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Federal Public School Food Police Fine Utah School $15k for Leaving Vending Machine Plugged in During Lunch.

Posted on May 17, 2012, 1:05pm | Lisa Snell

As "The Blaze" reports: 

A Utah high school is learning the hard way that the government is serious about nudging students away from food it doesn't want them to consume. Davis High School in the Salt Lake City area is having to fork over a whopping $15,000 in fines to the Feds because it accidentally sold soda through a vending machine during lunch.

Federal law requires the school to turn off its soda machines during the lunch period, which is 47 minutes a day. And Davis High school did turn off the machines in the lunch room. However, the school didn't realize that there was another machine in the school bookstore that wasn't being turned off. And when the food police realized it, the school was hit with a $0.75 fine per student for the duration of the offense. 

And this is especially unfair because all the evidence suggests that soda and snack bans in schools don't work. As the Washington Post and many others have reported:

Jennifer Van Hook and Claire Altman looked at a sample of 20,000 students who began kindergarten in 1998, and checked in on their height and weight in fifth and eighth grade. They couldn't find any significant link between higher obesity rates and schools that allowed vending machines selling snacks and soda. "The results suggest that the sale of competitive foods [which compete with traditional school foods, such as soda and snacks] in school is unassociated with weight gain among middle school children," they write.

Policies that limit the availability of candy bars, chips and soda have become popular in recent years; 23 states place some kind of restriction on what foods can be sold in schools. Why does this study find that such policies don't necessarily reduce childhood obesity? A lot of factors could be at play. Students that don't have access to soda in schools tend to increase their consumption of sugary drinks at home, a 2011 study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found.

In addition, it turns out that like everyone else school kids are good at developing black markets when soda and snacks are banned. As this article explains: LA school district lunch program spawns thriving junk food black market. 

School Districts in Wisconsin Saved $30 million on Health Insurance Costs Since Collective Bargaining Relief

Posted on May 17, 2012, 12:35pm | Lisa Snell

A competitive environment for health insurance is already saving school districts money in Wisconsin.

As the Wisconsin State Journal reports:

WEA Trust, the not-for-profit insurer that covered about two-thirds of Wisconsin school districts last year, has seen its revenue decline almost $70 million after the state gave districts more freedom to switch insurers. . . .

The data, from 52 school districts that changed health insurance carriers, show total savings of more than $30 million. Walker said the savings are good news for taxpayers, and also free dollars for teacher wages and classroom development.

And even those districts that did not switch health insurance plans are now getting a more competitive deal:

However, other districts said even with the increased freedom to switch, they preferred to stay with WEA Trust. They said the insurer offered them a competitive price along with the secondary benefit of strong customer service.

One example is the School District of La Crosse, which insures about 1,000 people. Its premiums actually went down 3 percent last year.

Puerto Rico's Infrastructure Renaissance Continuing in 2012

Posted on May 15, 2012, 4:40pm | Leonard Gilroy

Under the leadership of Gov. Luis Fortuño, Puerto Rico continued to emerge as a leader in attracting private investment in public infrastructure in 2011, with public-private partnerships (PPPs) undertaken or underway that include a modernization of 100 K-12 schools, a $1.5 billion toll road lease and an ongoing procurement for a long-term lease of San Juan's international airport. As I wrote in Reason Foundation's recently released Annual Privatization Report 2011 (see Puerto Rico excerpt here):

In two short years, the administration of Governor Luis Fortuño has turned Puerto Rico into a privatization leader among its state peers. To address the territory's chronic deficits and unsustainable debt, the administration has advanced a range of reforms that include major spending reductions, optimization of government operations and the enactment of a new law in 2009 inviting private investors to modernize or develop new infrastructure across a variety of sectors.

That law, Act No. 29, is now bearing fruit. It authorized government agencies to enter into public- private partnerships (PPPs) with private firms for the design, construction, financing, maintenance or operation of public facilities, with a set of priority projects that include toll roads, transit, energy, water/wastewater facilities, solid waste management and ports. The law also established a new Public Private Partnership Authority (PPPA), a new center of excellence within the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank responsible for identifying, evaluating and selecting PPP projects and for monitoring and enforcing the terms of PPP contracts.

Despite its short life, the PPPA has built a world-class PPP program utilizing global best practices, and it has already seen some major successes advancing projects through the procurement pipeline.

Read the rest of the Annual Privatization Report 2011 article here for more on Puerto Rico's schools, toll road and airport PPP initiatives that advanced in 2011.

I'm pleased to report that momentum has continued into 2012. Earlier this year, Puerto Rico's Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Authority announced what will become the next PPP project in their infrastructure pipeline—a design-build-finance-maintain project for a new 600-bed, privately-financed juvenile correctional detention and treatment facility, a project estimated to potentially save the commonwealth over $4 million annually. This will be Puerto Rico's first social infrastructure project in corrections, and upon completion, operations of the facility will remain in the public sector (though the private developer will continue be responsible for ongoing facility maintenance). The PPP Authority decided to move forward into procurement for this project based on the results of a feasibility and value-for-money analysis prepared for the project, available here. Statements of qualification from interested bidders were due last week. More information on this project is available here.

Also, earlier this month, the PPP Authority and the Ports Authority announced two consortia— Grupo Aerpuertos Avance (a team combining Ferrovial and Macquarie) and Aerostar Airport Holdings (a team combining Aeroportuario del Sureste and Highstar Capital)— as finalists for a long-term lease of San Juan's international airport. Six consortia were shortlisted last September out of 12 applicants, and the winning bidder is expected to be announced next month.

For more on Puerto Rico's robust and impressive PPP program, see:

• My February 2012 live, video interview with PPP Authority director David Alvarez at Reason Weekend in San Juan.
• My August 2011 print interview with Alvarez.
• Puerto Rico's PPP Authority website.

For more of the latest in state and local government privatization, see the full Annual Privatization Report 2011.

Green Dot Charter Schools Raise Performance for Long-Suffering Locke High School

Posted on May 14, 2012, 4:10pm | Lisa Snell

Reason first told the story of the struggle of Locke high school parents and teachers to have their school run by Green Dot charter schools in the Drew Carey piece: Education Revolt in Watts.

Now there is good news out of Locke high school. Students are doing much better on multiple indicators under Green Dot management. As this new UCLA study reports:

Students at historically low-performing Locke High School in South Los Angeles, which recently was transformed into five smaller charter schools, are now performing better than their traditional-school peers in a number of key academic areas, according to a multi-year study conducted by the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA (CRESST). 

