SOURCE: The Center for Education Reform
CER and Education Reform in the News

JEANNE ALLEN TALKS ABOUT SCHOOL CHOICE FOR DC ON THE DIANE REHM SHOW: A panel including CER President Jeanne Allen talks about public school vouchers, a subject much in the spotlight as the US Congress votes on implementing a federally funded voucher program for the District of Columbia public schools. (Link to Real Audio File.)

SENATORS CONSIDERING COMPROMISE ON VOUCHERS: GOP Backers Open 11th-Hour Talks With Democrats on D.C. Plan:
"The very freedom private schools have is what makes them more successful than their counterparts here in the District..... It's more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and once you give any education system license to control a private institution, they will take it and run." -- CER President Jeanne Allen
Link to full Washington Post article by Spencer S. Hsu, September 25, 2003

School Voucher Plan Moves Ahead in Congress -- Narrowly: "'Sometimes vouchers don't get traction because they're not in places anyone pays attention to. But for Washington, D.C., to house a program of choices, that could have tremendous traction,' said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform. 'We're closer than we've ever been.'" By Ben Feller, Associated Press, September 6, 2003.

CONFLICTING AMERICAN VIEWS ON SCHOOL VOUCHERS: "The debate over vouchers isn't about who is on what side, but about power. Shift the power to the people, and as we've seen demonstrated time and time again from Washington, D.C. to Milwaukee and in between, parents will make good choices, and not only their kids, but those whose lives are touched by the power shift will benefit." -- CER President Jeanne Allen. Link to full Washington Post debate on vouchers.

A CHARTER-SCHOOLS WAR: A new Study Says That 70 Percent of Black Charter-School Students Attend Highly Segregated Schools: "Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter organization, says the Harvard study is 'misleading' .... 'The idea that charters have more black faces per capita is something we should be celebrating,” Allen says, “because these families are choosing to take their kids out of failing schools. For many, it’s the first time they’ve been given that opportunity.'” By Pat Wingert, Newsweek, July 21, 2003. 
Link here for more of CER's response to the study.

STUDY SAYS CHARTER SCHOOLS FAILING TO PROMOTE DIVERSITY, Urban Facilities Heavily Minority: "Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C., a group that backs charter schools, said school choice provides greater opportunities for diversity than the public school system, where enrollment is based on housing patterns. 'You have large numbers of charter schools in urban areas where the need is the greatest,'' she said. ''Diversity is a laudable goal and is already being served by charter schools.'" By Elizabeth Boch, Boston Globe, July 13, 2003. 
Link here for more of CER's response to the study.

3 PALM BEACH CHARTER SCHOOLS SERVING AT-RISK STUDENTS GET Fs: Comparisons of charter schools to traditional public school performance is tough because charter schools in Palm Beach County serve much of the at-risk student populations, said Jeanne Allen, director of Center for Education Reform, based in Washington, D.C. "Charter schools are attracting lower income kids and many of them get the lowest of the low income," said Allen. Allen said this is because disadvantaged families tend to take more chances and leave traditional schools first.... As difficult as it may be to educate the toughest learners, however, charter schools, just like traditional schools in Florida, should be given a limited time to show progress, Allen said. "If that school hasn't performed well over a three- to five-year period it needs to be closed down," said Allen. "If you're going to make progress, do it, and if you're not, get out of the way." By Karla D. Shores, Sun-Sentinel, June 19, 2003

CHARTERS' TEST GAINS HIGHER, STUDY SAYS: Report shows greater improvement in student scores compared with traditional schools: Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington-based organization, said the Hoover findings support her organization's belief that disadvantaged students can thrive at charter schools. "Given the higher standards coupled with the fact that students are coming in as lower-achieving it is no surprise that students in charter schools are improving," she said. By Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2003

CHARITIES PLEDGE $19 MILLION TO JESUIT MODEL SCHOOL: "Impressed by the success shown by a network of four Jesuit high schools in working with urban teenagers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and another major charity pledged $19 million today to bolster the schools and export the model to 12 additional cities.... Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a group that supports vouchers and charter schools, praised the move for drawing attention to unsung schools, saying it 'disarms those arguments that say private schools are only about serving the cream of the crop.... There are dozens or at least a handful of models like Cristo Rey, that are viable, successful schools that have targeted needy kids for years, very much out of the public eye,' Ms. Allen said. By Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, May 20, 2003. 

