It's time for Ohio charter, traditional public schools to follow same standards

In 2015 following a series of scandals and reports, Ohio passed a law that revised how charter schools and their sponsors would be evaluated.

Toledo Public School's Pickett Academy
has been in academic emergency, or failing,
for more than a decade. Don't its 
students deserve something better?

The intent was to provide more accountability of the schools and the organizations (sometimes private for-profit companies) that sponsor them, especially in light of several reports that showed certain charter schools were performing worse than their traditional public school counterparts.

The effect of the legislation is that sponsors are being pushed to close non-achieving charter schools. Ohio charter schools - which are all public schools - educated just under 124,000 student in the 2014-15 school year.

According to information from the Ohio Department of Education, as reported by the Columbus Dispatch, as many as 19 charter schools closed this school year:

"Eleven were dropped by their sponsors for poor performance; the eight others closed voluntarily.

"Last year, 14 charter schools shut their doors. Three closed because of failing grades and six for financial reasons, according to state records. The reasons for the five other closings were unclear."

The new law was having the desired effect of shutting down poorly-performing schools.

According to a summary from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, public charter schools are automatically closed under the following conditions:

• Schools serving no higher than grade three: For the 2013-14 school year, will be automatically closed if for two of the past three years has been in Academic Emergency OR has received an “F” in the Kindergarten through 3rd grade literacy measure.

•  Schools serving any grade four through eight, but no grade above nine: For the 2013-14 school year, will be automatically closed if for two of the past three years was rated Academic Emergency AND showed less than one year of growth in either reading or math OR has received an “F” for the performance index score AND an “F” for the value added score.

•  Schools offering any grade ten through twelve: For the 2013-14 school year, will be automatically closed if for two of the past three years has been in Academic Emergency OR has received an “F” for the performance index score and has not met the annual measurable objectives.

 No one really has any objection to these standards.

In fact, a stakeholder group, which includes representatives from the Ohio Association of Charter School Authorizers, the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education, the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Thomas B Fordham Foundation, welcomed that state's desire to implement a Sponsor Evaluation System and increase the accountability of charter school sponsors.

They recently released a list of specific recommendation they believe will help ODE "provide accurate and credible compliance ratings for sponsors in Ohio" by the law's October deadline.

So the state is well on its way to ensuring that all charter schools are held to high standards and are actually improving the performance of the students who attend them - and to increasing the accountability and transparency of the organizations that sponsor and authorize the schools.

But charters aren't the only low-performing schools in the state. Traditional public schools also have issues.

The questions now before Ohioans are these:

If we're going to close poorly-performing public charter schools based on their performance, are we going to close poorly-performing traditional public schools based on the same criteria?

If we're going to force sponsors to be accountable for the schools they authorize, are we going to hold public boards of education to the same standard of accountability for the schools they run?

Why are we establishing two sets of criteria for public schools based solely on their designation as either a charter or traditional school?

If we really want to ensure that all children have access to a quality education that fits their individual needs, shouldn't we hold all schools to the reasonable standards set for charters, especially considering the fact that many of the children most impacted by poorly-performing schools are stuck in them because of their zip code?

Look at Pickett Elementary School in the Toledo Public School District. If it were a charter school, it'd be closed by now.

Pickett's grades for the 2012-13 school year were a D in the Performance Index (overall results of students on state tests) and an F in Indicators Met (how many students measured proficient in reading and math for state tests).

For the 2013-14 school year, the school again scored a D on the Performance Index and an F on Indicators Met. Additionally, it scored Fs in two new categories:  Gap Closing - is every student succeeding regardless of income, race, ethnicity or disability; and K-3 Literacy - are more students learning to read in kindergarten through third grade.

The 2014-15 report card for the school was even worse:  An F on the Performance Index, an F on the Indicators Met, an F on Gap Closing, an F on K-3 Literacy and an F in the new category of Progress, which measures how much the student learns in a year (did they get a year's worth of growth).

Prior to 2012-13, schools had a different rating system.  Pickett has received the lowest designation of Academic Emergency since the 2003-04 school year.  In 2002-03, they were at Academic Watch. The most number of Indicators Met was two in 2005-06 and in no year did they attain the status of Adequate Yearly Progress.

Report cards prior to 2002-03 are not available on the state's website.

So why are 19 charter schools closing this year but Pickett, which has been failing for over a decade, is still "trying" to educate students?

Have any traditional schools in Ohio closed due to low-performance as is required of the charter schools?

Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the Fordham Institute, says answering that question is tricky.

"The criteria isn't the same," Churchill explained. "It's hard to track (closures) back to performance. You'll see districts closing schools due to loss of enrollment or part of an overall financial plan. While low-performance ranking might be a factor in those policy decisions, it's not the primary one."

Churchill called the situation "disappointing."

"You have schools in the district sector that fail year after year and that's a problem," he said. "But Fordham did a study that showed in both districts and charters, when low-performing schools close the kids usually end up at better-performing schools and they actually do better."

Churchill said no one really wants to see a school all boarded up. "But if we're going to make student-centered decisions, there is evidence that (closing schools) helps kids in the long run," he added.

That study looked at school closures between 2006 and 2012 in the top eight urban areas in the state.

The study reveals that children displaced by closure make significant academic gains on state math and reading exams after their school closes. 

Three years after closure, the research found that displaced students overall made the following cumulative gains:

• Students who had attended a closed district school gained forty-nine additional days of learning in reading and thirty-four additional days in math and;

• Students who had attended a closed charter school gained forty-six additional days in math.

Further, the study reveals that students who attended a higher-quality school after closure made even greater progress. Three years after closure, displaced students who transferred to a higher-quality school made the following cumulative gains:

• Students who had attended a closed district school gained sixty-nine additional days of learning in reading and sixty-three additional days in math and;

• Students who had attended a closed charter school gained fifty-eight additional days of learning in reading and eighty-eight additional days in math.

So if kids are better off after a low-performing school is closed, why isn't Ohio applying the same criteria to traditional public schools as it does to charters?

According to ODE, 50 Ohio schools received an F on their actual 2014 Performance Index and 499 received a D. In the Toledo Public School District, there were no As, five Bs, 17 Cs and 27 Ds, including Pickett.

