Ed secretary: Consider school choice

Business as usual ain't gonna cut it, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told the members of a joint House and Senate Education Committee meeting this morning. "The same old thing isn't going to get it done," she said. "We need to look at things like charter schools and school choice -- a lot of things that are not business as usual."

Oklahoma educrats full of hot air

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings once said, "School choice is part of the strategy to give every child an excellent education."

Secretary Spellings will be the featured speaker tomorrow at a joint meeting of the Oklahoma House and Senate Education Committees. One of the reasons choice is so important -- and one hopes Secretary Spellings will mention this tomorrow -- is that, as Kevin Carey has pointed out, the folks in charge of Oklahoma's government-run schools aren't leveling with parents when it comes to school performance. Mr. Carey is the author of the OCPA study Hot Air: How Oklahoma Inflates Its Educational Progress Under No Child Left Behind.

For example, according to Mapping Oklahoma's Educational Progress 2008, a new publication from the U.S. Department of Education, only 27 percent of Oklahoma's fourth-graders are proficient in reading. But Oklahoma's education officials would have you believe an astonishing 88 percent of our fourth-graders are proficient in reading. They are full of hot air, as you will see if you read Mr. Carey's report.

Next argument, please

In a letter to the editor published today in The Oklahoman, labor union official Jamie McCoy of Midwest City writes:

In "Bipartisanship for the children” (Opinion, Feb. 10), Brandon Dutcher is again demonstrating his persistence to push for vouchers and tax credits. Senate Bill 2148 is promoting itself as the "Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act." The bill would give money back to any Oklahoma taxpayer who donates money to fund scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools.

It sounds good, but vouchers or tax credits reduce the resources available to ensure great public schools for every child. Our per-pupil expenditures are already among the lowest in the country. Dutcher continues to suggest limiting the funding for public education is good for Oklahoma.

It's hard for me, as an Oklahoma teacher, to understand how our legislators can justify taking away tax money that funds a public education offered to every child.

If McCoy truly is concerned about "per-pupil expenditures," one wonders why she didn't do even basic research on the tax-credit plan before denouncing it. She would have discovered that, um, per-pupil expenditures would increase, not decrease, under the plan. As Dr. Susan Aud explains:

When a student uses school choice, the local public school district no longer needs to pay the instructional costs associated with that student, but it does not lose all of its per-student revenue, because some revenue does not vary with enrollment levels. Thus, school choice produces a positive fiscal impact for school districts as well as for state budgets. ... Instructional spending per student has consistently gone up in all affected public school districts and states. School choice has not prevented those states and districts from spending more on the students who remain in public schools.

Indeed, accountant and OCPA research fellow Steve Anderson, formerly a state-certified teacher with 17 teaching certifications, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that under the plan McCoy denounces, expenditures would increase by more than $200 per pupil -- and that's if only 2,500 scholarships were granted. The per-pupil expenditure would rise with each additional scholarship granted.

School choice for autistic children

"Improved education for autistic children is the goal of a bill being considered in the Oklahoma Legislature," the Associated Press reported yesterday. "The bill filed by Senator Mary Easley is intended to allow more children with this developmental disorder to be included in regular classrooms and to give more support and training to teachers to make this happen."

Here's a better idea: Use vouchers or tax credits to help children with autism and other special needs, as Ohio and Utah are doing.

'School competition needs a push'

Charter schools "fill an important niche for families who want to stay in public schools but aren't happy with the traditional options," the state's largest newspaper editorialized today.

As we've noted before, charter schools exist because traditional public schools aren't getting the job done. That competition is a sore spot with many public school officials, and no doubt a key reason why legislators are so reluctant to further open up the education market. They're hesitant to go against the wishes of educators in the areas they represent.

