Here are eight examples of education choice wins from this year:

1. Supreme Court Protects Religious Schools’ Rights
The Supreme Court case Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue was a victory for private school choice. The court affirmed that states cannot stop religious schools from participating in a state’s school choice program.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted that Montana’s policy “discriminated against religious schools and the families whose children attend them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the Federal Constitution. They are members of the community too, and their exclusion from [Montana’s] scholarship program here is odious to our Constitution and cannot stand.”

2. Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship Became the First School Choice Program to Enroll More Than 100,000 Participants
According to Florida’s Department of Education, 100,008 students enrolled in the program for the 2020-21 academic year.

These scholarships, funded by donations made by individuals and corporations that in turn receive a credit against their state tax obligations, allow eligible children to attend the private school of their choice.

3. Ohio Expands Educational Choice for Low-Income Families
Ohio expanded its Educational Choice Scholarship so that students whose families’ income is up to 250% the federal poverty line or who are enrolled in school where 20% of the student body are from low-income families are now eligible.

Eligible K-8 students can receive $4,650 to pay for private school tuition, and eligible high school students can obtain a $6,000 scholarship.

The scholarships cover nearly 90% of the average cost of tuition at an Ohio private elementary school and more than half of the average cost of tuition at Ohio’s private high schools.

4. Learning Pods Explode in Popularity
Learning pods entered the education foray as parents—dissatisfied with the crisis virtual options implemented by many district schools—collaborated to create small education environments that emphasize in-person schooling to small student groups. As civil society’s response to the education crisis caused by the pandemic, learning pods gained widespread popularity.

According to a nationally representative EdChoice poll, 35% of parents claimed to participate in a learning pod, and nearly 20% of respondents indicated they were looking for a learning pod to join.

The popularity of learning pods was not limited to students and their families, as approximately 70% of surveyed teachers expressed interest in teaching or tutoring a learning pod.

5. Microschools Take Off in Arizona
Prenda, a network of microschools operating in Arizona, has grown exponentially. The Prenda network provides flexible learning environments to groups of five to 10 children in homes or office buildings. In just two years, Prenda’s network has grown from one to more than 200 schools.

Moreover, the network gained significant attraction during the month of June—according to CNN: “Website traffic was up 737% this June over the same month last year.”

Prenda partners with charter schools to provide a free education and also accepts Arizona’s education savings accounts.

6. Homeschooling Gains Acceptance Among Parents
With most children learning from home, a nationally representative survey conducted by EdChoice suggested a greater acceptance of homeschooling among parents. In fact, 70% of school parents indicated that their opinions of homeschooling changed to either “much more favorable” or “somewhat more favorable.”

7. States Use Federal Funding for Education Wisely
In response to the coronavirus-induced education crisis, Congress appropriated $13.5 billion to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, with $3 billion of these funds being directed to the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund. This provides governors with resources to use for various education initiatives, including school choice programs.

While new federal spending wouldn’t normally end up in our “win” column, the way in which some governors leveraged the funds did.

For example, Oklahoma’s governor used Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds to create “Stay in School Scholarships,” which appropriated $10 million to cover tuition at the state’s 150 private schools. More than 1,500 Oklahoma students could receive $6,500 scholarships, which value as either more than or most of the cost of private school tuition in the state.

Oklahoma students can also access $8 million Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet funding—which works not unlike education savings accounts. This program is funded by the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund and will provide more than 5,000 children living in poverty with $1,500 grants to “purchase curriculum content, tutoring services, and/or technology.”

Florida also used $30 million of its Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds to stabilize its tax credit scholarship. Another $15 million in Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds were put toward the Private School Stabilization Grant Fund, which supported many private schools that were struggling from mandated closures.

With the pandemic forcing 120 permanent private school closures around the country, the Private School Stabilization Grant Fund was a boon to Florida’s private schools.

Like Florida, New Hampshire used its Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds to boost funding for its tax credit scholarship by $1.5 million. The additional funding will help 800 students receive scholarships valued at $1,875 each. That amount covers more than 22% of the average cost of tuition at a private elementary school in the state.

8. Student-Centered Education Gains Support
EdChoice has found that there is growing support for student-centered education, instead of institution-centered education. Support for education savings accounts among parents increased to 86%. This means that nearly 9 out of 10 parents support education savings accounts.

