“I think we ought to give our children the best we possibly can and I think we’re moving in that direction,” says renowned political operative James Carville. ”Yes, I’m very excited about it.”

Reason caught up with the Louisiana native at the New Orleans kickoff event for National School Choice Week (NSCW), which runs from January 22-28 and features hundreds of events around the country designed to increase support for allowing parents to pick what schools their children attend. The Big Easy was the ideal location for the event as all children attend schools of choice in New Orleans, a radical – and so far incredibly sucessful – response to decades of failed approaches and the devasation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Carville emceed an event that also featured performers such as The Temptations, Trombone Shorty, and Ellis Marsalis along with speakers such as MSNBC’s Michelle Bernard, former Arizona education head Lisa Graham Keegan, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Earlier this year Florida lawmakers voted to put a proposal on the statewide ballot which, if approved by voters, would clear the way for state money to be used for student tuition at religious schools.

The same lawmakers also expect the teachers’ union to launch a legal challenge to their proposal. So they passed another law, allowing the state attorney general to restructure and salvage ballot proposals that are tossed out by the courts before voters have a chance to consider them.

As it turns out, application of that law was necessary this week to sidestep a court ruling that temporarily threw the lawmakers’ proposal off the ballot, according to a story posted on Jacksonville.com.

As it stands now, Florida voters will once again get to decide whether public school students can use public money to attend religious schools.

That’s a huge victory for those who believe the people, rather than the courts, should dictate state policy. And it’s a huge defeat for the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, which is fighting to maintain a guaranteed clientele of geographically-trapped students for its members. (more…)

OMAHA, Neb. – An annual poll regarding the U.S. public education system shows that teachers’ unions are losing support among Americans, while the percentage of people that support school reform has reached a record high.

The results underscore the growing momentum behind efforts to expand school choice programs, improve the quality of instruction, and inject accountability into teacher evaluation and compensation.

The 43rd annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools is a fair measure of public opinion, experts agree, with the exception of a poorly framed question on school vouchers which produced questionable results.

Union Power

The poll results show that nearly half of the 1,000 American adults polled about the influence of unionism in schools believe it is hurting public education.

“In 1976, the PDK/Gallup Poll asked Americans if teacher unionization helped, hurt, or made no difference in the quality of public school education in the United States. Back then, only one in four Americans believed teacher unions helped, but a relatively large number (13%) were undecided,” according to the report.

“Today, one in four Americans still believe teachers unions help, but almost one of two Americans believes that teacher unions hurt public schools.”

In other words, the undecided have decided that unions are a toxic influence on public schools. A total of 47 percent of those polled said teachers unions have hurt schools. (more…)

“[Teaching] is the only workplace, the only occupation, where by and large you are not paid, promoted, recognized, measured in any way having to do with your performance, only having to do with how long you’ve been breathing,” says journalist and media entrepreneur Steven Brill.

His new book, Class Warfare, chronicles the rise of a reform movement that’s bringing a measure of accountability and choice to public schools. The book grew out of Brill’s widely read 2009 New Yorker piece about the “rubber room,” a holding pen for New York City teachers who couldn’t be fired after they were removed from their classrooms for poor performance.

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Last week, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN) reviewed the reforms Indiana has instituted since he took office in a wide-ranging speech at The Heritage Foundation. From education reform to challenging public employee unions, Daniels has strived to make government work well. In an interview following his speech, Daniels discussed the reforms he made to state government, the Democrats’ walkout from the legislature this year, and what the federal government can learn from Indiana.

And the effort seems to have paid off. As we discussed in the interview, a recent Manhattan Institute poll revealed that 77 percent of Hoosiers rate Indiana’s government as “efficient.” That’s the highest percentage of any state surveyed and a stark contrast to neighboring Illinois’ 23 percent.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is living in Big Labor’s head – rent free.

The state’s public sector employee unions recently suffered an embarrassing rebuke from voters when four of the six targeted Republican lawmakers survived their recall elections. Big Labor took back two seats, but it was not enough to regain control of the state Senate.

If you thought Big Labor would be chastened by the defeat, think again.

Do you recognize this thug unionist?

The unions are so angry and have become so obsessed with Scott Walker, that a contingency of union thugs followed him to Milwaukee’s Messmer Preparatory Catholic School last Friday where the governor was to read to students and tour the school.

An unidentified union thug tried to prevent the visit from occurring by tampering with the school’s door locks. Media reports indicate that the vandal put super glue and sticks in the locks of eight school doors late Thursday night. Things went downhill from there.

Protestors spent the day on the sidewalk outside the school, chanting and displaying anti-Walker signs, such as “War on Walker, not on workers.” One protestor was even arrested on battery charges.

The protests got so raucous that at least one parent said that she felt unsafe entering the school with her child.

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On July 30th, 2011, teachers, parents and advocates such as actor Matt Damon, author Jonathan Kozol, and historian Diane Ravitch gathered for the Save Our Schools Rally outside the White House.