Unfortunately, the data shows that too many of the traditional schools get failing grades and, as Churchill said, "you can't just close all low-performing district schools because a child needs to have some school to attend."

Following multiple news reports in 2015 on everything from mismanagement of public funds at charter schools to bribery convictions for three charter school officials, Steven Dyer wrote at Progressive.org:

Let's do what we can to fix this now. Forget politics. This is about saving kids. And we've got tens of thousands who need to be rescued from this system that has -- in the vast majority of cases -- lost its way amid profits and power.

While some Ohio charter critics may rejoice at this awful spate of stories for the sector, I ache for the kids and parents who this is hurting. They deserve better. And so do the taxpayers who are seeing nearly $1 billion of their state money and hundreds of millions of their local tax money go to pay for and subsidize these operations.

It's a tragedy. An entire generation of kids has now gone through this utterly broken system.  

I shudder to think of the consequences.

Multiple generations of kids have gone through failing and low-performing traditional district schools. It's a tragedy and everyone should shudder to think of the consequences.

Don't the nearly 1.75 million kids in traditional public schools deserve better as well?

National School Choice Week 2015

It's National School Choice Week - a week dedicated to celebrating options students have for an education.

Lest you think this is all about charters, private schools or home-schooling, please remember that charter schools in Ohio are public schools and that choosing to send a child to a traditional public school is still a choice that many parents make.

There's nothing wrong with any of the choice options available to parents these days and since it's supposed to be "for the children," what would make more sense than to allow each child to have the education that best suits them?

That's what school choice is all about:  finding the best fit for a child, regardless of what that fit might be.

Maybe some day we can let actually let the public dollars spent on a child for their education follow the child.

Imagine if K-12 school funding worked more like public funding of higher education - where a grant amount was determined based on a family's financial information and then the children could use that designated amount at any college or university that accepted them.

Under such a scenario, elementary and high schools would compete for students, offering a variety of tracks mirroring the interest of the kids while still ensuring that state minimum requirements were achieved.

Arizona did something like this with their Education Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and it's working well enough that other states could easily learn from them how to duplicate their success.

The state deposits educational funds directly into an account controlled by the parent. The parents can choose how to spend the funds using a type of debit card that is coded to allow its usage only for pre-approved expenses.

Parents can use it for tuition at any school, to pay for college or university courses while their child is still in high school, for online education, certified tutors, testing preparation like for SATs, or even a la carte public school courses (foreign languages, for example). They also have the choice to not spend it and put it toward a future college education. Anything not used in a year is allowed to accumulate.

Think about how food stamp EBT cards work and you'll have a good understanding about how the Arizona system works, except it's education items that are being purchased rather than food.

This is just one example of the many innovative ways parents, politicians and policy-makers are looking at providing a variety of educational opportunities for children today.

So celebrate your school choice options and special congrats to our state of Ohio which leads the nation in education scholarship options!

School voucher programs save billions, audit shows

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

A recent audit of 10 school voucher programs shows a cumulative savings of at least $1.7 billion since the first program was established in the 1990-91 school year.

The Freidman Foundation for Educational Choice wanted to know if founder Milton Friedman’s concept of school vouchers would not only expand personal freedom and improve achievement, but also save money.

To find out, they took a “cautious, rational estimate of the overall fiscal effects of school voucher programs” established over the last 24 years. They warn that the audit is not a to-the-penny calculation, a look at the average amount of the vouchers and the current costs of educating students in the public school system. If the voucher amount is less than the per-pupil educational costs, there is a savings.

In conducting the audit, the Foundation looked at voucher programs that had been in place for at least three years and only went up to the 2010-11 school year, in order to account for any lag in reporting.

Three Ohio programs, the Cleveland Scholarship Program, the Autism Scholarship Program and the Educational Choice Scholarship Program made the cut.  Also included were two programs from Florida and one each from Washington, D.C., Georgia, Louisiana, Utah and Wisconsin.

Over 500,000 students received vouchers with a total savings since their inception of $1,703,864,521.

Their audit also showed that the pace of the savings growth has outpaced the growth of student participation, “rising 675-fold since 1990.”

Many voucher opponents claim that money diverted to the voucher programs “steals” funds from public education. But most of the time, those arguments ignore the fact that when students leave the public system, the school district no longer has to expend costs to educate them, so there should be savings along with the transfer.

The audit also asks “(i)f  one is opposed to school choice because of its effect on the finances of local public schools, does it not also follow that he or she should favor prohibiting families from moving among public school districts?”

School funding is a complicated, with money from local taxpayers and property owners, state governments and the federal government, each often accompanied by various rules and regulations about how it can be used and for what services.  The audit does address many of these factors, including the recent decline in private school attendance. 

But even with all those other factors, the bottom line is that vouchers have saved taxpayers billions, savings which are certainly enough to justify their continued existence.

DC Opportunity Scholarship Program works

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

In 2011, Congress passed the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act which reestablished the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship Program for low-income families in the District.

The OSP provides tuition vouchers so that parents can send their kids to a private school.

While many states have such programs, this is the only one authorized by Congress and, as part of the Act, the U.S. Department of Education was required to evaluate the program.

The first year analysis was released in October – and it has a lot of good news for kids.

Because SOAR expanded the scholarship amounts, the types of students who receive priority for the scholarships and the accountability requirements for the private schools, the report looks at the program from 2004 to 2013 so there is some historical comparison.

The analysis addressed three questions:

1. How many private schools participate and what are their characteristics?
2. What is the nature of the demand for the program among eligible families and students?
3. To what extent is the OSP enabling students to enroll in private schools?

It showed that more than half the private schools in the DC area participate in the program, though the percentage of participation has declined. The study concludes that the 2011 changes did not result in increased private school participation.

However, it also says that 52 schools currently participate, including 33 that have participated since the beginning in 2004. Nine schools that were part of the program transformed into public charter schools and were no longer eligible under OSP. It also found that four of the private schools closed during their participation. Only five private schools actually withdrew from the program.

Other findings about the schools show they added high school grades, are less likely to be religiously based, serve a small percentage of minority students and are more likely to have tuition rates higher than the scholarship amount.

