Friday, February 07, 2020



Empower Parents to Shield Students from Bullying

Public schools throughout Michigan have a problem keeping students safe.

A 2018 Wallet Hub analysis, for example, ranked Michigan as having the sixth-worst “bullying prevalence” issue in the country, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2018 edition of the Indicators of School Crime and Safety and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, also published in 2018. As tempting as it may be to blame Detroit for Michigan’s low ranking, bullying and other safety issues are as bad—or worse—in high schools statewide.

A Child Safety Account would empower parents to transfer their children immediately to the safe schools of their choice within or beyond their designated public-school districts—including public district, charter, and virtual schools—as well as private and parochial schools.

More than 1 in 10 Detroit public high-school students reported being bullied in 2017, both at school (15.7%) as well as electronically (11.7%). Statewide, more than 1 in 5 Michigan high-school students reported being bullied at school (22.8%), and nearly as many reported being electronically bullied (19.6%).

Not only is bullying devastating for victims, mere exposure to peers being bullied hinders other students’ learning, increases their sense of helplessness and diminishes their feelings of support from their parents and adults at school.

Additional CDC and NCES findings reveal numerous other safety risks high school students in Detroit and statewide face. An alarming 7.7% of Detroit public high school students and 6.5% of all Michigan high-school students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon at school. Moreover, 14.3% of Detroit high-school students reported being in a fight at school, as well as 7.9% of students statewide.

Being victimized in these ways can take a tragic toll on students. More than 1 in 5 Detroit and Michigan high-school student victims seriously considered suicide, 20.2% and 21.3%, respectively. Worst of all, 13.7% of Detroit high-school students and 9.4% of their peers throughout Michigan attempted suicide.

Other students report that they skip school because they feel unsafe, including 10.4% of Detroit public high school students and 8.2% of all Michigan high-schoolers. Michigan state data indicate these percentages are even higher.

A jaw-dropping 62% of students at Detroit Public Schools Community District were considered “chronically absent” in the 2018 –19 school year, meaning they missed at least 18 days of school. This is much higher than the state average of 19.7%—not that over 290,000 chronically absent schoolchildren across the Wolverine State is something to write home about.

Adding insult to injury, 25% of Michigan public school teachers are considered chronically absentee, missing at least 10 school days each year. These absences are costly and negatively impact student achievement, especially the achievement of low-income students.

Michigan can ill afford the devastating effects of unsafe schools on students and their learning given its staggeringly low academic achievement.

Statewide, just 31% of students score “proficient or better” in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress by the time they reach eighth grade. Results for Detroit eighth-graders are far worse. Only 5% of them score “proficient or better” in math and only 6% in reading. These are the worst scores of any large city in America.

Despite federal efforts to promote student safety, clearly the status quo isn’t working.

Since the 2003-04 school year, students have been allowed to transfer to another public school under the Unsafe School Choice Option provision of what is now called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)—but only if their current public schools meet the state definition of a “persistently dangerous” school. Because states’ definitions are so narrow, fewer than 50 American public schools out of nearly 100,000 are labeled “persistently dangerous” each year. In fact, Michigan’s definition is so narrow, no public school has ever been deemed persistently dangerous.

From the youngest ages, children are told not to bully. Yet bullying continues throughout high school, as Jonathan Enyinnah writes.

Students should not have to wait years at a time or become victims of violent crime before their parents are allowed to transfer them to safer schools, which is current policy. That is why The Heartland Institute recommends states create a Child Safety Account (CSA) program. CSAs are a type of education savings account (ESA) for parents who believe, for whatever reason, their child’s school is unsafe. Here’s how the two programs work.

With an ESA, state education funds allocated for a child are placed in a parent-controlled savings account. Parents then use a state-provided debit card to access the funds to pay for resources that support their child’s unique educational program, such as tuition at a private or parochial school, tutoring, online classes, transportation, specialized therapies, textbooks, and even college courses while still in high school. Typically, unused ESA funds may be rolled over from year to year and can be saved to pay for future education expenses, including college tuition.

A CSA would empower parents to transfer their children immediately to the safe schools of their choice within or beyond their designated public-school districts—including public district, charter, and virtual schools—as well as private and parochial schools. CSA funds could also be used to pay for homeschooling expenses.

Under Heartland’s CSA program, students would be eligible if their parents had a “reasonable apprehension” for their children’s physical or emotional safety, including bullying, hazing, or harassment. Parents could also determine their child’s school isn’t safe after reviewing the incidents-based statistics schools would be required to report.

Unlike prevailing federal and state policies, Heartland’s CSA program doesn’t limit families’ options to public schools. Research shows private-school students are less likely than their public school peers to experience problems such as alcohol abuse, bullying, drug use, fighting, gang activity, racial tension, theft, vandalism, and weapon-based threats. There is also a strong causal link suggesting private school choice programs, such as CSAs, improve the mental health of participating students.

Copious other empirical research on school choice programs finds they offer families improved access to high-quality schools that meet their children’s unique needs and circumstances, and that these programs improve academic performance and attainment at lower cost than traditional public schools. Additionally, these programs benefit public school students and taxpayers by increasing competition, decreasing segregation, and improving civic values and practices.

Limiting families’ options to district public schools also makes no sense since more than one-third of American parents fear for their child’s physical safety at school—a nearly three-fold increase since 2013. That figure jumps to almost half of all parents earning less than $50,000 annually (48%). What’s more, concern over school safety is the leading reason homeschooling parents give for choosing this option. Similarly, 21% of Michigan public charter school parents reported that the safety of their child’s previous school was one of the main reasons they opted for a charter school, according a 2018 Mackinac Center for Public Policy survey.

