“School voucher” on The Daily Caller

Unlikely allies have banded together on both sides of the battle over school choice in Pennsylvania. At issue is the hotly contested voucher bill SB1. (more)

President Obama recently spoke at a Virginia middle school on the topic of education reform, highlighting the need to restructure No Child Left Behind before the start of the next school year. Fixing NCLB and returning power to the states is certainly important, but Obama has a more immediate opportunity at hand. Before this school year is even finished, he can boldly lead on a bi-partisan education issue critical to local families in our nation’s capital. (more)

Congress is poised to decide whether aggressive, bold education reform in the District of Columbia will continue at an accelerated pace, or whether the interests of adults will trump the best interests of students. The time has come to put aside the needs of special interests and do what’s right for children — right now and by any means necessary. (more)

In 1993, Sweden introduced a system of school choice and vouchers, inspired by the ideas of American economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Even though the system was just as controversial then as any U.S. voucher proposal, the right to chose your school and bring the funding with you is today considered a natural right for families and is widely accepted by all political parties. (more)

No one can deny the pitiful state of America’s education system. A college degree once signaled true academic achievement and set the recipient apart. Now it has become as banal as attaining a drivers license. The average high school diploma only qualifies the holder to work at Wal-Mart. Many colleges offer remedial classes in response to the ever-growing crop of ill-prepared high school grads. Plato surely would not approve of the lowering of standards and expectations at the Academy. Reforms enacted to remedy the situation, though noble in their intent, fail to address the real problem. Bipartisan legislation such as No Child Left Behind and Head Start accomplished nothing. Pouring money into underperforming school districts makes little to no difference. Charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay for teachers can only achieve negligible-to-marginal success. (more)

ST. PETERSBURG — Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott on Thursday blew the door wide open to the idea of a voucherlike program for all students, saying he’s working with lawmakers to allow state education dollars to follow a student to the school his or her parents choose. (more)

For all his talk of reform, President Barack Obama and his allies have it in for anything not part of the government education monopoly. (more)

In an election season marked by debates over the virtues of the public sector, and amidst claims by teachers’ unions and their allies that private schooling is inimical to good democratic citizenship, a new national study reports that private school teachers are at least as committed to promoting traditional notions of citizenship as their public school counterparts. (more)

Parents of the 216 students in Washington, D.C. who have seen Mr. Obama’s congressional cohorts gut the Opportunity Scholarship program must have found cold comfort from the President’s soothing words on NBC. The Heritage Foundation’s able education analyst Lindsey Burke tells us what Mr. Obama said to The Today Show’s Matt Lauer: (more)

The political guns are starting to come out in South Carolina. (more)

“You should really see me when I’m pissed.” (more)

On Tuesday evening, the Senate rejected an amendment to reauthorize the Opportunity Scholarships program, which provides private school tuition vouchers to 1,300 poor D.C. children. (more)

Across the United States, policymakers are increasingly adopting education policies that give families the power to choose their children’s schools. Nonetheless, the idea of providing school vouchers to allow children to attend private schools remains controversial. For instance, congressional leaders and the Obama Administration have tried to end a successful school voucher program for low-income children in Washington, D.C. (more)

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With CPAC attendees descending on Washington this week, with a new conservative manifesto being penned to protect the Constitution, and with Tea Parties being planned for the spring, I find myself hoping and praying that such small-government fervor infiltrates the ranks of education reformers. (more)

“We have broken through the stalemate between the left and right by launching a national competition on improving our schools.” —President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, Jan. 27, 2010. (more)

Read The Daily Caller’s interview with Arne Duncan here. (more)