 By

Reflecting on the ensuing American Revolution, British political thinker Edmund Burke had this to say:

“We also reason and feel as you do on the invasion of your charters. Because the charters comprehend the essential forms by which you enjoy your liberties, we regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they have lately been.”

Although stopping short of endorsing American independence, Burke believed that George III was unjustly suppressing the colonial forms of governance that had been created in response to the longstanding British tradition of ‘salutary neglect.’

Needless to say, Burke was referring to charters in a purely legal sense, but ‘charter’ has since obtained a unique connotation when discussing education in America today.

Stripped of its context, the above quotation applies perfectly to charter schools, and how their approved ‘charters’ are indeed, “the essential forms by which” school educators, parents and students, “enjoy their liberties.”

It is for this reason that lawmakers and education officials should “regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they lately have been.”

To be sure, the connection is not perfect, and since it’s being examined devoid of context, this is not to say that those who seek to quash charter autonomy are British monarchy sympathizers (the official teacher union position on sugar taxes and throwing tea into Boston Harbor is best left undetermined.)

But the principle of independence endures, and it presents an opportunity to highlight that charter school educators consider their freedom to innovate and deliver a quality education to be “most sacred.”

238 years ago, 56 brave men signed a document that extended freedom into every sphere of American society. It is this freedom and independence that has helped the United States earn its reputation as one of the greatest nations on Earth. 238 years later, we work to deliver that promise to education.

Filed Under: Commentary, Edspresso

Under Pressure, D.C. School System Gets More Aggressive About Selling Itself

July 2, 2014 By

Emma Brown, Washington Post

The District’s traditional public school system is sending principals out to knock on doors in a campaign to sell itself to city families, an aggressive move to boost enrollment and maintain market share after years of ceding ground to charter schools.

The move is a sign of the tremendous pressure on the District’s traditional public schools. Charter schools, which appeared less than two decades ago, now enroll nearly half the city’s public school students, and they continue to gain popularity. It is a trend that many believe threatens the long-term survival of the traditional school system.

To train principals in old-fashioned door-to-door canvassing, school officials have hired political campaign experts who helped Barack Obama win the presidency. These experts are also adapting data-analytic methods used to target voters in 2008 and 2012 to help identify those students most likely to bolt the school system and, therefore, most in need of personal attention.

“I’ve got to keep my school open and growing,” said Principal Kennard Branch of Southeast Washington’s Garfield Elementary, one of about 30 principals who left recent student-recruitment training sessions with plans to knock on hundreds of doors during the first weeks of summer.

In the waning days of the school year, these experienced educators found themselves assembling teams of volunteer door-knockers and tinkering with fliers meant to encourage parents to consider their schools. They also refined the sales pitch for those parents who had decided to send their children elsewhere.

Michele Gassaway, Anthony Gaines and Tyronica Williams enroll their children in school at a DC Public Schools-sponsored enrollment carnival at Garfield Elementary in Washington. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

“I know you said you committed to a charter school,” said Principal Andria Caruthers of West Education Campus, demonstrating for her team of volunteers how one might engage a family that appears determined to leave the school system. “I’m asking you, can you stop by the school tomorrow?”

Gone are the days when public schools could sit back and wait for students to show up on the first day of class. In this era of school choice, families have become consumers, and educators have become marketers as responsible for selling their academic offerings as they are for teaching and learning.

Nowhere is that shift more apparent than in the District, home to one of the most crowded and competitive school marketplaces in the nation, where a school’s budget — and continued existence — depends on the number of students it manages to enroll.

“We know that we have to fight for our students and win over hearts and minds because there are so many great choices out there,” said Christopher Rinkus, who oversees the school system’s enrollment efforts. “There’s a mind-set we’re working to change, that enrollment happens when it happens. . . . We’re in a climate where you can’t afford that mind-set.”

From 1996 to 2012, enrollment in the city’s traditional schools declined from about 75,000 to about 45,000. Although enrollment ticked up slightly in 2013, the school system still lost market share to charters, which now enroll 36,500 students, or 44 percent of the city’s public school population. Charter schools in the District educate a higher percentage of local students than anywhere in the United States other than Detroit and New Orleans, where traditional schools have been replaced almost entirely by charters.