CRESST's evaluation, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, looked at two groups of ninth graders who started in 2007 and 2008 - just after the charter-school group Green Dot Public Schools assumed operational control of Locke from the Los Angeles Unified School district and initiated a series of major curriculum and faculty changes. The UCLA researchers followed the students for three years. 

The study found that the Green Dot Locke students were more likely to stay in school, to take and pass important college preparatory classes, and to score higher on the state high school exit exam on their first attempt than students at demographically similar high schools in the LAUSD. The study authors called the transformation of Locke "an impressive success story" and found that the charter had achieved "consistent, positive effects on a range of student outcomes." The UCLA CRESST evaluation is ongoing. 

The full UCLA report is here.

And Fast Company has an extensive story on the news and other positive results at Locke:

Rather than centrally manage every school, each Green Dot charter is run like a startup: the staff is given broad discretionary powers over finance, faculty are given the reins to innovate with new curriculum, and the union contract is performance-based rather than a guarantee of minimum work requirements. To maintain its unusual level of collaboration, a Green Dot overhaul physically splits schools into autonomous units of around 500 students (in some cases, by using chicken wire for temporary walls).

A UCLA-Gates Foundation study released today shows that Green Dot's prescription is paying off, with 25% higher graduation rates (80% vs. 55%) and 35% higher college readiness (48% vs. 13%). Green Dot even managed to bring sanity to one of LA's worst schools, Locke, where rival gangs maintained control over bathrooms and students regularly set hanging artwork on fire.

Green Dot was able to achieve these positive results without cherry picking students and they were able to have better outcomes while enrolling students in more challenging classes. 

And as Dr. Jay P. Greene recently argued when we look at gold standard randomized studies charter school benefits are proven by the best evidence.

24 High-Performing Los Angeles Unified Schools Plan to Become Charter Schools

Posted on May 14, 2012, 3:35pm | Lisa Snell

In "The School District is Dead, Long Live the Schools," I wrote about the emerging trend of high-performing traditional schools converting to charters schools  to get more flexibility and control of their financial resources. This growing trend is distinct from the traditional trajectory of charter schools that have developed to serve students in poor performing public schools. Los Angeles Unified is embracing this trend. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

Two dozen high-performing Los Angeles schools are seeking to become charter campuses in search of more money and increased flexibility.

The list reads like an honor roll of academic excellence. Every school has surpassed the state's target score of 800 on the Academic Performance Index, which is based on standardized tests.

Although many of the schools considered the move in hopes of greater funding, campus officials said they also began to see the benefits of increased freedom over such things as curriculum, testing and schedules. "Finance is one key factor but not the only one," said Jose Cole-Gutierrez, who directs the charter school division of the L.A. Unified School District.

The interesting twist is that Los Angeles Unified appears to be encouraging these schools to become charters. This again begs the questions are central offices and school districts going to become obsolete?  Why not have all charter districts like New Orleans? As I said in the earlier Reason piece:

The bottom line is that charter schools give school leaders, teachers, and parents much more control over staffing and finances while also freeing them from the economic consequences of belonging to a district that has been in financial distress for decades. A school district may become financially bankrupt, but individual schools can live on through the charter school process. It raises the question: As a nation, should we continue to support large school districts at the expense of individual schools and students?

Osceola County, Florida Library Partnership "Paying Dividends"

Posted on May 1, 2012, 8:48pm | Harris Kenny

In a recent Around Osceola op-ed, Osceola County, Florida Commission chairman John Quiñones writes, "A bold, ground-breaking partnership with a private company to operate the Osceola Library System passed its 100-day mark Sunday (April 15) and is already leading to reduced costs, a flow of new books and more access for all residents."

The piece continues:

Osceola County was the first in the state to enter into a relationship with a private company (Library Systems and Services Inc.) to manage the system. For this reason, I believe that funding and the future of the operation of our libraries are secure because of the Board of County Commissioners’ action. Residents need to know that there is plenty of good news about the Osceola Library System.

First, it’s about the books. Orders for materials have been going out regularly for the last eight weeks and shelves are filling up with bestsellers and new releases. More than 4,200 new items have arrived and more than 8,500 books have been ordered. 

Next, it’s about the people. The “Hot off the Press” program expands the availability of new books and bestsellers to library patrons, while maintaining the popular hold system.

Denise Galarraga, the new director, has already held meet-and-greets at each library branch. Library amnesty week included a “Fees for Food” program in partnership with the Green Bag Project that helped the community’s children in need.

What about the employees? I’m pleased to say that all of the Osceola Library System employees were offered positions with the new company and the majority accepted those offers. And all of the employees were hired at the same salary they had with the county.

The piece ultimately concludes, "Overall, I am confident that the Osceola Library System will continue its role of serving residents in a progressive and inclusive manner."

John Quiñones' op-ed is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding why public-private partnerships are a useful tool for local governments. Not only can they help cash strapped governments keep libraries open, they have proven to be an effective tool for improving the quality of library services too. For more on this issue, see my recent Innovators in Action interview with Osceola County commissioner Frank Attkisson here; and this excerpted section on library partnerships in California from Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report 2011.

Philadelphia Schools to Follow New Orleans Market Education Lead Without a Hurricane?

Posted on April 25, 2012, 11:44am | Lisa Snell

Philadelphia plans to revolutionize its school system by closing schools, moving to an all-charter or autonomous school district, ditching the central office, and privatizing school services with outside vendors.

As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

So, at the SRC's direction, Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen on Tuesday announced a plan that would essentially blow up the district and start with a new structure.

The plan - subject to public comment and SRC approval - would close 40 schools next year and 64 by 2017, move thousands more students to charters, and dismantle the central office in favor of "achievement networks" that would compete to run groups of 25 schools and would sign performance-based contracts. . . .

Forget the command-and-control district structure. It's archaic and it doesn't work, officials said.

Instead of orders coming from a large central office that runs 249 schools, much of the power would be concentrated in the new achievement networks.

Those would represent "a breaking-apart of the district," Knudsen said. They would be "a group of people who choose to do business with the SRC and the central office to run" from 20 to 25 schools organized either by geography or by some other theme.

Successful principals or district staff could apply to run an achievement network. So could charter organizations, or universities, or a combination of those groups.