The report also says the private schools have smaller class sizes, a smaller student enrollment and a higher proportion of white students than public schools. But according to program statistics for the 2013-2014 school year, 97.2 percent of OSP participants were African American and Hispanic.

What isn’t surprising is that applications for the program vary based upon available funding.

Most applications were filed the years the program was authorized, when new funding was first available. In other years, OSP funds were used to support continuing students or only replace those who left the program. Without additional funds for new applicants, it’s no wonder the applications were down.

But the report also notes that less than 5 percent of eligible families actually participate. Based on eligibility criteria, estimates say that about 53,000 children would qualify for scholarships. However, there were only 1,550 applicants in the first two years after the SOAR Act was passed.

The report suggests that demand for the scholarships is lagging.

But the American Federation for Children, a leading school choice advocacy organization, says that’s a false conclusion, noting that demand is not the same as applications.

“Applications and new enrollees are lagging because of restrictive implementation guidelines, such as prohibiting eligible children currently in private schools – including those with siblings in the program - from entering the program,” they state in a press release.

AFC also notes that thousands of families are on the waiting lists for charter schools in the District and that many of them are eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship Program.

“In addition,” AFC says, “the OSP new application period closes in late January, before the charter school application deadline, preventing hundreds if not thousands of eligible families from considering the OSP as an option.”

They also dispute the analysis which says that SOAR Act applicants are less likely to have attended a low-performing school or SINI, “schools in need of improvement.”

“During the 2013-14 school year, 98% of enrolled OSP students were otherwise zoned for a School in Need of Improvement (SINI),” AFC states.

“The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program continues to serve the city’s lowest-income families and produce remarkable results,” Kevin P. Chavous, executive counsel to AFC and former member of the D.C. city council, said.

He also said that with some common sense modifications the OSP could be serving another 1,000 children in low-income families next year.

“For a program that has averaged a 93 percent graduation rate, with 90 percent of those graduates enrolling in college, and a 92 percent parent satisfaction rate since 2010, we should be doing everything humanly possible to enroll more kids in this life-changing program,” Chavous said.

Ohio needs more high-quality education seats in urban areas

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Ohio recently changed the way it rates schools, going to an A-F grading system that is supposed to make it easier for parents, taxpayers and the community to understand how well each school performs.

There are two key measurements which quickly communicate the overall school quality: the performance index and the value-added rating.

Performance is easier to understand, since it’s similar to a grade-point average.  It’s a snapshot of student achievement within a school at a particular point in time.

Value-added ratings are a bit more complicated. They are an estimate of the school’s impact on achievement tracked over a period of time. It’s supposed to show if students are improving their performance (actually learning) year after year.

The 2013-14 report cards for the schools with these new ratings were released earlier in October – and the political spinning began:

•          District schools do better than charter schools.
•          Charter schools do better than district ones.
•          Kids are leaving good district schools to go to bad charter schools.
•          Vouchers are evil.
•          We need more money.

You name it and someone probably said it about what the new report cards really mean.

Then along came The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an Ohio-based think tank that promotes educational excellence for every child.

They decided to objectively compare the educational options in the eight largest Ohio cities – Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown – and what they found is disappointing.

High quality urban schools of any variety – district or charter – are not the norm, their report says. And the number of high-quality seats (the proportion of Ohio students who attend high-quality schools) are nowhere near as prevalent as low-quality ones.

Percentage of high- and low-quality seats in public schools, district and charter,
across the Ohio Big Eight urban areas for 2013-14. (Note: does not equal 100% because
medium-quality tier is not displayed.)

“In Ohio’s urban areas,” the report states, “it is safe to say that far more students languish in a low-quality public school than thrive in a high-quality one.”

And what about the public charter schools in those cities?

"In Columbus, 32 percent of its charter students attended a high-quality school in 2013-14. In Cleveland, the figure is 28 percent. The charter-school sectors of Youngstown, Dayton and Cincinnati offer a more-modest percentage of high-quality seats: Respectively, 22, 20, and 18 percent of their charter students attended a solid charter in those cities. Meanwhile, the charter schools in Akron, Toledo, and Canton provide few good charter-school options.”

While all the areas were “plagued” with low-quality charter schools, Cincinnati had the highest amount with 52 percent of low-quality charter school seats, the report shows

But that doesn’t mean that district schools were any better.

In Cleveland, 51 percent of the traditional public school seats were low quality. Cincinnati had 36 percent while Columbus and Toledo had 33 percent low-quality seats.

Overall, the analysis found that charter had a higher proportion of high quality seats (22 percent) than traditional district schools (13 percent). Charters also had a lower proportion of low-quality seats (32 percent) than the 38 percent of low-quality seats found in the district schools.

Why are high- and low-quality seats important?

“…so that state and city leaders can grasp how many good schools must be created, or present ones expanded, to give every student the academic opportunities she needs,” the report explains.

As rigorous new standards and assessment testing take effect, the report predicts that proficiency ratings will fall, but that they’ll provide a more honest view of student progress.

It will be a sobering picture and will only serve to emphasize the need to “dramatically grow the number of high-quality seats in urban communities through whatever means possible – charter, district, or private school choice.”

Need an education reform plan? Steal this one

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

The Wisconsin Federation for Children, the state-based affiliate of the American Federation for Children, wants you to steal their education plan.

In a press release they write:

“Recognizing it takes “hundreds of hours” to draft original plans, today the Wisconsin Federation for Children offered a “ready to plagiarize” education reform agenda. Any candidate is free to copy “limited passages” or adopt the entire plan word-for-word.”

You see, there’s been a lot of news coverage about Mary Burke, the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin, copying large portions of her jobs plan from other candidates for governor.

This is certainly a clever way to take advantage of the news cycle, but it also gives candidates good ideas for education reform.

Calling it a public service, they present their four-point plan as a way to empower parents with quality educational options. They even provided a dotted line interspersed with scissors to make it easier to ‘cut out’ the points and carry them with you.

