Blaine Amendments

Blame my ancestors.

President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) in a speech in 1875 to a veteran's meeting, called for a Constitutional amendment that would mandate free public schools and prohibit the use of public money for sectarian schools. Grant laid out his agenda for "good common school education." He attacked government support for "sectarian schools" run by religious organizations, and called for the defense of public education "unmixed with sectarian, pagan or atheistical dogmas." Grant declared that "Church and State" should be "forever separate." Religion, he said, should be left to families, churches, and private schools devoid of public funds.

Not much has changed in 135 years.

Read more here, if any.

The Greatest Comment Ever In the History of the Seattle Times

I love this, from a recent Seattle Times article on using seniority in layoffs:

Yes - God forbid that you clear out the 'dead wood' and keep the best producers... Only a union mentality would make such an inane statement.

These insane results would not happen if we had a VOUTURE system. Students would take their vouture to the schools that retained the very best teachers - not the schools with the oldest teachers. Let the union-mentality public schools compete for the vouture funding as well. Watch how many kids flock to schools with old dead wood teachers that are there only because of their 'seniority'....

VOUTURES NOW!

I think he was probably trying for "vouchers", but who am I to argue? WE NEED VOUTURES NOW!!!!!!!

Read more here, if any.

Shenanigans on Jay Greene

There’s a blurb in the May 7th Education Week on a new study done by the frequently wrong Jay Greene. His analysis of his own report:

“Our results from evaluating Florida’s McKay program provide additional evidence that rather than being harmed, public schools respond to the challenge of exposure to school choice by improving the education they provide.”

See? School choice works, vouchers are good for kids, the free market will indeed solve all, and Keynes deserves to be in the same pantheon of education gods as Dewey, Kozol, and Vgotsgy. But wait a minute....

McKay Scholarships are available for students with individualized education programs, which are required under federal law for students with disabilities. The vouchers let recipients attend public schools of their choice or private schools that accept the vouchers.

Are you getting a sense, then, of why schools that have a lot of kids leaving with McKay vouchers might be seeing an increase in test scores?

I’m sure that if I bothered to read the report (The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement: Evidence From Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program) I’d find an awful lot about isolating variables and controlling for factors and ANOVA and the many other statistical tricks that can be used to make a point, but I have a feeling that the gut-level instinct is all I really need on this one.

Read more here, if any.