PATHS

Marie Gryphon is an adjunct scholar.

Mayor-elect Adrian M. Fenty has pledged to make education reform his administration's top priority. Unhappy with the progress of embattled DC Public Schools superintendent Clifford B. Janey, Fenty plans a New York-style mayoral takeover of the system. He may be popular enough to succeed, but unless he supports policies that fund students instead of failing schools, his coup cannot trigger an education revolution in the District.

Even without new ideas, a takeover may do some good: it would sideline a fractious and sluggish local school board and give the new mayor a chance to rid the DCPS of its most egregiously corrupt personnel and practices. But no managerial shake-up will rid the system of the honest but substandard teachers and techniques that keep District schools in the national-rankings basement year after year.

Only by empowering parents to choose their children's schools can Mayor-elect Fenty achieve his goal of a quality education for every child. He should increase public school choices, lift the arbitrary cap on the number of charter schools allowed in DC, and expand the district's nascent but promising school voucher program.

Poor teaching quality, one of the District's worst problems, is exacerbated by public school administrators who prefer to hire education majors instead math and science majors, even though the latter make better teachers in their subjects. Giving parents the ability to choose which public schools get their money discourages these and other counterproductive practices, as Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has found.

Hoxby's work suggests that public schools that compete for funds and students are more likely to hire the most capable teachers available, improving results for students at all schools. But the DCPS still assigns students to schools largely by neighborhood. Fenty should recommend a city-wide open enrollment program for public schools to allow the most successful schools to expand their capacity and serve larger numbers of students.

Second, Fenty should unleash a new wave of Charter school entrepreneurship in the District. Charter schools have blossomed in recent years and now serve over 17,000 students in the District of Columbia. Although about three quarters of DC's charter school students come from low-income families, and virtually all are racial minorities, they routinely outperform DCPS students on math and reading tests, according to a recent study by the Progressive Policy Institute.

Despite good academic results and high rates of parental satisfaction, Washington's charter school movement is hobbled by an arbitrary cap of 20 new charters per year. Fenty should support lifting this cap. Equally important, he should smooth the way for charter schools to lease sought-after DCPS building space that is currently going to waste.

Finally, Fenty should rethink his former opposition to DC's promising new Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program offers scholarships of up to $7,500 to low and moderate income families who wish to enroll a child in a private or parochial school in the District. Both scholarships and places in participating schools are awarded on a lottery basis.

The program is too new to evaluate for educational results yet, but studies of similar programs elsewhere indicate that—while school choice benefits all students—African-American voucher recipients reap the largest academic gains. In a city with a painfully large academic achievement gap between white and minority students, the Opportunity Scholarship Program could be an important force for equity.

But only if it is expanded. While the program is probably priceless to many of the 1,802 students it serves, it is too small to provide meaningful competition for DC's public schools. A much larger program would not only benefit more scholarship recipients, it would also benefit the remaining DCPS students by forcing the public system to pull its socks up and improve the educational services it offers to local families.

POORLY-performing government schools in Bahrain and the Gulf should be privatised, says a US expert.

Governments should also give parents vouchers to pay for the schools of their choice, says Professor Herbert J Walberg, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a fellow of four academic organisations in the US.

"Chartered schools developed through privatisation programmes have become very popular in the US," he told the GDN.

"These schools provide the best possible education through the state and private funding and one million children now go to such chartered schools in the US."

Quality

Prof Walberg, a founding director of Chicago Internati-onal Chartered School, was in Bahrain with its former director Biju Kulathakal, as part of a tour of the Gulf to promote the concept of chartered schools and privatisation of schools.

"It is important to publish test scores of each school," said Prof Walberg. Parents need to know the quality of the schools.

"Those government schools which register poor test scores repeatedly should be candidates for privatisation.

"It will then have the benefits of competition, following which the regular schools will also show improvement."

As part of supporting education of children belonging to low income groups, the government can provide the parents with vouchers, said Prof Walberg.

"These vouchers can be used by parents to send their children to the schools of their choice," he added. "At a time when unprepared labour is a problem around the world, such a system will help enhance the quality of education and pave the way for the development of an educated workforce."

Prof Walberg earned a PhD in education psychology from the University of Chicago and taught for 38 years at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

He has carried out projects for the Paris-based Organis-ation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Unesco, and advised governmental and private organisations in eight countries on educational productivity.

Prof Walberg congratulated the Crown Prince's Inter-national Scholarship Programme and said such initiatives would eventually contribute towards improving the national economy.

Mr Kulathakal said their mission was to help the governments and the private sector in the Gulf to enhance their educational productivity.

"We are ready to provide our service and expertise free of charge," he revealed.

Both Prof Walberg and Mr Kulathakal visited Al Hekma International School and Gulf University, before leaving Bahrain. They held talks with Gulf University president Dr Mona Al Zayani and general director of Al Hekma International School Mohammed Al Anni.
 

If teacher quality is the ''most important schooling factor influencing student achievement,'' as this report claims, why aren't we putting better teachers in failing classrooms? The University of Washington's Dan Goldhaber argues that teacher pay is among the main answers. To begin with, he says, the ''single'' or ''uniform'' salary schedule keeps talented individuals from becoming teachers. This argument isn't new, but Goldhaber presents interesting data to back it up. He determined that the average salary gap between teachers and non-teachers ten years out of college is $18,904 for those who hold a non-technical degree; for math or engineering majors the gap is $27,890. Goldhaber then looks at ways to narrow these gaps. Although merit pay, knowledge- or skill-based pay, and so-called ''combat pay'' (see here) plans may never bridge this yawning gap, he thinks they do minimize the financial sacrifices that a teacher must make, thus attracting more high-quality candidates. (As evidence, he cites a RAND study which found that a $1,000 increase in beginning teacher salaries lowers teacher attrition by three to six percent.) The last section outlines the main hurdles to implementing these reforms. Goldhaber's approach here is balanced--he doesn't give the unions the shellacking they deserve on this issue--but he's fairly optimistic. The Department of Education has recently launched an initiative that will fund merit and combat pay pilot programs in various states and districts. And the A.F.T. is showing signs of acknowledging the need for pay reform. (Not the N.E.A., of course.) Those looking to join this campaign will find in this report a good map of the territory. Read it here.

Read the entire study here http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/12/pdf/teacher_pay_report.pdf

by Coby Loup



The Real Problem of Rising College Costs
By Dan Lips
The Heritage Foundation
December 21, 2006

Someone wise once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.  Members of the 110th Congress should keep this in mind when they try to address the problem of college affordability.

