Opinion
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Unions the Major Obstacle to Market-Oriented Reforms
Opinion -Those familiar with the school reform movement, and with this newspaper, are keenly aware of the key role--sometimes positive, more recently quite negative--that teacher unions have played in school reform debates nationwide. -
Six Myths of School Finance Reform
Opinion -The Illinois General Assembly is debating whether and how to change the way the state finances its public schools. -
Where High Expectations Are Met … And More
Opinion -Twenty-five years ago, Marva Collins left a public school teaching position to open her own school, in her own home. -
PAVE-ing a Road to Parental Choice
Opinion -Michael Joyce is president of the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. The Foundation is devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles, and values which sustain and nurture it. -
This Environmentalist Opposes More Strict Air Quality Standards
Opinion -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed lowering the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone from 0.12 parts per million (averaged over one hour) to 0.08 (averaged over eight hours). -
Private Schools: Saving Illinois Taxpayers $2 Billion a Year
Opinion -Thank the Lord for the Illinois parents who send their children to parochial or private schools. By keeping their students out of tax-supported government schools, those parents save Illinois taxpayers over $2 billion a year. -
Vermont Parents Sue to Include Religious Schools in Choice Program
Opinion -For more than a century, Vermont has practiced a unique school choice program called “tuitioning.”The practice arose because many small communities in the state did not have their own high school and were not members of high school districts. -
Union Nixes Plan to Reward Good Schools
Opinion -A program adopted by the Philadelphia school board to link teacher performance reviews and pay raises to student achievement was denounced by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers as “vindictive” and “school-bashing. -
School Privitization Needs Better Contracts
Opinion -When the Baltimore, Maryland public school system cancelled its management contract with Educational Alternatives Inc., opponents of the arrangement lost no time in dancing on the grave of school privatization. -
Opinion Polls Show Support for School Choice
Opinion -A recent nationwide survey has found widespread public support for educational choice, confirming the findings of state-specific polls but contradicting two heavily publicized surveys conducted in early 1996. -
Nebraska Rejects Funding Initiatives
Opinion -Nebraska voters on November 5 defeated two initiatives that promised property tax relief and more equitable funding of public schools. -
Illinois Court Rejects Spending Equity Suit
Opinion -On October 18, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in a divided opinion that the state’s system for funding education does not violate the state’s constitution. -
How Would You Respond?
Opinion -Opinion poll results are often largely determined by how the survey questions are worded. If a pollster asks, Do you think the government should help people in need? -
Cleveland Plan Is Constitutional
Opinion -In 1996, six years after Milwaukee, Wisconsin implemented a school choice program that included private but not parochial schools, Cleveland, Ohio started the nation’s second major school choice program. -
Educational Choice in the States
Opinion -Nationwide A nationwide poll conducted by the Gallup organization in August 1992 asked, “Do you want a voucher system to allow parents to send children to any school they want?” Seventy percent of respondents said “Yes. -
National Test Scores Fall Again
Opinion -A new report on test scores designed to measure educational progress shows that the nation’s students lost ground between 1992 and 1994. Scores in reading and writing fell, while scores in math and science stayed about the same. -
Edison Project Schools Show Positive Test Results, Study Says
Opinion -Early data show positive test score results for four schools that began operating last fall as part of the Edison Project, an experiment with privately managed public schools. -
Opinion Polls Show Support for School Choice
Opinion -A recent nationwide survey has found widespread public support for educational choice, confirming the findings of state-specific polls but contradicting two heavily publicized surveys conducted in early 1996. -
How the Private Sector Serves Children with Special Needs
Opinion -Students with disabilities. At-risk students. Adjudicated youth. These are students that challenge the capabilities of schools and parents alike. -
Teachers Unions Defeat Washington Charter Proposal
Opinion -A proposal to create a charter school program in Washington State was defeated by a three-to-two margin on November 5, the victim of what its sponsors say was a campaign of lies and deception. -
Dramatic Drop in Illinois Reading Scores
Opinion -When confronted with an across-the-board decline in state reading scores among elementary and high school students in 1995, Illinois School Superintendent Joseph A. -
Funding Adequacy: Does Spending Matter?
Opinion -In its 1990 lawsuit against the State of Illinois, The Committee for Education Rights, a coalition of more than sixty school districts around the state, including the Chicago Public Schools, contended that the level of per-pupil spending in a school -
Reformers, Make No Small Plans
Opinion -More than fifty books, three hundred articles, and dozens of awards and prizes for his scholarship have made Dr. Herbert J. Walberg an internationally recognized expert in the field of education. He is one of three U.S. -
Whole Language Reading Instruction Faulted
Opinion -In a new report issued by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Dr. James J. Campbell, a Fulton, New York pediatrician, concludes that whole language reading instruction is responsible for a wide range of learning disorders.