Ethan Demme

Thoughts and Policy for Building a Better Pennsylvania

Education Reform

GOP Primary: Trusting Parents In Education (School Choice)

GOP

The GOP isn’t necessarily seen as a united party at the moment. It’s hard to find a single issue where the 15 Republican presidential candidates actually agree. However, there is one message that is being consistently stated by candidates from Bush to Paul to Carson. That message has to do with education:

#TrustParents.

Take a look at what has been said. (Bold added for ephasis)

Jeb Bush: “The best solution to our nation’s failing educational system is empowering parents.” [Source]

Ben Carson: ““Education that is closest to home, local education, seems to be the most effective education. So I would tend to be much more in favor of education that is controlled at a state level and by local municipalities—and in which the parents have a much greater say about what is happening with their children.” [Source]

Chris Christie: ” I think parents are better suited to make decisions about their children’s education than union leaders.” [Source]

Ted Cruz: “Every parent has a right to educate his or her children.” [Source]

Carly Fiorina: ““Parents play incredibly important roles in a child’s education, and any successful education reform plan must embrace and encourage robust parental involvement.” [Source]

Jim Gilmore: ‘Parents should have options to home-school their children or perhaps get support in sending them to private school.’ [Source]

Lindsey Graham: “Education belongs in the hands of our parents, local officials, and states.” [Source]

Mike Huckabee: “I am steadfast in my belief that parents—parents—should ultimately decide the best venue for their children’s education.” [Source]

Bobby Jindal “Instead of the child following the dollars … we make the dollars follow the child … because we trust parents not bureaucrats to make the best decisions for our kids.” [Source]

John Kasich: “And there will be more. More school choice, giving families more control over how and where to educate their kids, including technical and vocational education.” [Source]

Rand Paul: “The responsibility for education ultimately lies with the parents and education is one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children. I believe that parents should be empowered to take an active role in their children’s education.” [Source]

George Pataki: ““One of the things I fought for but couldn’t get was an education tax credit, where we could take a part of our taxes and use it to help students to learn better— whether it was with additional support in the public system or paying for education outside in the private or parochial system.” [Source]

Rick Perry: “I see an education system that is the envy of the world, controlled by parents and the people according to the beliefs of the communities in which they live.” [Source]

Rick Santorum: “How about early parent intervention with their children? Instead of focusing on the child and getting them out of the home and into an educational setting, how about focusing on the parents and trying to get the parents more interested and involved? Parents are the first teacher.” [Source]

Marco Rubio: “We need to allow charter schools and other innovative schools to flourish. The key to that is empowering parents. Parents should be the ultimate decision makers on where their children go to school.” [Source]

Donald Trump: “And we’ve got to bring on the competition—open the schoolhouse doors and let parents choose the best school for their children.” [Source]

Scott Walker – I trust parents to make the right choice for their children and I want to help them have as many quality choices as possible.” [Source]

This post looked at the rhetoric of the candidates but do their actions support their rhetoric? My next post will look at the actions of these candidates to see how they compare to the statements.

PA Education Summit Report

Two weeks ago had the privilege of attending the 3rd annual Pennsylvania Education Summit hosted by the Pennsylvania Business-Education Partnership. It was an excellent day in Harrisburg as educators, business leaders, and elected officials gathered to discuss the future of education in Pennsylvania. Here our some photos and embedded tweets from the event.

PA Edu. Secretary Pedro Rivera
PA Edu. Secretary Pedro Rivera
DSC_0471
@SenatorSmucker @SenatorDinniman @RepRoebuck discussing education funding

 

Dr. Solomon Lausch, Ron Cowell, and Iain Strachan discussing hiring teachers and staff
Dr. Solomon Lausch, Ron Cowell, and Iain Strachan discussing hiring teachers and staff

 

Catherine Krummer speaking on NASCAR's Acceleration Nation
Catherine Krummer speaking on NASCAR’s Acceleration Nation

 

Chad Amond, Michael Marrone, and Hans Meeder
Chad Amond, Michael Marrone, and Hans Meeder discussing career pathway innovation

Visit the Pennsylvania Business-Education Partnership’s website for their latest news and be sure and stop by next year.