In the 21st century, a college education is considered by many to be a key to financial security in the new knowledge-based economy. But ever-rising tuition prices offer a financial challenge for many American families.

According to the College Board, the price of higher education rose sharply again last year following trends over recent decades. The annual costs at four-year public and private colleges increased by 6.3 and 5.9 percent respectively, a rate well ahead of inflation. Since 1986, tuition and fees at public and private colleges have grown at staggering rates: 122 percent at public and 80 percent at private colleges (after adjusting for inflation).

Increasing college costs since the 1980s make the price of gasoline look cheap in comparison. Since 1986, the real cost of a gallon of gasoline has grown from $1.58 to $2.50. If gas prices had risen as quickly as public college tuition, we'd be paying $3.51, a dollar more than we do today.

As with growing gas prices, increasing college tuition costs have led to frequent calls for the federal government to act. The federal government has responded by providing dramatically-increasing subsidies for higher education aid. According to the College Board, total federal aid for postsecondary education totaled $94 billion in 2005-06, a real increase of 95 percent during the last ten years.

But doubling higher education aid over the past decade hasn't been enough, according to some liberals in Congress. New subsidies for higher education are at the top of the Democrats' agenda for the 110th Congress.

One Democratic initiative that will likely be considered is new Education Committee Chairman George Miller's plan to cut interest rates on federally-subsidized student loans. Depending on the structure of the plan, the measure could cost up to $18 billion over five years, according to one published estimate.

Unfortunately, there's little reason to believe that billions in new federal subsidies will do anything to address the root problem of rising college costs. In fact, federal spending may be exacerbating the problem.

One of the reasons colleges and universities have been able to charge more is that third-parties-like federal and state taxpayers-are footing much of the bill. Many students are less sensitive to price increases than they would be if they had a more direct financial stake. This means that higher education institutions have few reasons to keep costs low to attract students.

Ohio University economist Richard Vedder discusses this problem in his book Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much. "Students receiving grants or subsidized loans are far less sensitive to tuition increases than they would be if they were paying their own way," Dr. Vedder argues. "Where entrepreneurs in a free, unsubsidized market seek to cut costs and lower their prices to lure new custom­ers away from businesses that are raising theirs, there is very little of that in higher education."

To begin to create greater competition in education and return the federal government to its original role in higher education, Congress could refocus existing tuition aid programs on those who could not otherwise afford college. This would likely reduce inflationary pressures on college tuition while addressing the policy concern of expanding higher education access.

An increasing share of federal grant and loan subsidies are being provided to students from non-economically disadvantaged families. The College Board recently reported that "changes in student aid policies have benefited those in the upper half of the income distribution more than those in the lower half." A recent Department of Education report found that 47 per­cent of students from middle-income families accepted federal loans in 2000, compared to 31 percent in 1993.

These subsidies are inequitable. They are largely paid for by taxpayers who don't have college degrees-only one in four adults have bachelor's degrees.  Workers are subsidizing students from upper- and middle-income families, who can go on to expect far higher lifetime earnings.

It may be too much to ask for fundamental reforms, at least during Speaker Pelosi's 100 hour agenda. In the short-run, conservatives would be wise to shift the policy discussion to the relationship between federal subsidies and rising college costs. Congress should investigate whether ever increasing subsidies for higher education lead to higher college costs.

In addition, they could call on universities to be more financially accountable to students, parents, and taxpayers.  Greater financial transparency would lead to greater understanding about the problem of rising college costs and encourage state-policymakers and school leaders to explore ways to make higher education institutions more efficient.

American students should be wary of Congressional promises to make higher education more affordable.  If history is any guide, federal spending and college prices will both keep climbing. 

Dan Lips is policy analyst for education at the Heritage Foundation, www.Heritage.org .
 

Education Next is the most influential journal in education, according to a study released last week by the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center. The study, Influence: A Study of the Factors Shaping Education Policy, was based on an extensive survey of the education field’s opinion-elite.

Education Next, published quarterly by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, was the sole journal, peer-reviewed or otherwise, listed among the top-ten information sources in the EPE survey, surpassed only by agencies of the U. S. government, Education Week, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the non-profit organization Education Trust.

“The other editors and I are very pleased to learn that this young journal, now in its sixth year of publication, has attained such prominence and recognition,” said Paul E. Peterson, editor-in-chief of Education Next and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. “The honor reminds us to keep focused on our central mission, namely to ‘present the facts as best they can be determined, giving voice (without fear or favor) to worthy research, sound ideas and responsible arguments.’”

EPE’s study also ranked most influential research in education as well as the most influential individuals. Research on school vouchers conducted by Peterson and his colleagues at Harvard was cited among the thirteen “blockbuster” studies of the past decade. A study of graduation rates by Jay Greene, an Education Next contributing editor, was also listed as one of the top thirteen. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, conducted under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Education, was listed as the most influential research study.

Education Next Senior Editor Chester E. Finn Jr., who also serves as chair of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, was named as one of the 20 most influential individuals in education. Microsoft founder Bill Gates held the top spot as the single most influential person in education in the last decade.

In a statement, EPE Director Christopher Swanson said the study provides “a unique look at the power-brokers in American education who have shaped much of what happens in our nation’s classrooms over the last 10 years. The influence rankings also shed some light on the movers and shakers to watch in the next decade.”

Education Next features and forums provide opportunities for experts and analysts to cover key issues in school reform. All items in its research section are subject to double-blind peer-review. The journal has garnered national and international attention in recent months with the publication of ground breaking research on such topics as the increased achievement of students when taught by teachers of the same gender, the failure of school phys-ed classes to fight obesity, and the hidden social costs for academically successful minority students in integrated public schools. Regular features of the journal, such as its annual report card on states’ proficiency standards and its “Check the Facts” column, which shines a spotlight on inaccurate and misleading research, are widely referenced by the media, policymakers, government officials, and education practitioners.

The current issue of Education Next (Winter 2007) headlines research that shows that state certification requirements that call for a specific course of study in education schools have little impact on student learning in the classroom. The issue also includes analyses of evidence and arguments used in education adequacy lawsuits and an assessment of the effectiveness of early childhood education. Other articles reveal the local barriers to charter school reform and the extent to which school restructuring is not taking place under No Child Left Behind.

Read the new issue of Education Next now online at www.EducationNext.org

Education Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution committed to looking at hard facts about school reform. Other sponsoring institutions are the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Warning that Americans face a grave risk of losing their prosperity and high quality of life to better educated workers overseas, a panel of education, labor and other public policy experts yesterday proposed a far-reaching redesign of the United States education system that would include having schools operated by independent contractors and giving states, rather than local districts, control over school financing.