The copyright free, open source, public domain points are:

• A child's ZIP code or family’s income should not determine their ability to have educational options. Today, tens of thousands of families are currently able to choose a school that meets their child’s needs but more needs to be done. That’s why I will put children and parents ahead of union bosses and I will lift the cap on the statewide parental choice program.
• We need to break down the barriers that deny students with special needs access to quality schools. I vow to provide special needs students in choice and charter schools with equitable funding.
• Because I am committed to education reform and believe that the powerful, entrenched special interests who support the status quo stand in the way of innovation, I pledge to expand the number of quality schools by allowing the University of Wisconsin and Technical College Systems to authorize new charter schools.
• We have a responsibility to educate the public, but the brick and mortar of the building that education takes place is not the paramount concern. Because all of schools are a vital part of the educational landscape here, I will adopt a parent-friendly, comprehensive academic accountability plan for all publicly-funded students whether they are in traditional public schools, independent charter schools or choice schools.

There’s not much to dislike in the plan. Who could argue against equitable funding for special needs students, or expanding quality schools, or accountability for all students regardless of which school – or type of school – they attend?

Perhaps “union bosses” and “entrenched special interests” might object, since they are singled out as entities that aren’t working for the best interests of children, but their own. But education should be “for the children” and not for others who would hope to carve out more money or power for themselves.

So parents, educators, candidates, school board members, school choice advocates, feel free to use all or any part of this terrific plan. And be sure to thank the Wisconsin Federation of Children for doing all the work and sharing it with you.

Corporate tax credits mean more school choice for parents

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Two students whose parents took advantage
of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program.
Photo courtesy of Step Up For Children

There are corporate tax credits for all kinds of things – from making a film in a certain location to providing health insurance for employees. But a corporate tax credit for school scholarships?

Yep – in Florida.  And why not?

The Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship Program grants corporations a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to scholarship funding organizations. The Florida legislature created the program in 2001 as a way to give low-income families a choice in their children’s education.

Under the program, corporations can redirect up to 100 percent of their corporate income, insurance premium and direct-pay sales taxes, 90 percent of their alcohol beverage excise, and/or 50 percent of their oil and gas severance tax liabilities to non-profit scholarship organizations like Step Up For Students.

Scholarships are for kindergarten through 12^th grade students who qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch program.  It can be used to provide tuition assistance to one of nearly 1,500 participating private schools or $500 to help cover transportation costs to an out-of-district public school.

The program was expanded in 2010 to allow more participation by students through an increase in the eligibility thresholds and by increasing the maximum amount that can be allocated. It also indexed the scholarship amount to public school spending.

According to the Step Up For Students website, the bill granting the expansion was approved by a bipartisan majority, which included “nearly half the Democrats, a majority of the Black Caucus and all but two in the Hispanic Caucus.”

It’s not just another voucher program – there’s accountability with it.

All students in grades 3 through 10 must take a state-approved test and a University of Florida research team reports test gains in reading and math. Schools that receive more than $250,000 in scholarship monies must also file a financial report with the state.

In 10 years, the number of participants has grown 643 percent – from 10,549 in the 2004-05 school year to 67,800 in the 2014-15 school year. And 54 percent of those students are from single-parent households.

The majority of the students are minorities and “tend to be among the lowest-performing students in their prior school,” regardless of how well their prior school did in overall performance.

Sounds like a good deal – right?

Not to everyone – or rather, not to those who gets money for public education.

The Florida Education Association, the Florida School Boards Association and the state Parent Teacher Association filed a lawsuit against the program on Aug. 28.

They claim the tax credit program is unconstitutional because it funnels taxpayer money into private and religious schools, which is similar to the complaint made in North Carolina.

And like in the North Carolina case, where a judge ruled the program unconstitutional, hypocrisy abounds.

In 2006, the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program was overturned by the courts. That program granted students vouchers from the state so they could attend private schools. The court ruled the Florida Constitution prohibits using “public monies to fund a private alternative to the public education system.”

But unlike the Opportunity Scholarship Program, this isn’t money from the state – it’s a tax credit just like for contributions to churches or food banks or other non-profits.

No one claims those organizations are publicly-funded – why is the Florida Tax Credit scholarship any different?

Interestingly, the organizations waited until the FTC Scholarship was expanded to higher incomes. They didn’t have a problem with the program when it was just low-income, low-performing students.

Florida Senate President Don Gaetz issued a statement:

“When Florida Tax Credit Scholarships were available only to the very poor, who disproportionately are minority families, and other students with unique needs, the School Boards Association didn’t challenge their constitutionality. These students often bring more challenges to the classroom and require extra help, more individualized instruction and additional resources. It is only now, when the eligibility for scholarships has been expanded and when less-impoverished students can participate that the School Board Association has discovered its constitutional indignation."

But it doesn’t look good for the opponents of school choice.

A 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn said that tax-credited contributions are not government expenditures.

“When Arizona taxpayers choose to contribute to (School Tuition Organizations), they spend their own money, not money the state has collected from respondents and other taxpayers,” the majority opinion read. “…the tax credit system is implemented by private action and with no state intervention. … Like contributions that lead to charitable tax deductions, contributions yielding (School Tuition Organization) tax credits are not owed to the state and, in fact, pass directly from taxpayers to private organizations.”

And it’s clearly a popular tax option, with more than $88 million pledged so far in 2014.

Ultimately, it’s all about the money. The organizations and entities that receive tax funds don’t want to lose funding – even when it’s funding they wouldn’t otherwise receive.

As for the children?

They’re just pawns in the struggle and whatever education best suits them be damned.

Debunking the myths about charter schools

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Graphic courtesy of National Alliance for
 Public Charter schools

Students around the nation have begun their 2014-15 school year and many of them are at charters schools – a school of choice.

But even though charter schools have been around for a while now, there are quite a number of myths about them that deserve to be debunked.

The biggest – and some think the most important one – is that charter schools are not public.

Actually, they are. They’re public schools, the same as traditional school districts operate, though they have been released from certain requirements in order to provide innovation and creativity in the way they teach.

They are not private schools either.

And despite what you may have heard otherwise, the support for charters is growing.

According to a recent PDK/Gallup poll, “(s)even of 10 Americans support public charter schools, particularly when they’re described as schools that can operate independently and free of regulations.”

That’s huge!

But there’s a problem.

PDK/Gallup conducts this polling annually, so they’re able to track opinions over time. Concerned that the description “schools that can operate independently and free of regulations” might be presenting a bias in the question, they decided to ask the question without the descriptor this year.