The Michigan education system’s failure to protect children and provide parents with reasonable alternatives is precisely why a CSA program is so desperately needed. As things currently stand, Michigan is a private school choice desert. The state’s district model allows only wealthier families to transfer their child to a safer school when they feel it is imperative. The freedom afforded to those families should be afforded to all Michigan families. Every child deserves to have the resources available to allow them to escape an unsafe school environment.

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Every American child should have a choice when it comes to school

The foundation to achieve the American Dream is anchored in hard work, perseverance and, most importantly, a quality education. Every child in America that has a meaningful chance to learn, can unlock the gateway to success.

America’s antiquated approach to education is failing our country’s youth, and Washington is crippling our ability to provide a world-class education to every American child. When we fail to set America’s children up for success, we fail as a nation.

Many incredible public and private schools are preparing students to succeed. Most kids have the potential to access an education that will allow them to pursue remarkable success. But, far too many kids, especially in our nation’s poorest cities, are not allowed to capitalize on that opportunity. We must remain committed to revitalizing the American dream, and that means revitalizing our broken education system.

Too many of our children are assigned by the government to schools that simply don’t work for them and their parents don’t have the economic means to do anything about it. They’re stuck with no real options and often become just another statistic. Zip codes and invisible lines drawn by government bureaucrats are constraining the success of our children.

Advocates of this failed status quo are quick to highlight good graduation rates, but they ignore the fact that our students still continue to lag behind their peers worldwide. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that 28 countries outperformed U.S students in math and 17 outperformed U.S. students in reading.

The most recent “Nation’s Report Card” found that two out of three students can’t read as they should. And inner-city, low income, and minority children perform even worse. Nearly half of fourth-graders who qualify for free and reduced lunch are functionally illiterate.

Only about half of America’s high school students took the ACT college entrance exam last year. Just a quarter of them are college-ready in multiple subjects.

The education establishment terrified of losing control to parents and students has ripped the American Dream away from forgotten families across the country, prolonging the cycles of poverty, crime and despair. The Trump administration continues to promote policies that provide low-income students and all students with the tools freedom necessary for long term economic security. Our policies can help end this devastating cycle and empower students to thrive and fulfill their American Dream.

The politically powerful should not deprive children of a great education, and no child in America should be on a waitlist for success.

Forty-three states have public and private school choice programs, which allow parents to decide how and where their children learn, regardless of school zones. Nearly 500,000 students are enrolled in private school choice programs, and more than 2.5 million students enrolled in public charter schools nationwide. Yet, more than one million students are on waitlists to attend public charter schools of their choice. In Pennsylvania, special interest groups motivated Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf to veto a bill that would have helped 50,000 waitlisted kids to pursue the education that was right for them.

The politically powerful should not deprive children of a great education, and no child in America should be on a waitlist for success. That is why President Trump has called on Congress to pass Education Freedom Scholarships. The bill currently before Congress is a federal tax credit that would provide families with more educational opportunities. The proposal will bolster state efforts by providing $5 billion to state-based scholarship programs. The legislation would empower parents to send their kids to the desired public, private, religious, public charter, home, or magnet school that they feel best meets the needs of their children.

Families in states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin, which have school choice programs, will greatly benefit. Other states will also be encouraged to step forward and leave the failed status quo behind and put America’s children first!

The truth is that families who can afford private school tuition or who have the means to move out of a bad school zone already have education freedom. All American families need that freedom. States across the country are empowering families to enhance their child’s education. Americans should rally behind President Trump’s plan to ensure that every child has a chance to achieve the American Dream.

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DeVos on Slavery, Pro-Choice, and School Choice

Let's choose what is right for our children. The right to life and education.

Slavery, abortion, and education all mixed into one conversation. What a mixture of highly “toxic” politically correctness in one setting; political kryptonite for the Left. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke recently at Colorado Christian University’s annual president’s dinner at the Museum of the Bible. She pulled no punches. DeVos was drawing comparisons between the debate of abortion rights and the abolition of slavery.

I see the comparisons. Slave masters of the South wanted their “choice” to extend slavery into the western regions. They wanted the “choice” to prevent slaves from reading. They wanted the “choice” to use free labor to build their empires.

DeVos exclaimed, “[President Abraham Lincoln] too contended with the pro-choice arguments of his day. They suggested that a state’s choice to be slave or to be free had no moral question in it.” She added, “Well, President Lincoln reminded those pro-choicers that is a vast portion of the American people that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil.”

Leftists use the word “choice” to benefit their own agenda. To minimize the extortion of a woman having an abortion they proclaim “pro-choice.” However, when considering the real power of giving a woman a choice for the education of her child, they oppose school choice.

DeVos called out the “irony” of supporting a woman’s choice to have an abortion but opposing mothers who want to enroll their children in nontraditional public schools, charters, or religious private schools.

Low-income families do not mean low IQ families. If anything, low-income families should be the main ones trying to prepare their children to go down a different road educationally. Parents aren’t stupid. If a mother attended a low-performing school and realizes the potential for her child, shouldn’t she be given a choice?

Leftists have made women believe their “choice” to have abortions is more significant than any other choice. Read that again. Choosing a high-performing school for the education of your child should be what “pro-choice” is about. Instead, leftists say “choice” involves ending a child’s life, legacy, and opportunity to be educated.

DeVos added, “Lincoln was right about the slavery ‘choice’ then, and he would be right about the life ‘choice’ today. Because as it’s been said: Freedom is not about doing what we want. Freedom is about having the right to do what we ought.”

Let’s end the slavery of children being forced to go to low-performing schools because of their zip codes. Let’s end the slavery of children being forced from the wombs of their mothers because of convenience.

Let’s choose what is right for our children. The right to life and education.

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