The panel, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, included two former federal education secretaries, Rod Paige, a Republican, and Richard W. Riley, a Democrat; two former labor secretaries, William E. Brock, a Republican, and Ray Marshall, a Democrat; and an array of other luminaries, including former Gov. John Engler of Michigan, and the New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein.

The commission’s report, released at a news conference in Washington, rethinks American schooling from top to bottom, going beyond the achievement goals of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, and farther than many initiatives being pursued by the Bush administration or by experimental state and local school authorities. Among other things, the report proposes starting school for most children at age 3, and requiring all students to pass board exams to graduate from high school, which for many would end after 10th grade. Students could then go to a community or technical college, or spend two years preparing for selective colleges and universities.

“We have run out the string on a whole series of initiatives that were viewed as hopeful,” said Lewis H. Spence, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and a member of the panel. “This puts a whole new set of ideas on the table.”

Mr. Spence, a former deputy schools chancellor in New York City, and other commission members acknowledged that enacting the proposals would be difficult, requiring legislation in all states and the cooperation of the federal government. Some, like one for merit pay for teachers, would require renegotiating teacher contracts nationwide and persuading local school boards to relinquish authority and take a new role enforcing performance contracts with schools.

“You can’t implement something like this overnight,” said Mr. Klein, who had been scheduled to appear at yesterday’s news conference with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, but whose flights were grounded by thick fog in Washington. Mr. Klein strongly applauded the commission’s proposals, and pointed to many efforts in New York — including sharp increases in teacher pay, a new master-teacher career step; increased roles for private groups in running public schools and performance agreements signed by 331 principals in exchange for greater freedom from superintendents — as examples of how some of the commission’s goals could begin to be accomplished. “We need to think big,” he said.

Mr Milburn wants Labour to give a "credit" worth 150 percent of the cost of a child's education to allow pupils to move to better schools.

Limits on school expansion would be lifted to allow schools to accept children with the vouchers.

The Independent reports that the call is part of a drive by Blairites to propose reforms they hope will be implemented by Gordon Brown, Tony Blair's likely successor, who is cautious about "choice" in public services.

Meanwhile, in the world's longest running voucher programme, in Milwaukee, vouchers are set to pass the US$100 million mark, with the increase in students this year being the second-biggest in the programme's 17-year history.

Almost 18,000 students in the city started this school year attending private schools through publicly funded vouchers, an increase of almost 3,000 over a year ago. This means more than US$100 million will be paid in vouchers this school year for the first time, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported.

For more information, visit www.educationforum.org.nz

A quick quiz for observers of the strange world of education policy and politics: When is a tuition scholarship not considered a voucher?

Answer: When the scholarship is for higher education, rather than for elementary, junior, or high school. Pell Grants, the G.I. Bill, and Hope Scholarships--all essentially vouchers--earn wholehearted support from liberals who demonize "vouchers."

When Democrats take control of Congress in January, a first priority will be to expand the popular Pell Grant program, which provides need-based scholarships to more than 5 million college students. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has already announced support for such a proposal.

To be clear, Pell grants are school vouchers for higher education. Under the program, students who meet certain income requirements can receive a scholarship to help pay college tuition. The scholarship is redeemable at one of 5,400 postsecondary institutions. In all, federal taxpayers spend more than $13 billion on Pell grants.

But Pell Grants are just one example of federal school vouchers for higher education. In 1944, President Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill, which provided college scholarships to a generation of Americans returning from World War II. More recently, President Clinton championed tuition tax breaks--the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning tax credits--which give millions of Americans direct subsidies to access higher education.

These programs work just like school vouchers for K-12 education. They allow students to purchase an education at a school of choice -- whether public or private, secular or religious. But while liberals are quick to support school vouchers for higher education, they are much less enthusiastic about giving students younger than 18 the same power to choose their school.

President Clinton embodies Democrats' strange position on school vouchers. In 1998, he vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have provided school vouchers to 2,000 low-income children in Washington, D.C., calling the plan "fundamentally misguided." But just a year earlier, he signed a tax package that included the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning tax credits. At the time, those tax subsidies were projected to help 13 million Americans enroll in a postsecondary institution of their choice after high school.

If Democrats are really concerned about equal opportunity and educational access, they should end this bizarre bias against choice for those under 18 and support programs that make it easier for all parents to control where their children go to school.

This is important because increasing funding for Pell grants and other higher education subsidies will not address the main source of educational inequality in America. College Pell grants don't help the 50 percent of high school students in some of our biggest cities who drop out before graduation. Pell grants won't help the nearly half of low-income 8th graders who are can't read. Millions of disadvantaged children currently struggling in America's public schools will never graduate from high school, let alone consider college.

There is no magic reform proposal that will fix all of the failures of our K-12 system. That's why it's important to shift the focus from the system to the student.  Students have diverse needs, and there are many schools that could meet those needs, including private schools. 

That's why school choice programs, including vouchers, hold great promise and promote equal opportunity. Like Pell grants, existing school voucher programs in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C., are structured to give disadvantaged families the same opportunity that more affluent families already have -- the ability to enroll their children in safe and high quality schools.

A growing body of research shows that disadvantaged students benefit when they are given school vouchers. Multiple studies have shown that families participating in school choice programs are more satisfied with their educational experience. Studies of student test scores have shown that students who participate in voucher programs outperform their peers.

In recent years, some liberals have begun to embrace school choice initiatives, but nearly all Democratic legislators still vote against school vouchers for K-12 education. A widespread change of heart in the Democratic Party could usher in a wave of school choice reforms to improve education options for disadvantaged youths across the country.

Unfortunately, that day still seems a long way off. For now, Democrats in Congress seem content to focus on spending billions more on higher education vouchers (even if they refer to them by another name) while ignoring the impact that vouchers could have long before kids reach college.