What they found shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Support for charter schools declined when no descriptor was included, leading the pollsters to conclude that “(m)ost Americans misunderstand charter schools.” And it declined in all groups asked: nationally, public school parents, Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

The poll also tried to determine what, exactly, the participants know about charter schools.

In 2006, 53 percent thought that charter schools were not public. In 2014, 50 percent think they are, but 48 percent still believe they aren’t.

In 2006, 50 percent thought the charter schools could teach religion. By 2014, the number who thought that was true was still high at 48 percent.

In 2006, 60 percent thought charter schools could charge tuition. In 2014, 57 percent still believe that.

Perhaps the most startling result was that 68 percent think charter schools can select students on the basis of their abilities. This is up from 58 percent in 2006.

None of those are true. Charter schools are public, they can’t teach religion, they don’t charge tuition and they cannot discriminate.

Based upon these results, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools decided to embark on a campaign, The Truth About Charters, to help educate the public and, hopefully, see the results of their efforts in future PDK/Gallup polls.

Katherine Bathgate, the director of communications and marketing for NAPCS, said she wished the misconceptions about charter schools were not as high as they were.

“That’s why we’re doing the work we are now,” she said. “It’s why we’re trying to get the word out about charter schools and how they function in the community.”

She’s careful to always refer to them as public charter schools, not just ‘charter schools’ to help address the false idea that they are not public schools and not private schools.

She said she is baffled as to why some believe public charters can discriminate in their selection of students.

“Some inaccurately claim that charter schools can skim or pick the best students,” she said. “They’re tuition free, must accept all students and if more students apply than they have seats for, they must conduct a lottery to see who gets to attend.”

She speculated that perhaps it’s an excuse for why public charters are performing better in general, “because it can’t be the curriculum, structure, or anything else that’s different,” she said.

Except that’s exactly what’s different and enables public charters to tailor their education to the individual needs of the student.

But do they all perform better?

Not all of them, just like not all traditional public schools are bad, she explained, but a great many do.

“Since 2010 there have been numerous research studies and all but one shows that charter school students outperform their public school peers,” Bathgate said. “Sometimes public charters do serve a larger percent of disadvantaged students, especially those who have achievement gaps – sometimes two to three years behind. Data shows that they’re able to close that gap.”

And what about those low-performing charters? In Ohio, some claim that parents are pulling their kids out of good traditional public schools only to send them to a bad public charter.

Bathgate thinks parents should make responsible decisions about the best educational opportunity for their child, but thinks it’s odd that so many worry about poorly-performing public charters, but not poorly-performing traditional public schools.

What about the parents who have no choice but to send their child to a D- or F-graded traditional school just because it’s the only option in their zip code?

“We advocate for strong oversight and accountability – freedom and autonomy in exchange for results,” she said. “And if that’s not being met, it needs to be addressed immediately for the sake of the students. I think it’s important to judge how a school is performing overall, but public charter schools are a school of choice and parents should have the right and opportunity to (find) the public charter school that fits the schedule or the interest of their student.”

The bottom line, she said, is parental choice and the best education for the child.

“Want to make sure that students go to a well-performing school,” she said, “but in the big picture, want to raise the bar for both charters and traditional public schools.”

That’s a goal everyone should be able to agree upon.

Hypocrisy in the NC school choice lawsuit

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

A North Carolina judge has decided that the state’s school choice scholarship is unconstitutional.

Of course the case is being appealed as is the permanent injunction which would put an immediate stop to the program and kick some kids out of their chosen schools.

But what’s unusual about this case is the hypocrisy by those who sued to stop the program.

You see, this school choice scholarship allows kids to attend private schools – including religious ones.

In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly created the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) and provided $10.8 million out of the general fund budget to cover scholarships of up to $4,200 for eligible children so they could attend a private school.

There were more than 5,500 applicants for the OSP so the state held a lottery in June to determine who would get the scholarships.

The fact that there wasn’t enough money to meet the need says a lot.

Applicants had to list the school they wanted to attend. Of the 446 identified, 322 were religious schools and 117 were independent schools.

According to the lawsuit, in 32 of the state’s 100 counties, the only private schools are religious ones, and some of them will only admit students of a particular religion. As of July, the 10 schools with the most OSP enrollees were religious ones.

And that’s the problem.

Certainly, there are complaints that some of the private schools are not accredited by the state board of education and don’t follow the same requirements as public schools when it comes to credentials or degrees for teachers and principals. But part of the appeal of private schools is that they don't have to follow one-size-fits-all criteria.

True, the state constitution does have specific language about public education. But the legislature replaced the $10.8 million it originally deducted from the public school budget in order to negate the constitutional challenge about funding public education.

The bigger issue is religion. And that’s where the hypocrisy comes in.

You see, according to some, the state is funding religion with public tax dollars and that’s a no-no to them.

Except that’s not really true. Technically, the money is going to the child – or rather, the child’s parents – in order to give back to them the state tax dollars they pay toward their child’s education. The parent then chooses how to best spend that money and, for some, that’s in a private religious school.

Karen Duquette, vice president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, said the goal of the program is for every child to have the education that best fits their individual needs. She noted that a similar program for children with disabilities hasn’t been challenged in court and it operates the same way as the OSP.

The intent, she said, is to start educational choice with an underserved community.

“If you like your school, you don’t have to leave it,” she explained. “But if that school isn’t working for you, without some form of scholarship opportunity, you’re stuck in that school. Our obligation is to help every child, whether low income or with disabilities, so every child has access to the education that’s best for them.”

So you’ve got parents receiving funds from the state and then choosing how best to spend those funds and some of that spending happens to be at a religious institution.

How is that any different from food stamps?

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides funds for parents to purchase food. No one tells the parent they can’t exercise their choice and purchase junk food.

And what about TANF – Temporary Assistance to Needy Families?

Under that program, the government hands out cash and the family can spend it in any way that benefits the child, including the parent’s transportation and employment expenses. A parent could choose to use those funds for costs associated with a religious vacation bible school, if they wanted.

Choices abound everywhere. These are just two examples where parents get to choose how their spend government subsidies or handouts based upon their own judgment as to what is best, including religion-related activities.