Principals would answer to the achievement networks, although they would remain district employees. The achievement networks would have contracts with the SRC, and would have to meet performance goals or risk being replaced.

The achievement network structure "creates an entrepreneurial approach, a flexibility, a nimbleness, a willingness to experiment," Knudsen said.

The current academic divisions - formerly called regions, clusters, and districts - will be gone as of this summer. Pilot achievement networks will be in place this fall, with a formal rollout in 2014.

Schools would have much more autonomy, with the ability to choose their own curriculums.

Though there is some precedent for this kind of work - officials pointed to the decentralization in New York City public schools - Ramos noted that what Philadelphia is proposing "is different from what many other places are doing."

The central office, already half the size it was a year ago, will shrink further, from over 1,000 employees a few years ago to about 200 in the new model. 

This model has been working well in New Orleans where more than 80 percent of students are in charter schools without a central office and in several other districts that have decentralized control to the parents and the schools. Philadelphia is moving toward the sea change in school governance and school funding that is happening across the United States.  More than 30 "school funding portability" funding systems are funding students through a student-based budgeting mechanism in cities like New York, Baltimore, Denver, Hartford and Cincinnati. In 2011, Rochester, Newark and Boston have moved to full weighted student formula systems where the money follows the child. Los Angeles Unified is moving from 100 pilot schools being funded based on per-pupil basis to all 800 schools funded based on where the student enrolls. In Louisiana, 7 school districts are piloting a student-based budgeting system, including the largest school district in the state, Jefferson Parish, with 50,000 students. New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Indiana have all recently changed their statewide school funding systems to a state formula where the money is attached to the child. These kind of systems support a level playing field for charters and district schools and do not give schools a residential advantage. 

There are many interesting details of the plan at the Philadelphia Inquirer so read all about it here.

New Orleans is Already Demonstrating What will be Possible When We Open Up School Markets

Posted on April 19, 2012, 1:44pm | Lisa Snell

As Fast Company reports not only is New Orleans the most market-oriented education system in the United States but it is becoming an open-source platform to test and nurture new innovative education ideas from teachers that are attracting large investments from venture capitalists.

"If you're an edtech entrepreneur who wants to pilot an idea, you have the most efficient and smartest market in the country here," says Matt Candler, CEO of 4.0 Schools. That's because instead of a centralized bureaucracy, there are more than 40 schools making independent decisions on both hiring and procurement. Organizations like KIPP, Teach for America, and the Gates Foundation have established beachheads, drawing top teachers and fresh blood from all over the country. These are intersecting with a nascent startup scene dubbed "Silicon Bayou" to produce a hothouse of ideas to change education: for-profit and nonprofit, from school redesigns to apps, often from younger, female entrepreneurs.

This is why Neerav Kingsland the chief strategy officer of New Schools for New Orleans has the most important message ever for everyone who works in the public school system. In "An Open Letter to Urban Superintendents in the United States of America" he writes:

In the following letter I aim to convince you of this: the single most important reform strategy you can undertake is to increase charter school quality and market share in your city--with the ultimate aim of turning your district into a charter school district.

In other words: rid yourself of the notion that your current opinions on curriculum, teacher evaluation, technology, or anything else will be the foundation for dramatic gains in student achievement. If history tells us anything, they will not be.

Read the whole thing to learn so much more about why we should be replicating New Orleans in cities across America.

Caine Monroy: The New Poster Child for School Choice in America

Posted on April 19, 2012, 1:29pm | Lisa Snell

The New York Times chronicles the compelling story of Caine Monroy an inspiration to kids and adults alike:

On an industrial street lined with auto repair shops, there are few signs that this is the home of an Internet sensation. But slow down at the end of the block, just off the freeway in eastern Los Angeles, where a 9-year-old boy has created a makeshift arcade in his father's auto parts store with balls, cardboard boxes and tape.

A few days ago, few people had heard of Caine Monroy, who worked for hours last summer in the store making simple games out of discarded boxes from the junkyard. Now, eager children, television crews and curious supporters stop by almost incessantly, captivated by an 11-minute film featuring Caine that has been viewed more than five million times on the Internet in the last 10 days. His college fund has ballooned to more than $170,000, driven by donations to a Web site created by the filmmaker.

Caine Monroy could also be the new poster child for school choice in America. While his story gives us all hope about what is still possible in America with entrepreneurial spirit, there is also a school choice angle--in that now Caine and his father can afford a private school or tutor to help Caine who struggles with reading. How many other kids like Caine Monroy are bright kids out there in our world and are going to schools that are not meeting their basic academic needs? Most will not be saved by a viral video.

Innovators in Action: Osceola County, Florida Commissioner Frank Attkisson

Posted on April 13, 2012, 9:00am | Harris Kenny

In the latest installment of Reason Foundation's Innovators in Action series, I interview Osceola County, Florida Commissioner Frank Attkisson.

Osceola County policymakers faced few choices when, admist ongoing county-wide budget woes, the library system alone faced a $3 million budget deficit. In response, the Commission voted to approve the first-ever public-private partnership for libraries in Florida. They ultimately signed a five year contract that netted $6 million in savings with Maryland-based Library Systems & Services Incorporated (LSSI).

While the public-private partnership model is proven in states like California and Texas, this is a major move for Florida and one that is likely to be replicated by other local governments across the state. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Kenny: The first concern that many people have when it comes to libraries is access. How did the commission address this concern and how might other policymakers address it?

Attkisson: If another commission wants to do this, the boogey man is going to come out and people will try to scare them. Elected officials control these contracts and the public trusts us to deliver value for their money. We (the commission) control the hours and set the standards. We know what it costs and want the private sector to help us realize our vision for our libraries.

The vendor has an option to set up ancillary businesses to provide additional services to users, like a coffee shop. Think about how much has changed in ten years. We didn’t have computers or Internet. Now it’s a given that you’ll have those resources. That’s totally different from the libraries of ten years ago. We were able to leverage procurement to achieve substantive goals.

You have to have the backbone to say it will take 3-6 months to transition. But I’m comfortable that once we do, nobody will want to go back because we’ll have more capability than ever before.

Read the full interview available online here. For more, see Reason Foundation's Innovators in Action 2012 series available online here.

