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For decades, the word “accountability” brought education reformers together. Today, it’s driving us apart. Our forefathers built the education reform movement on a foundation that all reformers shared: We need to hold schools accountable, so they’ll give kids the education we want them to get. Now we’re discovering cracks in the foundation. It turns out […]
To maintain and grow enrollment, school leaders need to know whether parents are satisfied with the education their children are receiving and the learning environment in which it takes place. Studying parent satisfaction is by no means new; it is often an included outcome in a variety of school choice research as a secondary outcome.1 This […]
School choice opponents have no shortage of unfounded arguments aimed at blocking parents from choosing the best educational fit for their own kids. One of their favorite talking points is that researchers “cherry-pick” data-driven reports that highlight only the most positive effects from school choice. Time and again, the Friedman Foundation and other choice advocates […]
As educational choice grows, so does the evidence proving it works. In today’s release of the fourth edition of a Friedman Foundation flagship report—A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Choice—author Dr. Greg Forster says, “Twenty years ago, before this body of evidence existed, there was some excuse for making policy based on speculation, […]
An Analysis of the Louisiana Scholarship Program Achievement Findings “The approach has been to regard any market failure, however minor, as a sufficient excuse for government intervention. The market has failed, therefore the government should step in. But this is a basic error, because it involves a double standard. There is not only such a […]
This is the second in a two-part series on Nevada’s fiscal climate and educational choice. In the first part of our series, we examined the fiscal effect of Nevada’s educational savings account (ESA) program, finding that schools could save almost $700,000 for every $1 million spent funding ESAs for Nevada students. This is a clear […]
Are school vouchers really a form of “welfare?” Recently, Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign argued in the Beloit Daily News that “truth in labeling” requires labeling the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program the “nation’s first scholastic welfare program” because the taxpayers are “picking up the tab.” Of course, following this logic, the Parental Choice […]
I have some really exciting news to share with you: The Friedman Foundation is changing its name. Why is that “exciting news?” Why wouldn’t we want to keep using the Friedman name? Isn’t it their legacy organization? Milton and Rose D. Friedman The short answer to all of these questions is that we’re doing what […]
If you have ever seen a sentence on the Friedman Foundation website along the lines of “You Might Be Eligible For [a specific education savings account program],” or “You Might Not Be Eligible For [a specific voucher program],” then you have probably taken an educational choice eligibility test. The easier to design eligibility tests ask […]
It’s time to stop treating the problem of educational productivity as a grinding, eat-your-broccoli exercise. It’s time to start treating it as an opportunity for innovation and accelerating progress. – Former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, November 17, 2010 States have been charged with doing more with less in recent years, a state of affairs […]