“Do you have a card?”

She had a huge smile, coming up to me right after I spoke to the NC House Education Committee —the largest, it would seem, in the free world with 53 members (!)– about the need for opportunity scholarships to provide poor children access to quality schools.

“Um, I’ll get you one,” I answered. Then I noticed her sticker on her lapel, which was a circle, with the word vouchers in the middle, and a SLASH through the word.

“Why do you want my card, you clearly don’t agree with me,” I responded.

The inquirer responded – “I just want to know who is paying you; where you get your money.”

Wow. So belief is all about who pays you? I was stunned.

Her name was Elizabeth Haddix, and it turns out Elizabeth works for the UNC School of Law Office of Civil Rights.

During the whole hearing, this man stood behind her, near the door, and cued her with motions and non-verbal hand signals as people were talking. (See minute 44:16 in the video of the hearing below.) He actually looked like the union boss in “Won’t Back Down.” But upon further research, it turns out, he’s the manager of said Office of Civil Rights, and, it would seem, her coach.

It was a quick hearing, and only an hour was allocated for pro- and con-, and the basic introdution of the bill by members, but clearly Elizabeth waited with anticipation to deliver a zinger of remarks… which never came because they had to stop the hearing due to time. Thankfully, the voucher hearing

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by Mark Binker
WRAL
May 21, 2013

In a packed room, the House Education Committee heard Tuesday from supporters and opponents of a plan to give taxpayer-funded scholarships for low income students that attend private schools.

The crowd precluded any committee debate or a vote on the bill, as legislators used the limited time to hear from the public – those in favor and against the Opportunity Scholarship Act

The committee did roll out a new version of the bill and an accompanying summary that explains the bill.

“The bill before you, in reality, will not help the students it is intended to help,” Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson told the committee. She focused her comments on the fact that private schools do not have to report student test results and performance in the same way public schools do.

“If a grading scale of A-through-F is good for public schools, then it should be good for private schools,” she said. How else, she asked, would parents know if the private school they are choosing actually offers a better education than their current public school.

Proponents of the bill said that voucher programs in other states have helped improve student test scores.

“I’m struck by the amount of opposition to something some people have never seen working in progress,” said Jeanne Allen is the Founder and President of The Center for Education Reform.

The committee is expected to debate and vote on the bill next week.

“Senate panel OKs measure to fund tuition at religious and private schools”
by Will Weissert, Associated Press
Star-Telegram
April 11, 2013

A state Senate committee on Thursday approved a high-profile school voucher plan, sending it to the full chamber for what could be a fierce floor fight.

Senate Bill 23 by state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, would offer tax credits to businesses that provide scholarship funding for low-income students who want to transfer from low-performing public schools to private or religious schools.

The bill would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their state business margins taxes, but it caps the total value of all donations at $100 million.

Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, says the plan could help as many as 10,000 students transfer.

His committee referred the bill to the Senate, but not before an important modification was approved: To qualify for scholarships, children have to be at risk of dropping out of school and come from low-income families. The measure originally allowed at-risk or low-income students to seek scholarships.

The amendment changing or to and was made by state Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville.

“I understand the author’s intent with this bill,” Lucio said. “This could give those students who most need educational choice a voucher.”

Patrick accepted the change, saying his intent was “to help students who are poor and in failing schools.”

Lucio responded, “I am for helping poor kids, including keeping them in our public schools.”

To get scholarships, students must come from households with incomes less than 200 percent of that needed to qualify for the free and reduced-price lunch program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has guidelines for who qualifies based on family size.

A family of three can qualify to get reduced-price or free lunches at school if their yearly income doesn’t exceed $36,000. Patrick’s proposal would allow families to seek

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“Indiana Supreme Court upholds school vouchers”
by Scott Elliott and Tim Evans
Indianapolis Star
March 26, 2013

Public tax dollars may be used to fund private school tuition under Indiana’s voucher program, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled today.

“We hold that the Indiana school voucher program, the choice scholarship program, is within the legislature’s power under Article 8, Section 1, and that the enacted program does not violate either Section 4 or Section 6 of Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution,” the justices wrote in the 5-0 decision.