The purpose of the event: “To put the public back in public schools.”

Reason.tv was on hand to talk tenure, the role of money in education, and whether parents should have the right to choose where their kids go to school.

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Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools and self-described “card-carrying, life-long Democrat,” said she was instinctively opposed to school vouchers because she was “on the side of the workers.”

In her former line of thinking, teachers’ unions oppose vouchers and teachers’ unions support Democrats, so Democrats should oppose vouchers.

Then she realized what vouchers were doing for the lives of those the teachers’ unions purport to care about.

She said she talked to parents who had researched their neighborhood school, figured out that it was a “failing school,” tried to move their child to a better school but were unable to due to enrollment caps.  Parents, unwilling to send their kids to a failing school, would ask Rhee what to do.

Using her own children as a guide, Rhee determined if she would not send her kids to a particular school, she should not expect other parents to, either.

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Last week, I told you about an Indiana teacher who compared the state’s new education reform initiatives to the Holocaust.

My organization, the Education Action Group, responded to this teacher’s email, and told him in no uncertain terms that he was a “dope” for comparing charter schools and vouchers to the Nazi ovens and gas chambers.

Charter schools and vouchers equal this? Yes, says Indiana teacher.

That teacher wrote back to defended his Holocaust comparison this way:

“The reason that this is a holocaust is that it is attacking innocent and in this case defenseless people just because someone or some group can push their own agenda through the political system and those most affected by it cannot do anything about it.  I really do not like to reflect upon the atrocities that were done to my family members.  However, I must admit that extermination is finite, whereby, suppressing a generation that will be generational does not help them or any of us. (emphasis added)

“My true feelings are that I want the best for the children I teach, my own children and all of the children not only of Indiana but of the world.  The actions of the governor are highly offensive to me.  I have always taken my job seriously and aforementioned want the best for them.  As a lifetime Republican, I am offended and embarrassed by this last political session.  Obviously, someone must like what is happening.  I have talked to several people that mirror my feelings that they will really scrutinize who they will vote for in the future.

“Now that you have responded to my e-mail and insulted me and I hope that you feel better for that. Perhaps now you can put aside our differences and stop the mud slinging….”

This teacher (who identifies himself as an agriscience and agribusiness instructor, a Future Farmers of America advisor, and an assistant track and field coach) has clarified his position on why Gov. Mitch Daniels is perpetuating a “holocaust” over in Indiana, and it is this: the Holocaust was bad, but the damage was limited, whereas giving kids vouchers will cause generational damage.

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In his recent address at the National Summit for the American Federation for Children in Washington D.C., Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett made an important point about the state of public education.

“For years, we’ve talked about failing schools,” Corbett said. “Now, in addition to talking about failing schools, we find ourselves talking about dangerous schools. How on Earth –how on Earth—is a child whose own parents see no other kind of school other than a failing school, supposed to learn basic mathematics, reading and literature?”

Many Americans are asking that same question.

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School choice is on the move in Wisconsin, at least in Milwaukee County.

The state Assembly has approved a bill that will increase the number of voucher students in Milwaukee, and increase the number of private schools they can choose from.

But an idea recently suggested by Gov. Scott Walker, to spread voucher opportunities beyond Milwaukee to Green Bay, Racine and Beloit, received a cool reception from Senate President Mike Ellis, as well as several other Republicans.

Ellis also questioned a reform, embedded in the governor’s budget proposal, that would lift income restrictions from voucher programs so all families would be eligible to participate.

That leads me to wonder if some Republicans, once committed to the concept of public school reform, have lost their nerve in the face of obnoxious union rallies and recall efforts.

I also wonder if Walker might have received a more positive response if he had targeted the entire state for voucher eligibility, in the same manner as Indiana. Only expanding to three cities may not sit well with legislators from areas that would not benefit.

School choice is best for all families and students. Every child is unique, and parents are best equipped to choose a school that fits their needs.

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Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed an expansive new voucher law today. It’s a disaster for educational freedom. Read the full explanation here.

The voucher program has been widely praised as a momentous victory for school choice and Gov. Mitch Daniels on the brink of his long-awaited presidential campaign announcement. In reality, the voucher program is a tactical victory for highly constrained choice won at the price of a broad strategic defeat for educational freedom. This program will greatly expand state regulation of and authority over participating private schools.

In our efforts to expand educational choice across the country, we can’t lose sight of what makes that choice valuable; educational freedom and the diversity of choices it allows to develop. School choice is meaningless if all the choices are the same.

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School Choice Week is here, and there are a lot of people trying to spread the good word about the benefits of increasing educational freedom.

But what benefit of choice is best to focus on?

You can make at most a few points in an oped or on talk radio. On TV, and even in print reporting, you’re lucky to get one point across. And with friends and family, and even politicians, you need to keep the focus where it will do the most good.

