Letter: Drop-outs deserve school choice

I am a high school drop-out.

Despite graduating from college with honors, earning two graduate degrees and professional success, my status as a high school drop-out is difficult to admit, even to myself. It fills me with embarrassment and shame due to common misconceptions, namely that we drop-outs are dumb, lazy, apathetic, and untalented.

We’re not.

As our nation marks National Dropout Prevention Month in October, we should empower drop-outs with the second chance at diplomas they deserve. They don’t require pity. They do require school choice options. Online charter schools serve as a critical last resort for many students who are simply out of options. These schools welcome society’s most vulnerable youth and offer them another shot at education, gainful employment and financial success.

Online charter schools provide such alternatives but seem to be under siege in the court of public opinion when it comes to graduation rates. Such criticism is overly-simplistic.

Read the rest of the letter here. 

Five life lessons students should be developing in school

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education Secretary John B. King, Jr. said: “a well-rounded education helps kids make that incredibly important connection between their studies, their curiosities, and their passions, and the skills they need to become sophisticated thinkers.”

Education is so much more than learning basics like multiplication and vocabulary, although high-quality academics are, of course, important. By providing a well-rounded academic experience, teachers and administrators help students learn lessons for a lifetime. The following are five critical life skills that students should be developing as part of their schooling experience:

Keep reading here. 

Mentors make the difference in online learning

BY NEIL MORAN

Because of the very technology involved in its delivery, online learning offers students a unique opportunity to personalize their education. As long as they have a Wi-Fi connection, students can use their laptops, smartphones or tablets to dive into their studies from virtually anywhere, at any time, tailoring their studies to their schedules and their interests.

School districts also see the potential of online education as a way of personalizing the learning experience for an increasingly diverse population of students with a broad range of needs — from types of classes they seek to the native languages they speak. And that same technology can be used to collect and assess a student’s success — or lack thereof.

Since 2006, Michigan has required all K-12 students to have an online learning experience before graduating from high school.

Technology is only a tool, though. For students to fully personalize their online learning experience, it’s important they connect in a meaningful way with other students and, more importantly, their teachers. 

Read more here.

An American tragedy: The real cost of denying people choice in education

By CARRIE SHEFFIELD

As Charlotte, N.C. erupted into racially-charged riots, sadly the conversation hasn’t turned to concrete ways to mitigate the cultural and socioeconomic forces that trap many people of color in failing schools. And once these kids fail in school, this ensnares them in a downward spiral. As the American Psychological Association reports, compared to high school graduates, dropouts are less likely find a job and earn a living wage, and more likely to be poor, suffer from a variety of adverse health outcomes, rely on public assistance, engage in crime and generate other social costs borne by taxpayers.

In Charlotte, the Observer reports that 43 of 165 schools had overall pass rates below 50 percent and that last year those schools served 33,500 students, most of them poor and 95 percent of them nonwhite. With such a failing system, it’s no wonder that the city is on edge. Schools in Baltimore and Ferguson have similar outcomes. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, yet when children of color from poor backgrounds are entrapped in failing schools it’s no wonder that years later we find them rioting in the streets. Right now, we don’t empower parents the choice to send their children to better schools. We are an anti-choice country in this respect.

While much is reported, analyzed and even sung about the cradle-to-prison pipeline, we have yet to build a successful national agenda for strengthening the nuclear family and expanding school choice — a value cherished nationwide by millions of parents and children, many of them black and brown. Indeed, that’s why the waiting lists alone for charter schools have more than 1 million names.

Continue reading this article in Salon.com here.

Parents with special needs children deserve school options

By Dianna Muldrow - Special to the American-Statesman

A recent investigative report from the Houston Chronicle alleges that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has systematically lowered the number of students granted special education status in the state since 2004. Using reports from former teachers and administrators, as well as the introduction of a measuring tool for special education populations in school districts in 2004, the report states that the TEA set 8.5 percent of the student population as the maximum for special education populations in Texas.

Continue reading here.

HOW SCHOOL CHOICE IS INFLUENCING EDUCATION

In parts of the country that have thriving education choice programs, schools are working overtime to attract students and parents are able to choose the best education for their child. It has not always been this way and in many places these options still do not exist. For more than 100 years, we treated education the same: students are assigned a public school based solely on their zip code and the school district they happen to be zoned for. There were no considerations for what school may be the best fit for that child or if they have a specific program that child needs. And for many, that worked- and continues to work- just fine.

Read the rest of this article here.

Having a choice in educational options for my children

By Tiffany Gee Lewis

 

My elementary-aged boys began their first day of school in a new location last week.

They’re enrolled at an innovative charter school that meets once a week to receive a week’s worth of instruction. Through home-linked assignments, we complete the week’s assignments at home.

The jury is still out on whether this particular model will work for us (it’s a ton of work), but it’s been an adventure to try something new and innovative. The school is organized and well-planned and celebrating its 10th year, a success story in the world of charter schools.

Since my children started their formal education, we have tried it all: traditional public school, home school, private school, charter and now this home-school/charter hybrid.

I have been, above all, grateful for the choice. Recognizing that education is not one size fits all, we’ve been able to experiment with varied learning models and curriculums.

Read more by clicking here.