The growing support for education choice shows that parents increasingly recognize that education should be tailored to children, not institutions.

The effects of the pandemic have illustrated that one-size-fits-all schooling models fall short of student needs, especially during a crisis. The lessons of 2020—a year of significant change in education—should remind policymakers that the best education solutions are flexible and bring decision-making closer to the families they affect.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/12/17/8-education-choice-wins-in-2020

The Flight to Quality in Colleges Grows: Harvard Applications Up 57%

By RICHARD K. VEDDER

Last March I wrote about the “flight to quality” in college admissions. While the pandemic perhaps has distorted and possibly accelerated some trends, recently released enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse on fall 2020 enrollments demonstrate that the flight to quality is growing—for many Americans, a college diploma is no longer enough—you need the right diploma, from the right school, in the right major.

In the prestigious Ivy League, applications for next fall’s entering class are booming. Applications for early decision admission at Harvard University were up an extraordinary 57% over last year according to a report Saturday in the Wall Street Journal, and other Ivies did nearly as well. For every Harvard applicant accepted early decision, more than 12 were rejected.

Going down the academic pecking order, fairly high ranked Miami University of Ohio (103 of 388 in the latest US News college rankings) has applications as of about three weeks ago running ahead of last year in all of its academic divisions, while mid-ranked traditional rival Ohio University (177 in the rankings) has had double digit percent declines in applications. Looking at the four-year period 2016 to 2020, Ohio Department of Higher Education data show that the three moderately high-ranked state schools (in the top 150 of the national universities that US News ranked) had a 3% enrollment gain, compared with a more than 12% decline for two median-ranked schools (151 to 225 on thelist), and a more than 14% decline for six low-ranked schools (below 225). The flight to quality is proceeding apace in Ohio.

Looking at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data, from 2017 to 2020, total enrollments were down slightly more than one million (more than 5%). Most of the decline, however, is attributed to community colleges, down 800,000 students (more than 14%). Public four-year universities were down barely 1%—and private not-for-profit schools actually increased enrollment modestly. Also, graduate enrollments, for advanced and professional degrees, were up. Students are shunning schools whose students get mediocre-paying jobs for the elite private schools, “public ivies” and for schools where they can obtain higher-paying professional degrees.

The big untold (by others) story is the big enrollment declines in American colleges are mostly among male students. While the three-year enrollment decline among women is about 216,000, it is 807,000 among men. Male enrollments, already smaller to begin with, are down 10% form 2017 to 2020, while female enrollments are down 2%. I suspect this is partly because of the disdain many colleges show towards male students today relative to what they show towards women, but I will defer further discussion of that until another day.

The vocational orientation of student interest is confirmed by looking at some Clearinghouse data by major field of study. In the last couple of years, for example, the number majoring in English literature or language had a fairly sharp decline, about 12%, dramatically more than in relatively higher-paying fields like business administration or engineering.

There are pronounced regional variations. Enrollments actually rose between 2018 and 2020 in eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Utah and Virginia, but fell more than 10% in Alaska, Michigan, New Mexico, and Oregon. There are some quirky things the aggregate data do not show: for example, I suspect New Hampshire’s rising enrollment is mainly (maybe entirely) a consequence of expanding national online enrollments at the highly entrepreneurial University of Southern New Hampshire.

A few things from all this strike me as we contemplate national higher education policy. First, the striking regional variations suggest that a one-size-fits-all national policy may not be appropriate. University problems may be quite different in Michigan from those in Arizona, suggesting over-centralizing policy at the U.S. Department of Education is probably a bad idea. Second, a lot of the talk about “free college” speaks of giving away education at community colleges—yet they are the colleges that American students are shunning the most. Why? Census data suggest an answer: median earnings of adult male graduates of community colleges in 2019 were $51,250, compared with $69,515 for bachelor degree holders, and $88,286 for holders of master’s degrees. The differential is even larger percentage-wise for females.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13361&omhide=true

Despite Being Closed, San Diego Schools Descend Into Wokeness

Your local school might currently be shut down, but the “great awokening” will continue, pandemic or not—and whether you like it or not.

Christopher Rufo, a visiting fellow for domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, reported that the San Diego Unified School District—currently closed and only offering online learning—is conducting so-called white privilege training for its teachers.