###
Dan Lips is education analyst with the Heritage Foundation, www.Heritage.org..

In the specialized universe of blue-ribbon panel reports on reforming U.S. education, this new planet gets an honors grade. Released today by a commission chaired by Charles B. Knapp and containing such eminences as Dick Riley, John Engler, Joel Klein, Rod Paige, Tom Payzant, and Bill Brock, it's mostly the work of Marc Tucker's National Center on Education and the Economy and, loosely, the successor to that center's influential 1990 report on skills needed by the American workforce. Sixteen years later, the topic is worth revisiting. The world economy has changed dramatically and so have the challenges that the nation and its workforce face. This report does an exemplary job of displaying and explaining both the challenges and the changes that need to be made--ten big recommendations--and painting a vivid portrait of what America would look like if we actually do those things. It's no simple laundry list; the recommendations are tightly linked and closely integrated. They include developing standards, assessments, and curricula that reflect today's needs and tomorrow's requirements, and they span and amalgamate several different reform strategies, drawing the essence from each. They're big and bold. No single faction in American education will like all of them--a universal level of unhappiness is one definition of consensus--and that's why implementation is going to prove a huge challenge. But this report could turn out to be a fit successor to A Nation at Risk. You should read it. Before doing so, you might want to read what Mr. Flat-world himself, the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, has to say about it.

by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

This booklet looks at reforming high school via chartering. Starting with a list of 400 secondary charter schools that are meeting achievement goals under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the authors culled it down to eight high-performing schools that have graduated at least one cohort of students, most of whom went on to college or work. Two-day site visits were made to help uncover what makes these schools succeed. The findings are presented in two parts. The first describes six common traits that drive success at these seemingly heterogeneous schools. For example, all focus on college prep, are mission driven, team up with parents and community and hold themselves accountable. The second section profiles the individual schools, showing how the common traits play out in day-to-day practice. Those interested in high school reform won't find any sweeping policy correctives in these pages, but they will find some excellent models of high school education in the charter sector. Read the report here.

by Martin A. Davis Jr.

Though many critics continue to decry them, charters are not only here to stay, but expanding rapidly (to over 3600 nationwide in 2005-06). And this year's National Charter School Research Project (NCSRP) report explores, among other topics, the impact they are having on parents, districts, and other education stakeholders.

The news is mostly good. NCSRP's survey of low- and moderate-income parents of charter school students in three major cities found that charter parents were more likely to select options outside their neighborhoods than other parents (85 percent versus 60 percent); more likely than their private school cohorts to choose schools based on academic factors (71 percent versus 58 percent); and more likely to be satisfied with their chosen schools than parents who selected other public schools (97 percent satisfied as opposed to 84 percent). Such findings debunk the myth that charter parents are ill-informed and easily duped by "flashy" new school programs.

In choice-abundant cities like Dayton (where 25 percent of students attend charters), school districts are improving their programs to compete with charter schools. Dayton Public Schools, in addition to raising its test scores last year, has created some attractive program options and ramped up efforts to communicate its strengths to choice-savvy parents. And amidst stiff competition for dwindling numbers of area students, Dayton Public will likely be forced to think more creatively and efficiently about its finances, facilities, and transportation services.

Yet successful charter schools require engaged and diligent sponsors--evidenced by the small number of both (at least in Ohio). Thus NCSRP recommends that sponsors set high standards for schools, take pains to study their progress, and work closely to support them. In return, sponsors must operate with transparency and should be held accountable for their performance.

As a retrospective, NCSRP's report succeeds by ultimately looking forward--to how state charter programs can be strengthened; hopefully, policymakers and stakeholders in Ohio will do the same.

 
At last week's American Enterprise Institute-Fordham conference on the No Child Left Behind Act's "remedies" for low-performing schools, paper after paper reported how little use is being made of that law's "public school choice" option for kids whose present schools have been rated "in need of improvement." A galaxy of snafus, late data, inadequate capacity, constrained choices, bad information, and perverse incentives has made this remedy one of NCLB's least used and least effective--and that's saying something.

Milton Friedman wouldn't have been surprised. He would have said that's the sort of thing that happens when government tries to control markets. Still, it's a big disappointment on multiple fronts. NCLB's authors correctly understood that children stuck in persistently failing schools should be able to leave them for better schools. They sought to craft such an exit visa. But we now know they set it up in such a way that it's accomplishing very little and amounts to an unkept promise.       

Yet several of the same papers also reported that large amounts of school choice are occurring under a host of other programs and policies, particularly in urban areas, including many of the same cities that NCLB has shown to have scads of schools worth fleeing (see here, here, and here). We're talking 20 to 30 percent of the kids in major cities, where they are making extensive use of intra- and inter-district choice programs authorized by state or local policy; charter schools; and private schools, access to which is publicly assisted in some places and for some categories of children. Such programs now benefit far more kids than NCLB-mandated choice.

These findings are underscored by a valuable new report from the National Center for Education Statistics, Trends in the Use of School Choice 1993 to 2003, released last month (though foreshadowed in the 2006 Condition of Education report). It's flawed in some ways, but it also offers a trove of information on the extent to which American families are already exercising school choice--and how that pattern has intensified as more options have become available.          

The traditional way of measuring school choice was to show the fraction of all kids attending charter or private schools, or being home schooled, versus those enrolled in district-operated public schools. That generally yields a figure in the vicinity of 15 percent nationwide.          

A more interesting, fruitful, and comprehensive approach, employed by NCES in the "National Household Education Surveys Program," is to ask families such questions as whether their child is attending an assigned school or a school of choice; are they aware of choices available to them; did they consider other schools; is their child in their first-choice school; did they move to their present neighborhood because of the schools; and how satisfied are they with their child's schools.            

Presented this way, the data show a very different pattern. In 2003 (the latest), 74 percent of U.S. school kids in grades 1-12 attended "assigned public schools"-down from 80 percent a decade earlier. The other 26 percent were enrolled in public and private schools that their parents acknowledged having chosen. Ten percent were in private schools, and 15 percent attended "chosen" public schools. (For various reasons the numbers don't quite add.)            

You may not be bowled over by a 6 percent shift from assigned schools to schools of choice over the course of ten years, but that's some 3 million more kids. Moreover, it's not the end of the story. A whopping 28 percent of kids attending "assigned" public schools have parents who say they moved to their current neighborhood because of the schools. And a quarter of kids in "assigned" schools have parents who said they considered other schools. This suggests that a lot of children who wind up in "assigned" district public schools, which in most cases are their neighborhood schools, are actually there as a result of exercising choice via the very important act of a family selecting its residence because of the schools there.           

It's risky simply to add up these numbers, but it looks to me as if about half of U.S. kids are enrolled in schools as a result of choices made by their parents.           

That's a very big deal indeed. This glass may actually be half full.           

Are these opportunities equitably distributed? Of course not, but the gaps are less dramatic than you might suppose.