But no one sues over those decisions, even though some of them are more harmful to children than sending them to a religiously-sponsored grade school.

That’s hypocrisy.

Either parents get to decide or they don’t. And if they get to decide how they spend their SNAP and TANF funds, they should get to decide how they spend their education funds as well.

Fortunately for the children – it’s “for the children” after all – already enrolled for this school year, almost all of the schools will allow them to stay while the permanent injunction against the scholarship program is appealed, Duquette said. She hoped the North Carolina Supreme Court would quickly overrule the permanent injunction as they did the temporary injunction that was previously issued.

The unconstitutionality ruling is also being appealed.

Choices abound - why is k-12 education the exception?

It's National School Choice Week - seven days devoted to sharing the story of parents who were able to make a choice in the best interest of their children. It's also a time to remind everyone that ALL parents should be able to choose the education that best meets the needs of their children.

As I've previously written, school choice takes many forms. This is not an anti-public schools effort as charter schools are public and traditional public schools are often the preferred choice for parents.

Choice is everywhere in our lives. When you go to the grocery store, there are shelves of bread - everything from traditional white to low-fat, high-fiber, cinnamon raisin. Do bread makers think everyone should be forced to choose the traditional white bread?

When you go to the mall there are multiple stores carrying clothes and multiple choices within those stores. When you go to a department store, look at how many types of socks are for sale - even basic white socks have multiple options!

We're not expected to settle for one single option for cars, furniture, tools, computers (laptops or tablets), printers, cameras, internet providers or even browsers. Restaurants, coffee houses, cell phones, gasoline, ... the list goes on where choices abound.

Think about all the choices you make in a day - from coffee in the morning to the television shows you watch at night.

We even have a choice when it comes to college: on-line or brick-and-mortar, two-year or four-year or a combination of the two; opting for the school that has the best reputation in the field we want to follow.

Why is k-12 education the exception?

Why is a choice in educational options the one area where a variety of options is fought?

This is the question those who oppose school choice need to answer. If it really is "for the children" we should not restrict their ability to find and receive the education that best fits them, their learning styles and their goals.

Join with others as we amplify choice and ensure that opportunities are available to all - and that education is not based upon something so arbitrary as a zip code.


For a list of school choice events in your area, go here to enter your zip code.

School Choice isn't just charters and vouchers anymore

The first in a series leading up to National School Choice Week January 26 - February 1, 2014.

I recently attended a conference sponsored by the Franklin Center designed to inform citizen journalists about school choice in advance of National School Choice Week. I thought I was pretty well informed about the subject, but I was wrong.

It turns out that school choice - or education choice as many think it will evolve into - is a lot more than just charters and vouchers.

First, let's clear up some misconceptions. There are six types of school choice currently available:

Traditional Public Schools - (yes, this is actually a choice!) where you are assigned to a school to attend based upon your zip code or neighborhood. Some areas have open enrollment in the school district which allows a child to attend another school in the system based upon request, need or other criteria.

Public Charter Schools - they are PUBLIC schools as well, but with greater curricular independence than traditional public schools and entry is usually by applications and then lottery when applications exceed spots available. For the record, students attending these schools are not hand-picked, chosen or stolen, as some have claimed.

Private Schools - these are often sponsored by a church or other organization and are privately run but often must meet certain state criteria for certification and student test results.

Magnet Schools - these are rigorous public schools that specialize in a certain curriculum. STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and performing arts are two of the most common types. For example, in Toledo we have the Toledo School for the Arts and the Maritime Academy of Toledo.

Home Schools - where children are educated in their own homes by their parents, usually with the support of network or organization of other parents and/or experts.

Online Schools - these can be stand-alone schools are can be used to support traditional brick and mortar schools or homeschooling. They are commonly used by students who are training to be professional athletes or performers with demanding schedules, by students who need flexible learning hours, and to provide GED education for adults or formerly incarcerated individuals.

The point is, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' choice, no matter what other people may say.

The entire premise of school choice is that parents should be able to select the school that best meets the need of their child because what works for one can never work for all.

Every parent makes a choice, whether they realize it or not. It is a choice to send your child to your neighbor traditional public school, as much as it is to send them to a private church-sponsored school or to educate them at home.

What should also be remembered is that making a decision other than the traditional public school does not mean you want the traditional public school to fail or be eliminated. Property values and taxes give every parent and resident a vested interest in the success of their local school systems.

How you get to a school choice is where such things as vouchers, educational scholarships and tax credit scholarships come in.

All are methods by which public funds or credits are used to help cover the costs of the school choice.

Knowing and understanding the options, along with how to take advantage of them, is the important thing so parents can make an informed choice based upon their child's needs. And no one knows their child like they do.

We all know that no one school can meet the individual needs and interests of every child. And no single school should be expected to be the best at every single thing, whether it be STEM or athletics, or be the perfect fit for every child.

But if we accept that we can have numerous restaurants in a community to effectively meet the food cravings and needs, why shouldn't we think of schools the same way?

Why is K-12 education thought of so differently than college? We wouldn't expect all students wanting to attend college to be forced to attend the single institution in their city, would we? Then why do so many reject the *concept* of school choice, even when some of those choices are still part of the *public* education?

Demographics trends

The trends are not on the side of forcing kids into a single zip-code-based system.

Matthew Ladner

Matthew Ladner, Senior Advisor of Policy and Research for the Foundation for Excellence in Education, crunched the numbers. Based upon the 2030 Census projections, the United States is about to see a sizable increase in K-12 students.

Nationally, the under-18 population is projected to increase 11.3 million, from 74.4 million in 2010 to 85.7 million by 2030.

In 2010 in his home state of Arizona there were 1.7 million people aged 18 and under. By 2030, the population of that age group is projected to be 2.6 million. Where are they all going to go?

"If we went to universal school choice in Arizona tomorrow," he said, "the traditional public schools will still see growth."

Ohio's under-18 population is projected to decline slightly - about 100,000 - from 2010 to 2030, while the over-65 population is projected to increase, the Census Data shows. This continues a trend seen from 2000 to 2010.

But there's an even bigger problem for our nation: our aging population. Baby boomers (those born between 1944 and 1964) have already hit retirement age and many states and localities give property tax breaks to retirees, including on school levies, which will continue to reduce the amount of money collected via that means.