TERM LIMITS: The Los Angeles School Board has voted to allow the high-achieving Granada Hills High School to convert to a charter school. As CER President Jeanne Allen told USA Today, ''Our education crisis is not limited to the urban areas.... The parents of the children in these Los Angeles-area schools, even though they have more advantages than others, are enormously frustrated that they can't get a higher-quality education for their kids.'' Read more coverage in CER Newswire May 20, 2003. 

VOUCHER LESSONS NOT QUITE COMPLETE; DISTRICT PROPOSAL REMAINS UNCLEAR: "Supporters of vouchers contend that the additional options for parents would force D.C. public schools, as well as the private schools, to improve as they tried to boost their enrollments or prevent students from fleeing. Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a District-based group that supports charter schools and vouchers nationally, said vouchers would make it harder for D.C. public schools to delay improvements. 'It has become very easy to make excuses for why everything from facilities aren't fixed to why all teachers are not quality teachers to why we don't have the proper curriculum,' she said. 'It's just a morass.'" By Justin Blum, Washington Post, May 4, 2003. Link to full article.

VOUCHING FOR VOUCHERS: "The Williams administration believes that a pilot program, in addition to the competition it would bring, could help as many as 5,000 children pursue better educational opportunities in private or parochial schools. Clearly there is a demand for expanded choice among D.C. parents. Public charter school enrollments have cut heavily into the public schools. But many D.C. parents of modest means also want to send their children to other academically challenging schools. The privately funded Washington Scholarship Fund, which helps low-income D.C. families make the same choices that are available to the middle class, is annually swamped with requests for assistance. This school year, for example, the fund was able to accommodate only 100 of the more than 1,000 families that applied for help... the demand is there. Only the means are lacking." Washington Post Editorial, May 3, 2003. Link to full article.

ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL OPPOSES MOVE TO LIMIT N.Y. CHARTER SCHOOLS: U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Eugene Hickok urged school choice advocates to oppose a bill that would limit the number of charter schools in the New York. By Kathleen Lucadamo, New York Sun Times, April 30, 2003. Link here to view the full article. 

DEAL SAVES CHARTER MEASURE: "'It appears as if in Maryland the governor was looking for a political victory and was willing to settle for a weak law,' said Jeanne Allen, president of the District-based Center for Education Reform, a charter-advocacy group. She said it would have been preferable for Maryland not to have a law on charters than to have a law based on the bill that passed this week. Legislators have said they will work with the law to strengthen it, but Mrs. Allen said that is easier said than done. 'That only happens if you start with something better than this law to begin with,' she said." By Vaishali Honawar, The Washington Times, April 9, 2003. 

GRANADA HILLS HIGH PUSHING FOR CHARTER STATUS: "A Granada Hills conversion would represent major evidence, national charter advocates say, that such top-scoring schools are dissatisfied with constraints from their school districts and that charter status can benefit them, not just academically failing campuses. 'What's happening is an increase in recognition that even high-achieving schools aren't serving everyone as best they can,' said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington-based organization that promotes charters. 'Their ability to do well for everyone is hamstrung by district oversight. According to the center's statistics, Granada Hills would be the largest school in the country to convert to a charter." By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2003. 

MRS. CAFRITZ ON VOUCHERS: "To suggest, as some critics have, that Mrs. Cafritz and others who are willing to consider federally or privately supported school vouchers have turned their backs on public education is untrue. To the contrary, they propose a system in the District that is broad enough to include public schools, charter schools and a voucher experiment handsomely funded with new federal dollars in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education. In fact, with a federally funded voucher program, District public and charter schools could end up with more District money per pupil, because the funds that followed students to private schools would come from the Department of Education, not D.C. taxpayers. Mrs. Cafritz has taken a bold stance in behalf of D.C. children, who deserve the same choices and level playing field as students in stronger public and private school systems elsewhere." Washington Post Editorial, April 1, 2003. Link to full editorial.

MAKING THE MOST OF VOUCHERS: "Schools, be they public, private, religious or secular, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jewish, make an indelible contribution to the fabric and character of a community. Through schools we pass on the values and mores of our society to our children. No community, including one bereft of self-government, should forsake or be denied its responsibility to educate its children.... We should join the U.S. Department of Education in forging a system that includes vouchers, charter schools and public schools -- one that would afford children in the District the best possible education." By Peggy Cooper Cafritz, president of the D.C. Board of Education, Washington Post Op-Ed, March 29, 2003. Link to full op-ed.