Yes, white families and wealthy families are more apt to send their kids to private schools and to move homes in pursuit of particular public schools than are black and poor families. Yet black families are more apt to send their kids to a "chosen" public school. In 2003, that was the case with 24 percent of African-American school kids versus 13 percent of whites. (Hispanics were at 15 percent.)           

Poor families, too, are making reasonably decent use of public-school choice: 18 percent of those below the poverty line and 17 percent of the near-poor, versus 14 percent of kids from more prosperous families.            

No, it's not a sea change, and there remain far too many children and families with no choices or without the means of exploiting them. The choice glass is still half empty. Indeed, half of all parents responding to the 2003 NCES survey were unaware of any available public-school choices (and this awareness was nearly uniform across races, income levels, and levels of parental education). Perhaps they had choices that they didn't know about. Still, choice is playing little or no role in the education of tens of millions of American school kids.

We need to worry about those children, far too many of whom are attending bad schools and have no exit visas. That's why the various battles underway to widen (and improve) the choice options are worth fighting. That's why Monday's Supreme Court hearing was important--because it may lead to the removal of race-based impediments to the exercise of more choice.

Each year, NCLB identifies hundreds more schools "in need of improvement" than the year before. Then another set of "remedies" is supposed to kick in, intended to solve the problem by improving or eventually "restructuring" the schools. Alas, those elements of NCLB also amount to little--another important finding of last week's conference papers. The result: millions of kids stuck in ineffective schools.

That's immoral. It's also educationally unjustifiable.

WORTH REPEATING

"If Bill Gates were in a school right now, he'd be in a charter school." - Cheryl McDonough, principal at Great Bay e-Learning Charter School in New Hampshire.

WHAT CHOICE?

Consistent with what seems to be growing evidence, most schools required to provide options to children under No Child Left Behind are unlikely to respond to parental questions about available choices, according to some pretty unique research done by a team of scholars at the University of Arkansas. At a gathering last week of some of the nation's premiere researchers at American Enterprise Institute's forum Fixing Failing Schools: Is the NCLB Toolkit Working?, report author Jay Greene noted, "It is clear that schools are failing to properly inform parents of their options under NCLB. It is obvious that little is being done to monitor or enforce compliance with these provisions of NCLB." Greene's report, titled "You Can't Choose If You Don't Know," measured schools' compliance with NCLB choice options by emailing nearly 2,500 schools with inquiries about choices available. The emails were ambiguous so that schools would believe they were likely coming from a parent. In 13 states, no response was ever provided to parents by email or phone. In several other states, response rates were below 10 percent. Of those who responded, many sent back their opinions about how bad NCLB is rather than give the parent inquiry any substantive response. As No Child Left Behind moves to reauthorization, policymakers will have to face these deficiencies to really address the mandate of not leaving anyone behind.

When Milton Friedman passed away, the world lost a great teacher. But we are all better off because he lived at all.

Dr. Friedman taught us many important lessons. His instruction on sound monetary policy brought about the end of runaway inflation. He persuasively argued for an all-volunteer military, helping end the draft.

But, one of Friedman's most groundbreaking ideas concerned education. In 1955, he published "The Role of Government in Education," in which he laid out a vision for education that would transfer control from the government to parents:

Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on "approved" educational services. Parents would then be free to spend this sum and any additional sum on purchasing educational services from an "approved" institution of their own choice. The educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions of various kinds.

More than fifty years after Milton Friedman first proposed school vouchers, the idea is finally becoming a reality. Today, seven states and Washington, D.C., have limited school voucher programs. Seven more states now provide tax incentives for private education, a similar policy mechanism. By next year, as many as 150,000 children will attend a school of their parents' choice through programs inspired by Friedman's original voucher idea.

As Milton Friedman's ideas on education continue to gain adherents, even more students and their families will have reason to be thankful for his bold vision of freedom and determination to implement it.

Dan Lips is an Education Analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow.

When it comes to addressing America's social and economic ills, the reform mantra chanted by everyone from economists to chief executives to governors is "Fix K-12 Education." American employers value an educated workforce in an economy where ideas and skills matter more than brawn and endurance. The worldwide competition for markets and profits is intensifying.

Yet by many measures—from international test comparisons to the black/white achievement gap—America's K-12 educators aren't doing enough to prepare youngsters for the new world of brain work. Worse, the education system is completely failing a core of minority inner-city kids. The bankruptcy of the Education Establishment in the nation's inner cities has an enormous social impact.

Over the past two decades, the majority of school reformers have decided that what's needed to improve the public school system is more choice and competition—especially in poor neighborhoods. That's why most states allow charter schools. Some cities have turned over public money to private operators, like the Edison Schools.

Nobel Laureate's Legacy
Such initiatives are resisted by the Education Establishment and its allies—liberal lobbying groups, political progressives, and the like. And the most vehement and vituperative opposition is reserved for voucher school-choice programs, which give parents taxpayer money to send their kids to private schools, including religious ones. Opponents charge that the voucher movement is an assault on public education by free-market right-wing zealots.

Too bad. There is a strong progressive case to be made that vouchers offer disadvantaged children their best chance for getting a decent education. But conservative advocates for vouchers also need to realize that a well-constructed program will cost big bucks. If conservatives are serious about equality of opportunity for all rather than stacking the game for the benefit of the few, then vouchers must become an extremely well-funded crusade. And if liberals are earnest about attacking inequality, they should realize that society's compelling interest in education and the interests of the Education Establishment aren't synonymous.

The current voucher movement traces its intellectual heritage to the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, the recently deceased University of Chicago economist (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/17/06, "Milton Friedman: Death of a Giant"). Friedman was not only a brilliant theoretical economist, but he also brimmed with public-policy ideas laced with laissez-faire enthusiasm. In 1955, he wrote an essay promoting the idea of a universal education voucher for primary school students. (You can read Professor Friedman's article "The Role of Government in Education" at www.schoolchoices.org/roo/fried1.htm). It's worth quoting him at length.

Progressive Roots, Too
"Let the subsidy be made available to parents regardless where they send their children—provided only that it be to schools that satisfy specified minimum standards—and a wide variety of schools will spring up to meet the demand. Parents could express their views about schools directly, by withdrawing their children from one school and sending them to another, to a much greater extent than is now possible. In general, they can now take this step only by simultaneously changing their place of residence. For the rest, they can express their views only through cumbrous political channels.…Here, as in other fields, competitive private enterprise is likely to be far more efficient in meeting consumer demands than either nationalized enterprises or enterprises run to serve other purposes."