New John Stossel Special: No They Can't! Why Government Fails But Individuals Succeed

Posted on April 6, 2012, 2:12pm | Lisa Snell

I'll be on the new John Stossel documentary "No They Can't: Why Government Fails But Individuals Succeed." The program will air tonight at 10 PM EST & 7 PM PST and the same time Saturday night.  For more information go here and read on below:

Politicians say, "Yes, we can!" and claim that they solve our problems.

When the mortgage market crashed, the president said their new law, Dodd-Frank, would create a "new financial system" so such things would never happen again.

After 9/11, Senator Tom Daschle declared "you can't professionalize if you don't federalize!" The Senate voted 100-0 to create the TSA to run airport security.

Politicians' promises are endless. They say they'll: create jobs, "make college affordable for all," protect the disabled, give disadvantaged kids a head start and invest in "cutting-edge innovation."

But they can't achieve what they promise.

· Billionaire Mark Cuban and other job-creators explain why government's rules now prevent the job creation that was once America's hallmark

· Dodd-Frank, instead of stopping fraud, added layers to already incomprehensible banking laws. Stossel shows how simple rules in the Cayman Islands not only stop fraud, but they also create prosperity

· While the TSA creates long lines, misses actual terrorists and angers passengers, screeners working for a private company at one big airport work faster, more cheerfully and find more contraband. We show how the private company does it

· Did you know that the University of Missouri is proud to have a "leisure resort" on campus? Naomi Riley, author of "The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For," explains how government aid led to massive tuition hikes

· Since the Americans With Disabilities Act took effect, fewer disabled people have been able to work

· Lisa Snell from the Reason Foundation explains how the government's own research found that Head Start did not help poor kids. Government's response? Spend even more

Government grows, despite its repeated failure.

Teachable Moment: Yonkers Evaluating Private Finance for $1.7 Billion K-12 School Modernization Program

Posted on April 3, 2012, 3:30pm | Leonard Gilroy

Call me crazy, but for years I've been scratching my head wondering why K-12 public school systems still rely on an antiquated 20th century model to build and maintain school facilities—one based on a combo of debt, taxes and inefficient contracting processes—when there are other options out there, like public-private partnerships (PPPs) that dial up the private sector's role in financing, delivering and maintaining assets. The transportation sector realized decades ago that PPPs offer a innovative way to deliver public infrastructure assets as needs grow and citizens' willingness to absorb new taxes and debt plummets.

It's taken some time, but it seems that K-12 schools are slowly starting to wake up to the emerging PPP opportunity as well. The most recent evidence comes from Yonkers, NY, where school district officials announced today that they've selected a team of financial, legal and technical advisors to evaluate the potential for using PPPs to deliver a whopping $1.7 billion in school construction and address a $460 million backlog in facility repairs. Today's press release offers more details, and a February Construction News article offered a good summary:

For a city chock full of hopes and dreams, Yonkers has enjoyed many groundbreakings over the years. There just may be another one on its horizon: the use of a public-private partnership, or P3, which its public school system is exploring as a means to finance some $1.7 billion in school construction.

If it happens, the Yonkers School District would be the first in the nation to engage in the much-discussed (and debated) P3 financing methodology for financing a public school project.

[pause] Close, but not quite right. Puerto Rico's "Schools for the 21st Century" project, currently underway, beat them to it. And that's just in the U.S. and its territories. Earlier this year, New Zealand announced a winning bidder for its pilot schools PPP project. Last summer, the U.K. launched its privately financed Priority School Building Programme. Earlier that year, the Netherlands-based Amarantis launched a PPP procurement for several schools. Those are just a few recent efforts; suffice to say that PPP schools are nothing new under the sun from a global perspective. Continuing on with the Construction News excerpt:

Yonkers Schools Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio and Joseph Bracchitta, chief administrative officer for the Yonkers Public Schools in a telephone interview with CONSTRUCTION NEWS, discussed the progress of the P3 initiative and the need for creative financing for the school district’s sizable capital project needs.

As initiatives are underway from the Governor’s office and others to propose and pass legislation that would allow public-private partnerships on construction projects in the state, the Yonkers City School District has the ability to “engage the private sector” through its Educational Construction Fund statute. To actually undertake a P3 for school construction work will most likely require some legislative authority from the state, Superintendent Pierorazio said.

[…] The need for creative financing is caused by the age of the schools in the City of Yonkers. The average age of a Yonkers school is 73. Its oldest building is 117-years-old and nine of its school buildings are over the age of 95. In 2009, the school district released a long range Educational Facilities Plan that identified at least $1.7 billion in construction needs (either school renovations or new construction), along with $460 million in emergency repairs.

School Superintendent Pierorazio said that studies show that the school district is short 5,000 seats for students and will be short by another 3,000 students by 2018- 2019. As part of the master plan, the Yonkers City School District has, for the last three years, been exploring the possibility of using public equity and public-private partnerships to fund its capital construction program. The only school districts to successfully complete projects via a P3 arrangement are in the United Kingdom and Canada.

“We felt at this point in time it would be the only way for us to do a massive refurbish and rebuilding of the district,” he said.

In November the school district issued an RFP for a consulting team to further explore P3s as a possible funding mechanism for the first phase of the capital construction project, estimated at about $700 million. A total of eight project teams responded to the RFP. The city expects to make a selection sometime in March.

[…] The P3 arrangement the school district is looking to structure is a “Design-Build and Maintain” with the private sector. The school district, which would retain ownership of the buildings and the properties, believes that by utilizing the P3 method it will be able to finance the capital program and achieve significant savings on the maintenance costs of the school properties.

Check out the District's original RFP here for more details.

Yonkers School District officials deserve kudos for taking a serious look at the PPP opportunity, and others should follow their lead because the long-term viability of the 20th century school finance model is questionable at best. And it's not just about dollars and cents. Puerto Rico PPP Authority executive director David Alvarez notes the real value play with the PPP model:

So at the end of the day, with this school program we're tackling infrastructure challenges, but the ultimate goal for us is to improve academic performance of students. We're trying to go in an indirect way towards academic performance by providing and delivering better infrastructure, with the goal for students to perform better at school—to keep more people in school and to get better results. That's the ultimate goal of the program, really.

Hopefully other school systems adopt the same forward thinking approach as Puerto Rico and Yonkers.

Why Condoleezza Rice, Joel Klein, and the Council on Foreign Relations are Wrong About Common Core and National Standards and Why these Standards will Stifle School Choice in America

Posted on March 23, 2012, 2:41pm | Lisa Snell

In a new Reason commentary, I argue that Condoleezza Rice, Joel Klein and the Council of Foreign Relations are wrong about national standards and that they will impede school choice in America.