Across the country, wherever charter schools have taken root, they are known for marketing themselves aggressively. Advocates for school choice, a philosophy that the Obama administration has embraced, say charter schools are forcing traditional school systems to think of families as customers.

“It means we’ve done our jobs,” said Kara Kerwin of the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter advocacy organization.

But others say marketing efforts such as the District’s beg important questions about the unintended consequences of school choice, including whether the push to sell schools distracts from the goal of improving instruction.

“At a time of very limited school resources, do we want our resources diverted to marketing?” said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “We ask a lot of our principals. . . . Is door-to-door solicitation what we really want them to be doing?”

Some D.C. principals agree. “If you run a good program, parents will know. Word of mouth is very powerful,” said one principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing supervisors.

Many principals in the District feel a responsibility to do whatever they can to boost enrollment. More students mean additional staff and resources that can help a principal build attractive programs.

“I don’t think I allow myself to go down the road of ‘Is it a good use of my time?’ ” said Caruthers, the principal of West, a K-8 school in Northwest Washington’s 16th Street Heights neighborhood. “I think it’s a reality of where we’re at in education right now.”

D.C. school leaders were trained in campaign-style recruitment techniques in late May and early June. Leading the sessions was 270 Strategies, a firm founded by two political insiders known for combining data analytics and massive grass-roots organizing to help elect and reelect the nation’s first black president. The second time around, in 2012, Mitch Stewart was Obama’s battleground states director, and Jeremy Bird was his national field director.

The school system paid $14,000 for five two-hour training sessions to introduce principals to the art of door-to-door canvassing. Jesse Boateng, director of Florida voter registration for Obama’s 2012 campaign, led the sessions, sharing tips from the campaign trail: Don’t spend more than five minutes at any one door, and if you‘re having trouble reaching a targeted family, go back but not more than five times.

“You’re delivering a very specific message and asking a very specific question to capture data,” Boateng said. “Canvassing is one of the most efficient campaign strategies ever. We know that.”

Boateng left principals with a sample door-knocking script, templates for marketing literature and spreadsheets for recording which families were contacted and how they responded. He pushed principals to focus on “the lowest-hanging fruit,” persuading the families of current students, who must re-enroll every year in the District, to fill out the paperwork.

The firm is analyzing five years of student data to create a model for identifying the students most likely to leave. The school system is paying $30,000 for that work, and officials hope the model will be ready in time to help principals plan their recruitment efforts next spring.

“Once we’ve managed to figure out how we get our kids to return to our schools, we can figure out how to market to new families,” said Rinkus, whose job is to ensure that the school system hits its enrollment target of 47,592 students in the fall, an increase of more than 1,000 students from the 2013-2014 school year.

Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for 270 Strategies, declined to say whether the firm gave D.C. schools a discount. He said the firm does not comment on contracts with clients.

Going through the city’s neighborhoods, some principals found themselves knocking on doors without getting a response. Others said that appearing on students’ doorsteps seemed to open the way for a stronger connection with families. Still others said they were welcomed by parents who had intended to enroll but hadn’t realized that doing so early would help secure teachers and resources.

“We were very well received,” said Izabela Miller, principal of Amidon-Bowen Elementary in Southwest, which was at 40 percent of its target enrollment before the first round of door-knocking in late June. Now the school is at 70 percent, and Miller and her volunteers are headed out for another round of canvassing this weekend.

Many principals said they planned to canvass more broadly in an effort to find and recruit new students. “I can still go up and down the street, maybe find someone looking to go to a charter school and persuade them to go to Garfield,” Branch said.

Branch has already come up with his own strategies for retaining students, and he has beat his enrollment targets every year. Starting in April, he offers a treat — a ice pop party or a movie — every Friday for students who have re-enrolled. In June, he puts on a day-long carnival, and only those students who have completed their enrollment paperwork are admitted to the choicest parts, such as the waterslide, the Ferris wheel and the dunk tank.

Most Garfield parents had re-enrolled before this year’s carnival day, and many others showed up that morning bearing last-minute paperwork. One of them was Danielle Wise, the mother of an 8-year-old.