So, should you focus on how horrible inner-city schools are, how many lives are destroyed in a failing government system? Maybe. Depends on the person, certainly.

But the evidence suggests that the best message overall is one that focuses on the financial benefits of school choice (and this is even before the financial crisis). People think about vouchers and education tax credits differently. And be careful trying to pull at Democratic heart-strings with arguments that choice will increase educational equity for poor kids . . . there’s evidence that it backfires!

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Jay Greene is the author of numerous studies demonstrating that more choice in education leads to better outcomes. A professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a fellow at the George W. Bush institute , Greene is also the author of Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About our Schools—and Why It Isn’t So.

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Greene at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C., to talk about why competition makes schools better.

This interview is part of National School Choice Week, a non-partisan initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform K-12 education.

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As governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, Jeb Bush championed school choice. His first year in office he created a program that offered vouchers to students in failing schools. The program successfully boosted student achievement until it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2006. Two other Bush-supported programs — one that offers tax credits to business that help send low-income kids to private schools and another that gives vouchers to disabled students -– survived the high-court ruling. Bush also expanded the Florida Virtual School, a national model for online public education.

Since leaving office, Bush has promoted his reform agenda in other states. He founded the Foundation for Excellence in Education and serves as co-chair of the Digital Learning Council.

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Bush at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C., to talk about how information technology can help break the education monopoly.

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Another town hall meeting, another embarrassing gaffe by President Obama.  But this time, the President’s honesty revealed an arrogant defiance toward poor, mostly African-American parents trying to provide a better life for their children.

While President Obama was conducting a town hall meeting on MSNBC this morning with Matt Lauer, he was asked (by a parent in the crowd) if he thought his children could get the same education in a DC Public School vs. the elite private school he sends them to now.

His bombshell hypocritical answer caused no ripple and nary a peep from the national media. What a shock…

The following is an abbreviated transcript via the NBCWashington.com.

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President Obama still gets overwhelming support from black, largely Democratic voters. His support hovers around 90 percent despite the economy and high unemployment.

But a new poll out hints that Obama might have lost black voters on policy . . . Obama’s position on education vouchers and merit pay for teachers has no significant impact on black opinion.

Question-experiments in the yearly Education Next/Harvard poll allow us to compare support and opposition to various education reforms when respondents are just asked in the standard way to their levels of support when they are told what President Obama thinks about the issue.

In 2009, informing respondents that Obama supports merit pay for teachers increased the margin of black support for the policy by 30 points. Obama’s opposition to vouchers dampened the margin of black support for them by 26 points. But this year, mentioning that Obama supports merit pay actually decreases the black margin of support by a couple of points and Obama’s opposition to vouchers increases the margin of black support by a few points.

In other words, even core supporters don’t seem to trust President Obama on policy.

The intersection of race and politics is a complicated place; a jumble of socio-economic, ideological, and Party differences. Black Americans are predominantly Democratic, are more liberal than the general population on many issues (although more conservative on some), and on average have lower incomes. All of these characteristics have a major impact on an individual’s political opinions, and they are highly correlated with race in America. What this confluence of correlations translates into is overwhelming support for Democratic Presidents in general and President Obama in particular; 88 percent approval compared to 54 percent from Hispanics and 38 percent from whites.

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Before Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, Orleans Parish public schools were failing miserably. After the storm shut down the public school system completely, there was little reason to be optimistic.

But then something amazing happened.

The state of Louisiana took control over most of the schools in the district and has been chartering those schools ever since. This fall, more than 70 percent of the students in New Orleans will attend charter schools. (Check out reason.tv’s Katrina’s Silver Lining to learn more about the New Orleans charter school revolution.)

And then in 2008, Louisiana enacted the Student Scholarship for Educational Excellence Program, a pilot voucher program designed to allow students in failing schools to attend private schools in the area.

The result: more competition and more choices for parents.

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The race issue refuses to disappear from American politics because problems tied to race persist.

Just as children are often the best witnesses to the shortcomings of parents, so the ill treated are often testimony to a nation’s shortcomings.

Sen. James Meeks (left)

The civil rights movement showed that in a nation which is free, civil, and moral, a few can create a non-violent revolution and change the world when their claims are just and moral, and when they are willing to fight and persist.

Just as that movement, starting with a few black leaders in the 1960’s, showed that our nation was sick and needed to be healed, the same thing is happening today.

A superb example is the remarkable leadership of Rev. James Meeks in Chicago.

Pastor Meeks, the spiritual leader of one of Chicago’s largest black churches, is also a Democrat senator in the state legislature.  Working with both Democrats and Republicans, and with the help of a free market think tank in Illinois, Meeks put together legislation to provide vouchers for kids in Chicago’s worst public schools to escape and attend a private school.

Increasingly, school choice initiatives around the country are being championed at the grass roots by local black leaders, often Democrats, for whom the truth is too straightforward to deny.

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