Friedman's proposal—albeit with one major difference—eventually gathered momentum among conservative think tanks and right-wing politicians. He wanted every family to receive vouchers. Most current voucher programs target specific groups, particularly poor families. For instance, the best-known voucher plan is the Milwaukee program, open since 1990 to low-income households. Still, court challenges and bitter legislative fights have largely hindered the spread of vouchers.

Yet, in much of the controversy surrounding vouchers, a strong progressive narrative has been largely forgotten. It has been illuminated in a fascinating scholarly paper by Georgetown University law professor James Forman Jr., son of the famed civil-rights leader. In "The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First," Forman argues that school choice has deep roots in the civil-rights movement and black nationalism.

Common Goal: Better Schools
He traces that theme back to the schools created by freed slaves for themselves and their children; then to the schools set up during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964; the Northern free schools of the late 1960s and 1970s; the community control movement of the late 1960s; and school vouchers designed by leading progressive educators during the Johnson Administration. Much of this history was in opposition to the Education Establishment. (Click here to read the paper.)

The most intriguing part of the paper deals with the vouchers designed during the Johnson Administration. As now, there was widespread dismay at how inner-city public schools failed to teach most black children "to read and write or to add and subtract competently," as pioneering liberal sociologist Christopher Jencks wrote in a New York Times Magazine article in 1968. "This is not the children's fault," he added. That same year, progressive educators Ted Sizer and Phillip Whitten railed that a "system of public schools which destroys rather than develops human potential now exists.…It does not deserve to survive."

These progressive thinkers may have had little if anything in common with Friedman's economics, but like him they wanted to improve educational equity. And they came to the same solution: vouchers. Jencks and colleagues designed a voucher system that included both public and private schools. The basic value of the voucher was around $7,000 (in today's dollars), but for the poorest families that sum doubled to some $14,000. That compares to the current $6,500 Milwaukee voucher and the $2,250 for the one offered in Cleveland.

Joint Opportunity
Politics killed off progressive vouchers. There was a brief-lived experiment with a modified version of the Jencks plan in a town in California, but it was eliminated early in the Nixon Administration. The program never gathered a committed liberal constituency, and conservatives were always stingier with money.

That dynamic could change, however. Today, there are well-organized conservative backers of vouchers that have achieved limited success. And there are plenty of liberals dismayed at the state of education in inner cities. Perhaps a coalition is possible, taking parallel routes to the same destination, with conservatives backing vouchers and liberals backing higher spending limits. Writes James Forman: "Because progressives have by and large focused on the evils of vouchers, insufficient thought has gone into whether a modern-day progressive vision of vouchers is possible. Instead of asking whether vouchers are good or bad, progressives might do well to consider that vouchers are neither and both—it all depends on how the plan is constructed."

Competition may be anathema to many local school boards and statewide teachers' unions. But business is fed up with the failings of America's elementary and secondary public school system. So are parents, especially in the nation's inner cities. It's time to give vouchers a bipartisan chance.

Farrell is contributing economics editor for BusinessWeek. You can also hear him on Minnesota Public Radio's nationally syndicated finance program, Sound Money, as well as on public radio's business program Marketplace. Follow his Sound Money column, only on BusinessWeek Online.

David Cameron is presenting a "mid-term" review of Tory education policy on Tuesday, just after both Ofsted and Tony Blair have conceded that the Government has failed to achieve its primary objective: to provide a good start in life for every child, including those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Less than two weeks ago, Ofsted found that just over half our secondary schools were failing to provide a good standard of education and Mr Blair announced last week that the number of city academies is to be doubled to 400, a tacit admission of nine years of failure.

Here was an open goal for the Tory opposition, but the response from Conservatives has been lame. The effective opposition has come from one of Labour's half-banished outriders, Alan Milburn, who advocates a voucher scheme that would allow parents with a child at a failing state school to use government funds to buy their child a place in a private school. But why would vouchers help the poor? Aren't they criticised by egalitarians for reinforcing existing patterns of disadvantage? And haven't the Tories just ditched their own voucher scheme as proof of how compassionate they now are?

Once more, Mr Cameron has picked precisely the wrong moment to turn his back on market reform. The evidence that parental choice backed by vouchers benefits the disadvantaged is now so overwhelming that many on the political Left have become converts. In America, the Democrat mayor of Milwaukee has introduced vouchers for children whose parents fall below the US poverty line. Even Sweden, the social-democrat's idea of heaven, has a voucher scheme.

Since 1992, parents in Sweden who are dissatisfied with the local state school have had a right to send their child to an independent school and to receive state funding, now equivalent to the average cost of a place in the state system. Independent schools are free to innovate but they can't charge top-up fees or select pupils by ability. Starting from close to zero, by 2006 there were nearly 800 independent schools providing for about 7 per cent of children aged 7-16, and 10 per cent of those aged 16-plus. Many were created especially to cater for children with learning difficulties.

Controversial at first in Sweden, vouchers now enjoy cross-party support. They are even supported by the unions. The president of the Swedish Teachers Union has said that its members were "a little suspicious at first" but were now satisfied. Moreover, a survey of heads of education in Swedish municipalities found that standards had improved across the board in localities subject to the most competition from independent schools.

Sweden is not alone in encouraging competition from independent schools. Parents in Holland and Denmark have a legal right to state funding if they prefer private education. In the Netherlands, about 70 per cent of pupils attend privately-run schools that are state funded. In Denmark, support from only 40 parents is needed to secure state funding for a private school, and about 14 per cent of pupils attend independent schools financed by a voucher worth 85 per cent of the per-pupil cost in the state sector.

The most systematic evidence comes from America, where state schools are usually run by local school districts and attended by all pupils in the neighbourhood, which gives them an effective local monopoly. Since 1998, the city of Milwaukee in Wisconsin has allowed parents with an income at or below 175 per cent of the US poverty line to claim a voucher worth about $5,000, empowering them to pay for education in an independent school. Thousands have seized the chance.

To test the theory that competition raises standards in all affected schools, Caroline Hoxby of Harvard University studied attainment by Milwaukee's pupils before and after the introduction of vouchers. She compared three types of school: those most subject to competition (with two-thirds or more of pupils eligible for vouchers); those subject to some competition (with less than two-thirds of their pupils eligible); and a group of other Wisconsin schools not subject to additional competition. Compared with the monopoly era before 1998, competition raised standards for everyone, and the bigger the risk of losing pupils to rival schools, the greater the improvement.

