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[QUOTE=chiefst2000;4495245]Here's a tidbit on Public Education you all might be interested in. Be sure to check out the bolded part.
Morning Bell: School Choice in D.C. Saved…For Now
Amy Payne
President Obama has begun “evolving“ his positions on various policy issues as polls show him neck and neck with Mitt Romney. His latest about-face restores a popular school voucher program for needy children in Washington, D.C.—after he had yanked its funding.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the Obama Administration has agreed to restore funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship for another year.
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which allows children from low-income homes to escape the underperforming D.C. public schools and attend a private school of their choice, has given scholarships to nearly 5,000 children since 2004. Although legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President last year authorized the program to continue for five years, the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2013 went back on his word and eliminated the program’s funding, giving what was authorized for the scholarships to the public schools instead.
In seeking to end the program, the President sided with the teachers union, which consistently opposes policies like school choice that improve student outcomes.
Yesterday, Boehner and Lieberman announced they had reached an agreement with the Administration to restore the program for at least the next school year.
“Thousands of families have taken advantage of this scholarship program to give their children an opportunity to succeed in life, and there’s strong evidence that it’s both effective and cost-effective,” Boehner said.
[B]The D.C. OSP has been highly successful. According to federally mandated evaluations of the program, student achievement has increased, and graduation rates of voucher students have increased significantly. Graduation rates in D.C. public schools languish (hovering around 55 percent), and the public school system ranks last in the country in terms of academic achievement. Yet, students who used a voucher to attend private school had a 91 percent graduation rate. In addition, 89 percent of OSP graduates have gone on to enroll at a 2- or 4-year college or university.
And its cost effectiveness is clear. At $8,000, the vouchers are a bargain compared to the more than $18,000 spent per child by D.C. public schools.[/B][/QUOTE]
It picks a chooses the students they want to be a part of their program. Very similar to charter schools in NYC where the "wink, wink" lottery chooses the highly motivated/highest scoring student over the challenging one. The challenging students are left for the public school teacher to deal with. Just a glorified private school with numbers that make them look good and other numbers that make educators look bad. Mayor Bloomberg "proves" how great schools are improving under him in one breathe and shows other numbers how the teachers and schools need to be fired and closed in another breathe. What is it then?
Ask ANY teacher in NYC if they think schools are better now under Bloomberg's policies and NCLB. I would say that close to 100% would tell you that Mayor Bloomberg and NCLB has destroyed schools. Guess they are all wrong..........
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