While the embrace of school choice by the commission is encouraging, adopting common core and national standards is actually counterproductive to competitive education efforts. Why embrace competition and then set an arbitrary national ceiling for academic standards that is sure to stifle or slow at least some of the academic innovation that would arise out of more competition in K-12 schools?

I explore this contradiction in the Council on Foreign Relations report and the evidence for school choice and against national standards.

In Louisiana the education money will REALLY follow the child.

Posted on February 28, 2012, 12:37pm | Lisa Snell

This is pretty significant. In many voucher programs there may be separate funding or appropriations for the program from the state, but in Louisiana the state board just voted to allow the state funding formula to follow the child to a private school. This means that the program could actually save money if private tuition is less than the public school cost and that schools will feel real competition as the money is attached to the backs of children. Since Louisiana has a robust charter sector and is working to allow student-based budgeting where the money follows the child to public schools, Louisiana is on the road to becoming a state model for education funding, where the money would be attached to children and the state would allow the parent to select between any public, private, or nonprofit school.

As reported in the Times Picayune:

Louisiana's new superintendent of education, John White, took a first step Monday toward opening the spigot of state and local tax dollars to expand the use of private school vouchers statewide. Gov. Bobby Jindal is pushing to expand a small pilot voucher program that's already up and running in New Orleans, hoping to offer aid to pay private or parochial tuition for low-income families across the state.

But the governor's office hadn't spelled out exactly how the state will pay for it. Money for the pilot program, running about $9.5 million this year, was approved as a special appropriation in the state Legislature.

But that may change beginning next school year. White, who took over at the state Department of Education last month with Jindal's backing, got approval from the state school board Monday to start paying for the vouchers in New Orleans by drawing from the same pool of money set aside for public schools.And that means if Jindal's proposal to expand the voucher program gains traction at the legislative session this spring, funding for it will already be in place.

More on Fairness

Posted on February 7, 2012, 6:13pm | Anthony Randazzo

We have discussed a number of times on the blog the fact that complaints about the rich not paying their "fair share" lack a definition of fairness. Fairness in some ways is a subjective question. That is why we need a clear standard by which we think it is the most appropriate way to collect taxes before we can determine how that tax burden will be shared by society. Picking up on the questioning of fairness theme, Steve Moore has a list of fairness questions in his WSJ op-ed today. Here are a few highlights:

• Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama's largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees on their investments in renewable energy projects that went bust?
• Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?
• Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?
• Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?
• Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?
• Is it fair that the three counties with America's highest median family income just happen to be located in the Washington, D.C., metro area?
• Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry—which provides at least 10 times as much energy—pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is "subsidized"?
• Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don't work?
• Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can't afford to repay?
• Is it fair that Boeing, a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?

See the whole article here.

Join Reason Foundation for National School Choice Week 2012 in New Orleans on Saturday, January 21

Posted on January 11, 2012, 1:17pm | Lisa Snell

You're invited to join Reason Foundation and other advocates of School Choice at the official kickoff event for National School Choice Week 2012 in New Orleans on Saturday, January 21, 2012.

First, the details:

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Lakefront Arena at the University of New Orleans

6801 Franklin Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70122

10:30 AM to 12:30 PM

RSVP online at http://www.schoolchoiceweek.com/official_kickoff

It's going to be a huge party, with musical performances by The Temptations and Ellis Marsalis , and thousands of likeminded students, parents, teachers, and community activists who are celebrating school choice across the country. In addition to these legendary entertainers, you'll hear from elected officials, celebrities, and students, parents, and teachers who will share how school choice has given them a chance at a quality education. In fact, if you represent a school choice organization, National School Choice Week will even provide you with a free table on our concourse to distribute materials on-site.

Reason Foundation is an integral planning partner for National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2012), and we're so excited to invite you to attend this huge party and help raise awareness about school choice. And this is just the first party of the week! Between January 22-28, thousands of Americans will come together at seminars, rallies, schools, movies, and other places to shine a spotlight on the need for effective education options for children. 

Please RSVP online at http://www.schoolchoiceweek.com/official_kickoff and remember to invite your friends and family. Everyone is welcome to this massive celebration of school choice!

University of Kentucky Smart to Explore Private Sector for New Campus Housing

Posted on December 15, 2011, 10:50am | Harris Kenny and Leonard Gilroy

As my colleague Leonard Gilroy and I explain today in our Reason.org commentary, University of Kentucky Smart to Explore Private Sector for New Campus Housing, ongoing state budget deficits and challenges are putting pressure on state university systems and prompting them to explore ways to cut costs. Higher education officials are desperately seeking ways to keep services, maintain facilities and find less costly and more efficient ways to build and modernize the dorms, academic buildings and other capital intensive facilities needed.

To do this, some are turning to public-private partnerships (PPPs), arrangements in which public entities contract with private sector firms for the financing, design, construction, operation and/or maintenance of public assets. The University of Kentucky (UK) may become the latest university to embrace public-private partnerships. Yesterday, the university announced that UK President Eli Capilouto told its board of trustees the school would begin negotiations with a Memphis-based company to potentially upgrade and expand over 9,000 residence hall beds over the next decade.

Other noteworthy universities that have explored this approach to student housing include:

• Florida Atlantic University;
• University of California Davis;
• University of Arizona; and
• Montclair State University.

As we explain in the piece, there is a growing body of research that demonstrates the public-private partnership model makes sense. A 2007 Reason Foundation study, Privatizing University Housing, outlines the long-term land lease approach that is commonly used. Meanwhile a June 2010 white paper Bay Area Council Economic Institute found that PPPs can deliver 15-30 percent life-cycle cost savings for operations and maintenance.

For more, read the full piece available online here.

Surprise, Surprise, California Gov. Jerry Brown Calls for More Tax Increases

Posted on December 6, 2011, 6:07pm | Adam Summers

To the surprise of no one, California Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled his plan calling for more tax increases to address the state's structural deficit.  The proposal, for which signatures are now being gathered with a goal of placing a ballot measure before voters in the November 2012 election, includes a half-cent sales tax increase and an income tax rate increase of one to two percentage points for those earning at least $250,000 a year, and would remain in effect for five years. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the tax increases are estimated to cost up to $6.8 billion a year for the five-year period, or a total of $34 billion.