“He said don’t forget to come to my school! Don’t forget to register me!” said Wise, who recently moved outside Garfield’s attendance zone but wouldn’t consider transferring her son.

Caruthers, the West Education Campus principal, and her team of volunteers — two parents, a kindergarten teacher, a counselor and a central-office employee — made their inaugural canvassing trip on a recent Saturday morning. Each was armed with a “walk list” of student names and home addresses, and they had smartphones with mapping apps, school fact sheets and door hangers to leave at houses where no one answered the door.

Students no longer lived at the first three addresses that Caruthers tried. But the next three doors yielded face-to-face conversations with parents and grandparents and — the next week — three sets of filled-out enrollment forms.

“We’re doing a lot of great things at West, and people should know that,” Caruthers said. “We need to make sure that we keep our kids.”

Filed Under: CER in the News

NEWSWIRE: July 1, 2014

July 1, 2014 By

Vol. 16, No. 26

#NCSC14. The National Charter Schools Conference is underway, where school leaders, parents and activists of all stripes come together to discuss one of the most impactful education reforms of the last two decades. So far, there has been no shortage of inspiring speakers, from charter parents to veteran reformers like Kevin Chavous, and charter champion Steven Michael Quezada, better known as ‘Gomie’ from Breaking Bad. A major theme of panels and discussions is how to create more quality schools through proper engagement with lawmakers and community members, and the importance of lasting, student-centered policy whether in the legislative chamber or the principal’s office. The optimism surrounding choice and charters will no doubt be a far cry from the NEA Annual Meeting this week, where officials will be coming to terms with the Vergara aftermath, declining membership, and the latest poll-tested language to shield true agendas. Since last year, the number of charter schools nationwide has continued to grow at a steady linear pace, and more states have paved the way for charter school creation. Kara Kerwin reiterated throughout CER at 20 the need for activists to not only listen to the lessons learned from past efforts, but to then take those lessons and strategies back to their schools and communities. #NCSC15 will be the judge of whether or not that actually happens.

FOR THE LATEST CONFERENCE QUOTES, PICS and anything else that fits within 140 characters, follow @edreform, @CERKaraKerwin and @JeanneAllen on Twitter, using the hashtag #NCSC14.

BOND, DIGITAL BOND. There is a special bond between charter schools and digital learning, writes Nate Davis, Board Chairman and CEO of K12 Inc. Online learning is a natural fit for charter schools, where innovativeness and experimentation is not only allowed but also encouraged. Not too long after blended learning programs in charter schools began to positively affect student outcomes, more charter and traditional schools began to take notice. Online options meant that students, regardless of socioeconomic background or zip code, suddenly had access to the same learning option. The advent of online and blended learning that hinges on mastery of learning content rather than technology alone has not only introduced a learning alternative but has also revolutionized the way Americans think about education in the 21st century. And as Davis notes, this is only the beginning.

CHOICE THROUGH DUAL CREDIT. A series of colorful and inspiring video testimonials highlighted by Minnesota’s Center for School Change shows students from all backgrounds who have taken it upon themselves to explore choices and set high expectations. Through the use of dual credit enrollment programs, students take courses to gauge their college readiness and find a path that may be right for them. Studies conducted in states such as New York, California, and Florida have shown dual enrollment programs leading to greater college matriculation and higher grade point averages. Not only that, but dual enrollment expands access to college credit, reflected in the number of low-income Minnesota students enrolled in AP and IB courses, which more than doubled between 2007 and 2012. Within these programs (and a recurring mindset throughout the #NCSC14 Charter Schools Conference!) is the premise that EVERY student can learn no matter what, and all types of learning options must deliver the promise of better educational opportunities.

Filed Under: Newswire Weekly, Newswire

The Perfect Location

July 1, 2014 By

The Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, CO opened its doors in 1892, and is renowned by a wide range of travel publications for its luxurious suites and spa offerings.

In its 120-year history, the Brown Palace has played host to famous figures such as U.S. Presidents and the Beatles, giving it a well-respected reputation within the Denver tourism industry.