CHARTER SCHOOLS' SUCCESS: "Michael Winerip, writing about a negative case in Arizona, says, 'The charter bubble has burst.' Hardly. The number of charter schools in the country has increased every year, to nearly 2,700 today, since the first one opened in 1992. Charters are taking the hardest-to-teach kids — those being failed by traditional public schools — and are helping them surpass their peers. What does that say about the alternatives?" By Jeanne Allen, March 6 2003, Letter to the Editor of the New York Times

REFORMERS HAVE A LONG, PROUD HISTORY: "Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform offers an important insight for would-be government reformers in any realm, not just education: 'We’ve learned ... that the Establishment want you to believe you ... don’t understand what’s really happening in schools and are wed to the wrong organizations. They also talk about how reformers are dividing rather than uniting, and that if we all just came together, we could make beautiful music. What they would really like is not consensus, but that we all go away. It’s convenient and easy never to have detractors.'" Link to full article, which has appeared in various newspapers in February, 2003.

INTO CHARTER TERRITORY: "With the enthusiastic backing of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., charter school legislation stands the best chance in five years to win General Assembly approval. If a charter bill overcomes the resistance of teacher unions and school boards, Maryland would become the 41st state to allow taxpayer-funded schools that are managed independently of school district bureaucracy." The Baltimore Sun, February 24, 2003. See CER's Maryland Charter School Page for more developments.

CLASS STRUGGLE: IS HOMEWORK REALLY SO TERRIBLE? "This allegedly overburdened American child, innocent victim of callous teachers, is averaging less than a half hour of homework each school night.... Schools that demand a half hour a day of academic work at home, less than a fifth of the time these same children spend watching television, do not seem to me to be overdoing it." By Jay Mathews, Washington Post, February 18, 2003. Link to complete article.

IT'S ABOUT TIME -- CHARTER SCHOOLS IN MARYLAND: "A recent survey by the Center for Education Reform reports that charter schools boast improved reading and math scores, higher state test scores, increased parent involvement, higher attendance rates and fewer discipline programs. Hello! These are the exact problems our city public school system have been dealing with. And who knows, maybe if public schools had to compete with charter schools for dollars, we would see a marked improvement in the public system." By Editorial Staff, Baltimore Times, February 10, 2003

SCHOOL RULES: "According to the Center for Education Reform, which tracks the charter school movement, there are 2,563 charter schools in the 29 states that do not require charter school teachers to be members of the state teachers' union and 134 charter schools in the 11 states that do -- which is hardly surprising. Given the choice, most teachers' unions, like most local school boards, prefer not to give alternative schools a license to compete. In Maryland's case, both the unions and the school boards could use the competition." Washington Post Editorial, February 8, 2003 (Link to complete editorial.)
(Link here to full transcript of CER President Jeanne Allen's testimony before the Maryland Senate Education, Health And Environmental Affairs Committee.) See also MARYLAND HAS NO CHARTER LAW -- YET by Jeanne Allen, Letter to the Editor submitted to The Washington Post, February 6, 2003

STUDENTS NEED ALTERNATIVES: "By diversifying how we deliver education and providing the most options, we can succeed with any culture, and our nation will be richer for it. Standards and accountability programs are necessary to help stem the tide of low expectations that typify the education of so many children of color. But those alone are not sufficient. To have choice in education is to have power. American parents need that power to ensure that education serves their children successfully." By Jeanne Allen, USA Today Online, January 31, 2003

N.Y. SUIT CLAIMS DENIAL OF RIGHTS IN SCHOOL LAW: "'There certainly hasn't been the kind of clear-cut communication that is as extensive as it needs to be about this law,' said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington organization that supports vouchers and other school choice options. 'First, school districts tried to skirt their responsibility because they didn't buy into it. Now, it seems, they are trying to do the least possible to comply.'" By Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post, January 28, 2003.

CHARTER-SCHOOL MOVEMENT SPUTTERS AS APPLICANTS DROP: "'We have had obstacles and nuisances all along, but there hasn't been a concerted effort like we have seen recently,' says Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter advocacy group." By Robert Tomsho, Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2003 

MORE IN THE NEWS

CER Home Page E-Mail CER In The News Archives CER Publications