Taxpayers have just gotten over the last "temporary" tax increases imposed under then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and now Brown is coming, hat in hand, for more "temporary" tax increases. If these tax increases were to go into effect, and politicians continue to ignore the significant changes that must be made to pare back a bloated and unsustainable state government, you can be sure that five years down the road the budget will still be in peril and taxpayers will be asked to pony up again for more "temporary" tax measures.

While a sales tax increase of a "half-cent," or 0.5%, as it is sometimes reported sound innocuous, those increases are raises in the tax rate. Thus, a "half-cent" sales tax increase on the state's base rate of 7.25% to 8.25% is actually an increase of 6.9% on the price of everything Californians buy that requires sales tax. (Most counties and cities add their own sales taxes to the base rate, so their sales taxes are even higher. The cities of Pico Rivera and South Gate in Los Angeles County, for example, hold the dubious distinction of having the highest sales tax rates in the state at 9.75%.) Similarly, the "1%" income tax increase on someone earning $250,000 a year, which raises the tax rate from 9.3% to 10.3%, translates to a tax hike of 10.8%, and the "2%" increase on someone earning at least $1 million a year, which raises the tax rate from 10.3% to 12.3%, translates to a 19.4% tax hike. That's hardly small potatoes, even for someone who is rather wealthy.

All these tax hikes will serve to do is keep the current dysfunctional system going a few more years. As Steven Greenhut of CalWatchdog.com notes in his interpretation of Gov. Brown's "Open Letter to the People of California" announcing the tax increase proposal,

Brown: The stark truth is that without new tax revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools, universities, public safety and our courts.

Interpretation: Actually, we could reform state government by embracing educational choice, outsourcing, pension reform and other measures, but we don’t want to do that. Remember, the unions elected me and I am serving them as faithfully as possible.

[. . .]

These tax increases will be gone in an instant and I will soon be back asking for more money. The public safety money means protecting huge pay and benefit packages for union workers, not for actually improving the public’s safety. The public schools are substandard, but the teachers unions won’t let us get rid of bad teachers or improve them with market-based reform. Our only way out is to throw more good money after bad. We will be taxing millionaires more, and more of them will join the exodus out of the state. Of course, when I say millionaires, I don’t mean those many public employees who are retiring on the kind of pensions that only a millionaire could afford.

I ask you to join with me to keep our state from having to make reforms that would cause any inconvenience to public employees. We need to get the state back on track — of spending without concern for the future.

It is a sad commentary on the state of California politics that living within your means and doing more with what you've got are radical concepts. Simply applying a "Yellow Pages test" to state government would go a long way to providing the same services for cheaper. Simply put, if the state is doing something that can be found in the Yellow Pages, either it shouldn't be doing it in the first place or it should put those services out for competitive bid so that private-sector businesses may provide them more cheaply and efficiently. As Greenhut suggests, improving the state's woeful business climate by reducing taxes and eliminating arduous and unnecessary regulations, addressing union education monopolies, and implementing real public pension reform are also necessary fixes that have long been ignored. (See here for a number of other ways to reform state budgets and spending.)

California's fiscal troubles are the result of many years of overspending and budgetary/accounting gimmicks. The recent economic downturn certainly did not help matters, but it merely revealed the state's budgetary unsustainability, rather than caused it. We have been dealing with many of the same issues since long before the latest recession hit. Perhaps, after years of continued failure, it is time to try something besides the status quo tax-and-spend policies.

Related Research and Commentary:

» "How to Fix California"

» How California's Public Pension System Broke (and How to Fix It)

» Citizens' Budget 2003-05: A Ten-Point Plan to Balance the California Budget and Protect Quality-of-Life Priorities (sadly, this is as relevant today as when it was written years ago)

Not All Student Loans Lead to Good Jobs

Posted on November 30, 2011, 4:20pm | Marc Joffe

The debate over student loans often focuses on the importance of education for commanding a good salary land avoiding unemployment later in life. Going to college is often analogized to making an investment in plant, property or equipment. As MIT economist Jonathan Gruber writes in Public Finance and Public Policy: "Just as firms invest in physical capital, education is the individual's means of investing in human capital. More education raises a worker's stock of skills and allows her to earn more in the labor market."

The analogy between education and physical capital investment is a good one - but commentators should take it a step further. Just as there are good and bad physical capital investments, there are also good and bad human capital investments. Unfortunately, student loan and other government education subsidies usually fail to take this distinction into account.

Imagine that we decide to build a hotel. In theory, that's a good use of capital. After all, more and more people are travelling and need a place to stay. But in the case of our hotel investment, we make some mistakes. First, we choose to build the hotel on unattractive scrub land far away from the nearest airport, city or recreation area. Second, we use shoddy materials and an incompetent general contractor to build the structure, resulting in a building plagued by mold and falling plaster. Finally, we don't do much to advertise the existence of our new hotel.

The likely result of these mistakes will be a lack of guests staying at our hotel.  We may have invested millions of borrowed dollars to build our hotel, but it generates no cash flow. This is not really an investment, but a malinvestment. If our bank had good credit analysts, it might have prevented us from making these errors by denying us the loan in the first place. Otherwise, the bank loses money on the deal and will probably be more careful next time (assuming it cannot get a bailout—which it should not).

So what does all this have to do with student loans? If a student chooses a major for which there is limited demand, attends a school with an undistinguished reputation, earns poor grades due to lack of study and fails to conduct an effective job search campaign, their education will also prove to be a malinvestment.

Since student loans are provided with very little due diligence, there is no mechanism for avoiding poor lending decisions. When the malinvestment manifests itself in the form of an unemployed or underemployed graduate, taxpayers are often stuck with the impact of default. The outcome is also bad for the borrower, who may struggle to repay the loan or suffer from damaged credit in the event she cannot continue to make payments.

Thus, we would all be better off if student loans are properly underwritten, with borrowers having to show lenders that they have created a viable plan to capitalize on their education and that they are effectively executing this plan. It is hard to imagine how the government could manage such an underwriting process, which will become ineffective if subject to accusations of discrimination and political pressure. Then again, the government never should have taken over the student lending business in the first place. Instead, student loans need to be the responsibility of private players with skin in the game.