North Carolina: A Case Study in Trusting Parents

Seal of NC
Seal of NC

I’ve been digging through some education data from the state of North Carolina and the numbers point to a simple truth: if you trust parents by giving them more educational options to choose from they will exercise that choice.

Prior to the 1980s, the only two official education options available in North Carolina were public or private schools. In 1980s, a series of legal battles paved the way for home instruction options for parents. Then in 1988, the state legislature passed what is still currently North Carolina’s home instruction law.

Beginning in the 1990s, the charter school movement took off. “The North Carolina charter school movement began in 1996, when the General Assembly approved the Charter School Act (CSA)” . . . which “allowed any person, group, or non-profit organization to propose a charter school.” (View Source)

In the graph below, note how homeschooling as a market share begins to grow rapidly beginning near the end of the 1980s, which corresponds to the changes in homeschool law in the state. Note also how charter schools begin to take on a larger market share beginning near the end of the 1990s which again corresponds to changes in the laws.

here's a full-scale version of the North Carolina school population graph
here’s a full-scale version of the North Carolina school population graph

Here’s another graph that allows us to closely look at the growth of non-traditional education (i.e., non public school.) in NC.

North Carolina data
North Carolina data

Here are three main points that the data shows:

  1. Since home schools were legalized in 1985, the market share of home schools has risen to about 4.8%, while over the same period the market share of public schools fell by 7.7% (see next point).
  2. The same appears to be true of charter schools. Since 2000, the charter school market share grew to about 2.7%. The total growth in market share of home schools and charter schools combined (7.5%) corresponds almost exactly to the decrease in public school market share (-7.7%) since 1985 in North Carolina. 
  3. Home school market share and charter school market share are positively correlated, indicating that the same factor or factors are likely to be affecting each of them.

Opportunities for greater school choice in North Carolina began with key legislative efforts to support homeschooling and charter schools. With a little over two decades worth of data showing the result of those changes in legislation you can see in the data a pent up demand among parents for more education options and when those opportunities are available then parents will begin choosing them. Or put more simply, “If you build it, they will come”. As more choices open up for parents across the country you can see a similar response, a pent up demand for more education options for their kids. Let’s trust parents more.

 

Data Source

#TrustParents Speech

Speaking at the #TrustParents School Choice Rally
Speaking at the #TrustParents School Choice Rally

Recently, I spoke at Demme Learning’s #TrustParents School Choice Rally. Here is a summary of my speech. A video the speech is embedded at the end of this post.

At the heart of my presentation is the concept of trusting parents. This theme of trusting parents is at the heart of Demme Learning’s company culture and I the foundation for a just education system.

So what exactly is school choice?

School choice also means educating parents about the education options available to them and removing financial and structural barriers in order to allow parents to choose the best option for their kids.

Growing up I had the opportunity – due to my parents choice – and the privilege of being educated at home. I was what many would call an energetic child and enjoyed activities such as hitting things, throwing things and breaking things. Sometimes those things were my siblings – sorry Isaac for that tooth. I even managed to play hooky from homeschool, which can be difficult. My parents taught me to read, they taught me history, science, math and more importantly they taught me the value of knowledge and instilled in me a lifelong love of learning. And because of their dedication and hard-work, I am standing here today. I successfully graduated from high school at the top of my class and voted myself most likely to succeed (I was also the bottom of my class – a class of one). After high school I attended college and found that the choices my parents had made on my behalf had prepared me well for higher education.

I am thankful for my parents ability to make the choices they did for me and for my education but unfortunately many students don’t have the opportunity that I did. Injustice in our current system has kept many students from receiving the high quality education that they deserve. Recently, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled, “For schools, seek justice.” In this column, he highlighted the problem of under-funded schools. He said,

“until some glaring funding injustices are fixed, in Philadelphia and in many school systems around the country, we will never live up to our nation’s aspirational promises of justice.”

