I attended the School Choice festivities at Loyola Academy in St. Louis, last night. This is the second year for national School Choice activities.
Loyola Academy is a privately funded charter school for at risk youth in the heart of St. Louis City. Their academic achievement and graduation rates are very impressive, but without government mandates, of the state or federal kind, that’s no surprise.
A four person panel spoke on the value of school choice and how to enhance education reform in Missouri, last night. Dick Morris, headlined the panel and clearly advocates for vouchers and charter schools as school choice. While he and the panel spoke to the virtues of parental involvement, freedom from teacher’s unions and local control of schools, they never made the connection that publicly funded charter schools are not independent or free to operate without government mandates when they receive government money. What about common core?
While common core was discussed lightly, by the panel, no one seemed to connect the dots to charter schools. They did, however, make it very clear that charter schools are public schools and voucher money would follow the students where ever they chose to attend. Watch the video.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4PU6TgeTJSo]
Charter schools are the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s race to the top educational reform initiative. Government always seems to have ways to build a better mouse trap when it comes to inventing educational reform, but that mouse trap never includes letting go of the money, so that it is never take from taxpayers in the first place, and letting privatization drive the market in education.
Most still believe education is an entitlement and that government must be the nanny state over your child’s education. Until that changes there will never be true educational reform.
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