Nationally, Census data shows an increase from 40.2 million people over 65 in 2010 to a projected 71.4 million by 2030.

So how are we going to handle more students and less people helping to pay for their education? We really need to learn to do K-12 education "better, faster and cheaper," Ladner said.

It won't be easy but Arizona has found a creative way that other states should pay attention to and consider. And it will change the way we think about school choice forever if they do.

Educational Empowerment Scholarships Accounts

In 2011, Arizona passed a law creating Educational Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA). The state deposits educational funds directly into an account controlled by the parent. The parents can choose how to spend the funds using a type of debit card that is coded to allow its usage only for pre-approved expenses.

Parents can use it for tuition at any school, to pay for college or university courses while their child is still in high school, for online education, certified tutors, testing preparation like for SATs, or even a la carte public school courses (foreign languages, for example). They also have the choice to not spend it and put it toward a future college education. Anything not used in a year is allowed to accumulate.

Think about how food stamp EBT cards work and you'll have a good understanding about how the Arizona system works, except it's education items that are being purchased rather than food.

There are numerous stories about waste, fraud and abuse in the food stamp EBT card program, but the lessons states have learned about that management should help them devise a "robust system of state oversight," Ladner said, including account monitoring and auditing.

The future of choice will be more than just government-funded coupons that allow parents to choose between public and private schools.

"All possible methods of education delivery will compete with each other," Ladner said.

The best thing is that Arizona has already learned some lessons and made some modifications, so states like Ohio who choose to consider a similar process will have an example to follow and won't have to re-learn any of those lessons.

With the changing demographics, the ever-increasing costs and the way technology has us expecting a customized experience, it's time we realized that it's no longer just about choosing a school. It's about how we choose an education - and the options should be endless.

Other coverage

There were a number of us at the conference and I want you to see what others have done on the subject.

While all the links below are excellent articles, this one is my favorite so far because it tells a winning story for conservatives - and I agree with it completely!

A Slam-Dunk Win for the GOP - No, Its Not Immigration Reform

Here is a round-up of the posts from other citizen journalists:

Educational Choice: The Ponderings of My Latest Interest

SCHOOL CHOICE CONFERENCE IN WISCONSIN SHOWS MOVEMENT OFFERS ARRAY OF OPTIONS

Friedman Foundation Study Focuses on How Parents Choose the Right Schools for their Children

Former Anti-Voucher Advocate Now Advocates For Vouchers and School Choice

School Choice is a Winning Issue

School Choice Changes Lives, One Scholarship At A Time

The Common Core Steamroller

Citizen journalists learn about school choice

GOAL Scholarship Parents Appear to be Active Consumers of Private Schools

The Best Public Schools Embrace School Choice

HOPE AND CHANGE IN MILWAUKEE’S SCHOOLS – AND OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

Court awards "win" to disqualified school board candidate, SOS Appeals

Education Reform as a Disruptive Technology

4000+ Lawrence School Children Are Being Left Behind, But There is Hope on the Horizon

Reforming government schools

Schools of Choice: A Human Right to Quality Education for EACH Child

Charter School Only California School as Finalist in National “Race to the Top”

What is School Choice

Quote of the Day - inequality as the outcome of eduction

Next week is National School Choice Week and the Whistle Stop Train Tour will be in Toledo Thursday to celebrate.

In light of the upcoming events, I thought this QOTD was a good way to kick off the festivities, because it really is true.

"True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world." ~ Felix Emmanuel Schelling, (1858-1945) American educator and scholar

Deed restrictions against charter schools ruled illegal

Good news for charter schools in Ohio! Remember when Toledo Public Schools and the Toledo City Council tried to implement a deed restriction in the sale of Libbey HS that would have prevented the property from ever being used/sold for a charter school? As a result of my blog post exposing the illegality of that provision, the deed restriction was removed.

Well, Cincinnati Public Schools weren't so wise and their attempt to do the same thing ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court which ruled the act illegal.

Here is the Press Release from the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law which represented a charter school in the lawsuit:

High Court Rebukes Attack on Cincinnati Charter Schools

CPS Deed Restrictions Against Charter and Private Schools Illegal, Cincinnati Charter Schools to Remain Open

Columbus - Cincinnati Public Schools' (CPS) policy of prohibiting the sale of unused available public school buildings to charter schools and private schools is unlawful and must end, today ruled the Supreme Court of Ohio. This decision rebuffs CPS efforts to shut down numerous successful charters schools in Cincinnati, and is a considerable victory for charter and private school operators throughout the state.

1851 Center for Constitutional Law represented Theodore Roosevelt Community School, a Cincinnati charter school CPS had sued to shut down. Theodore Roosevelt School had purchased an unused school building located in the Fairmount neighborhood, where all CPS schools are in academic emergency, and 80 percent of families are of minority status, and live in poverty. The school opened in August of 2010, and currently serves nearly 300 students and employs 45 staff members.

CPS attempted to enforce a deed restriction prohibiting the use of school buildings previously owned by CPS for use by a charter or private school. The 1851 Center asserted such restrictions are void by Ohio's public policy in favor of school choice, and cheat taxpayers of sales revenue from the buildings.

The Court's decision, authored by Justice Lanzinger, acknowledged held ". . . the inclusion of a deed restriction preventing the use of property for school purposes in the contract for sale of an unused school building is unenforceable as against public policy." The Court added, "[t]he restriction, on its face, prevents the free use of property for education purposes . . . Furthermore, the restriction is not neutral; it seeks to thwart competition by providing that the restriction applies to all buyers except CPS itself."

"The Court's decision upholds a landmark ruling in favor of school choice in Ohio, and against adversarial school districts who attempt to block alternative schools' right to exist," said 1851 Center Executive Director Maurice Thompson.

"Deed restrictions like the one struck down in this case were devised simply to stop new charter and private schools from opening in Cincinnati, so that CPS could retain students and protect its state funds. In its brief, CPS compares itself to a 'gas station' or 'hotel' that has a right to use hardball tactics against its competition. It seems to have forgotten that it's a public school that exists to educate children, rather than amass revenue."

