In The States

School Choice State Brief: December 2019

Need a record of school choice legislation and litigation in the states from last month? Our brief roundup has you covered.   Missouri Legislators is Missouri have filed three separate bills to create new educational choice programs. HB 1733 and SB 707 would both create tax-credit scholarship “plus” programs that would allow students to enroll […]

Overheard At #RedForEd: Pay Is Important, But Testing Took Center Stage

By Jennifer Wagner When thousands of people come together to speak out for or against something, it’s a beautiful sight. Rallies and protests are a reminder of our fundamental American right to petition our government for redress of grievances. This week, the Red for Ed movement came to the Indiana Statehouse. Thousands of teachers flooded the […]

The 2019 EdChoice Yearbook Superlatives

The EdChoice team debated and dubbed this year’s yearbook superlatives, including most likely to succeed in 2019. There’s no better time to reflect on recent school choice happenings and look forward to a new year than during National School Choice Week. As we do every year, the EdChoice team got together to vote on yearbook […]

Four Ways Evidence Shows School Choice Can Help Teachers

From the 11-day teacher’s strike in Chicago, the nation’s third largest public school district, to a looming Statehouse protest in Indiana, teachers and their working conditions are making headlines. Teachers’ unions tend to oppose educational choice policies, but there are several ways expanding choice could actually help teachers. Here are the four big ones.   […]

Top Five Questions About Teacher Pay

Teacher pay has made lots of headlines the last couple years, with educators in Illinois and Indiana among the latest to take action to up their salaries. Because K-12 funding is so complicated, we thought it would be a good time to throw out the Top Five questions we get asked about pay. Some of […]

Not All Teachers Oppose Inter-District Busing

In his recent Forbes column, my colleague Mike McShane highlighted new polling data that reveals public school teachers’ negative sentiment around inter-district busing, especially for the purposes of racial and economic integration: To be totally honest, this result surprised me. I would have guessed, perhaps prejudicially, that parents would be the most opposed and teachers […]

Where the “Funding Competing Systems” Argument Falls Completely Apart

The new “gotcha” argument from school choice opponents is that school choice is inefficient. Charter schools and private schools create redundancies by duplicating the services, systems and governing structure of public schools. Some even take it a step further and argue that choice robs from traditional systems, and if it would go away, all that […]

BRIEF: School Choice in the States, July 2019

LEGISLATION AND LITIGATION District of Columbia The Council of the District of Columbia completed and submitted to Congress its budget request act for the new fiscal year. In it, D.C. lawmakers requested $40 million for the program that houses the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. That program is now funded at $15 million and must be reauthorized […]

Five Talking Points on School Vouchers

“How could anyone be for private school vouchers? Aren’t they just a corporate scheme to privatize and defund our public schools?” your mom friend asks as the kids play on the jungle gym. We’re no stranger to loaded questions like these, and you shouldn’t be afraid to speak up for what you believe in. Next […]

BRIEF: School Choice in the States, May 2019

LEGISLATION AND LITIGATION Florida Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 7070, a bill that creates a voucher program for 18,000 children from low- and middle-income families. The cap on enrollment increases by about 7,000 scholarships per year, and priority is given to children from low-income families (earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty […]