New Brief: Initiative 1240: Improving Education Options with Charter Schools
Initiative 1240, if approved by voters, would allow 40 public charter schools over five years. Charter schools are noncontroversial nationally (41 states allow them), and they would provide parents and students in Washington an additional public school option. Our policy brief on I-1240 is available here.
September 06 , 2012 - Kriss Sjoblom
How school funding affects state average scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress
In this post I present some charts relating education outcomes to per-student funding for public schools at the state level. The outcome measures I use are statewide average scores on various tests taken by students as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is a program of the U.S. Department of Education’s […]
August 14 , 2012 - Richard S. Davis
"Brainpower is spreading out:" More cities attracting the college educated
In the New Geography, Joel Kotkin reports that America’s college graduates are increasingly found outside the dominant metro areas. …The New York Times recently opined that “college graduates gravitate to places with many other college graduates and the atmosphere that creates.” Yet an analysis of Census data shared with Forbes by demographer Wendell Cox tells a different story. […]
July 17 , 2012 - Richard S. Davis
State budget sustainability and Medicaid … hard times (still) ahead
A new report from the State Budget Crisis Task Force, headed by Richard Ravitch and Paul Volcker, points to deep sustainability problems for state governments long after the economy recovers (may that day come swiftly). From the Wall Street Journal: Rising pension and health-care costs are hampering states’ efforts to improve infrastructure and provide college […]
July 17 , 2012 - Richard S. Davis
Good news: more online education coming to UW
Today’s Seattle Times report that the University of Washington has signed on with Coursera to offer online education represents good news and a welcome extension of a model designed to expand access to higher education. Coursera is “a huge experiment that is transforming the face of higher education,” said Daphne Koller, a Stanford University computer-science […]
July 11 , 2012 - Richard S. Davis
WWU collective bargaining agreement and 16 percent tuition hike
Gov. Gregoire recently wrote Western Washington University president Bruce Shephard expressing grave concern with the school’s faculty collective bargaining agreement. Here’s the Seattle Times’ summary and context: …the governor criticized the university’s decision to raise salaries 5.25 percent this school year and 4.25 percent each of the following two years in addition to boosting department-chair […]
July 05 , 2012 - Emily Makings
The Economist on Charter Schools
Next week’s Economist magazine has an article on charter schools. The article is published online just before signatures are due for the public charter school initiative in Washington (I-1240). Dick has written on the initiative and charter schools here, here, and here. As Dick mentioned, state Rep. Eric Pettigrew has said, Forty-one other states have […]
June 14 , 2012 - Richard S. Davis
AWB endorses charter school initiative
In a recent column I wrote about the public charter school initiative filed by several education reform groups here. The column focused primarily on the remarkable success of Louisiana’s Recovery School District, a majority-charter district. The RSD has been responsible for the turnaround of New Orleans schools. This week the Association of Washington Business endorsed […]
June 07 , 2012 - Emily Makings
State Auditor on Spending in Public Schools
Yesterday I pointed out the legislature’s new 2012 Citizen’s Guide to K-12 Finance. The state auditor’s office has also released a report on public school spending. The performance audit considers: What percentage of Washington’s educational dollars is spent on classroom instruction, and how does it compare with other states? How do expenditures at individual school […]
June 06 , 2012 - Emily Makings
Public Schools Financing
The Senate Ways and Means Committee has released its 2012 Citizen's Guide to K-12 Finance.It talks about recent court rulings related to state funding of education (and legislative responses to them), looks at how much is spent on education (by several different measures) and where the money goes, and makes some comparisons to other states. […]