Charter Schools more like Vouchers: New Jersey Edition

Posted on November 16, 2011, 12:37pm | Lisa Snell

^{Legislation signed by Gov. Chris Christie will allow private schools in struggling districts to become charter schools. In this case it works just like vouchers where the money follows the child to the private school that the parent chooses.} 

^{Under the legislation (A2806/S1858), high-performing private schools can apply to the state education commissioner to make the change. Because charter schools receive public funding, parochial schools making the transition will be barred from religious instruction or displaying religious symbols.}

^{Christie said the law will help "ensure that more students are stepping into classrooms that will give them a better education and a brighter future." But he said the Democratic-controlled Legislature continues to stall other pieces of his education agenda, including school vouchers and merit pay for teachers.}

^{"These reforms must be taken up now; we cannot ask children in failing schools to wait any longer while these reforms sit untouched in Trenton," Christie said.}

Charter School Market Share: D.C. Edition

Posted on November 7, 2011, 12:18pm | Lisa Snell

According to the Washington Post, Washington DC charters may soon be the majority school system like New Orleans.  Charter students are gaining... #winning

October count came in at 46,191--that's down 419 students, about six-tenths of a percent-- from last fall's 46,515. That was when the District received a 1.6 percent bump over 2009.

The city's public charter schools continued their robust growth. The Public Charter School Board reported unaudited enrollment at 32,009--an 8.2 percent boost over last October's 29,557.

School District is Dead, Long Live the Schools: Oakland Edition

Posted on November 4, 2011, 12:57pm | Lisa Snell

In a new piece at Reason.com on the Oakland charter school revolution I tell the story of how charter schools are not just for low-performing schools anymore. Successful public schools want the charter advantage too:

The majority of charter schools have started in urban areas with long histories of trapping kids in failing schools and reflect the story line told in the documentary Waiting For Superman, where desperate disadvantaged children vie for their spot in the local charter school. In addition, there has been a larger trend towards low-performing schools being restructured as charter schools, as in the Detroit proposal to convert 41 schools to charters to offer kids higher-quality education and save the school district money. And New Orleans, where 80 percent of kids are now enrolled in charter schools, stands alone as a city that successfully built a charter school Mecca out of the ruins of disaster where the money now follows the kids to any school in the city. In all of these cases the charter school growth has the "hostile takeover" flavor of kids fleeing a failing public school system.

Ascend and Learning Without Limits flip that trend. These high-quality public schools want the charter advantage for themselves. They want relief from collective bargaining, from central office mandates, and most significantly from the huge school district debts that leave less money for the students. And these Oakland schools are not alone. For example, in March 2011, the Los Angeles school board approved the charter petition of El Camino Real high school, which holds the national record for U.S. Academic Decathlon championships and maintains top test scores in the district. This reflects an ongoing trend of Los Angeles schools opting for freedom from district regulations by shifting to charter status. In fact, at 80,000 students, Los Angeles boasts the most charter students of any district in the nation. After the school board vote, former Superintendent Ramon Cortines told the Associated Press that he expects the conversion trend to continue and foresees the day when the district's enrollment of 650,000 will plummet to 400,000.

A Sea Change for School Funding in America

Posted on October 21, 2011, 12:49pm | Lisa Snell

In the United States, we are in a great transition period, moving from funding institutions to funding students. K-12 education funding, across multiple sectors, is moving closer to how we fund higher education in the United States. We are moving away from a system funded by local resources and driven by residential assignment to a system where funding is driven by parental choice and put in the child's rhetorical "backpack."

At Learning Matters an affiliate of PBS Newshour, I make the case in an online debate on school funding  that "money should follow students." I reprise the my point in the debate below, but go to read the debate to see what other education experts have to say.

In 2011, there are now 26 school voucher and tax credit programs in 15 states with close to $1 billion in school funding following students to schools. There are more than 2 million students enrolled in charter schools with more than 100 cities with 10 percent or more charter-school market share. In New Orleans, for example, 80 percent of students are enrolled in charter schools with money attached to the student and following the student to the school of choice.

Taking this even one step further, with the growth of digital learning and the need to customize education at all levels, we are beginning to see examples where not only will school funding follow students to the school, but to multiple education-service providers. In Utah, for example, the Statewide Online Education Program allows high school students to select courses from multiple high-quality course options and multiple course providers, while still being enrolled in their public high school. The money follows the kids to the course selection. In April 2011, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law Arizona Empowerment Accounts. Empowerment Accounts allow parents - in this case, parents of special-needs children - to remove their children from the public-school system and receive the money the state would have spent on them in an education savings account. Every quarter, the state deposits up to 90 percent of the base support level of state funding into a parent-controlled ESA. Parents can then use that money to pay for a variety of educational options including private-school tuition, private tutoring, special education services, homeschooling expenses, textbooks, and virtual education, enabling them to customize an education for their child's unique needs.

Traditional public school funding systems at the state and local level are also adapting to a "school funding portability" framework where state and local funding is attached to the students and given directly to the institution in which the child enrolls. More than 30 "school funding portability" funding systems are funding student through a student-based budgeting mechanism in cities like New York, Baltimore, Denver, Hartford and Cincinnati. In 2011, Rochester, Newark and Boston have moved to full weighted student formula systems where the money follows the child. Los Angeles Unified is moving from 100 pilot schools being funded based on per-pupil basis to all 800 schools funded based on where the student enrolls. In Louisiana, 7 school districts are piloting a student-based budgeting system, including the largest school district in the state, Jefferson Parish, with 50,000 students. New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Indiana have all recently changed their statewide school funding systems to a state formula where the money is attached to the child.

As Indiana's Tribune Star reported "Of all the sweeping legislative changes coming to K-12 education, from private-school vouchers to performance-based pay for teachers, the one that may have the most impact is tucked inside the 270-page budget bill. It changes the way schools are funded, following a new formula to divvy up nearly $13 billion in K-12 education dollars. The new formula follows the mantra that "money follows the child." As Representative Ed Clere, who sits on the House Education Committee explained "The new formula is a "sea change" from the past. We're no longer funding schools. We're funding students."

In Louisiana Student-Based Budgeting Logical Extension of Charter School Movement

Posted on October 21, 2011, 12:30pm | Lisa Snell

In light of Saturday's state school board elections in Louisiana, The Pelican Institute's Kevin Mooney makes the case that "strong performing charter schools in the Recovery School District (RSD) make a compelling case for even greater decentralization in Louisiana's education system, according to the proponents of student based budgeting." This is especially true now that 80 percent of students in New Orleans are enrolled in charter schools where the "money follows the child" and student outcomes are moving in positive directions on multiple indicators from test scores to graduation rates. The Reason Foundation has been involved in a two year project to help the "money to follow every child" in Louisiana to the school in which they enroll.