The ruling, on a teachers union-supported lawsuit from 2011, ends the legal challenge to the program at the state level. The case could be made again in federal court. But in 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar program in Ohio, making any further appeal a long shot.

The Indiana case began shortly after the program was created in 2011 when a group of teachers, school officials and parents who oppose vouchers sued the state, arguing the program was unconstitutional.

Vouchers allow low income families to redirect tax dollars from their local public school district to pay tuition when their children transfer to private schools.

In its second year, the program is the fastest-growing in history, jumping to 9,324 students receiving vouchers this school year from 3,919 last year. The program is redirecting more than $38 million in state aid from public schools to private schools, although officials say a provision that guarantees at least 10 percent of a school district’s per pupil amount be returned to the state resulted in a savings of $4.2 million that was redistributed among all public schools last year.

Opponents have argued that vouchers unfairly take away funds that public schools need to benefit primarily religious institutions, especially Catholic and Christian schools. The vast majority of schools accepting vouchers are religiously-affiliated. The

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Vol. 15, No. 11

THE MAINE EVENT. Earlier this year, Governor Paul LePage expressed his outrage that Maine’s “school systems are failing.” And when the newly-created Charter School Commission rejected four out of five charter applications he called on “…those people, if they’re afraid to do the job, if they can’t put students first, then they ought to resign.” Vowing to go back to square one on reform efforts, the Governor jumping back in the ring to convene a conference this Friday, March 22. The conference will feature sessions on best practices from across the country like Florida’s school performance grading system, school choice, and stretching education dollars. CER President Jeanne Allen, will lead a panel discussion on “Multiple Pathways to Success.”

BATTLE IN THE BAYOU. Today, parents, students, educators and reformers rallied before the Louisiana Supreme Court to defend the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Over 4,500 students across the state benefit from the program which provides scholarships to qualifying students enrolled in underperforming and failing schools, to attend schools of their choice. Former DC Councilman, attorney, advocate, and CER board member Kevin P. Chavous addressed the masses today and said, “I know justice, and it is absolutely criminal to snatch away opportunity from children.” The debate is heating up and attorneys brought their arguments for a showdown today with oral ammunition before the state’s Supreme Court. A ruling on the appeal is not expected for several weeks.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY. As Newswire reported last week, a charter school proposal must still be negotiated in joint House-Senate conference committees. As it stands now, “Mississippi has yet to open the book on what charter schools can really do for the whole of education across the state. Not only is this not significant in any

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“Gov. Haslam touts limited school vouchers”
by Andy Sher
Chattanooga Times Free Press
January 29, 2013

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam used his annual State of the State address Monday night to defend his plan to implement a limited school voucher program next fall that would allow impoverished children in 83 low-performing public schools to use tax dollars to attend private institutions.

“Some have said that this administration and General Assembly aren’t committed to public education, but that could not be further from the truth,” Haslam told members of the Republican-run House and Senate meeting in a joint convention.

Noting his administration has been “literally putting our money where our mouth is, even when other states haven’t done so through tough budget times,” Haslam added the state’s education funding formula has been fully funded in his three budgets.

Noting various initiatives his administration has implemented including expansions of publicly funded but privately operated charter schools, Haslam said, “This year we’re proposing to offer another option for school choice” through vouchers. “If we can help our lowest-income students in our lowest-performing schools, why wouldn’t we?

“I’ve heard the argument that this kind of program will drain resources in the schools that need them the most, but we’re focusing on those schools,” said Haslam, who pointed out the state is providing $38 million to the 83 worst-performing schools over a three-year period.

The bill, called the “Tennessee Choice & Opportunity Scholarship Act,” is sponsored by House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, and Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, who carry the governor’s package of bills.

Enrollment would be limited in its first year to 5,000 students whose family income makes them eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs. That would grow to 20,000 by the 2016-17 school year.

House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, charged the administration is “putting forward a radical,

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Download or print your PDF copy of Improving American Education With School Choice

“Louisiana Voucher Test”
Review & Outlook
Wall Street Journal
November 28, 2012

Here’s the bizarre world in which we live: In 2007 Gabriel Evans attended a public school in New Orleans graded “F” by the Louisiana Department of Education. Thanks to a New Orleans voucher program, Gabriel moved in 2008 to a Catholic school. His mother, Valerie Evans, calls the voucher a “lifesaver,” allowing him to get “out of a public school system that is filled with fear, confusion and violence.”

