Education Savings Accounts in the News

February 25, 2014

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

The Clarion-Ledger endorsed ESAs for Special Education children in Mississippi in a powerful editorial today:

In 1997, The Clarion-Ledger published an award-winning series of stories highlighting the problems facing special-needs students in Mississippi.

Among its findings: Parents had to battle public schools to get federally mandated services for their children; the state had few qualified teachers to provide an appropriate education to disabled students; and just 17 percent of special-needs children graduated high school.

On Feb. 2, the newspaper published another series on special education that found little has changed.

Nearly two decades later, parents of special-needs kids still battle school districts. Teachers and administrators still lack training. And despite six new state superintendents, countless different strategies and billions of dollars in federal funding since that first series ran, Mississippi’s special-needs graduation rate has risen just 6 percentage points.

Less than one in four students with disabilities leave high school with a diploma in Mississippi. It’s the worst special-needs graduation rate in the nation. Most states graduate 50 percent or more.

….

We support public schools, but we cannot support the systemic failure of certain students over the course of several decades without any signal from MDE that something will change.

For that reason, we believe SB 2325 and HB 765 offer a reasonable solution to a longstanding problem and the first glimmer of hope for thousands of parents.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Meanwhile NPR interviewed Oklahoma Rep. Jason Nelson on his ESA proposal. Money quote:

Q: If the students who are left in public schools are the least likely to succeed, doesn’t it almost guarantee those schools won’t do well?

I’ve got two children in public school. I’ve not yet talked to any parent that sees their child as a funding unit for the public school system. None of us see our kids that way. It’s silly to make an argument like that: “Your child needs to come to this school because they’re a funding unit and we need to have that.”

The people who are leaving are the people that aren’t getting their needs met. If you’re happy, then you’re going to stay. If the school’s not working for your child for whatever reason, you should have no obligation to stay.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

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Oklahoma Lawmakers Introduce ESA legislation

January 17, 2014

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Oklahoma lawmakers have introduced Education Savings Account legislation. You could not ask for a more capable and committed champion than Rep. Jason Nelson and Oklahoma could benefit from the reform. Oklahoma could benefit from broadening the opportunities available to students. The Census Bureau projections for youth population increase are well above the take-up rates for private choice programs, so the public school establishment should take a deep breath before going into “the sky is falling!” mode. There is going to be plenty of students, but others demographic trends will be more problematic. The elderly population of Oklahoma will increase by 53% by 2030, meaning that there will be fierce competition for public funds between health care and education, young and old.

The people who will have to provide those public dollars in 2030 include the kids in the Oklahoma public school system now. When you look at NAEP, between 25% and 36% are at full grade level proficiency depending on subject/grade level.  Improving learning is not a task for 2030, but rather for right now. Oklahoma needs to improve K-12 outcomes as fast as possible, and needs to expand flexibility in the system in order to become both more effective and cost-effective in the future. The Oklahoma ESA legislation provides for eligible students with between funding 90 percent to 30 percent of the funds that would have gone to a participating child’s public school. If parents want to have a go at producing savings for the state treasury in return for the maximum possible flexibility in educational methods, it can be a mutually beneficial exchange that advantages everyone.

In addition to the possible benefits for Oklahoma students, the ESA concept itself would benefit by expanding the universe of people actively engaged in the model. We’ve only scratched the surface of what is possible here in Arizona. I am anxious to see the innovations that new teams people in other states develop-new methods to educate students, new ways to oversee accounts, etc.  I’m hoping that the next laboratory of reform fires up the beakers in 2014.

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Posted by matthewladner