Education Reform
Kids deserve a top-notch education tailored to their needs. That’s why the Goldwater Institute helped make Arizona the leading state for education choice. In 2010, five Goldwater reforms became law, including education accounts for special-needs students, a school-performance rating system, ending of social promotion, expansion of charter schools, and new certification requirements so that experts in math, science, and other areas can teach their subjects without a teaching certificate from a college of education.
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18 Years of Charter Schools in Arizona: Now We Know
Posted on January 26, 2012 | Type: Blog | Author: Robert MarantoWhen my wife, April, and I first studied charter schools in Arizona back in 1997, they had 222 campuses, a 3.3 percent market share, and heaps of criticism from folks who had never set foot inside of one. Fifteen years later they have 524 campuses, a 12 percent market share, and still plenty of critics.
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Homeschooling: Its Day Has Come
Posted on January 25, 2012 | Type: Blog | Author: Byron SchlomachAccording to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1.5 million students in the United States were homeschooled in 2007. One estimate of homeschoolers in Arizona puts the number at over 35,000. When the University of Arizona considered instituting a minimum SAT score only for homeschoolers, the president of the university resisted. Homeschoolers were the least of his problems when it came to students achieving, since homeschoolers have a proven achievement record in colleges and universities.
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Momentum Building for Parent Empowerment
Posted on January 24, 2012 | Type: Blog | Author: Jonathan ButcherMomentum is building around the country for “Parent Empowerment” — the movement to allow parents to petition, under law, for sweeping changes to their child’s school. Just last week The Wall Street Journal reported on the efforts of “fed-up parents” with students at low-performing schools in Southern California to “take an unusual step: fire the school.” Later this year Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight, Away We Go) and Holly Hunter (The Incredibles, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) will star in the feature film Won’t Back Down, depicting the efforts of parents to turn around a failing school.
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Constitutional Choices
Posted on January 23, 2012 | Type: Blog | Author: Clint BolickWe like to joke around the office that the best way to determine if an education reform is worth pursuing is whether the special interests that defend the status quo challenge it in court. So we knew for certain we were onto something with the idea of Education Savings Accounts when they were hit with a double whammy: a lawsuit against them filed not only by the teachers' union but by the Arizona School Boards Association. (Your tax dollars at work!)
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It's the Same Old Song
Posted on January 11, 2012 | Type: Blog | Author: Jonathan ButcherIn 1965, The Four Tops released a follow-up to their hit single, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” with a number called “It’s the Same Old Song.” It was, actually, nearly the same song as “Can’t Help Myself,” admits singer Abdul “Duke” Fakir, as he and songwriter Lamont Dozier were in a rush to produce something and “reversed [‘Can’t Help Myself’] with the same chord changes” to write “Same Old Song.”