The fact is that our funding formulas are creating class systems where your zip code becomes a predictor of success and that is not a just education system.

Back in November, I attended the National Summit on Education Reform. One of the presentations was a panel featuring former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Senator Marco Rubio. During the presentation, Rice identified “a high quality education for every child” as the current civil rights struggle of our nation. Senator Rubio agreed and commented that “it is immoral and outrageous” that poverty should prevent school choice. In his words, “there is no equality of opportunity if a parent cannot put their kids in the school of their choice and the best environment possible because they don’t make enough money.” At the same event, the panel’s moderator, Juan Williams, asked a question that many have asked and continue to ask: can we trust parents to make these education decisions for their kids? Condoleezza Rice responded quickly to that question with the true statement: “it is such a mistaken impression that poor parents either don’t care or don’t know what is best for their kids.” Rice then mentioned the “normal system” of a zip-code determining the quality of education of a child is bad and she says, “I know what that movie looks like” adding that instead, she would sooner “trust the parent or an advocate for the child.”

At Demme Learning, we also believe in trusting parents. At our last company summit, I shared that our primary customer is the parent: and it’s how we judge success. We sell products to homeschool parents, to charter schools, to private schools and to public schools but regardless of who purchases our product, the ultimate customer is the parent: they’re the ones who judge whether or not we are doing a good job. To explain a little bit of why we have incorporated this principle into our company culture, I want to share briefly a story about homeschooling from my family’s perspective. Back in the early 1980s, my parents were one of the first pioneering families in America. In those early days, homeschooling was barely legal or illegal depending on where you lived and who was interpreting the law. My dad, Steve Demme, started lobbying in Georgia, connecting people and working to get the laws changed. My dad’s example taught me a powerful lesson:

We’re here because school choice is a human right.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the first International Congress on Home Education in Germany (where homeschooling is currently illegal) and was one of the signers of the Berlin Declaration calling for the recognition of the rights of parents to choose how and where their children are educated.

While homeschooling may not be the first thing you think of when you think of injustice in education, it is one of its fundamental elements. In order for someone to have the ability to realize their potential in society, the prior right of their parents to choose the kind of education they receive is of utmost importance. This is why this parental right is enshrined in Article 26 part 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” These human rights are highlighted in both our country’s founding documents as well as documents from around the world, such as the UN declaration of human rights.

So why does this matter?

Not every parent wants their child to be enrolled in a public school that they see is failing but we should trust them to choose an alternative. Not every parent can or wants to homeschool their children. They may be a single parent who has to work two jobs in order to put food on the table and we should trust them to choose an alternative. Not every parent can or wants to put their child in a local private school and we should trust them to choose an alternative. But right now we have a system that only trusts parents if they have the money and connections to choose.

As Condoleezza Rice pointed out, “We already have an opt-out system – school choice for those who can afford it. Give parents who otherwise don’t have the means, a chance to send their children to a school that might work better for them. Now a common objection (and fear) is that promoting school choice would mean taking money away from public schools. You’ll recall how at the beginning of my speech, I spoke about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s powerful observation that under-funded schools are symptomatic of systematic injustice. So could promoting school choice deepen that injustice? It could which is why we do need to continue to work towards a more equitable funding formula but it doesn’t mean that we should lock kids into failing schools while our legislature tries to figure that out. Funding also depends on how you look at it. Marco Rubio got to the heart of the matter when he said, “the money doesn’t belong to the schools, it belongs to the kids.”

We shouldn’t be forcing all parents to homeschool and neither should we force them to public school. Parents shouldn’t be locked into any one education option for their children but should be empowered to make decisions that are personalized to the needs of each child.

As research continues to show, the more parents exercise their rights and actively engage in their children’s education, the more children learn and get the ability to live their potential in society.

The simple truth is that parents are the key to a successful education. We should allow parents to make choices regarding their child’s education; We should equip parents with tools and skills to engage in their child’s academic development; We should encourage them to be more involved in their children’s learning. We need to trust parents.