BIPPS joins fifth annual National School Choice Week to close academic gaps, promote educational liberty for Kentucky families
Week-long series looks at various types of school choice
For Immediate Release: Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015
Contact: Jim Waters @ 270-320-4376
(Frankfort, Ky.) – To show support for enhancing and expanding educational opportunities for all families, the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kentucky’s first and only free-market think tank, is joining with supporters of educational liberty to celebrate the fifth annual National School Choice Week from Jan. 25-31.
Follow the #schoolchoice4kykids campaign – which will include a blog series offering a snapshot of each type of school choice – on Twitter @bipps. Please “favorite” and retweet for your network of friends.
“Since its beginning in 2003, the Bluegrass Institute has advocated giving parents a choice so the Bluegrass State’s kids have a chance,” said Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters. “While school choice comes in many different forms, it’s ultimately about ensuring that each child has access to the kind of education that will prepare them to succeed in the increasingly competitive 21st century global workforce.”
A recent series of reports by Bluegrass Institute staff education analyst Richard G. Innes and posted on the Bluegrass Institute blog reveal that while Kentucky’s political and educational establishment have largely dug in against the idea of offering parents educational alternatives for their children, the academic-achievement gap between the commonwealth’s black and white kids continues to widen.
He reiterates the need for charter schools, which in many places nationwide have succeeded in closing such gaps.
He also challenges charter-school opponents, including some Kentucky legislators, who misuse research while comparing the gaps in academic performance between charters and traditional public school, citing their cherry picking from reports published by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) to fit their anti-charter-school ideology.
“We need to get more aggressive about pursuing options that can give our minority students better opportunities to learn,” Innes writes. “One of those options is to establish a high quality charter school system to take advantage of the better performance that these schools of choice are providing minorities in states with solid charter programs.”
The lone school-choice bill filed so far during the 2015 session of the Kentucky General Assembly would make Kentucky the nation’s 43rd charter-school state.
You can help bring public charter schools to the commonwealth by calling 1-800-372-7181 and telling the phone clerk to let your legislator know you support charter schools for Kentucky.