Voices for America's Children - nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy for better child policy » School Success http://www.voices.org Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:13:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Mother jailed for sending kids to better school http://www.voices.org/blog/mother-jailed-for-sending-kids-to-better-school/ http://www.voices.org/blog/mother-jailed-for-sending-kids-to-better-school/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:07:42 +0000 Terrylynn Tyrell http://www.voices.org/?p=4228 ABC News reports that an Ohio mother has been jailed for sending her children to a good school. Kelley Williams-Bolar had been sending her daughters to a school regarded as better than her own, but located in a different school…

]]> ABC News reports that an Ohio mother has been jailed for sending her children to a good school. Kelley Williams-Bolar had been sending her daughters to a school regarded as better than her own, but located in a different school district. She was convicted of lying about her residency in her paperwork to the school.

This case vividly shows how children get different opportunities based simply on where they grow up, and how parents are desperate to stop it. In other developed countries, schools are usually administered at the national level (or state level, like Germany). Running schools at the municipal level enforces school segregation by income, and poor neighborhoods must make do with poor schools.  Please join us in our fight for fair schooling opportunities!

]]> http://www.voices.org/blog/mother-jailed-for-sending-kids-to-better-school/feed/ 1 Where does your state rank on student reading? http://www.voices.org/blog/where-does-your-state-rank-on-student-reading/ http://www.voices.org/blog/where-does-your-state-rank-on-student-reading/#comments Wed, 19 May 2010 15:34:03 +0000 Casey_Labrack http://www.voices.org/?p=2755 The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s comprehensive report, “Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters,” this week drew attention to the problem of student underperformance in reading. Now that data has been integrated with the Foundation’s…

]]> The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s comprehensive report, “Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters,” this week drew attention to the problem of student underperformance in reading. Now that data has been integrated with the Foundation’s website, allowing you to see how your state ranks.

Interestingly, though only around one-third of students are proficient readers according to the Department of Education, states are usually doing well by their own assessments. For example, only 28 percent of Texas students are proficient readers by national standards, but 84 percent passed that state’s test. It seems national and state learning standards are not aligned, and we expect this to be an important topic when federal education programs are renewed, possibly this year.

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