As the Pelican Institute reports:  

Last November, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) began studying the new budgetary concept at the behest of the state's Streamlining Commission.  Under current policy, state money is allocated to each school district and the district officials determine how much money each school receives. But there is a better way to maximize resources and direct money into the classroom, Lisa Snell, the director of Education and Child Welfare at the California-based Reason Foundation, said.

"We've learned from the charter school movement that decentralization has its advantages," Snell explained. "One of the problems we see at the federal, level and district level is that there are a lot of rules about how to spend money and principals are held accountable for student achievement. But the principals have very little input how resources are directed in specific instances. They should have more autonomy over how resources are aligned toward their school's instructional goals."

The idea behind student based budgeting (SBB) is for school dollars to be dispersed on a per-pupil basis and to follow individual students into schools where the principals determine how the money is best spent. Snell made the case for SBB last year before a BESE task force. She was joined by three other presenters from across the country who have successfully implemented the new budgetary method in their districts.

Matt Hill, an administrative officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District, told task force members that assigning financial resources directly to schools had allowed for each school to have greater flexibility to make specific decisions in spending, which in turn improved student performance. Jason Willis, a former budget director with the Oakland Unified School District, said some tasks are better suited to "economies of scale" at the central office, but most duties associated with "enhancements to learning" were better dealt with at the school level.

BESE has authorized a pilot program set to go into full effect next year that includes at least six different parishes: Jefferson, Sabine, Terrebonne, Assumption, Lafourche and Iberville. Officials with St. John the Baptist indicated earlier this year that they may not take part in the pilot after initially signing up, but the parish has not officially withdrawn, Penny Dastugue, the BESE president said. She anticipates the pilot program will yield useful information for school officials over the next several months.

"This is a voluntary way for districts to explore new concepts and new practices," Dastugue said. "The idea here is to empower local school leaders and to shift the decision-making over to the local schools where there is a firm understanding of student needs."

School districts that have embraced SBB throughout the country find that it translates into greater transparency, heightened flexibility and greater equity, Dastugue noted. She also said that the overall success of the charter school program suggests that SBB can be made to work in a larger scale.
"A one size fits all approach does not work," she said. "We need to be student specific and let principals address the individual needs of their schools. In a way, we already have a successful for student based budgeting with our charter schools."

Read the whole story here.

Universal Charter Schools in New Orleans

Posted on October 17, 2011, 12:46pm | Lisa Snell

My favorite report of the year is out. Instead of universal preschool, how about universal charter schools in New Orleans and many other cities with increasing market share. Charter schools can hardly be accused of creaming or discrimination when every student is enrolled in a charter school. 

A record number of school districts—six—have at least 30 percent of their public school students enrolled in public charter schools, according to an annual report released Monday by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) entitled A Growing Movement: American’s Largest Charter School Communities – Sixth Annual Edition. In addition, an all-time high of 18 school districts have more than 20 percent of their public school students enrolled in charter schools.

“This report demonstrates that in areas where families have a choice, a growing number of them are choosing public charter schools over the traditional public schools available to them,” said Ursula Wright, interim president and CEO of the NAPCS. “Consequently, the public education landscape is shifting in many major cities.”

Exceptional findings from the report include:

• Six school districts now have more than 30 percent of their public school students enrolled in public charter schools: New Orleans, Washington D.C., Detroit, Kansas City (Missouri), Flint, and Gary.
• 18 school districts have more than 20 percent of their public school students enrolled in charter schools
• An astounding 70 percent of public school students in New Orleans attended public charter schools in the 2010-2011 school year. Charter schools are the highest performing sector of public schools in the city.
• Los Angeles again tops the list of districts with the highest number of public charter school students enrolled with 79,385 students. To provide a sense of scale, the number of students enrolled in public charter schools in Los Angeles, alone, would place the city’s charter schools in the top 45 of the 100 largest school districts in the United States.
• Nearly 100 school districts now have at least 10 percent of public school students in charter schools.

"We estimate that there are now more than 2 million students in public charter schools across the country," said Wright. "And with hundreds of thousands more students across the country hoping for an additional seat in a charter school, we expect our share of the public school landscape to continue to rise in the coming years."

The "Top 10" highest percentages of public charter school students are in these 12 districts: New Orleans Public School System, La. (70 percent), District of Columbia Public Schools, (39 percent), Detroit Public Schools, Mich. (37 percent), Kansas City, Mo. (35 percent), Flint City School District, Mich. (32 percent), Gary Community School Corporation, Ind. (30 percent), St. Louis Public Schools, Mo. (29 percent), Dayton Public Schools, Ohio (27 percent), Youngstown City Schools, Ohio (24 percent), Albany City School District, NY (23 percent), Cleveland Municipal School District, Ohio (23 percent) and Toledo Public Schools, Ohio (23 percent).

The "Top 10" districts serving the highest number of public charter school students are: Los Angeles Unified School District, Calif. (79,385), Detroit Public Schools, Mich. (45,073), the School District of Philadelphia, Pa. (40,322), New York City Department of Education, N.Y. (38,743), Chicago Public Schools, Ill. (37,909), Houston Independent School District, Tex. (37,499), Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Fla. (35,380), District of Columbia Public Schools (29,366), New Orleans Public School System, La. (27,728) and Broward County Public Schools, Fla. (24,150).

The "Top 10" districts that experienced the highest annual growth in the percentage of public charter school students are: Orange County Public Schools, Fla. (42 percent), Memphis City Schools, Tenn. (41 percent), New York City Department of Education, N.Y. (29 percent), Mesa Public Schools, Ariz. (27 percent), Baltimore City Public Schools, Md. (26 percent), New Orleans Public Schools, La. (23 percent), Alpine School District, Utah (22 percent), San Antonio Independent School District, Tex, (21 percent), Indianapolis Public Schools, Ind. (20 percent), Los Angeles Unified School District, Calif. (19 percent) and the School District of Philadelphia, Pa. (19 percent).

Download a copy of the report A Growing Movement: America's Largest Charter School Communities - Sixth Annual Edition athttp://www.publiccharters.org/publication/?id=613. The report uses 2010-2011 school-year enrollment figures.