Assignment:
School Choice
The students should review the following materials to complete the requirements of this component:
• Financing Education in a Climate of Change - Chapter: Public Funds and Nonpublic Schools
• The PowerPoint presentation on School Choice.
Many state legislatures across the nation have enacted charter school regulations. Additionally, there has been a push to provide opportunity scholarships (vouchers) to parents that can be used to offset the cost of a private school education.
Much of the school choice legislation has been enacted to allow parents to choose their children's schools as the public schools have been perceived as falling farther behind and students are not making adequate progress.
There has been some litigation regarding school choice, charter schools, and voucher programs. The following websites review litigation in these areas.
The following provides a summary for each state's public school choice options.
The following provide a summary of Trends in School Choice options utilized in the United States:
The following provides a variety of information addressing Charter Schools:
The following provides information about School Choice programs across the United States:
The following provides information about the number of students participating in "Home School" in the United States:
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and School Choice/vouchers:
The state of Florida has enacted various pieces of school choice legislation that allows parents to:
• Pick their child's school within a district
• Use a publicly funded voucher for private school tuition
• Enter their children in a charter school that has been sponsored by the local school district.
For this section, each student is expected to write a short research paper. The paper should focus on School Choice as it relates to public school funding. The student may want to look at Charter Schools, Opportunity Scholarships (vouchers), or education tax credits. The paper should not exceed eight pages, double-spaced. This document/paper must contain 5 reference citations using APA 5.0 format.
The purpose of this paper is to have the student to review this subject and discuss the pros and cons of providing public funds for use in private schools.