IALA » U.S. Dept. of Educ.

Research on School Choice

Wayne Jennings — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:59:04 +0000

The National Center on School Choice conducts scholarly research on school choice including such topics as: charter schools, magnet schools, voucher programs, private schools and inter/intra distict choice. The center located at Vanderbilt University is funded ($13.5 million) by the USDE Institute of Education Sciences since 2004 with partners among others at Brown, Harvard, Indiana, Notre Dame and Stanford universities. They have conducted numerous studies regarding choice about staff, programs, parents and programs. They have published numerous books, research reports with a range of studies underway. Much of this info is downloadable.

From their site: Options basically fall into two categories. First are schools of choice, all schools that aren’t regular public schools—magnet, private, charter, homeschools. In the U.S., there are about 133,000 schools; of those, about 40,000, or one third, are schools of choice. Second are choice programs, like open enrollment, school transfer options, vouchers, and tax credits. Currently, 47 states have some kind of open enrollment policy; all 50 have the school transfer option under No Child Left Behind, 9 states offer public or privately-funded vouchers, and 7 states offer tax credits.

Homeschooling Sharp Increase

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:14:58 +0000

The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled showed a significant increase from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007 according to a U.S. Department of Education report. The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 36% since 2003. The report identified seven reasons parents give as their motivation for home-schooling their children.

Federal Program Supports School Choice

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:21:50 +0000

The U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Voluntary Public School Choice program supports States and school districts in efforts to establish or expand a public school choice program. It supports efforts to establish or expand intradistrict, interdistrict, and open enrollment public school choice programs to provide parents, particularly parents whose children attend low-performing public schools, with expanded education options.

Building Choice.org supports the federal program with numerous and comprehensive “Tools” for communities to use beginning with the rationale and establishing a vision all the way to evaluating programs. Valuable resources, research and examples will help communities or schools at any stage in their program. Building Choice was developed for USDE by WestEd in collaboration with Edvance Research who also did a series on Innovation Guides.

Research on Alternative Schools

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:04:30 +0000

The 2001

Statistics on Educational Choices

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 02:23:20 +0000

The recently released The Condition of Education by the Institute of Education Sciences (USDE) provides a wealth of authoritative data on preschool, elementary, secondary and higher education. Here are some interesting figures on educational alternatives from this readable report:

-10,900 alternative schools and programs serve 613,000 at-risk students, about 1.3% of all public school students. 80% of school districts in the South have at risk alternative programs but it’s only 28% in the central section of the US.

-27 % of students attend a school of choice where there is a choice of public programs–about 50% of districts provide for choices. Another 24% of parents exercise their own program of choice by moving to a preferred school or program.

-The total enrollment of nonpublic school students has dropped 1% in the past decade to 9.7% of all students.

-Homeschooled students, about 2.2% of all students increased to 1.1 million from 850,000 in the most recent four-year period.

Status of Reform Efforts

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 23:09:36 +0000

The Institute of Education Sciences of the US Department Of Education maintains a very useful website on the status of educational reform for every state. For example, one of the four sections describes State Support for Schools Choice Options. That shows in easy to understand charts every state’s status in number and types of open enrollment policies, and charter school legislation key features including reporting procedures, startup funding, teacher certification requirements and accountability measures. Other sections provide information on other aspects of school reform by state. The information on the website was recently updated.

Critical Facts and Data about US Education

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:43:05 +0000

A nonprofit report and two federal reports from the US Department of Education provides authoritative information:

The Institute Education Sciences released the new 2005 Digest of Education Statistics by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provides an enormous database of facts covering topics in pre-kindergarten education through graduate school. Topics include: numbers of institutions, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, along with information about educational attainment, finances, federal funds for education, employment and income of graduates, libraries, and international comparisons.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released The Condition of Education 2006. This annual report summarizes developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The 2006 report presents 50 indicators on the status and condition of education and an analysis of international assessments.\

Another very useful report is a Public Education Primer (Basic (and Sometimes Surprising) Facts about the U.S. Education System) by the Center on Education Policy.

Together, these reports fuel writers, speakers and researchers needs for accurate and complete information about American education.

The Education Innovator

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:29:03 +0000

The Education Innovator, a publication of the U.S. Office of Education, presents news of educational reform, change, and department activities. Almost every issue features a tradition-breaking school in some detail. Policy, arts education, technology, private schools, charter schools, innovative programs, funding opportunities and the like arrive in an attractive weekly email. This useful source with access to much other information can be subscribed to at no cost.

No Child Left Behind

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 17:15:27 +0000

There will likely be changes in the No Child Left Behind law in the next few years. To keep up-to-date on proposals, subscribe to the NCLB Insights, a free publication of Washington Partners, LLC, a government affairs and public relations firm specializing in education policy. This monthly notification provides insights as the law moves toward reauthorization.

Nonpublic School Choices Increase

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:28:26 +0000

The latest study (2001-2002) of nonpublic schools, Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results From the 2001

Homeschooling Increasing

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 20:22:08 +0000

Evidence of increased homeschooling comes from several sources with parents expressing a greater variety of interests. About 30 percent object to conventional school environments, about 30 want a values or religious tone, about 15 percent want a different academic focus, about 7 percent want their child’s particular interest served. An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch describes these factors. Authoritive information on homeschooling can be found on the U.S. Dept. of Education. The Parent-Directed Education website has a wealth of information and links.

Comprehensive School Reform

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 13:47:17 +0000

Comprehensive school reform efforts say different forms of schooling are necessary. There have been many such attempts over the past 15 years often with gigantic sums of money attached. A new report, From Whole School to Whole System Reform, describes two major approches: the work of the New American Schools in 4,000 schools and the federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program in 5,000 schools with over $1,000,000,000 of funding. They define comprehensive reform as including: “instruction, assessment, classroom management, professional development, parental involvement, school management, aligning the school

Creating Strong District Choice Programs

Wayne Jennings — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 21:52:59 +0000

The U. S. Dept. of Education has published a booklet, Innovations in Education: Creating Strong District School Choice Programs to provide guidance to school districts in providing more learning alternatives. Public school choice

Free Books on School Change

Wayne Jennings — Fri, 30 Jul 2004 20:29:06 +0000

The U.S. Dept. of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement is publishing 3 new booklets this fall:
“Successful Magnet Schools” (September 2004),
“Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification”(October 2004)
“Alternative Routes to School Leadership” (November 2004)
For free copies, call Cynthia Dorfman, 202-205-5560, or email: Cynthia.Dorfman@ed.gov. These public domain booklets can be freely used by anyone. They are part of a 6 booklet series: Innovations in Education.

Homeschooling as a Learning Alternative

Wayne Jennings — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:06:15 +0000

Home schooling, as a learning alternative, has grown rapidly over the past two decades. The US Department of Education estimates approximately one million students being homeschooled– about 2% of the public education base. Homeschooling is usually divided into two broad categories: religious-values based and progressive education. These differ considerably with the religious based emphasizing more traditional school content and methods. The progressive group is more child-centered and student-directed, sometimes bordering on unschooling. For an example of the second group, the Minnesota Homeschooling Alliance’s web site contains a vast array of information. For an example of the more traditional see the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators.

Homeschooling took off in the U.S. when Life magazine published a story of an entirely homeschooled student accepted at Harvard, as were his two brothers. This story is captured splendidly in the parent authored book, Homeschooling for Excellence by David and Micki Colfax.