Tag Archives: education

Is the sequester all that bad for states?

Posted by Rachel Kopec on February 28, 2013

Tomorrow, March 1, 2013, the dreaded and overly dramatized sequester will occur.

President Obama has called the sequester a “meat-clever approach” to cutting the budget. News reports and the president have been telling us that the TSA will shrink and  result in longer airport lines this summer, national parks will close down some of their campgrounds, and the military will be crippled. Further, he has been traveling the states saying that essential state services will also be cut, such as education or law enforcement.

The sequester has forced us to look at government spending a little bit closer to discern the myths from the facts. The good news is that when we dig in, we find these four facts to be true:

  1. States should not depend upon federal dollars to provide essential services, such as education and public safety.
  2. Sequestration will only cut 2.4 percent of a $3.6 trillion budget. Even with the cuts, total spending in 2013 will exceed what was spent in 2012.
  3. The President knew that sequestration was coming, and he has had the opportunity to work with Congress to cut other non-essential spending in lieu of what he now calls the “meat-clever approach.”
  4. Even after the defense cuts, we will be spending more on the military now than during the height of the Cold War.

Sequester

Nobody wants essential services cut, but the hard truth is that the federal government should not be holding the purse strings for any of these services to begin with. Education and public safety should be funded and managed at the state level.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation reported that in January the Texas House of Representatives convened the Committee on Texas Response to Federal Sequestration to prepare for the cuts. After listing the various state programs that might feel the impact of federal budget cuts, the committee concluded its report with this warning about “becoming too dependent on the federal government”:

“The situation we find ourselves in with sequestration should serve as a cautionary tale to consider carefully how much we expand programs on the state level utilizing federal dollars. As recent events demonstrate, the federal government could pull funding at any time and Texas would be left to deal with the ramifications.” Why the Sequester Won’t Be So Bad for Texas

Given the massive national debt, it is more important now than ever for states to take control of their fiscal houses. It’s just common sense– something that Washington politicians know very little about.

Let’s Get Digital: An Education Revolution

Posted by Rachel Kopec on February 6, 2013

Ollie_DigitalLearningIt’s Digital Learning Day today! 

Take a minute to imagine two different scenarios. First, a high school classroom where you take a class taught by a marine biologist from Monterey Bay in the morning and then read the classics with a Yale professor in the afternoon.

Now contrast that with what the majority of students have available to them in the established education system: A science classroom in the public school that falls within his or her zip code. Of course, parents can also choose to send their children to an expensive private school, but that option only works for those who can afford it.

Most teachers in these schools try their hardest to provide the best education they can, but shrinking state budgets, large class sizes, and administrative burdens from local, state, and federal rules and regulations weigh down the public education system.

The good news is that the first scenario is possible and many students are already experiencing it through digital education.

Digital education options include full-time online schools, part-time virtual courses, and classroom- based, blended-learning programs. At least 1.5 million K-12 students participated in online and blended-learning programs during the 2009-10 school year, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. See Ryan’s story for a powerful example.

If we believe that our children are all unique individuals with varying capabilities, backgrounds, and passions, then shouldn’t their education reflect that belief?

Watch and share this story about Ollie and the possibilities of a digital revolution:

“What if, instead of one track, their are hundreds or even thousands of different tracks to take? What if I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted to?”

Students Deserve the Opportunity to Succeed

Posted by Rachel Kopec on February 1, 2013

School Choice Week

Matthew, a former high school dropout from Chicago, and Ryan, an autistic student from a rural town, have something in common.

Their public schools were not working for them.

Several years ago, Matthew Rainey dropped out of high school.

In doing so, Matthew became one of the many casualties of Chicago Public Schools, or CPS – a system in which four out of 10 kids never graduate. But Matthew longed for a second chance.

He received that chance after hearing an ad for a free market-based charter school called Youth Connection Charter School Virtual High School, or YCCS, powered by K12.YCCS is one of Chicago’s oldest charter schools, operating 22 campuses across the city, and is the only charter school authorized by CPS to serve high-risk and at-risk students.

YCCS, one of the 22 campus sites, prides itself on accommodating students’ individual needs by matching their educational level upon matriculation with a uniquely tailored, innovative learning environment.

“[Students are] not just sitting passively in a classroom here,” said Tamara Carpenter, K12 vice president of school development. “They’re actively engaged in moving themselves forward in their goals.”

This environment suited Matthew, who said he never quite fit the set curriculum CPS offers.

“Here you have more of a personal connection,” he said. “At Chicago Public Schools I felt like ID number 43618884. Here I feel like Matthew Austin Rainey.”

Matthew Rainey

Matthew recently graduated from YCCS at the top of his class and was accepted to the University of Illinois, where he plans to pursue a degree in business. And Matthew is just one success story of the free market model.

Ryan Fox is an incredibly bright 17-year-old student from Washington, and he is among the many autistic students whose learning needs were not being met by the one-size-fits-all public school. He was so frustrated trying to learn by sitting in a regular classroom.

It wasn’t that Ryan couldn’t learn, it’s just that he learns differently. He was finally able to make a breakthrough in his education through online learning.

“I love online learning, it has changed my life. I really believe that in the future, everyone will learn this way. We will all be able to learn from the very smartest people on earth, and we’ll do it at our own pace every day. Our abilities will matter more than our disabilities.”

Ryan Fox

Watch Ryan’s story:

Any parent or teacher will tell you that every child is different, so why does our education system not reflect this? Education should not be determined by the federal government, state officials, or the  neighborhood where a child lives.

We can speak out and change the system. States like Louisiana and Arizona have already changed their education systems and allowed charter schools and education savings accounts for parents. For more about school choice options, check out this guide.

Today marks the last day of National School Choice Week, a time when people around the country from all different backgrounds and political persuasions ban together to demand more choices for students like Matthew and Ryan. Will you join students, parents, teachers, Democrats, and Republicans in speaking up for school choice?

 

Who are the guardians of the people’s liberty?

Posted by Rachel Kopec on March 13, 2012
James Madison

James Madison

There exist opposing views on the roles of public servants. One holds that it is government’s duty to ensure freedom from all fear and want, which was made [in]famous in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech. This sounds like a lovely sentiment—until it comes at the expense of personal liberty. We can see this worldview in action with the huge growth in entitlement spending and expressed in the posters of the Occupy movement, i.e. “Where is my bailout?”

The other regards public servants as guardians of the people’s liberty. This idea is rooted in the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among other American founders. Just in case future elected officials lost sight of the founders’ intent, they had the foresight to protect it in the Constitution. Included in this was the federalist structure, or separation of state and federal power to protect personal liberty.

In a speech to Congress in 1789, James Madison said this about the role of state government in talking about our Bill of Rights:

… the state legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operation of this government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a federal government admit the state legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty.

It appears we have forgotten Madison’s lessons. Power is terribly out of balance, and we see an increase in executive orders and regulatory agencies asserting power over the states decade after decade. However, we still can still devolve power from Washington and bring it back to the states—and ultimately back to the people. In fact, there are “guardians of liberty” who are hard at work to accomplish this feat.

Stay tuned as we explore current battles for freedom on this blog:

  • Attorneys General from Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia file suit against the federal government for overstepping the bound of the Constitution. See the list of violations here.

Do you know of any other guardians of liberty?