Public voucher schemes are only found in a few states, but many others have increased competition by encouraging charter schools. Typically a local school district gives a contract to a group of parents, a charity, or a business to run a school. Rules vary, but charter schools do not charge tuition fees, and are both non-religious and non-selective. The school district pays the school so much per pupil, typically much less than it pays state schools. In September 2006, there were more than 900 charter schools serving over one million pupils in 40 US states.

The first comprehensive study looked at 50,000 pupils aged 9-10 in 2002-03. Charter schools were contrasted with state schools that pupils would otherwise have attended. On average, children in charter schools were 5.2 per cent more proficient in reading and 3.2 per cent more in maths. The performance gap increased with the length of time a charter school had been operating: for reading ability it was an additional 2.5 per cent for schools that had been operating between one and four years; 5.2 per cent for schools 5-8 years old; and 10.1 per cent for those in operation for 9-11 years.

Charter schools were far more likely to have black, Hispanic and poor pupils. Professor Hoxby concluded that charter schools were disproportionately serving students who had "suffered from discrimination" in state schools. One of the striking features of US charter schools is that they receive less funding per pupil than nearby state schools, despite having a disproportionate number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Their relative success evidently does not rest on expenditure per head, but rather on good teaching.

Egalitarians claim that school choice will only benefit the children of the rich, but experience from America and Sweden shows that competition has raised standards for everyone, rich and poor included. If Swedish social democrats and the new-Labour vanguard have spotted the evidence, why haven't the Tories?

David Green is Director of Civitas, which runs Saturday schools for disadvantaged pupils failed by the state system.
 

The number of high school dropouts is reaching crisis proportions. Today, nearly half of all blacks and Latinos fail to graduate.

Dropouts earn about $260,000 less over the course of their lives. They're 72 percent more likely to be unemployed. Among prisoners, 80 percent don't have a high school degree.

The National Education Association just issued a much-ballyhooed 12-point plan to eradicate this problem. But don't hold your breath. The misguided plan is more about shifting resources to the NEA's power base than doing what it takes to ensure that more students will finish school.

First and foremost, the plan calls for $10 billion in additional spending to make ''high school graduation a federal priority.'' The funds would certainly benefit the NEA and its allies, but is unlikely to improve results for students. Federal education spending has already more than doubled since 2001. And numerous studies have been unable to find a relationship between increased spending and better performance.

In fact, the Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek found that when a school is underperforming, extra money is usually wasted.

The NEA would also make it illegal to quit school before 21. But the time to prevent dropouts is early in a child's education -- before they fall through the cracks. Once a student is old enough to vote, smoke and serve in Iraq, it's awfully late to transform him into a model high school student.

Moreover, the NEA's other policy prescriptions -- increased community involvement, education centers for students 19 to 21 years old, workforce readiness programs -- seem destined to become just more failed federal programs. What we need is better results, not more bureaucracy.

The truth is that we already know what works. And the NEA has stood steadfastly against real reform.

Look at accountability, which is the cornerstone of the No Child Left Behind Act. Rather than rely on standardized test scores, NEA leaders have sought to muddle the picture using fuzzy evaluations, portfolio assessments and other inexact measures. The fact is that schools should be required to demonstrate success.

But the NEA derides testing, and not one of its 12 points for curing dropouts would increase accountability.

If the NEA's leaders really want to help students at risk of dropping out of chronically underperforming schools, it would offer them the opportunity to transfer to a school of choice. Study after study has demonstrated that it boosts student achievement in both public and private schools, regardless of socioeconomic background.

In Florida, for example, students can use vouchers to switch out of ''failing'' schools. As a result, public schools have responded positively to the danger of losing students. According to the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene, ''Failing schools that faced the prospect of vouchers made improvements that were nearly twice as large as the gains displayed by other schools in the state.'' And when schools succeed, students are not only less likely to drop out, but more likely to continue on to college.

With such evidence in hand, the National Research Council issued a report during the Clinton administration recommending that the government fund a large-scale school choice experiment. But the NEA's leadership has adamantly opposed school choice -- not because it would harm students, but because the NEA fears it would divert money into less unionized schools.

Performance-based pay is another example of the NEA's obstructionism standing in the way of better education results. In inner-city schools, the best teachers often leave for better salaries, nicer neighborhoods, and less-stressful work. Merit pay, however, makes it possible for these schools to retain good teachers.

In all fairness, the NEA is right about one thing: It's imperative for our public schools to provide disadvantaged students with skills they need to graduate. But now that we all recognize the dropout problem, it'd be nice if the NEA used its considerable influence to support a plan that is more likely to actually get results.

David White is an adjunct scholar at the Lexington Institute, a public policy research organization based in Arlington, Va.

People for the American Way and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of two new school choice programs in Arizona. If they succeed, they'll block an innovative plan to help some of the most at-risk children in society.
In July, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, signed into law two new school choice programs aimed at two groups of children that need better choices: students with disabilities and foster children. The foster children program would be the first in the nation.

The liberal groups now suing to derail these programs say that the new programs violate the state's constitution because some students might choose to attend parochial schools - a charge they have levied against other school choice programs across the country.   

But Tim Keller of the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that defends school choice programs, explains that the programs don't violate the state constitution. "The program is not created to benefit private or parochial schools," he noted. "The program is designed to benefit children. And these children are in desperate need of aid." Moreover, Arizona's constitution has never been interpreted to forbid the state from improving educational options, such as by providing school choice.

How the Arizona Supreme Court will rule is uncertain. In 1999, the court upheld the state's scholarship tax credit program in the face of a similar constitutional challenge. But this is the first time that it will consider the constitutionality of a school voucher program. 

Two things are certain: The ruling will impact thousands of Arizona children and has the potential to affect many more across the nation. The challenges facing children with emotional, physical, or mental disabilities are well known. But foster children are too often overlooked. The new program was designed to address their unique needs.

By any measure, children in foster care are among the most at-risk in our society. Foster children are far more likely to become homeless, incarcerated, or dependent on state services than other children.

A prime reason for these poor outcomes is the challenge foster children face when they are pushed out of state care and into independence, often with little preparation and no support from family. This transition can occur as early as 18. Whether or not a former foster youth succeeds on his or her own depends in large part on success in school. Unfortunately, research suggests that many foster children do not receive a quality education.

To better understand the challenges facing foster children, the Maryland Public Policy Institute conducted focus groups with former foster children and foster parents. The findings of the focus groups are available in a new report released this week.

The report details how former foster children came from "horrendous situations" and spent many years living in the government system, where their lives were unstable. Several of the former foster children were "in a different living arrangement and school every year of their formative years."

