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IN THIS EDITION |
What to Watch
It's time to break the "machine" that's failing our kids. | Number of the Week
How do likely voters view the issue of school choice? | Quote of the Week
Unions are fundamentally not about the students' best interests. | Don't Miss
State spending on education doesn't lead to better test scores. | |
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School Choice Would Limit Union Power and Free Children to Learn
By Lindsey Burke
Some 350,000 Chicago schoolchildren have spent the past few days either on the streets, sitting around empty school buildings, or at home. Their teachers, on strike at the behest of the Chicago Teachers Union, have been absent from classrooms that should have been filled with the noises of a bustling back-to-school season.
Notably, tens of thousands of their public charter school peers were in class this week, spared being in the crossfire of an education fight that has to do with everything but education. Their non-unionized teachers have been on the job, hard at work.
Yet self-interested union bosses have demanded an accountability-free pay raise over the next two years, further increasing their already inflated salaries. Meanwhile, children enrolled in the public schools have had to put their studies on hold. Once again, government collective bargaining has put the interest of adults before the needs of children.
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| Texas Should Steer Clear of NCLB Waivers
By Rachel Sheffield
In a “surprise” move, Texas announced last Thursday that it would seek a No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver from the U.S. Department of Education.
The Obama Administration’s waivers, touted under the banner of providing “flexibility” and “relief” from the onerous provisions of NCLB, in reality replace the federal overreach of NCLB with more federal burdens. In order to receive a waiver, states must agree to adopt the Administration’s preferred policies, the most concerning of these being Common Core education standards.
As Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency explained, “this allows us to define the waiver request without agreeing to the strings that were attached to the NCLB waiver.”
But when it comes to flexibility and allowing states to create their own path to improving education, the waivers provide anything but..
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Number of the Week
85 Percent
of likely voters in 5 states–Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Nevada–believe “vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs should be available in some form,” according to a new poll commissioned by the American Federation for Children and the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.
Among Latino voters, the rate of support is even greater, at 91 percent. The poll also revealed high support for specific types of school choice programs, such as special needs scholarships (74 percent).
See American Federation for Children What Public Opinion Says about School Choice: An Analysis of Attitudes toward Educational Options in America
| | | Quote of the Week |  | “Collective bargaining is not fundamentally about children. It is about the power and special interests of adults…These interests are simply not the same as the interests of children. And they inevitably lead, through the exercise of union power, to contracts whose countless formal rules are literally not designed to create an effective organization for schools."
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Don’t Miss
Study: States Spending More On Education Doesn't Lead To Better Test Scores
States that spent the most on education between 2009 and 2011 as a percentage of total spending did not produce higher student test scores, according to a new study by State Budget Solutions (SBS). Rather, “states taking a more active role in educational outcomes,” including “developing flexible, practical education plans tailored to state students or prioritizing school district transparency to minimize waste and fraud,” saw better outcomes, reports Bob Williams, president of SBS. See the study >> |  | |
 | About The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute -- a think tank -- whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. | |
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