Judging from the “fun facts”, the Brown Palace is a historical relic that offers extravagant conditions and features for guests, making it a perfect location for a teacher’s union conference.

In a brilliant display of self-awareness, the National Caucus of Urban Education Associations, an influential arm within the larger National Educational Association (NEA), selected the four star hotel as the location for a three-day Summer Meeting that ended on June 29.

Union officials were able to properly decompress in a relaxing environment after a tough few weeks following the Vergara v. California ruling, when in one fell swoop the American public and media questioned why on Earth the NEA still chooses to defend absurd and antiquated policies that undercut student interests.

What’s more, the only president since 1905 to not stay at the Brown Palace was union foe Calvin Coolidge during the 1920s — if that’s not kismet then we don’t know what is.

So here’s hoping the NCUEA enjoyed their Summer Meeting, they couldn’t have found a better location if they tried.

*Editor’s Note: The NEA’s wider Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly will in large part take place at the cutting edge Colorado Convention Center, hardly an appropriate venue for such an event.

Filed Under: Commentary, Edspresso

The Bond Between Charter Schools and Digital Learning

June 30, 2014 By

Nate Davis, thinktanK12

In 1992, the first charter school was introduced and the concept of public school choice in American education was born. Today, over 2.5 million students attend more than 6,400 charter schools in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

In the late 90’s, just as charter schools were about to experience a period of tremendous growth, a new educational innovation began to take root: digital learning.

Over the last decade, a strong nexus emerged between digital learning and charter schools. In charter schools, digital learning found environments that nurtured creativity and innovation.  Through digital learning, charter schools were able to provide families from every demographic more options, access, and choice in public education.

Charter schools became the primary vehicle for the advancement of digital learning, and naturally so. One of the cornerstones of charter schools was to invite education advancements by giving educators greater flexibility and autonomy to pioneer new educational programs. The goal was to allow charter schools to test and develop new models that could be replicated by other public schools and districts – a kind of education “skunkworks.”

The first online charter schools – totally digital learning environments – emerged in the early 2000’s when Pennsylvania became the first state to allow online charter schools. Soon after, many other states began to follow. Charters offering blended learning (combining digital and face-to-face instruction) quickly followed, providing a wide range of exciting and differentiated instructional models. These online and blended charter schools scaled quickly to meet demand from parents, and ran head on into the status quo. Conventional educational norms were challenged. Debate shifted from simply trying to find ways to tinker with the traditional model to wholly re-thinking how technology could disrupt the way education is delivered and consumed for the better.

Traditional charter schools – demonstrating their relentless desire to progress – adopted best practices from online and blended charters and began offering digital learning to expand programs and increase capacity. School districts quickly took notice. They saw the heightened interest from students and parents in online and blended charter schools, and began to replicate similar programs. In other words, the concept of empowering charter schools to be models of innovation and catalysts of education reform worked. Today, there are an estimated 2 million course enrollments in K-12 school districts across the U.S.

The other primary goal of charter schools was to expand parent choice in education. Most of the early charter schools in the U.S. were centered in low-income, urban areas to serve students trapped in chronically failing schools. These alternative public schools became life-savers for many families. Yet, these traditional, brick-and-mortar charter schools were still limited. For families in non-urban areas where charter schools were not located, accessing public school options was impossible. Public school choice simply did not exist. And where traditional charters were present, they were limited in the number of students they could serve. Demand often exceeded supply, which led to enrollment caps, lotteries, and waiting lists – a side effect that anguishes all charter school operators and supporters.

Those constraints began to break down with the introduction of statewide online charter schools.  Online charter schools serve families anywhere throughout a state. They are able to scale to meet demand, free from the barriers of a traditional classroom model. They bring school to the student, connecting teachers and educators to children and parents through technology. Today, tens of thousands of students are enrolled in full-time online charter schools in more than half of the states in America. In many cases online schools are the largest charters in the state.

The introduction of online charter schools meant that for the first time, every family in a state, whether they lived in an urban, suburban, or rural community – and regardless of their socioeconomic status – had access to public schools of choice.

