Florida residents can challenge science-based education

As of July 1, residents of Florida can challenge any part of a school's curriculum simply because they find it objectionable.

The new law allows any resident - even if they are not a parent of a student - to contest any material they claim is inappropriate or unsuitable.

The challenge would be heard by reviewers. If the reviewers rule in favor of the challengers, schools would be required to comply.

The law has several nominal safeguards. For example, it states that any educational material must be accurate, balanced, and current. It also must not reflect unfairly on persons because of characteristics such as race, gender, disability, or religion.

However, much of the law's support came from those who typically eschew scientific method, following dogma instead.

They advocate, for example...

The conservative group Florida Citizens' Alliance, which advocated for the bill, claims it would let the state start "undoing the anti-Second Amendment indoctrination of our kids."

For more, read this Washington Post story and this Miami Herald story.

Bill would terminate the Department of Education

A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that is one sentence long...

"The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018."

Click here for more details on the bill.

Voucher programs expand despite lack of evidence

Although evidence shows that students who receive vouchers to attend private schools perform no better than those attending public schools, an increasing number of states are setting up voucher programs or other means of using taxpayer money to pay for children to attend private schools.

Last month, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the state's voucher program, while Alabama approved tax-credit legislation so families with children in low-performing public schools can enroll them in private schools instead.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that vouchers are constitutional. However, many state constitutions explicitly prohibit spending public money on religious schools, so lawmakers in some of these states have used tax credits to get around the restriction.

New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia established new programs last year, and Arizona and Louisiana expanded existing ones.

In all, 17 states now offer programs allowing parents to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. Many of these laws were based in part on model legislation written by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The organization, funded largely by corporations, writes bills advocating free-market principles that are introduced by conservative state lawmakers.

A 2011 report from the Center on Education Policy stated there is no evidence that voucher students perform better than their peers in public schools.

School vouchers first were proposed by economist Milton Friedman in 1955. The concept remained largely an academic one, however, until President Ronald Reagan embraced the idea in the 1980s. Reagan's efforts to introduce federal voucher proposals were rejected repeatedly by Congress, but they remain a mainstay of conservative politics.

For more, read this New York Times story.
To learn more about the history of vouchers, read this 2008 Washington Monthly article.
You can read the full report by the Center on Education Policy by clicking here
You can learn about the ALEC in this Lobby99 report.
You can read more about ALEC's push to privatize American education in this Lobby99 story.

Enrollment declining in large public school districts

Enrollment is declining in nearly half of the country's largest public school districts. Because funding for schools often is determined on a per-student basis, schools are finding themselves with less money for teachers and programs such as foreign languages and the arts.

Reasons for the decline include changing demographic alignments due to the economy and an increase in charter schools. But perhaps the biggest concern is that a "vicious cycle" will emerge - where the quality of education declines because top students are leaving, causing more students to leave and evern further decline.

For more, read the New York Times story.