The training begins with a ‘land acknowledgement,’ in which the teachers are asked to accept that they are colonizers living on stolen Native American land. Then they are told they will experience ‘guilt, anger, apathy, [and] closed-mindedness’ because of their ‘white fragility.’

After watching clips of [self-styled ‘anti-racist activists’] Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi, the trainers tell the teachers: ‘you are racist,’ ‘you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies,’ and that they must commit to becoming ‘anti-racist’ in the classroom. They must submit to the new racial orthodoxy.

I’ve outlined previously the beliefs of DiAngelo and Kendi, who have become media darlings and whose works have become trendy in the wake of the protests of the death of George Floyd.

In short, Kendi and DiAngelo preach an ideology that isn’t aimed simply at reducing racism—which most Americans want—but instead redefines what racism is.

According to their theories, you are inherently defined by your race; racial discrimination is a good thing if it benefits groups they define as “historically oppressed”; and all who oppose them will be categorized as “racists” for not going along with even their most ruthlessly tyrannical plans.

That brings us back to the San Diego Unified School District, which appears to be all aboard.

“Teachers are told they must become ‘anti-racist’ activists,” Rufo wrote. “They must ‘confront and examine [their] white privilege,’ ‘acknowledge when [they] feel white fragility,’ and ‘teach others to see their privilege.’ They must turn their schools into activist organizations.”

San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten responded to Rufo’s report, saying that the “successful professional development session” was voluntary and that the “racial healing handbook” used for the training was from a “respected academic.”

Regardless of whether the session was mandatory this time or not, it fits a general pattern in the district. It made news in early November when it adopted a new grading system that would remove behavioral issues, such as turning in late assignments and showing up late to class, as factors in grading.

It did that because there are disparities between the number of white and minority students who receive “D” and “F” grades. For purveyors of increasing “equity,” statistical discrepancies between groups of people can be ascribed only to systemic racism and other issues pertaining to critical theory.

That was apparently only one small step in what San Diego Unified School Board Vice President Richard Barrera said was a process to make the school district “anti-racist.”

So, even while the schools are shut down, work continues to make them “anti-racist” indoctrination centers.

The transformation of a single school district wouldn’t necessarily be deeply concerning other than to the parents of children attending those schools, except that it fits a broader, troubling pattern.

Indoctrination, misinformation, and misleading books, like the late Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” have found their way into schools for a generation or more.

That isn’t new.

Even the use of misleading and factually challenged material, such as The New York Times’ so-called 1619 Project, in some schools would not be of the gravest concern in isolation.

What’s new is that the revolution appears to be becoming systematized.

For example, what’s the opposite of an “anti-racist”? A racist, according to the peddlers of this new creed. If you don’t go along with the plan, you will be labeled an enemy of social justice or of the anti-racist movement.

Woke curriculum and anti-racist training sessions are now becoming the norm at many public schools around the United States. It’s often foisted on teachers and faculty by a swelling class of administrators who eat up school budgets and purvey the most radical ideas of “respected” academics.

That’s the process that presents the gravest threat to our future. And it’s why many Americans are becoming concerned about the rise of socialism.

That’s because the threat of socialism is not just about higher taxes and bigger government, as bad as those things are. It’s about the greater threat to liberty and to the sacred rights at the heart of our founding that have been a rebuke to tyrants in our age and every age.

Socialism and other hard-left theories may crumble in the face of reality, but they can be propped up and sustained by the government and powerful institutions with their grip on the levers of power.

What will happen when “equity” isn’t achieved, and new discipline systems and training sessions don’t have any tangible effect?

Will the pedagogues of equity, inclusion, and anti-racism find that the problem is not with systemic racism, but instead with their understanding of human nature?

Not likely. The more the plans fail, the more the planners will plan.

And as we’ve seen through this turbulent year of coronavirus pandemic, the “party of science” will put aside the science for the interest of the party and its prevailing ideology.

The transformation of our schools into laboratories of indoctrination should concern everyone, whether you have children who attend those schools or not.

The first step to counter it is drawing the radicalism out into the light of day. The next step is to take action and use the tools that we have, like school choice, to put pressure on the institutions that have failed us.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/12/17/despite-being-closed-san-diego-schools-descend-into-wokeness

***********************************

My other blogs: Main ones below

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

*******************************