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Adam Emerson of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute makes some reasonable-sounding arguments as to why states should require private school choice students to continue taking state standardized tests. As supporters of school choice, Adam and I are seated at the same table—we just disagree on who sets the menu. Parents care about more than scores. […]
I grew up in the Lutheran faith, while relatives on my father’s side of the family were Methodist. Faith mattered. Neither side of the family cared much for the rituals and beliefs of Catholics; those practices seemed mysterious, and the fact that during services Catholics spoke a language I didn’t know (Latin) reinforced that idea. […]
Instead of asking a federal judge to get between school vouchers and families in need, Eric Holder and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) should be in Louisiana getting an education on what justice actually looks like. After the DOJ suspended its request for the Louisiana school voucher to be enjoined, it appeared the nation’s second-largest school […]
Historically, American public school districts have been governed by locally appointed or elected school boards, and families (mostly) have been free to live in whatever school district they wished. Several decades ago, this system provided a large degree of choice for many families, but over the past 70 years, choice among public school districts has […]
In “Spinning America’s Report Card,” Paul E. Peterson and Eric A. Hanushek wrote “…progress for American children came to a halt when the Obama administration stopped focusing on student test scores….” In today’s Wall Street Journal, the authors of the Friedman Foundation’s More Than Scores report, Jim Kelly and Ben Scafidi, provide a different perspective on […]
Many Common Core supporters say school choice and Common Core can work together to create the best system. Maybe they can, but school choice for all families must come first, and these two scenarios show why: School Choice First All parents are empowered to choose schools. Schools tailor their curricula and more to fit desires […]
Alabama – Stephanie Linn @StephanieJLinn Last spring the Alabama legislature passed two new school choice programs in the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA): a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income families and a tax credit or rebate for any family that transfers their child from a failing public school to a private school. The Alabama Education Association subsequently […]
For choice to work, one must be free to make it. And for there to be freedom, another must be there to defend it. For being free to choose in so many aspects of our lives, the Friedman Foundation team extends our utmost gratitude and support to America’s veterans. For their benefit, we also applaud […]
The idea that impoverished parents shouldn’t be trusted to choose a good educational option for their children is one repeated often by school choice critics. For instance, Michael Walker Jones of the Louisiana Association of Educators was quoted by the New Orleans Times-Picayune saying, “If I’m a parent in poverty, I have no clue because […]
Common Core State Standards Initiative, national standards, federal takeover of education—whatever you want to call it, we at the Friedman Foundation are frequently asked about it. Here is our position: Parents should have the primary power and authority over their children’s education, which includes both the power to choose any school that they deem best […]