August 25th, 2011 by Patrick Kaiser
During a year with countless major education news headlines and reforms, one might expect public opinion on education policy to change. However, the recently-released fifth-annual Education Next–PEPG Survey demonstrates that Americans’ opinions on education issues remains stable – with one notable and encouraging exception.
With similar percentages to last year’s poll, a plurality of respondents still support common education reforms such as charter schools, alternative teacher certification, teacher tenure based on student performance, and teacher merit pay.
The one exception is vouchers, which are government funded scholarships for children to attend the public or private school of their choice. Support for vouchers increased by 8 percentage points between 2010 and 2011, the largest shift in public opinion regarding education over the past year. The change in opinion is the same for responses to a “voucher-friendly” question that emphasized giving parents a choice and a “voucher unfriendly” question that emphasized students going to private school at the public expense.
As one would expect, respondents were more likely to say they support vouchers if asked the “voucher friendly” question (47 percent) than if asked the “voucher unfriendly” question (39 percent). However, regardless of the wording, a higher percentage of respondents said they support vouchers than oppose.
With many commentators declaring 2011 the “year of school choice,” the significant increase in voucher support is not surprising. And as choice opportunities expand, even more families will see the positive impact vouchers have on both scholarship recipients and public schools, hopefully leading to even greater support for vouchers and school choice.
Tags: Education reform, School Choice, School Vouchers
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August 18th, 2011 by Patrick Kaiser
Georgia families continue to demand that the quality of their child’s school should not be determined by their zip code. The latest example happened in DeKalb County, where more than 1,300 students requested transfers from 22 schools that did not make “adequate yearly progress” last year.
Commonly referred to as AYP, adequate yearly progress is a measurement outlined in the federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country is performing academically, according to results on standardized tests. Knowing that their children were attending a low-performing school, these families took an active role in getting their children into a high quality school.
County officials worked through the weekend to try to accommodate all of the requests. However, they were unable to complete all the transfers by the start of school this week, forcing students to return to the low-performing schools they no longer wish to attend.
Intra-district transfers are one of many options available to DeKalb parents. For example, the county is home to thirteen public charter schools. These locally- or state-approved tuition-free schools receive public money, but are granted greater flexibility in exchange for increased accountability.
There are also 84 private schools in DeKalb County, and many provide tax credit scholarships and special needs scholarships.
But even with these options, many families are stuck attending low-performing schools as they wait to hear about a district transfer, and even more families feel they have no choices at all.
Do these children deserve to be stuck in a low-performing school simply because of their zip code? Over 1,000 DeKalb families don’t think so, and they are searching for options.
It is time the county and state provide families with more high quality choices. Whether through increasing the number of charter schools or expanding private school scholarships, DeKalb County students and all of Georgia’s children need access to the high quality education they deserve.
Tags: Charter schools, Georgia Special Needs Scholarship, School Choice, Tuition Tax Credit Scholarship
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July 28th, 2011 by Patrick Kaiser
Last week, business leaders around the country committed over $100 million to a wide range of education initiatives, from efforts to curb dropouts to researching new education technology. The pledges were made during a meeting between President Obama, businesses, and non-profit groups. In addition to announcing financial commitments, attendees discussed how businesses can strengthen America’s future workforce to help the U.S. become more competitive with other countries.
These are important efforts and I applaud these companies for their commitment to education.
Here in Georgia, we also encourage businesses to support education. But Georgia is unique because it is one of only three states where corporations can contribute to education at no cost to themselves.
Under the Georgia Tuition Tax Credit Scholarship program started in 2008, student scholarship organizations (SSOs) can grant scholarships to families which help cover the cost of a private school education. Scholarships are funded by individual and corporate donations. Corporations can donate up to 75 percent of their state income tax liability and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for their donation.
This is a significant way for businesses to directly impact students’ lives by allowing them access to a quality school they otherwise could not attend.
Hopefully as President Obama continues to recruit businesses to get involved in education, he will recognize the importance – and encourage the expansion – of corporate tax credit scholarships for students.
Tags: business, National politics, Tuition Tax Credit Scholarship
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July 8th, 2011 by Patrick Kaiser
Our country’s education system has a direct effect on our economic growth, but sadly, many employers are facing a lack of skilled employees.
Recognizing that education is essential to a strong economy, the Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW) at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce analyzed the K-12 education system in each state and created 50 state-specific fact sheets to provide data on how each state is performing. Each state’s fact sheet looks at nine categories and rates each one as good, bad, or ugly.
Here is a summary of the ICW’s take on Georgia’s education system:
The Good
- Standards – Georgia’s math and English language arts standards are considered strong and in 2010 the state adopted the rigorous, national Common Core State Standards.
- Data System – Georgia’s state longitudinal data system contains all ten core elements that the Data Quality Campaign deems essential.
- Winner of Race to the Top – One of 12 states to win the U.S. Department of Education’s competition in 2010, the state will receive up to $400 million to expand its Performance Learning Academies.
- Charter School Laws – The state’s charter law is often rated one of the best in the nation. However, this was before the recent state Supreme Court ruling regarding the Charter Schools Commission, and Georgia will most certainly fall in the next round of rankings.
The Bad
- Teacher Policies – The National Council on Teacher Quality gave Georgia an overall C- for state policies focused on teachers.
- Return on Investment – Georgia is ranked 31st among all states for its return on investment measured by its students’ performance relative to its per-pupil spending.
The Ugly
- Student Achievement – Georgia paints a misleading picture of how well its students are performing, but using the respected National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), Georgia 4th and 8th grade students have a 34 percent or lower proficiency rate in math.
- Achievement Gap – There is close to a 25-point gap in scores between Georgia’s black and white students on 4th and 8th grade math tests and 4th grade reading tests.
- Graduation Rate – Using national calculations, only 58 percent of Georgia students graduate, well below the national average of 69 percent.
- Dropouts’ Effect on the Economy – The lost lifetime earnings in Georgia for the 2010 class of dropouts alone is estimated to total nearly $16 billion.
Georgia fails in many important measures of education quality. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many others know that immediate improvements are critical to creating sustainable economic growth. Hopefully the state and city Chambers will partner with other state leaders to improve education in Georgia.
Tags: Achievement Gap, Charter schools, Economy, Funding, Teacher quality
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July 5th, 2011 by Patrick Kaiser
There are many reasons why the availability of a quality education is important to society. One of the most significant reasons is the importance of a well-educated workforce for the success and growth of the economy.
No one knows this better than the business community. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the toughest competition in business today is the global race for talent.
With the importance of worker talent, it is vital to ensure our education system is producing graduates ready for college and the workforce.
Sadly, this does not appear to be the case. Many employers are facing a lack of skilled workers and consistently spend their resources on training and retraining their employees:
- More than half (53 percent) of business leaders say their companies face a very or fairly major challenge in recruiting non-managerial employees with the skills, training, and education their company needs, despite unemployment close to 10 percent and millions of Americans seeking jobs.
- The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce calculates that employers spend over $400 billion a year providing both formal and informal training to employees.
- That same study found that by 2018, the postsecondary education system will have produced 3 million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market.
It is clear that the shortage of qualified workers limits the growth of the economy and that many of the available jobs, now and in the future, require high levels of education. In fact, 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs in America require at least two years of post-secondary education.
This is an important reminder that improving education is not only about providing students a better future and more opportunity (though that is certainly the primary purpose). Doing so provides a better future and more opportunity for businesses as well, which makes them stronger and improves the economy in the long run – something we all benefit from.
Tags: Economy, Higher Education
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