This was no small change. Talk to parents with children enrolled in public schools of choice. They will tell you just how much having the freedom to choose matters to them. If expanding education choice to as many American families as possible is the game changer, then charter schools and digital learning are the co-MVPs.

They laid the groundwork for new education reforms. Policymakers and educators began looking for ways to increase digital learning experiences for students. Some states began advocating that all students participate in online courses as a requirement prior to graduating.  Still other states rolled out new “course choice” programs (e.g. Utah and Louisiana) designed to increase opportunities by granting students the freedom to choose digital courses offered through other schools and providers. National efforts, such as Digital Learning Now, were launched to find bipartisan solutions to foster high-quality, customized education opportunities for all students through technology-based learning. Last year, over 450 pieces of legislation related to digital learning were introduced in state capitols across the country.

All of this energy was a direct response to the growing recognition that all students must be prepared to learn, train, and work in a digital world where technology touches, and revolutionizes, everything. Today, it is commonplace for employers to use online learning for training and employee development. Higher education continues to rapidly embrace and expand digital learning programs.

Educators know providing digital learning experiences to children at the elementary and high school levels gives them a leg up and tremendous confidence and ability to succeed in the future. This has profound and positive economic implications, particularly as America’s diverse student populations enter a highly competitive and global workforce.

The bond between charter schools and digital learning is one of the great stories in American education reform. The partnership of these two powerful forces has already benefited countless numbers of students, parents, teachers, and the entire U.S. education system. And it’s only getting started.

Postscript:  Since K12 Inc. was formed in 2000, it has been at the center of the growth of digital learning and charter schools.  K12 has created new digital learning models that have been developed through charter schools and later adopted by school districts, large and small.  K12 is continuously innovating by leveraging private sector investment to develop new technologies, tools and instructional programs for the benefit of America’s education system.

K12 has created jobs for thousands of teachers and new educational opportunities for families in all 50 states. Today, K12 serves over 120,000 students nationwide in online and blended public schools.  K12 supports parent choice in education because parents know their children best and should be empowered to choose schools they feel are right for their children.

Filed Under: Opinions

New Report Grades State Tax-Credit Scholarships

June 30, 2014 By

June 27, 2014
by Joy Pullman, The Heartland Insitute

School Choice Today: Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014 author, Brian Backstrom joins the podcast to discuss his analysis, why tax-credit scholarships are the most popular form of private school choice, and the top three ways states can improve their school choice laws. Listen here.

Filed Under: CER in the News

Michigan’s Charter Law Embodies Best Practices, Allowing Successful Schools to Thrive

June 27, 2014 By

How Lawmakers Can Recognize Best Practices, and Build on Them

CER Press Release
Washington, D.C.
June 27, 2014

The state of Michigan was one of the first in the U.S. to boldly embrace charter schools as a way to meet parental demand for more and better educational opportunities, introducing renewed accountability to the public system. Over twenty years later, Michigan’s charter school law continues to serve as a national model.

“Michigan’s charter law has many bright spots, allowing for an environment that fosters a vibrant charter sector where a number of quality schools can grow while still being held accountable for results,” said Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform (CER).

Michigan is one of only five states to earn an ‘A’ on CER’s 2014 Charter Law Rankings & Scorecard. A key strength of Michigan’s charter law is that it allows for independent, multiple authorizers, permitting universities to oversee charter schools.

Universities like Central Michigan University (CMU) have the infrastructure and resources to properly act as managerial stewards of charter schools, leaving dedicated school leaders and teachers to focus on their top priority of helping kids learn. These same teachers can work under an independent employment structure and are rated on performance, honoring them as the professionals they truly are.

“Strong laws mean strong schools, which translate into greater outcomes for students who benefit from an environment that best fits their learning needs,” said Kerwin.

Statewide, 42 percent of Michigan charter schools outperform traditional public schools in math, and 35 percent outperform in reading. Annually, the typical Michigan charter student will make gains in math and reading equivalent to two additional months of learning compared to their traditional school peers. In Detroit, a city where it’s estimated that 47 percent of adults are functionally illiterate, annual learning gains for charter school students jump to three months.

“Lawmakers must focus on how to build upon Michigan’s successes, which have made it a shining example for other states to replicate,” said Kerwin.