Both former foster children and foster parents agreed that foster children face many challenges in school, from the stigma of being a foster child to the lack of smooth transitions when switching schools. They agreed that foster children are at risk to "flounder once they are legal adults. They are not well-educated, and they often have not mastered basic life skills."

Despite the odds, some foster children do succeed. Each of the former foster children interviewed in the focus group attained independence and is now making a positive contribution to society. But they recognized that many of their peers weren't as fortunate.  Both the former foster children and foster parents agreed that more should be done to give foster children better educational opportunities.

Both groups supported the idea of giving foster children scholarships. They also suggested that policymakers should structure scholarship programs to cover additional expenses associated with attending a school of choice, such as transportation. The focus group confirms that more needs to be done to help foster children succeed and that scholarships could be a big part of the solution.

Arizona lawmakers and Gov. Janet Napolitano have tried to do just that. The state's new program, scheduled to begin in 2007, would provide tuition scholarships worth $5,000 apiece to as many as 500 foster children.

Beyond helping hundreds of at-risk children, Arizona's program could be a promising model that state policymakers could use to help more of the 500,000 foster children in America. But we may never learn how scholarships could help at-risk foster children if the ACLU and the People for the American Way succeed in their efforts to block the program before it begins.

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Dan Lips is Education Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, www.Heritage.org.  

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

PUNDITS' PLATFORM. With the new legislative session around the corner, and a new Congress ready to take charge, no issue has gotten more attention than the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. The unions have weighed in, the President has let his stance be known, and people on both sides of the aisle have their opinions on where NCLB should go in the future. But nobody has been more vocal than the pundits in the media, who sometimes parrot the views of the establishment who would rather not have to pay consequences for the use of federal money. Here is a sampling of some of the comments made by editorial boards and on education pages across the country:

"No Child Left Behind - the ill-advised, one-size-fits-all education plan - needs a major overhaul when the new Congress convenes in January…By stripping away the top-down No Child Left Behind mandates, the remaining provisions for testing and standards will prove useful to local school boards and parents as they examine the successes and failures in their schools and classrooms."
- Denver Post Editorial

"The promise of No Child Left Behind - a 100 percent success rate on state achievement tests - is a long way off, if it ever arrives. The disadvantages caused by poverty are deep and enduring, and bringing every student up to even a minimal education performance level is daunting, maybe impossible."
- Austin American-Statesman Editorial

"Margaret Spellings should be warmly applauded for making a bureaucratically complex and demanding law more practical and useful for large urban districts like Chicago. She has put the interests of the students first without regard to politics or ideology, and she deserves thanks and praise from parents, educators and taxpayers."
- Arne Duncan, CEO, Chicago Public Schools, Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor

"There are two parts to the education equation: improving the quality of instruction and encouraging talented young people to pursue education as a career. Undermining school morale by imposing unrealistic and unfairly implemented standards will make it difficult to achieve the latter."
- Martin Frost, former Congressman, Fox News Column

CHARTERS

THE GAMES THEY PLAY. Nobody understands obstacles better than a charter school leader or advocate. So the contents of a new report by prize-winning author and journalist Joe Williams should come as no surprise. The report, highlighted in the Harvard-backed magazine Education Next details the extensive lengths charter opponents in Ohio have gone to stymie the success of charter schools every step of the way. From lobbying against charter legislation to manipulating zoning boards, transportation companies and financial distribution, local school boards and school districts will do almost anything to stop the spread of charter schools and educational improvement. With more than 1 million students enrolled in almost 4,000 public charter schools across 40 states and the District of Columbia, it is clear that these innovative and life-changing schools are here to stay. It's no wonder many school boards feel threatened by the obvious success of the charter school movement nationwide. To read more about the "Games Charter Opponents Play," visit www.hoover.org. These obstacles and more have been catalogued as well in Charter Schools Today: Changing the Face of American Education; Statistics, Stories and Insights, the sequel of which will be released in early 2007.

TESTING

TEST YOUR MEMORY. Despite the incessant claims that more and more testing is hurting student achievement, new research shows just the opposite. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis recently conducted three experiments examining testing and retention of material. With the amount of complaining going on in the newspapers and from the unions about testing, the concept might be hard to fathom. But the evidence is clear. The study found that initial testing can benefit retention of both tested and non-tested related material. Furthermore, the report found that participants who were given additional study opportunities, but no testing, did not show the same retention of information. And for those who worry about teaching to the test: results from the current experiments imply that as long as students have retrieved a concept, other related concepts also receive a boost in retention. Purely and simply, testing helps later recall of both tested and non-tested (but related) material. Click here to download the complete study.

CHOICE

$100 MILLION BABY. Milwaukee's voucher program has stood out for the nation as an example of how school choice can help all students have an equal opportunity at a quality education. And never has that message been clearer than this year. Well, maybe once before. This year, 18,000 students in the city started the school year at a private school thanks to the voucher program. The 3,000 student increase in enrollment was the 2nd-largest increase since the program began. The monumental enrollment numbers - which account for more than 20 percent of the city's students - mean that for the first time $100 million will be paid for students to find the opportunities they need in the school of their choice. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it, "The definition of 'public education' is changing in Milwaukee perhaps more than in any other city in the nation." The increase in enrollment can be attributed in part to an expansion of the law that increased the maximum number of students using the vouchers from less than 15,000 to 22,500. When the cap increased, the demand was there and enrollment skyrocketed, which would be a natural course of any choice reform if caps were lifted and choices were allowed to grow naturally.

UNIONS

DUE PROCESS. Teachers who don't want their money looted by the union have been asking for some form of justice for years. They believed they had that justice in 1992, when Washington State forced the union to get affirmative consent before using non-member dues ("agency fees") for political purposes. Since then, despite some lower court successes along the way, the state's high court ruled that the law violated the union's first amendment rights and the unions were allowed to continue using member and non-member dues for political purposes without the consent of teachers. But the educators persevered. Now those teachers will have their day in the nation's highest court, as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear their case. With the help of the National Right to Work Foundation, a group of teachers filed the opening brief in their appeal, which challenges the Washington State Supreme Court ruling giving the union the constitution right to take dues. "This case underscores why no American worker should be coerced into paying any dues to an unwanted union in the first place," said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.

In Other News

UNIONS AT THE MOVIES. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) have fought charter schools from day one. But on January 17, 2007 at the Goethe-Institut in Washington, DC, the AFT and UFT are holding a screening of their documentary film, "Climbing to the Crest," about "the risk and promise of a teacher-led charter school." The film follows the UFT Elementary Charter School, the nation's first union-run charter.