School Choice
Success at school starts with respect
October 18, 2010
Column: Carol Veravanich, The Orange County
Register Oh,
some good old Aretha Franklin ... R.E.S.P.E.C.T. I am a producer
for PBS Television, so when we received an invitation to see a
screening of "Waiting For Superman," my husband and I jumped on it!
We have an 11-year-old in school and we really wanted to see what
this Superman business was all about. After the screening, we both
had opposite views on the issue. I was shocked! I thought for sure
we would spend our drive home bashing the school system together
and enjoying every bit of it, since the documentary exposed the
flaws...
Watch: Waiting for Supermen" -- Work Hard to Elect Meg
September 28, 2010
Lance Izumi, The Flash Report It’s ironic that it takes a trip to the
movies to shine the light on an ugly truth that has been lurking
for years, but so far has failed to spark the necessary revolution
to fix our schools. The new movie, “Waiting for ‘Superman’”, might
just be that spark. It is a tough lesson for anyone who cares about
the future of our country and our state. We can no longer afford to
complain about our schools and then do so little to make changes.
It’s a national disgrace. In California, a state that considers
itself the world’s innovation factory, it’s a travesty. The big
screen treatment by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim exposes
the brutal facts: We are neglecting our children’s welfare for the
benefit of adults. Our schools are failing our children all over,
not just in less affluent neighborhoods, and many parents don’t
even know it. Our education system is strangled by an inflexible
bureaucracy that effectively smothers innovation and new
thinking…
New K-8 charter school approved for South County
September 14, 2010
Scott Martindale, The Orange County Register
Two former administrators
of a shuttered Jewish elementary school won approval Tuesday to
open a K-8 public charter school in southern Orange County that
encourages kids to work in small groups on long-term projects and
problems. Community Roots Academy, which will open next fall in the
Capistrano Unified School District, will emphasize "project-based
learning," an educational approach intended to boost student
motivation and mastery of a subject…
While Waiting Lists for Charter Schools Grow, Liberals Heap New Onerous Regulations on Them
June 16, 2010
Evelyn B. Stacey (Pacific Research Institute) Flash
Report Last
week, after the governor signed the state’s pro-charter-school
application for Federal Race to the Top funding, the Assembly
passed a bill that would hamper charter school growth. AB 1950 by
Assembly Education Chair Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica) adds
regulations that will hinder the innovative qualities that have
made charter schools successful and popular among parents … As of
last year, more than 20,000 California students are on charter
school waiting lists and the demand for good charter schools is
growing. The Obama administration has emphasized the importance of
innovation in charter schools, encouraging states to remove
obstacles impeding their success. Some California legislators seem
intent on quashing charter school achievement and further denying
families any choice in their child’s education. This will not help
California race to the top in student achievement. AB 1950 awaits a
hearing in the Senate this month...
College scholarship is not for U.S. citizens
June 04, 2010
Deepa Bharath, The Orange County Register
A scholarship in honor of a
27-year-old immigration activist who died in a car accident last
month, will be available to immigrants who are on a path to
American citizenship, but not to American citizens, Santa Ana
College administrators said Friday. The
college's announcement last week that the Tam Tran Memorial
Scholarship could go to illegal immigrants created
a controversy and
drew criticism from community members and Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher…
Scholarship to go to illegal immigrants
May 26, 2010
Deepa Bharath and Cindy Carcamo, The Orange County
Register Santa
Ana College will dedicate a scholarship for illegal immigrant
students in memory of 27-year-old immigration activist
Tam
Ngoc Tran of Garden Grove,
who was killed in a crash involving a suspected drunken driver
in Maine
on May 15. The dedication
will take place during a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tran and
26-year-old Cinthya Felix Perez of Los
Angeles were
both killed in the crash. The friends were active members of
the
DREAM Act immigration reform movement, which aims to allow students who are
in the country illegally the chance to apply for legal permanent
residency, protect them from deportation and make them eligible for
student loans and federal work-study programs…
School choice to high court
May 26, 2010
Editorial: The Orange County Register
Education reform advocates
should have been encouraged Monday as the Supreme Court announced
its intention to decide a case where the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals called into question the constitutionality of a
Arizona
school-choice tax credit
program that provides mostly disadvantaged students with
scholarships to private schools. Arizona's 13-year-old program is
pretty straightforward. Private donors are given a
dollar-for-dollar state income tax credit for contributions made to
school-tuition organizations. These private, not-for-profit STOs
distribute the money as scholarships to students interested in
attending private schools, some of them secular and some
religious…
Breaking the Teachers Union Monopoly - Big Changes Ahead
May 06, 2010
Dick Morris And Eileen McGann, DickMorris.com
A perfect storm is brewing
for the nation’s schools and the teachers’ unions that have them in
a stranglehold. Voter anger at the socialist, big government
solutions of the Obama Administration and its Democratic lookalikes
in state capitals throughout the country is about to combine with
massive education funding shortfalls brought on by the unions’
waste of taxpayer money. These forces will combine in November,
2010 to force gigantic changes in school financing and governance,
leading to the prospect of genuine school choice for the poor and
middle class as the rich have always had…
Education Achievement Has Declined Radically Since World War II
April 01, 2009
Evelyn B. Stacey, The Heartland Institute
John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons
of Mass Instruction is an articulate, compelling description of the
state of U.S. education, in which the author details the
unnecessary and in fact harmful aspects of public education that
have developed since the end of World War II. Gatto notes our
nation’s literacy rate dropped from 96 percent in 1945 to 44
percent in 2003. At the same time, the number of children being
educated by “government compulsory schooling” has increased each
decade since 1945. Student enrollment peaked at 51 million in the
1970s, decreased until 1984, and now stands at 55 million children
and rising. How is it possible for more of the population to be
schooled and yet have a greater percentage of people lack basic
literacy and computing skills by adulthood than in previous
generations? That question is the premise of Gatto’s book. As
schooling became mandatory, he observes, it began stripping
children away from real-world learning experiences…