School Choice Expansion Defeated in AZ. More Students Confined to Questionable Schools

Arizona voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal to vastly expand school choice for Arizona families.

The goal of Proposition 305 was to implement a Senate bill passed in 2017 to make all K-12 students in Arizona eligible to apply for Empowerment Scholarship Account, according to Ballotpedia. The ESA program was first created to target students with disabilities, but has broadened its eligibility rules over time to include more disadvantaged groups of students.

An Arizona ESA gives a family 90 percent of what it would cost for school, although Proposition 305 sought to make that 100 percent for families with incomes below 250 percent of the poverty level. Families can then use that money to support a child’s education.

The expansion would be phased in by grade levels over four years, then capped at .5 percent of all students enrolled in public and charter schools.

Approval of Proposition 305 would result in the existing program becoming about six times its current size, the Arizona Republic reported. The ESA efforts now serves about 5,600 students and costs $62 million per year.

The Center for Arizona Policy said Proposition 305 should be passed to give families their proper role in making decisions for their children.

“CAP supports a parent’s right to choose from a wide variety of school options, including district, charter, online, private, or homeschool. Parents are in the best position to make these choices, as they are most familiar with the educational needs, personalities, learning styles, and interests of their children,” it wrote on its website.

Before the election, a Suffolk University / Arizona Republic poll showed support for the program, but uncertainty about the actual ballot proposal.

According to the survey, 41 percent of respondents backed the program while 32 percent were opposed and 27 percent were still undecided.

The survey also found that not all voters understood the wording of the proposal, and that some who opposed vouchers supported it until the language was clarified for them.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has said that he supports passage of Proposition 305, KPNX reported. Ducey’s Democratic opponent David Garcia opposes the proposition.

Allegra Fullerton of the anti-Proposition 305 group Save our Schools, said that although the program is fine as it is, expanding eligibility to everyone is a mistake, according to the State Press.

“It’s important to understand that the current breakdown of families who use ESAs, 75 percent of them qualify as affluent whereas only 4 percent qualify as being lower income, so the word scholarship has created a lot of confusion,” Fullerton said. “For an average learner, it would be around $5,000, and when you look at private schools, the tuition (is) at least $18,000, so if you’re a family in need, it wouldn’t get you too far.”

Expanding ESAs to all potentially parents would be “devastating for our public schools,” she said.

“This is a 500 percent expansion, so what it would look like over the next four years is that anywhere from $100 to $130 million would leave our schools,” Fullerton said. “We need to work hard to keep all our public moneys in our public school.”

 






How School Choice Is Lifting Up Puerto Rico’s Children After Hurricane Maria

Thirteen months ago on Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria slammed the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, devastating homes and infrastructure and leading to loss of life across the island.

The storm greatly exacerbated the problems of a school system already in crisis: Puerto Rican fourth- and eighth-graders, for example, are roughly five grade levels behind their U.S. mainland peers in mathematics.

Out of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria came an opportunity to reform the ailing education system on the island.

Notably, the education reforms introduced by the territorial government and supported by Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, along with Gov. Ricardo Rossello, include a pilot school-voucher option and the introduction of charter schools.

The introduction of education choice in Puerto Rico didn’t come without pushback from special-interest groups, however.

The Puerto Rican Superior Court initially sided with the teachers union, which had argued that school choice was unconstitutional. However, the Superior Court’s narrow reading of the Puerto Rican Constitution was overturned by the Puerto Rican Supreme Court in Asociacion de Maestros v. Departamento de Educacion, allowing the new charter school and voucher options to proceed.

The ability for the island to introduce parental school choice is a win for families.

The need for better educational opportunities is evidenced by low levels of academic performance. For example, the percentage of fourth-grade students in Puerto Rico who performed at or above the “Proficient” level in math rounded to 0 percent in 2017.

Among the population of Puerto Ricans ages 25 years and older in the year 2000, four out of 10 had not received a high school diploma—about double the rate of the mainland population.

With more than 40 percent of the Puerto Rican population below the federal poverty line, ZIP codes trap families in failing schools. The personal choice and freedom that the new voucher and charter options will afford to Puerto Rican families have the potential to disrupt the territory’s stagnant education monopoly.