We understand lawmakers' unwillingness to move quickly when it comes to charter schools and other sticky issues. But they've been beyond cautious with charter schools, operating at a snail's pace. It's time they quit catering to the whims of those who prefer the status quo and let the market — namely parents — decide whether more charter schools are a good idea. Perhaps then, traditional public schools will fully embrace the challenge of improving education for all students instead of complaining about the competition.

Horace Mann prophecy watch

Horace Mann, generally regarded as the father of America’s current government school system, once prophesied: "Let the Common School ... be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged."

How's that workin' out for you? The Edmond Sun recently informed us that even in white-bread Edmond the middle schools require policemen and "drug recognition experts." And today I had occasion to visit Edmond Memorial High School and had another eye-opening experience. The solitary sign on the door had a very simple message. Not "Welcome to Edmond Memorial, Home of the Bulldogs" or anything like that. Rather, they just got right to the point:

Let my people go

New from our friends at the Reason Foundation:

When looking for a symbol that epitomizes the way public schools are failing our kids, look no further than Locke High School in Watts. Approximately 75 percent of 9th graders entering Locke do not graduate in four years. And less than five percent of Locke students go on to attend four-year colleges. It's hard to learn when you fear for your life. In the 2003-2004 school year, there were three sex offenses, 17 robberies, 25 batteries, and 11 assaults with a deadly weapon at Locke. In a new Reason.tv video, Drew Carey tells the story of a group of parents and teachers rising up to free kids from this failing, violent school. Carey chronicles how the school's principal and a majority of Locke's teachers decide they've had enough and revolt against their powerful union and school district in hopes of giving these kids a better education. Over half of the school's tenured teachers signed a petition calling for Locke to be converted into a Green Dot charter school. In September 2007, the Los Angeles Board of Education agreed, voting 5-2 to let Green Dot schools take over Locke High School in the fall of 2008.

Barack Obama on school choice

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Obama said he has been a strong supporter of charter schools "as a way to foster competition in the public school system."

He pronounced himself a skeptic of private school vouchers ... but indicated he might be open to supporting voucher programs if studies show they work. "If there was any argument for vouchers, it was 'Let's see if the experiment works,'" Obama said. "And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for kids."

For (vocational) school choice

A certain Oklahoma vo-tech school with an ample marketing budget is using all sorts of media — mail pieces, ads at movie theaters, billboards, and more — to inform Oklahomans that "It's About Choice." Which got me to thinking ...

If the vo-techs are really this fond of giving people choices, I'm sure they'd be happy for the legislature to enact a voucher or tax-credit plan allowing Oklahomans to choose the public or private vocational school of their choice. Surely the public vo-techs — seeing as how they're the nation's best and all — wouldn't for a moment be afraid to compete for students. If the schools are as good as their tax-funded PR campaigns would suggest, surely they wouldn't have any trouble attracting students. Surely they could provide a better product at a lower cost than their private counterparts. Surely they would be eager to compete on a level playing field.

After all, "It's About Choice."

Bad news (for now) on school choice

I went to Room 419-C of the state capitol building this morning expecting to hear debate on Senate Bill 2148, an important piece of school-choice legislation. Didn't happen. The bill didn't even receive a hearing.

Reflecting on this at the water cooler later this morning, I told one of my colleagues that poor kids will continue to be trapped in rotten (and unsafe) schools that aren't teaching them anything. The labor unions don't care -- they simply cannot allow any child to escape. What's worse, the unions don't even have the decency to be ashamed of themselves.

Stay tuned ...

Shumate on school choice

In the current issue of Perspective, state Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-Tulsa) discusses school choice with OCPA research fellow Patrick McGuigan.

School choice bill to be considered Monday

Senate Bill 2148, the school-choice legislation being sponsored by Sen. James Williamson and Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre, will be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Monday, February 18 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 419-C of the state capitol building.

Bipartisanship ... for the children

Everyone down the street at 23rd & Lincoln is talking about the need for bipartisanship. In this column in Sunday's Oklahoman, I make the case that a perfect place to start is with a school-choice bill authored by a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat.