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.

Report: Parental choice and quality education can go together

From the Buckeye Institute:

PARENTAL CHOICE AND HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION CAN GO TOGETHER

COLUMBUS – Adoption of a student-centered school funding system will ensure all children across Ohio have the same educational opportunities, according to a report issued today by the Buckeye Institute. Such a system will make the differences in local resources for education funding largely irrelevant. In addition, the proposed funding system would not require additional resources and could result in an overall tax dollar savings.

The report is available online here.

“Directly funding school systems is not the same as educating children,” Buckeye Institute President David Hansen said. “A child-centered school finance policy that supports the choices of parents can create higher-quality schools and more equality in the educational opportunities available to children.”

“Public schools are nominally ‘free,’ but pricing, which implicitly occurs through housing markets, fundamentally limits access to better schools and consigns less wealthy families to less desirable schools,” report author and Buckeye Institute Fellow Brian Gottlob said. “The subsequent separation of students along class lines also means that the non-financial inputs critical to good schools, such as peer and family influences, can be even more unevenly distributed than financial resources.”

Gottlob’s research found unequal distribution of opportunity remains even when state aid is targeted at the “neediest” schools. He concluded state money that simply equalizes financial resources between school districts will have limited effects on the root causes of education inequities.

The report outlines an alternative approach that seeks to overcome the limits of past attempts to equalize opportunities. It investigates the combined policies of school choice (in public, charter, and private schools) with financial support that follows the child. The report also focuses on the mechanics and implementation issues of such a system, and demonstrates its fiscal impacts.

Specifically, the report does the following:

* Highlights the need for reform of Ohio’s school finance system;
* Documents Ohio’s level of financial support and compares it to other states;
* Discusses the role of property taxes in funding schools;
* Outlines the basic structure of a child-centered school finance system;
* Presents a basic weighted system of per-pupil financial support and creates a matrix of students in Ohio schools to estimate the expenditures required to fund each child under a child-centered finance system;
* Presents a model to calculate the expenditures required to fund a child-centered system at different levels of per-pupil financial support and under various policy choices;
* Analyzes the implications for property taxes within communities under different policy choices within a child-centered funding system; and
* Estimates how much money businesses and individuals would contribute towards the education of deserving, students after the introduction of a tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations.

The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to individual liberty, economic freedom, personal responsibility and limited government in Ohio.