Take Jennifer Gonzalez Muñoz, who works at a cafe and cannot afford the tuition to a private school that would treat her 6-year-old son Jacob’s speech disability. Even though Muñoz has repeatedly addressed the problem with school officials, Jacob continues to be bullied at school.

School choice options are designed to help children like Jacob, whose family cannot escape a school environment that isn’t the right fit for him.

As a result of the reforms, charter schools opened up on the island this fall. Proyecto Vimenti, Puerto Rico’s first charter school, illustrates the diverse roles charter schools play in a community.

The school was designed with the express purpose to “break the generational cycle of poverty.” Proyecto Vimenti’s curriculum was modeled after the island’s most prestigious private school to give low-income families access to better education.

Giving families a diverse array of school options is important, because no two children are alike, and each student has his or her own learning styles and preferences. Introducing innovative and diverse schools that cater to students’ various learning styles will help students find the education they need.

Tailoring education to each student prepares students for life after the classroom.

Puerto Rico also introduced the Free School Selection Program, a private school scholarship that helps families pay for tuition. The scholarship program will assist students with special needs, those who are from low-income families, and who have been victims of bullying or sexual harassment.

The voucher option, which will begin during the 2019-20 school year, will empower parents to use the funds to pay for private school tuition, enabling their children to receive an education that is the right fit for them.

Puerto Rico should build on these promising reforms and expand the vouchers’ scope and eligibility significantly in future years, especially in light of the remarkable support for universal vouchers among Hispanic families.

Expanding the voucher program to look more like Arizona’s education savings accounts would be a great boon to many of Puerto Rico’s families. Arizonans can use their accounts not only for tuition, but also for private tutoring, school supplies, education therapy, and much more.

Moreover, school choice options have the potential to save money for the territory, which is heavily in debt.

Puerto Rico has more debt than the top five municipal bankruptcies combined, including Detroit’s, due in part to unfunded pension liabilities.

Territorial debt is driven to a significant extent by the $49 billion in outstanding pension obligations, which include some $13 billion for retired teachers and school personnel. Such debt is untenable, particularly when large swaths of the working-age population leave the island.

States have shown increasing support for school choice and parental empowerment in the past two decades. Instead of government-controlled education, school choice policies provide neutral aid that places educational choice in the hands of parents who know their child’s needs, hopes, and aspirations better than anyone else.

The charter school and voucher program victories are a great start for school choice opportunities in Puerto Rico. School choice ensures that all children have the opportunity to learn, and puts education in the hands of parents, instead of the state.

Puerto Rico’s empowered parents can now find the education that is best for their children.

SOURCE 






South Australia signs up to Fed offer on school funding

But no Federal funding is ever enough for Left-led States,/i>

South Australia is the first state to sign up to a controversial new national deal for school funding with the federal government hoping others will follow its lead.

The SA Liberal government on Monday signed up to the deal, which has been under negotiation with all the states since mid-2017.

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan is confident others will soon follow, despite complaints from some states that public schools won't get enough money.

"I continue to negotiate bilateral agreements with the other states and territories in good faith and hope to finalise them all soon," he said.

The federal government's deal with SA lays out concrete steps the state must take to improve outcomes for its students, Mr Tehan said.

"This agreement confirms that school reform must focus on driving individual student achievement and equipping teachers with the right tools in the classroom," he said.

In September, a $4.6 billion 10-year peace deal offered to Catholic and independent educators by the coalition threw a curve ball at negotiations with the states, with education ministers calling for an equal funding boost for government schools.

Labor education spokesman Tanya Plibersek said Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government has shown through the deal that looking after the "top end of town" is more important than funding public schooling.

"Mr Morrison has restored the money he cut from Catholic and independent schools, but he refuses to do the same for public schools that teach two in three Australian students," she said on Monday.

The coalition says it has delivered record funding for public schools, with $7.3 billion this year, rising to $8.6 billion in two years' time.

Dozens of education organisations penned an open letter to Mr Morrison last month calling for a $1.9 billion funding boost for public schools.

The Australian Education Union, Children and Young People with Disability, and numerous principals' associations were among the 26 signatories.

But SA Education Minister John Gardner said the federal funding boost in the deal, from $1.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2 billion in 2029, would deliver better outcomes for children in his state.

"By working with the Morrison government, we are providing funding certainty for schools across South Australia," he said.

SOURCE