The U.S. Senate had the opportunity tonight to give 1,700 low-income children in the District of Columbia the chance for a better education. Instead, voting mostly along party lines, 58 senators sided with liberal special interests to defeat an amendment saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Progr...

It’s a pretty cool place for people your age, from what I’m told. Anyway, I just thought that you should know: do you know Sarah & James Parker? They go to your school. Yeah, them. Are they nice? I’ve never met them, so I don’t know. I do know that their parents really ca...

Good piece on vouchers in DC and Barack Obama's latest opportunity to really be different.The most honest, decent, and thoughtful Democratic president of modern times, Jed Bartlet, was surprised to find himself supporting vouchers on an episode of NBC’s “The West Wing.� Bartlet’s staff summo...

Best response to Jack B's latest rant* in which he juxtaposes two stories --the first about Portland Public Schools revenue deficit; the second about its decision to lease space for a new school in the Pearl: "What does $300K per year beginning in 2011 in an area without an elementary schoo...

Apparently one of the two women proposing a new French immersion program, either as a focus option attached to an existing neighborhood school, or perhaps as another charter school, is a Francophile --a lover of all things French.  Well, so am I, at least to a degree.  I love most things...

In a rare front page commentary about the large crowd* that showed up to cheer on the winless Roosevelt High School girls' basketball team in their final season home game, O columnist Steve Duin, speaking bluntly, let Portland Public Schools know what he thinks of its transfer policy: "Main...

I blogged on this yesterday. It's good when people can help. The daily paper, in a follow-up on the Gilcrease Middle School discipline issue reports the school is now looking for help. To get a feel for the scope of the problem, according to the report, Tulsa Public Schools said that from August 200...

Obama's Secretary of Education designate built his reputation in Chicago on the success of his so-called "turnaround schools." Turnaround schools are "low performing" schools (kids with lousy test scores) which are shut down and then replaced with "different" school...

Apparently our colleague EducationWatch director Phil Brand is quickly trucking his way across America’s heartland on his American Schools Tour. Check out the highlights on the post regarding his Cleveland Central Catholic High School. Enrollment at CCCS is up thanks to the Cleveland Scholarshi...

Yesterday's Easter dinner attendees included two family friends from the education world -- a current elementary teacher and a retired teacher -- who do not support any form of school choice. Most readers out there will already know that most etiquette counselors tell us the topics that should be av...