1. Celebrate the Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman
2. Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
3. Philadelphia’s Educational Structure
4. Home Schooling: A Surprising Success
5. The VT State Board of Education and Online Learning

Vermonters to Celebrate Milton Friedman’s 95th Birthday
Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

Dr. Friedman, a former Vermont resident (Ely), pioneered the ideas of parental choice in education and the volunteer army. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his path-breaking explanation of monetary policy mistakes that led to the Great Depression.

The dinner, sponsored by the Ethan Allen Institute and Vermonters for Better Education, will be held Tuesday, July 31, at the Windjammer Restaurant on Williston Road in South Burlington. The date is the 95th anniversary of Dr. Friedman’s birth, and will be marked by similar events in many other states around the country.

The dinner is open to all who are interested in the ideas of freedom and free markets. Reservations (by July 28) are essential. Please reserve your seat by calling or emailing the Ethan Allen Institute, 695 1448 or eai@ethanallen.org. The price is $30, and may be paid in advance or at the door.

Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: 
Impacts after One Year

The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is a pilot program to give some poorer families living in the Washington DC area a choice of schools for their kids. Parents apply for the scholarships and priority status is given to students from schools in need of improvement.

The evaluation states that these students after one year have not shown significant improvements in test scores. Opponents of vouchers are declaring that vouchers have failed. Yet, the evaluation gives caution to such claims. The program is in its third year yet this evaluation only looks at the first year – after 7 months of instruction. The results of the evaluation are consistent with other scholarship programs for low-income students after one year. This is a time of transition for these kids. Examination of the following two to three years will provide more information on how these kids are really doing.

The average tuition charged for the students in the OSP is $5,253. There is a statutory tuition cap of $7,500. The tuition for the private schools willing to participate in the program ranges from $3,400 to $24,545. Only 8.4 percent of the students in the program attended schools that charged tuition above the statutory rate to its other students. These private schools include religious and non-religious schools.

According to a New York Times article, "The $7,500 scholarship that families spent was about half the average public expenditure per student in the District of Columbia public schools." 

This is quite a deal for the taxpayers. They are paying half the cost for the same level result. This is not a failure. Parents are also happier about the schools that their kids are attending. This also is not a failure. Future information about how these kids are doing in the OSP pilot will be forthcoming. Other such programs have shown improvement in educational quality not only for the kids who left low performing schools but also for kids in all schools (see Philadelphia story below).

If you would like to read this evaluation, you can go to the Institute of Education Sciences, an organization within the US Department of Education Sciences. 

Philadelphia’s Educational Structure

Philadelphia is showing the nation that alternative educational models can and do work. In 2001, the State of Pennsylvania took over the 264 schools in the city and 45 of the lowest performing schools were turned over to private providers. In 2002, only 26 of Philadelphia’s schools met the standards under No Child Left Behind. Now, in 2007, the numbers have risen to 166 according to an article in the June 25th edition of the Wall Street Journal. 

Judging from the Philadelphia results, this turned out to be a viable educational alternative to the previous way of doing things. The current monopoly of the public school system is not the only structure or model that can be used to educate children. Nor should it be. We need to free up innovation and new ideas.

Quote from the WSJ article: "These private providers agreed to honor collective bargaining agreements but were given some control over staffing and curriculum. The idea was to create an entirely new school-management model, one where competition -- among private providers, and between those providers and the traditional system -- could produce innovation and new ideas. That's exactly what has happened over the past five years."

Vermont needs to start thinking outside the box of the public school system to create new and innovative ideas for public education in Vermont in which management models can be more inclusive of all of types of education. 

Home Schooling: A Surprising Success
Editorial – Caledonian Record
Tuesday June 19, 2007

About 20 years ago, an obscure practice in education began to become a movement. Today, it is a major player in education circles all over the country. We refer to home schooling, the choice of single families or small groups of families to reject public schools in favor of educating their own children at home. It has always been there, but until relatively recently, the popular perception of parents who would home school their kids was that they probably were religious nuts or social eccentrics, rather like nudists or communal-living types.

All of that has changed, though. Home schoolers are now mainstream. In Vermont alone, several thousand youngsters are being educated at home, and one of their champions, at least, is sitting on the Vermont State Board of Education.

Read the Full Editorial here

The State Board of Education and Online Learning

As many organizations do, the State Board of Education (SBE) has mission and vision statements. The SBE also has a strategic plan supported by five goals. Within each goal are objectives, which contain strategies and indicators that detail the SBE’s plan for education in Vermont. Each year the SBE picks out a few strategies to focus on that will support their mission and vision. You may read the entire strategic plan at this link (pdf).

Two of the Focus Strategies for 2006-2007 are as follows:

• Develop options/models of technology integration to improve the delivery of high quality instruction to serve all students.
  
  
• Develop options/models for distance learning to improve the delivery of high quality instruction to serve all students.

We do!  Please consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, PO Box 255, Woodbury, VT 05681. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.

The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education PO Box 255, Woodbury, VT 05681 - 802-472-5491. The Vermont Education Report may be reprinted with the editor's permission. For more information contact: VBE@comcast.net or visit us on the web: http://www.schoolreport.com

VERMONTERS FOR BETTER EDUCATION is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence.

Retta Dunlap, executive director
VBE@comcast.net