A new national poll shows a majority of Americans support school choice measures that would allow families to use taxpayer funds to attend a private school.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll conducted by Noble Predictive Insights found that over two-thirds of the more than 2,200 likely voters polled support giving families choices using public funds.
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Cities with robust charter school programs have drastically lowered the performance gap between low-income students and their peers, a study published in October found.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) found that student performance rose in every city with a majority of low-income students when 33% or more are enrolled in charter schools, according to the report. Non-white students make up a large percentage of those benefiting from school choice policies.
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At the recent Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate, the subject of education was nonexistent. Despite its hot button nature, the moderators did not broach the subject, and some parents are angry.
Michele Exner, a senior advisor at Parents Defending Education, commented that despite student literacy having “hit a crisis point,” those who were already struggling before the COVID-19 pandemic are being failed now. Yet, the moderators did not ask one single question about education. “They completely ignored one of the top issues parents are worried about.”
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Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas announced Monday that the state Department of Education was expanding its education savings program to include veteran and first responder families.
The Arkansas Education Freedom Account program, which was launched in 2023, helps fund families who wish to send their children to private schools or homeschool them and previously included “Homeless students, current or former foster care students, students with disabilities” and “first-time kindergarteners.” For the 2024-2025 school year, “veterans, military reserve members, first responders, law enforcement officers and students from D-rated schools will now be eligible, according to a press release.
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Candidates who support school choice won big in Republican primaries Tuesday night in Texas. The majority of Republican primary voters also passed a nonbinding proposition supporting school choice.
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A bill that would expand school choice options for parents has been introduced into the South Carolina House of Representatives.
H 5164 would expand the state’s Education Scholarship Trust Fund program for parents who wish to choose which schools their children attend. The bill will also add new application processes to make applying easier for students.
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In just three years, the number of states with universal or near-universal private school choice programs has grown from zero to 10, and the number of students eligible for these programs has increased by 60%. According to the latest ABCs of School Choice – EdChoice’s comprehensive report about all matters pertaining to educational freedom—32 states (plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico) are using school choice as of 2023. Additionally, policymakers in 40 states debated 111 educational choice bills last year alone. Overall, approximately 20 million students—or 36% of all kids—are now eligible for some kind of private-choice program.
But what’s good for children and their families is problematic for the teachers’ unions and their fellow travelers. As such, on January 22—not coincidentally the beginning of National School Choice Week—the Partnership for the Future of Learning released a toolkit, maintaining that “voucher programs are “deeply rooted in segregation, racism, and discrimination.” The PFL, which is comprised of predominantly left-wing outfits—the National Education Association, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Learning Policy Institute, etc.—adds that private schools “do not have necessary accountability measures.”
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Maybe I am on a new year high, but as I consider the West’s cultural renewal, I sense an optimism in the air I haven’t felt for years.
In 2023, we saw a growing public awareness about the dangers and futility of transgender surgery. Alongside that, many woke up to the hypocrisy of the climate alarmists. And building on the success of Roe v. Wade’s demise, many states have now passed heartbeat bills, providing robust protections for many of the nation’s unborn. Surprisingly, pollsters even picked up on a decline in support for same-sex relationships.
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