The Choice Channel

“Two years ago, a 15-year-old named Maria was arrested for bringing a small fingernail file to school. For eight weeks, she was held in a secure juvenile detention center awaiting trial. She was strip-searched upon entering the facility. She was housed with children who were drug-addicted, mentally ill, and charged with far more serious crimes than she was. The doors and windows of the facility were locked. And her ability to move around inside the facility was limited. Maria was not jailed because she was a flight risk, or because she was a danger to her community. She was jailed because, having been raped by a family member before her arrest, a Massachusetts Juvenile Court judge felt she could not live at home safely. And the Commonwealth had no other place to put her. There were no readily available placements in either the Commonwealth’s child welfare or mental health systems. Maria’s case is extreme, but she is hardly the only Massachusetts child to be jailed inappropriately while awaiting trial for a minor offense.” (05/12/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4gao6c

“Massacre. Suicide-bombing. Mass murder. Conspiracy. WMDs. They love those inflammatory words, don’t they? Not just adolescents, who use the words as adolescents would, without gauging their impact, but also law enforcement types, who should know better. The climate that makes chatter of school shootings so endemic can be attributed to the few deranged souls who think up mayhem fantasies in their miserable little journals and cyber-caves. But they’re not the only ones responsible. … What almost all these allegations have in common is disproportion — the disproportionate fantasies of the alleged perpetrators, whose frames of reference are cribbed from a culture that blurs the lines between video games, entertainment, celebrity and violence; and the disproportionate response from schools and law enforcement, whose overzealous narratives incite fear by feeding into overheated anxieties.” (05/13/08)

http://www.news-journalonline.com/ColEssays.htm

“Involving parents, families, and communities in the education of their children is imperative for all schools. The potential for parents and families to be skillful, knowledgeable, and effective partners, capable of ensuring that their children receive the quality of education to which they are entitled, should be a goal of every school system. Research confirms that regardless of the economic, racial or cultural background of the family, when parents are partners in their children’s education, the results are improved studentachievement, higher test scores and grades, better attendance, more completion of homework, more positive attitudes and behavior, higher graduation rates, and greater enrollment in higher education.” (04/30/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4wk6zw

“A recent letter signed by 30 superintendents of eastern Oklahoma school districts (Phoenix April 24 Opinion Page) was critical of Senate Bill 2093, the New Hope Scholarship Act. The bill would give a tax credit to taxpayers who contribute to organizations that provide private-school scholarships for low-income children currently attending failing public schools in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The superintendents wrongly assert that the bill ‘creates a voucher system that would take public dollars and transfer them through the use of tax credits to private schools.’” (04/29/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3ml7rx

“Spare me all of this brouhaha about yet another debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, whose policy positions don’t amount to a dime’s worth of difference. What Democrat wants to see more of two strong candidates further sullying each other’s candidacy? Only Republicans would want to see more of it. Instead, what about a Clinton-John McCain debate and a separate Obama-McCain debate? The remaining Democratic primary voters would be the recipients of a ’sneak preview,’ seeing how each aspiring Democratic nominee fares against the Republican in the November election. Clinton and Obama would be less likely to pummel each other, more likely to illuminate the differences between each of them and McCain, and the voters would be better able to make informed decisions about who should be the Democratic nominee.” (04/30/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3nfjh3

“Gov. Ted Strickland and school superintendents take note: Public schools and charter schools need not be mortal enemies. The Cleveland schools’ successful partnership with the highly touted Entrepreneurship Preparatory School, the district’s sole charter school, proves that peace can be far more fruitful for Ohio’s youngsters than war among their schools. Of course, not all charter schools are equal. Some Ohio charter schools have been just as dysfunctional as the worst public schools. The state must do a better job of rooting them out.” (04/30/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3qpaoo

“At the April 17 town hall meeting to discuss the problem of in-school truancy, education experts and community leaders seemed to suggest that a charter school is the answer. In his weekly column, Ed Wells has often claimed he has support from the teachers union to establish such an alternative school that would operate outside the restrictions of the teachers’ contract. If Wells really believes that, I want to tell him about a deal I can get for him on a bridge in Brooklyn!” (04/26/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4ljc3l

“When students transition from elementary school to middle school, their world explodes, and there are a myriad of new social and academic pressures to adjust to. It is helpful to know the top concerns of children so that you, as a parent, can be there to help them adjust. … Although students have reported their own fears and worries, teachers have also listed specific challenges that they face helping students make the transition from elementary to middle school level.” (04/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4fnjwj

“Special education has grown dramatically over the last two decades and shows no signs of slowing. To date, about 14 percent of public school students have been diagnosed with a disability and receive special education services. In response to the disappointing educational experiences of these students, five states have now adopted voucher programs specifically tailored to disabled students. In a new study for the Manhattan Institute, we find evidence that Florida’s special-education voucher program has improved the education that the public schools provide to the disabled students who remain in the public schools.” (04/29/08)

http://tinyurl.com/5eeat8

“The editorial ‘Stealing school tax dollars’ questions the constitutionality of HB 881, creating a new authorizer for charter schools and awaiting Gov. Sonny Perdue’s signature (@issue, April 21). According to the Georgia Constitution and legal scholars, the bill is constitutional. Wherever the Legislature is authorized to provide for the creation of funding public schools, it may create systems for the establishment of other public schools. In Georgia, charter schools are public schools. The children they serve are public school students. Their education should be funded the same way all public school students in Georgia are funded —- including local dollars, regardless of who authorizes them.” (04/29/08)

http://tinyurl.com/6rktbj