“Rather than limit quality schools from expanding, policies must focus on lasting reforms that aid the ability of parents to decide the best possible educational opportunity that’s right for their child.”

Filed Under: Press Releases

Where is This Commentary Heading?

June 27, 2014 By

Amid the meandering paragraphs and lamentations about how the charter school movement has lost its way, The Center for Education Reform is trying to pinpoint where exactly John Merrow’s blog post went off the rails, and where it ended up.

It might’ve been when he said, “every Tom, Dick and Harry” have been able to open a charter school under a university authorizer.

Central Michigan University, one of the finest charter authorizing models in the country, has received 259 applications for charter schools in the past decade alone, with 22 (8 percent) of those actually becoming operational. So maybe Tom was able to run a charter school, but Dick and Harry weren’t.

But that can’t be right; there were six whole paragraphs before reaching that claim.

Unfortunately, it turns out this post was doomed from the outset, tanked by a weird analogy comparing nondescript signs for charter schools and restaurants.

This led to Merrow giving credence to Greg Richmond’s labeling of CER as the “leading voice of this free market philosophy” surrounding choice and charters.

Merrow and Richmond might be surprised in finding out that the CER offices do not have shrines dedicated to the likes of Friedrich Hayek and Adam Smith, and the organization as a whole does not have a strict ideological adherence to what Richmond calls a, “free market philosophy.”

Shockingly, Kara Kerwin does not wishfully ask every morning how to make the world a little more laissez-faire.

What CER does focus on is sound policy and Parent Power, knowing that quality charter proliferation can only go so far without strong charter laws on the books. This accounts for the 335 additional charter school campuses created in states graded “A” or “B” on the 2014 Charter School Law Rankings & Scorecard.

After two decades, charter schools continue to be “pockets of innovation,” (to use Merrow’s term) and can continue to be with the proper safeguards in place.

Accepting the premise that charters and the students they serve are set up to fail borrows talking points from the opposition, undermining the ability to create more educational options that parents so desperately need.

Filed Under: Commentary, Edspresso

California lacks education tax credit scholarship program, shortchanges students

June 27, 2014 By

Gridley Herald

Parents in California do not have all available options to choose the best education for their child, according to a new analysis released by the Center for Education Reform, School Choice Today: Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014. The first of its kind, the Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014 is an in-depth analysis and state-by-state comparison of the 14 tax credit-funded scholarship programs currently in existence.

As of 2014, 14 states have enacted tax credit-funded scholarship programs, with half of those states enacting programs in just the past three years. Tax credit-funded scholarship programs now pay tuition for approximately 190,000 students, a school choice program participation level that is surpassed only by enrollment in charter schools.

“The key to truly transforming learning in the United States is by allowing parents a portfolio of educational options that aren’t restricted by zip code,” said Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform. “It’s time for lawmakers to acknowledge the proven benefits of school choice, and tax credit scholarship programs are an important piece of the puzzle.”

“What the Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014 reveals is that we need more states with strong laws, because strong laws facilitate greater participation in school choice programs,” said Brian Backstrom, lead researcher and author of the report and a senior advisor to CER.

“California would be wise to model tax credit scholarship legislation off of states like Arizona and Florida, both earning ‘A’ grades on the Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014. There should be no excuse from California lawmakers to do what’s best for parents and students given the fact that we have powerful examples of what a successful tax credit scholarship program looks like,” said Kerwin.

“There absolutely needs to be a sense of urgency around creating more educational options for students and parents. Not only is the U.S. falling behind when it comes to student achievement on a global stage, but the U.S. Census predicts an influx of over 11 million school-aged children in the next 20 years. State lawmakers must act now to allow for new and innovative options in order to address this demographic reality and national security issue,” said Kerwin.

Kara Kerwin, president of CER, and Brian Backstrom, a senior policy advisor to CER and lead researcher and author of this report, are available for comment on the Education Tax Credit Scholarships Ranking & Scorecard 2014. Members of the media should contact CER Communications Director Michelle Tigani at 301 986 8088 or michelle@edreform.com to set up interviews.

Filed Under: CER in the News
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