So what is the response of the teachers union? Sue the state to force 11-year-old Gabriel back to the failing school.

This week a state court in Baton Rouge is hearing the union challenge to Louisiana’s Act 2, which expanded the New Orleans program statewide and allows families with a household income less than 250% of the federal poverty line to get a voucher to escape schools ranked C or worse by the state. Gabriel’s voucher covers $4,315 in annual tuition.

The tragedy is how many students qualify for the program. According to the state, 953 of the state’s 1,373 public schools (K-12) were ranked C, D or F. Under the new program, more than 4,900 students have received scholarships allowing them to attend non-public schools.

Enter the teachers unions, which sued this summer to stop the incursion into their rotting enterprise. According to the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the Louisiana Association of Educators, the voucher program steals money from public schools.

But teachers who do their homework know that the state constitution has no prohibition on where money may be allocated, as long as it is going to educate Louisiana children. Louisiana school funding is determined by a designated Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, instead of directly by lawmakers. According to the state’s constitution, the Board must set a “minimum foundation” for funding

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by Howard Blume
Los Angels Times
October 12, 2012

The following are edited excerpts from telephone interviews and email exchanges with leading education analysts, writers and researchers regarding the policies and positions of the presidential candidates.

Michelle Rhee

Chief executive, StudentsFirst; former chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools

Both support expanding educational options for families. President Obama did this, for example, by encouraging states to get rid of unnecessary caps on public charter schools through Race to the Top . At the same time, Gov. Romney supports dramatically expanding choices parents can make about where to send their kids to school. But he doesn’t tie that increased flexibility to strong rules ensuring any school — private or public — that takes the public funds will be held accountable for student learning.

Jonathan Kozol

Author whose books about education include “Death at an Early Age” (1967) and “Savage Inequalities” (1991). His new book is “Fire in the Ashes.”

As we saw in Wisconsin, there is a constituency out there that would like to do away with public-sector unions. The teachers are the loudest of those unions. Romney could not do away with teachers unions, but I think he will do his very best to move us in that direction.

President Obama simply wants to challenge the teachers unions to be more flexible in their demands but obviously recognizes they have a useful role in our society.

I regret the President’s apparent willingness to continue relying on standardized exams in evaluating teachers because I think it’s a simplistic way of judging what happens in the classroom and excludes so many aspects of a good education that are not reduceable to numbers.

The President recognizes that a demoralized teaching force is not going to bring passionate determination to the education of children — no matter how you measure them, castigate them or

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“Tennessee planning for school vouchers nears final stages”
by Richard Locker
Commercial Appeal
October 1, 2012

A special commission appointed by Gov. Bill Haslam is about to begin drafting its final recommendations on how a Tennessee school-voucher program would operate, including who would be eligible for taxpayer dollars for private school tuition.

The voucher issue returns to the state legislature in January after a year’s hiatus. The state Senate narrowly approved a voucher bill in 2011, sponsored by Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, that allowed students whose family incomes were low enough to qualify them for free or discounted school lunches to take half the taxpayer money spent per-pupil in their school district to pay private school tuition.

House leaders were more reluctant to open a political battle over vouchers and just before the 2012 session opened, Haslam asked lawmakers to stand down and let him appoint a task force to examine the issue and make recommendations this fall for the 2013 legislature to consider.

He said Tennessee needed time for the major changes in state education policy to get up and running before embarking on another. The earlier changes included the end of collective bargaining by teachers, major changes to teacher tenure and performance evaluations, and higher standards for a revised core curriculum for K-12, plus a shift from enrollment-based funding for higher education to performance-based funding.

The “Governor’s Task Force on Opportunity Scholarships” held its fourth meeting Wednesday and although differences among its members continue, its chairman, state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, made it clear that the panel’s charge from the governor is not to debate whether to have a voucher program but rather how a program should operate — its legal parameters — if lawmakers create one.

Key issues include when to launch a program; whether to put family-income limits on participation; whether to limit

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