We've run articles in the past about shortening the school week to 4 days. Today is an update from The Hill: Facing mounting challenges, schools embrace the 4-day week | The Hill 850 districts have made the move and more are considering Hundreds of U.S. school districts have sought to combat the teacher shortage and raise the quality of life for their students and faculty by making a big change: a four-day week. The trend of a four-day week has been rising among American companies and schools since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many finding benefits to having an extra day off. In schools, most students and teachers are getting Friday or Monday off while having … [Read more...]
School Choice Voucher Program – Update
So which states have taken action on school vouchers? Here's what our searches have produced: https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/interactive-guide-to-school-choice.aspx Welcome to NCSL’s Interactive Guide to School Choice. School choice comes in many different forms and all 50 states plus the District of Columbia provide parents the ability to send their child to a school outside their neighborhood in some way. Charter schools, magnet schools, open enrollment programs and state turnaround districts all provide public school options to parents. School vouchers, education savings accounts and scholarship tax credit programs expand those choices to include private schools. Clicking … [Read more...]
School Choice Update
Given the number of parents that have started peeling back the layers of the onion "school choice" is gaining more traction. Which states have "choice" programs and what do they look like? Today we share a website that is attempting to gather that information: Federation for Children.org https://www.federationforchildren.org/state-programs/ You will find information on 33 states and territories that have started down the "choice" path. Unfortunately you will not find Washington nor Oregon nor California on that list. Given that, politically, these three (3) states are left of center and progressives claim they want whats best for the people (an by default for children) why are they … [Read more...]
Conservatives, Take Back the Education Field
This article is a bit long but it's good food for thought. The original article can be found at: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/conservatives-take-back-the-education-field/ written by: Anthony Kinnett and Daniel Buck The conservative movement stood athwart history, yelling Stop — it’s time it did so in education too. If universal school-choice legislation passed tomorrow and parents finally had the freedom to choose schools for their children, with public funds to access them, would utopia follow? We doubt it. Ninety percent of students in the United States currently attend public schools. If choice-based systems were expanded, the same teachers, … [Read more...]
Hoosiers Score Benefits from Private School Choice
This is going to be the first in a series of articles looking at alternative choices to public schools and outcomes. Do students going to private schools or charter schools or who are home schooled do better, worse or the same as their counterparts in public schools? We know that public schools have become more expensive that charter or private or home schools. Locally to highest spend per student in a local public school district is over $21,000/student/year. Private schools are less than 1/2 of that. Without further ado let's take a look at an article originally published in Education Next written by Patrick J. Wolf This week the sporting world turns its attention to Indiana as … [Read more...]