The Court's decision suggested promise for the 1851 Center's overarching approach of using the doctrine "public policy" -- the requirement that contract terms are subject to the public interest -- to nullify government contract terms that attack school choice and reward special interests. While the Court acknowledged that the doctrine is narrow, it affirms 1851's position that special scrutiny should apply to government contracts: "in this case, however, involving a contract between a private party and a political subdivision, there is a compelling reason to support application of the doctrine [of public policy]."

This additional ruling exposing CPS to the loss of millions of dollars in funding from the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC), which requires that school districts follow all state rules related to charter schools. The fate of this funding is still in dispute, in a second case brought by the 1851 Center and the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education, still pending before Judge Ruehlman.

All briefs in the case can be viewed here.

Oral Arguments from the case can be viewed here.

###

School Choice - it's not just for kids

The new short film from ChoiceMedia.TV, "Teacher's Choice," features four American educators who've chosen non-standard paths. Teachers at a charter school, an online school and a parochial school, as well as a teacher at a traditional district school who declined membership in the local union, are the subjects. As the description says:

"Their journeys have only one thing in common -- the options less traveled."

Kids aren't all the same. Neither are Teachers.

It's time they all had choice.

National School Choice Week

Today is the beginning of National School Choice Week - with a goal of "shining a spotlight on effective education options for every child."

There are events across the nation - and you can find one near you by going to PutKidsFirst.com.

School choice is very basic: it consists of 'allowing' (though no one should be granting such permission in the first place) families to select the school(s) that bests meet their child’s needs. Heritage Foundation has published a video the explains school choice, how it can benefit parents and their children and, most importantly, why school choice is needed today more than ever.

School choice is critical because, as the Put Kids First website says:

“kids should be able to read their diploma”

and

“America shouldn’t be 35th in anything.”

but even more importantly

“Because children shouldn’t be condemned to failure because they live in the wrong zip code.”

Take some time this week to learn about school choice and why so many people support it.

The Impact of Ohio's Voucher Program on Public School Performance

From National Center for Policy Analysis comes this summary of a Cato article by Matthew Carr, "The Impact of Ohio's EdChoice on Traditional Public School Performance."

The Impact of Ohio's Voucher Program on Public School Performance

In 2005 Ohio's legislature enacted the Educational Choice Scholarship program (EdChoice), which provides vouchers to students in chronically underperforming schools, allowing them to attend private and religious schools. Matthew Carr, a research fellow in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, evaluates the effects of the EdChoice voucher program on the academic performance of traditional public schools. Specifically, he investigates how exposure to the threat of losing students to the voucher program affected standardized test performance in traditional public schools.

* The largest gains among the traditional public schools were observed in the highest and lowest categories of test performance.

* One hypothesis is that threatened schools chose to focus most heavily on their highest and lowest performers, even though this led to little noticeable change to their overall proficiency passage rates.

* Voucher-threatened schools may be placing their focus on those students most likely to use the program to exit their residentially assigned school, those in the tails of the performance distribution.

Like other studies on this subject, an interesting, and perhaps important, relationship has been discovered between the implementation of a failing schools voucher program and subsequent changes in the performance of traditional public schools. Finding answers to questions about the specific ways in which teachers, students and administrators may have changed their behavior in response to a voucher threat or stigma, and about potential differential effects based on any number of contextual factors, is the next step for research on this subject, says Carr.

Source: Matthew Carr, "The Impact of Ohio's EdChoice on Traditional Public School Performance," Cato Journal, Summer 2011.

For text:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj31n2/cj31n2-5.pdf

Random Thoughts: school lunches, EITC, election mandate

*** I hear liberals and many elected Democrats talk about 'fairness' all the time - usually in the context of "rich people" or "evil corporations" not paying their 'fair share' of taxes. But I never hear them talking about how UNfair it is for people who don't pay any taxes at all to get refunds.

Through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which politicians have publicly pushed in the past, people with lower incomes complete their tax forms, report how much they've paid in taxes and often owe no more or might get some back. But many individuals, because of the EITC, get back more than they paid in.

For instance, a low-income family might actually owe $0 in taxes after completing their tax forms. But a single parent-two child family earning around $12,000 could still get around a refund of about $5,000, according to the Piton Foundation which has been 'helping' working families get their credits for about 20 years.

Also according to Piton, that family could get $1,000 per child for the Child Tax Credit, even if they owe no income tax.

So how, exactly, is it "fair" to just give people money ... because that's what this is - a blatant, outright payment to certain people. This is not money they've paid and they're getting a portion back. In fact, since the government doesn't have anything it hasn't taken from someone else, this is money other people have paid that is then 're-distributed' to people who didn't pay anything.

How can people who advocate 'fairness' ever support such a direct taking from one to give to another? If anyone can explain this to me, I'd appreciate it.

***Too often it seems that when Democrats win, they say it's because the public has spoken and they proceed with the attitude of a 'mandate' to implement their policies and goals. But those same individuals have a different opinion when Republicans win. When the GOP gets elected, they expect 'compromise' and complain - loudly and often - that the Republicans are enacting 'extreme' agendas.

Both cannot be true.

Either you get to enact your agenda when you get elected or you don't. Either you must compromise when you get elected or you don't. Either you have a mandate or you don't. It's hypocritical to say you have a mandate when YOU get elected, but your opponent doesn't have a mandate when THEY get elected.

As President Barack Obama told the Republicans after HE took office, elections have consequences.

*** Banning bringing school lunches from home isn't just about a 'healthier' lunch. A Chicago Public School has banned students from bringing their lunch from home, making them eat the lunch provided by the cafeteria. As the article explains:

But parent Miguel Medina said he thinks the "no home lunch policy" is a good one. "The school food is very healthy," he said, "and when they bring the food from home, there is no control over the food."

He gets it - it's all about control, but apparently parent Miguel Medina doesn't understand that he's just given up control over his child to a public school system. Of course, he fails to understand that he does have control over the food his child takes to school, as he could supervise the packing of the lunch, but that seems to escape him as well.

It's parents like Medina who are the biggest threat, because they willingly give up their parental right and responsibility to raise their children and turn that duty over to a bureaucracy which can do whatever it wants, so long as it can say it's for the child's own good.

Sad...very, very sad.