BuckeyeBlog

…the EdChoice Scholarship program!  And public schools!  And parents!  And kids!  And most definitely, the free market!

Why are there so many winners this week?  Because the Friedman Foundation is announcing a new report that reveals that school choice is good for everyone.

This Wednesday, the study by Friedman Foundation Senior Fellow Greg Forster of our EdChoice Scholarship Program will be released to the public.  I can tell you that his research of the poorly performing public schools that lost children to EdChoice will reveal academic improvement for the kids left behind in those schools.  He’s not the only researcher to determine this fact, but to have evidence here, in our own backyard, of the success of school choice is truly encouraging.

In fact, the only losers here are the opponents of school choice.  When an EdChoice child succeeds at a private school – he’s a winner.  When a public school student succeeds because competition improved her school – she’s a winner.

So when will the naysayers stop with the ‘doom and gloom’ reports school choice harming the public school system and get on the freedom bandwagon?  When they decide kids should be the priority in education.

Akron Beacon Journal editorial:

Reward the best
A Columbus think tank proposes a plan that should advance an essential discussion about merit pay for teachers in Ohio

Published on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2008

Sooner or later, discussions about how to raise achievement in public schools come down to a simple consideration: the importance of top-flight teachers in the classroom. That leads to another simple but powerful notion that exceptional teaching deserves appropriate reward, as recognition as well as an incentive.

Programs that offer bonuses for excellence in teaching are appealing. They have proved contentious, too. Critics point out, justifiably, that in many instances the pay-for-performance programs are poorly designed, leaving teachers open to unfair decisions that create divisiveness within schools.

All the more intriguing, then, is a new proposal put together by policy analysts at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a conservative think tank based in Columbus. Matthew Carr, the institute’s director of educational policy, argues persuasively that the plan offers the best option (and incentive) to raise the capacity of Ohio’s school districts to recruit, retain and train accomplished teachers. The proposal, comprising best practices drawn from merit-pay programs in effect in Arkansas and other states, would avoid the pitfalls that have made similar efforts at bonuses and differential pay for selected teachers a source of persistent contention.

Read the entire editorial.

Matthew Carr, the Buckeye Institute’s Education Policy Director spoke last Thursday at our “Milton Friedman Legacy in Ohio” event at the Columbus Athletic Club. Thursday would have been Dr. Friedman’s 96th birthday.

Click here to watch Matthew’s full presentation.

(Alternative Formats: Google Video or Blip, and the PowerPoint Presentation)