Good Shepherd Catholic School is helping kids

A new school for autistic children is a 'great fit' for Mercy hospital, and the Henry Scholarships are a key component of the school's success.

Homeschooling autistic children

A growing number of families with autistic kids are turning to homeschooling.

A better way to pay

Jason Richwine of The Heritage Foundation offers five rules for reforming teacher compensation.

'Public schools to get voucher-created savings'

"Indiana public schools will divvy up $4.2 million in May, thanks in part to the state's private school voucher program," the Northwest Indiana Times reports.

Most private school students participating in the Choice Scholarship Program receive a voucher worth 90 percent of Indiana's per pupil funding for public school. State law requires the remaining 10 percent be paid to school corporations.

Among Northwest Indiana schools, Hammond will receive $60,297; Gary, $51,688; Crown Point, $27,025; Munster, $14,550; Portage Township, $32,078; Duneland, $21,701; and Valparaiso, $23,268.

State funds pay for nearly 4,000 students to attend private schools.

Teacher-union excesses 'more a symptom than a cause'

Our school-performance woes are not the union's fault, Andrew Coulson writes over at HuffPo. "It is the natural result of operating K-12 education as a fully state-funded monopoly."

[I]t is not an attack on government to observe that government is bad at running schools, anymore than it's an attack on shovels to note that they make lousy Web browsers. No single tool can do every job. Nor is it an attack on the ideals of public education to say that state monopolies are an ineffective way to pursue them. That's a confusion of ends and means. Public education is a not a particular pile of bricks or stack of regulations, it is a set of goals: universal access, preparation for participation in public life as well as success in private life, building harmony and understanding among communities.

If the true allegiance of reformist Democrats is to those ultimate ideals, then they should have no problem acknowledging that government monopolies are ill-suited to advancing them, and that teachers-union excesses are more a symptom than a cause of our monopoly-induced woes. Finding the best policies for advancing our educational ideals then becomes a practical, tractable problem. The participation of reformist Democrats in solving it will be a tremendous boon to the children they seek to help.

'School offers help and hope for OKC-area students with autism

Great story by Carla Hinton today in The Oklahoman.

Dumping the Know-Nothing amendments

Former Boston mayor Raymond L. Flynn on church, state, and school reform.

Cat fight

Girls at Douglass started fighting each other right before Jesse arrived for a visit.

Private-school entrepreneurs are serving slum-dwellers

Henry Scholarship program remains intact

As the appeals process continues.

Pat McGuigan and Stacy Martin have more.

Do you believe in miracles?

FOX 25's Kisha Henry says they're happening in Oklahoma City at a one-of-a-kind school for children with autism.

Parents say Henry Scholarships are important