Education

The Utah voucher plan for funding public education is being challenged under a provision of Utah law that permits the voters to repeal laws via referendum. From the Salt Lake City Tribune…Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert on Monday declared a referendum petition drive to overturn Utah’s school voucher law “sufficient,” meaning the law is on hold…

Rhode Island’s education aid “funding formula” debate is moving from the sublime to the ridiculous. Pat Crowley (an assistant executive director with the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association) has posted on his blog a link to a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed discussing the purpose of redesigning the formula.…

Add East Providence to the list of Rhode Island communities with structural finance problems leaving them no longer able to afford their existing school programs. From Alisha A. Pina in today’s Projo…Three of six options proposed by [East Providence] Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes two weeks ago included consolidating Martin Middle and Riverside Middle school students…

At Anchor Rising, our reading of the tea leaves has led us to forecast that the Rhode Island General Assembly is planning to reduce state aid to education as a means of closing the state budget deficit. Confirmation that this is indeed the plan arrives today, courtesy of the Projo‘s Kia Hall Hayes…Legislative leaders are…

Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Peter McWalters is the keynote speaker at an international education conference being held in the United Arab Emirates this week…The first-of-its-kind School Reform conference being organised by The College of Education at the United Arab Emirates University in cooperation with Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for…

Meaghan Wims of the Newport Daily News has the details of the Portsmouth’s school committee’s budget proposal for next year…The School Department is proposing a $33.4 million budget for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins July 1. The tight spending plan represents a $1.3 million increase over current-year spending and falls within the state’s 5.25…

Fellow Cranstonian Kiersten Marek of Kmareka offers some poignant commentary on Mayor Michael Napolitano’s proposal to raise taxes in Cranston by 5.25% while giving the school department a 0% increase…This act has marked you, Mayor Napolitano. In my mind, it has marked you as someone who deliberately does unreasonable things in order to provoke a…

Has Lawrence E. Purtill, president of the National Education Association’s Rhode Island chapter, figured out a magical way to increase government spending without increasing taxes? The text of his letter to the editor in Monday’s Projo certainly implies that he has…If The Journal wants to take bold action [on improving educaton], it should join with…

Not being as well educated on matters of taxation and school financing as Andrew, what strikes me about proposals that include school busing is the way in which progressive strategies wind up harming those whom they are ostensibly (cynically?) promoted as helping. In constructing a society — an environment — in which individuals, families, and…

Over at RI Future, State Representative David Segal (D-Providence) endorses Stephen Alves-style school regionalization, which goes beyond consolidating administration, and could involve sending students from schools in currently high-performing districts to schools in lower performing ones…Pick up a few more tens-of-millions by consolidating the schools, with the added benefit of increasing equity and socioeconomic diversity,…