How to keep up with new choices in your state? Now it's easy; check out the nation's most comprehensive record of educational freedom: "School Choice 2003:How States are Providing Greater Opportunity in Education." This online, free resource from the Heritage Foundation, includes much of what parents need to know to make informed decisions about their children's education. You'll find statistics on traditional public schools, public charter schools and private schools regarding enrollment, teacher-pupil ratio, number of schools and other data.
"School Choice 2003" also provides such measures of student achievement as the most recent results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in math, science and reading for each state, academic achievement rankings from the American Legislative Exchange Council and state rankings on the Education Freedom Index from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
The book also includes a snapshot of where school-reform efforts stand in each state and a state-by-state list of educational-reform organizations.
Krista Kafer, the editor of "School Choice 2003" and a top education-policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, says she longs for the day when the book can gather dust because its findings on progress on school choice have become so unremarkable. Fortunately, we seem to be headed that way.
Parents know they've poured billions of dollars into public education – per pupil spending climbed 75 percent between 1970 and 1995, and the student-teacher ratio fell 25 percent over the same period – with little to show for it. They have become frustrated, as Secretary of Education Rod Paige points out in his foreword to the book, because they know that no matter how badly many schools perform, their budgets won't be cut, their enrollments won't decline and they won't be closed down.
This frustration is a large part of why a half-million children attend one of the nation's 2,700 charter schools and why 2 million are now home-schooled, thanks in part to Michael Farris at the Home School Legal Defense Association, whose work has made homeschooling a reality for parents all across this great country.
We can all celebrate the fact that there are more choices than ever in every state regarding how, when and where our children will be educated, giving parents yet more freedom to determine the course of their own kids' lives.