Opinion
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Responding to the Critics of Vouchers: What about the Kids?
Opinion -School Reform News contributing editor David Kirkpatrick is uniquely qualified to speak as an advocate of school choice. -
A New Strategy for Property Tax Relief
Opinion -Another year has passed without reform of the state's system of financing schools. Republicans once again stopped a "tax swap" plan to lower property taxes by raising the state income tax, this time despite sponsorship of the plan by Governor Edgar. -
Chicago: Viewing Education through a Performance Prism
Opinion -Appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Paul C. Vallas took over as Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools on July 1, 1995. Within three weeks, Vallas had hammered out a new four-year teachers' contract. -
Idaho’s Voice for Parents in Education
Opinion -Dr. Anne C. Fox was elected the state of Idaho's Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1994. -
Death of Tax Hike Is a Victory for Kids
Opinion -Too bad Bernie wasn't here to see it. Last week, a plan to increase Illinois' income tax died in the Revenue Committee of the Senate. -
If You Love Our Children, It’s Time to Find Alternatives to Public Schools
Opinion -The country's growing private school voucher movement owes its birth and a large part of its success to J. Patrick Rooney, chairman emeritus of Golden Rule Insurance Company. -
Community-Based Schools: Educationally and Economically Essential
Opinion -African-American children in public schools are failing in record numbers, crippling their futures and limiting their careers. For some African-American parents, doing nothing about the problem was not an option. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Indiana Legislature Stands Up to Teacher Unions
Opinion -In the 35 years since Wisconsin became the first state to adopt public-sector bargaining, public employee union membership has increased dramatically. -
Escape from the Public Schools
Opinion -When I debated Keith Geiger, president of the National Education Association, a couple of years ago on the Larry King radio show, he used a verb that I thought epitomized the battle over school choice: escape. -
Getting More Bang for our Education Buck
Opinion -The United States now spends more per student on public elementary and secondary education than any other advanced country belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). -
We Spend Too Much on Education, and Get Too Little
Opinion -Why does the world's most productive country have the world's least productive school system? The U.S. -
The High Cost of Rationing Literacy
Opinion -The most recent National Assessment of Education Progress reading test reports that 30 percent of high school seniors, 31 percent of eighth graders, and 42 percent of fourth graders couldn't reach "basic" reading levels. -
Lessons Must Be Learned from Voucher Bill Defeat
Opinion -"Too much of what ultimately matters in a child s education is decided on the basis of political muscle by groups whose primary interest is not necessarily the child. -
‘The Solution’ to Public Education Woes
Opinion -I recently received a letter from the former superintendent of a public school system in Illinois. -
Revitalizing Public Education in Illinois
Opinion -There is no more important issue today than the education of our children. -
Educational Choice: It Really Works in Vermont
Opinion -Since 1869, Vermont has had an educational choice system for students from towns that do not maintain their own public schools or belong to union school districts. -
Michigan’s Teacher Bargaining Law: A Model for Illinois
Opinion -All across America, parents and local school boards are wrestling with a growing problem--the political and economic clout of teacher unions. One state--Michigan- -has finally done something about it. -
Property Tax Relief Should Drive School Reform
Opinion -Assembly Speaker Walter Kunicki and his legislative colleagues are reaping praise these days for what some have portrayed as a bold stroke of innovative policy making.