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by Emma Brown and Perry Stein
The Washington Post
November 11th, 2016

As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence accomplished what his new boss, President-elect Donald Trump, now wants to do nationwide: Expand taxpayer-funded vouchers and charter schools to give more parents choices beyond traditional public schools.

Trump has proposed a new $20 billion federal program to encourage school choice nationwide. Details are thin — and Trump’s team has not said where the federal government would find the money — but vouchers and charter schools are likely to be a priority for the incoming administration, and perhaps not just for children from poor families, but also those with means. Vouchers allow parents to receive public funding to help them move their children out of their school districts and into the private or parochial schools they prefer.

“Donald Trump and I both believe that every parent in America should be able to choose where their children go to school, regardless of their income and regardless of their area code, and public, private and parochial and faith-based schools on the list,” Pence said in September, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The Obama administration and many Democrats have been staunch supporters of charter schools, and equally staunch opponents of vouchers, viewing them as a drain on public schools that serve the majority of the nation’s children. Advocates for vouchers now see an opening for change.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity for far-reaching education reform,” said Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter, pro-voucher advocacy group.

To read the full article visit The Washington Post.

November 9, 2016
Wall Street Journal
Opinion Journal Live

CER Founder and CEO Jeanne Allen talks with Wall Street Journal’s Mary Kissel about what Election 2016 results could mean for the future of education, including the election of Donald Trump, a defeated Massachusetts ballot initiative on charter schools, and states that saw the election of opportunity-minded Superintendents, Governors, and U.S. Senators.

Watch the video here.

By: Matt
StockNewsTimes
NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Now, only a few months ago, Donald Trump pledged that—should he be elected president—he will immediately invest $20 billion in school choice. This plan would, essentially, reprioritize existing federal dollars in order to establish a grant that will allow for children who live in poverty to attend the school of their choosing. Trump actually argued that this voucher system would not be the only thing that could help such children to enroll in higher quality schools, but also that a better—and more truly—free market economy would revamp all of the education system.

Of course, simply introducing a voucher system is one thing; implementing it is another thing entirely. After all, eligibility for these vouchers will vary from state to state. As such, Trump has also promised to campaign across the country to call upon each state (and city, effectively) to elect the right officials who will support the school choice initiative.

At a campaign event in Cleveland, on Thursday, Trump said, “If the states collectively contribute another $110 billion of their own education budgets toward school choice on top of the 20 billion in federal dollars, that could provide $12,000 in school choice funds to every single K-12 student who today is living in poverty.”

Supporters of the program attest that the vouchers will help disadvantaged students. For example, Center for Education Reform communications director Michelle Tigani comments, “Voucher programs largely help low-income middle-class kids—these are the kids that most need access [to quality education].”

Obviously, the proposal also has its share of opponents. Those opponents argue that the bill will siphon crucial funding away from the already shallow pool of public-school funds available. Some even argue that this bill is unconstitutional (because these taxpayer-funded voucher could benefit religious schools).

But Trump also supports the charter school system. These are publicly funded schools run by private firms; and he supports them because he believes that “the traditional way” is not working as well as it should. He argues that teachers unions may be something that stands in the way, especially since these unions are loudly against school-choice policies.

Furthermore, Trump continues to blast the Common Core State Standards as well as the cost (and policies behind) higher education. Of course, how he will manage to change these things we are yet to discover

By The Journal Staff
The Journal
11/09/16

Disturbingly little is known with any certainty about President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s plans for education. Even credible speculation is difficult, given that Trump is far from a traditional Republican and that his statements on a range of issues have proved somewhat inconsistent over the last year or so. But one thing is certain for a Trump presidency backed by a Republican-dominated Congress: Education policy is going to move in a new direction.

A Smaller Role for ED in K–12?

Trump’s statements on education are few and far between. He has declared he would “get rid of” Common Core. And he’s implied he’d eliminate or pare down the federal Department of Education.

But are these two positions mutually exclusive?

Common Core State Standards are, of course, state-level standards. But the incentive to adopt the standards came in no small part from a competitive grant program developed and administered by the U.S. Department of Education — Race to the Top. States that pledged to adopt the standards were awarded bonus points in their application evaluations for the high-stakes grants. The Education Department also tied waivers for NCLB to Common Core adoption. Presumably, then, some sort of incentive program would also be required to push states to back away from Common Core now that they have invested so heavily in both curriculum and testing.

Ed Tech Is an Unknown

The growth of the education technology sector has been fueled in no small part by the education reform movement. While the ed reform movement doesn’t fit tidily into any particular political milieu, its proponents do tend to lean Republican in these regards: They favor an increased role of the private sector in public education; they tend to favor school choice; they’re highly supportive of charter school expansion; they like the idea of connecting student test scores with teacher evaluations; and, on the rare occasion when they speak of teachers’ unions, they tend to be somewhat unflattering in their language. For example, theCenter for Education Reform, or CER, issued a statement last month deriding unions for obstructing charter school expansion. That organization also applauded Donald Trump for referring to school choice as the “civil rights issue of our time.”

To read the full article visit The Journal.

by HECHINGER REPORT
November 9, 2016

[…]

Jeanne Allen, Center for Education Reform:

“President-elect Trump – We believe there is much you can do to address the hopes and dreams of all who elected you. We hope you will embrace innovation, applaud and incentivize ambitious state efforts to create opportunity for all learners at all levels, reject the status quo and think hard about all those you appoint to support you and the needs of citizens everywhere.”

To read the full article visit The Hechinger Report

By Tom Vander Ark
Education Weekly
November 7, 2016

Securing great education opportunities for all learners at all levels was the originating intent of modern education reform. Animating the movement was a perceived threat to the economy and big gaps in opportunity.

Standards-based reforms sought to set clear high standards, measure progress, build capacity, attack gaps and expand options. With origins in the 1980s, we’ll look back on 1993 to 2015 (the tenure of secretaries Riley, Paige, Spellings and Duncan) as the era of standards-based reform. Most states got on board and passed legislation in the mid ’90s, the feds followed with bipartisan fervor, but execution never lived up to the hype.

While there was progress including thousands of proof points of what’s possible, it was the unintended consequences–including a narrowed curriculum and weeks of time devoted to testing and test prep–that monopolized the education dialog over the last two months. And now, even the poof points of possibility themselves are under attack in many cities.

Outside of education, innovation is sweeping the globe and transforming service delivery. But in U.S. K-12, policymakers are increasingly constraining the supply in order to predict the outcome, rather than set the outcome and allow the supply to develop to meet all demands.

The Center for Education Reform hosted a forum last week to look back at thirty years of EdReform and consider the path forward–in particular how to revive EdReform by incorporating innovation and opportunity to rapidly improve results.

The conversation between advocates, researchers and policymakers resulted in 10 takeaways–and perhaps an early framework to revive EdReform.

To read the full article visit Education Week.