Special Education
Education
Foster-Care Scholarship Program is an Academically and Fiscally Responsible Reform
Foster-Care Scholarship Program is an Academically and Fiscally Responsible Reform By Vicki Murray, associate director of Education Studies May was national Foster-Care Month, intended to raise awareness of a population among the most at-risk academically. The consensus of a recent statewide California Education Summit was that the Golden State does ...
Commentary
Public schools mask poor performance, students suffer
The Examiner (Washington, D.C.), December 18, 2009 Recent revelations indicate that Virginia’s public schools aren’t performing as well as educators claim, a classic example of the smoke screen phenomenon. In states across the country, officials hide the real performance of schools and students from the prying eyes of parents and ...
Commentary
‘Housed’ Teacher System Needs to be Overhauled
THE Los Angeles Unified School District has been given permission to fire Matthew Kim, a disabled special education teacher who has not worked for seven years while drawing his full salary and benefits. Kim’s case shows the need for district reform, but it’s hardly alone in that regard. Kim was ...
Commentary
A Closer Look at the Stanford University Study
Charter School Newsletter, August 1, 2009 Stanford University has released a nationwide charter school analysis comparing charter and traditional public school student performance. The study matches charter students to public school “twins” by all measures possible. Comparisons of 15 states and the District of Columbia over a course of three ...
Commentary
I Have to Admit, I Was Wrong
CATO at Liberty Blog, June 26, 2009 I’ve just discovered that my calculation of DC education spending per pupil was wrong, and I have to publish a correction. I wrote back in March that total DC k-12 spending, excluding charter schools, was $1,291,815,886 during the 2008-09 school year. That still ...
Commentary
Does Universal Preschool Improve Learning? Lessons from Georgia and Oklahoma
Campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to help states implement taxpayer-funded universal preschool–preschool for all.[1] The President’s early education plan, for which he has advocated spending up to $10 billion annually in federal expenditures, encourages states to provide preschool for every child.[2] As President, Obama reinforced his ...
Commentary
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
Commentary
Survey: Va. Parents Support All Forms of School Choice
Voters throughout Virginia’s lowest-income neighborhoods are strong supporters of school choice, a new poll reports. In mid-January the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) announced the results of their Parental Choice Survey, given to residents throughout Norfolk, Petersburg, and Richmond, Virginia. At ...
California
The Obama Stimulus, Education, and California
Now that President Obama has signed the three-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar stimulus package, which contains $100 billion for public schools, many observers on the left and the right are concluding that the package won’t change very much in America’s underperforming government education system. The stimulus package contains various pots of money for public ...
Commentary
Exit exam can help special-ed students succeed
San Francisco school officials and advocates for the disabled have recently made news fighting the state requirement that special education students take the high school exit exam. Upon closer inspection, this seeming issue of simple compassion becomes much more complicated. Students must pass the state high school exit exam, first ...
Foster-Care Scholarship Program is an Academically and Fiscally Responsible Reform
Foster-Care Scholarship Program is an Academically and Fiscally Responsible Reform By Vicki Murray, associate director of Education Studies May was national Foster-Care Month, intended to raise awareness of a population among the most at-risk academically. The consensus of a recent statewide California Education Summit was that the Golden State does ...
Public schools mask poor performance, students suffer
The Examiner (Washington, D.C.), December 18, 2009 Recent revelations indicate that Virginia’s public schools aren’t performing as well as educators claim, a classic example of the smoke screen phenomenon. In states across the country, officials hide the real performance of schools and students from the prying eyes of parents and ...
‘Housed’ Teacher System Needs to be Overhauled
THE Los Angeles Unified School District has been given permission to fire Matthew Kim, a disabled special education teacher who has not worked for seven years while drawing his full salary and benefits. Kim’s case shows the need for district reform, but it’s hardly alone in that regard. Kim was ...
A Closer Look at the Stanford University Study
Charter School Newsletter, August 1, 2009 Stanford University has released a nationwide charter school analysis comparing charter and traditional public school student performance. The study matches charter students to public school “twins” by all measures possible. Comparisons of 15 states and the District of Columbia over a course of three ...
I Have to Admit, I Was Wrong
CATO at Liberty Blog, June 26, 2009 I’ve just discovered that my calculation of DC education spending per pupil was wrong, and I have to publish a correction. I wrote back in March that total DC k-12 spending, excluding charter schools, was $1,291,815,886 during the 2008-09 school year. That still ...
Does Universal Preschool Improve Learning? Lessons from Georgia and Oklahoma
Campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to help states implement taxpayer-funded universal preschool–preschool for all.[1] The President’s early education plan, for which he has advocated spending up to $10 billion annually in federal expenditures, encourages states to provide preschool for every child.[2] As President, Obama reinforced his ...
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
Survey: Va. Parents Support All Forms of School Choice
Voters throughout Virginia’s lowest-income neighborhoods are strong supporters of school choice, a new poll reports. In mid-January the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) announced the results of their Parental Choice Survey, given to residents throughout Norfolk, Petersburg, and Richmond, Virginia. At ...
The Obama Stimulus, Education, and California
Now that President Obama has signed the three-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar stimulus package, which contains $100 billion for public schools, many observers on the left and the right are concluding that the package won’t change very much in America’s underperforming government education system. The stimulus package contains various pots of money for public ...
Exit exam can help special-ed students succeed
San Francisco school officials and advocates for the disabled have recently made news fighting the state requirement that special education students take the high school exit exam. Upon closer inspection, this seeming issue of simple compassion becomes much more complicated. Students must pass the state high school exit exam, first ...
