We live in a time where words like "fake news" and "alternative facts" are thrown about on a regular basis. We have to navigate too many Netflix scams, email viruses, online banking hacks, fake Twitter accounts, and social media alerts. It's hard to know what is real and what needs to be avoided and ignored.
Groups that so desperately want to cash in on "school choice" and "school reform" are beating their drums again in Nebraska in hopes that the "Average Joe" will believe what they're putting out. A new approach they're using this fall is to try and paint Nebraska's public schools as failures because of a change in our statewide assessment system, often called NeSA (Nebraska State Accountability). In 2017, our state moved away from the NeSA-Reading exam, where 82% of the state's students had met/exceeded proficiency in the past, to a more rigorous English/Language Arts Assessment (ELA) that is geared towards tougher college and career ready standards.
Across the state, and here within YPS, we saw scores drop significantly on this new English/Language Arts assessment when compared to NeSA-Reading results from prior years. It doesn’t mean our kids are performing poorly all of a sudden or that our teachers forgot how to teach. In fact, lower proficiency levels have happened in all other states, without exception, where standards have been re-aligned to college and career ready benchmarks. No comparisons can be made between this year’s new English/Language Arts scores and any previous scores. This is a baseline year and you will see major improvements in future years throughout YPS and the entire state just like we did when the NeSA-Reading test began.
Yet, you will see grandstanding "choice advocates" that will send out "press releases" and social media clips wanting you to believe that poor Nebraska kids can't read and write. They will then try and convince you that they have the "solution" with their privatization efforts that have failed time and time and time again in other places.
I’ve always been for “choice” but can never see being for “privatization” where individuals, donors, investment groups, politicians, and others try to turn education into a “for profit” business venture using state dollars for charter schools, vouchers, and opportunity scholarships. What worries me about “school choice” groups are that some of them don’t tell you they’re really about “privatization,” exclusion of others, and making a profit; while shouldering zero accountability to local taxpayers.
It would be a tremendous mistake to offer up money from the limited state budget we have to enhance privatization/choice options like charter schools with vouchers and tax credit scholarships that don’t have the same accountability that public schools have to follow. They don’t have to have publicly elected boards, don’t have to have annual audits, don’t have to adhere to open meeting laws, manage spending lids, and they get to pick and choose which students they serve, while public schools gladly welcome one and all. They get to take who they want, do what they want, and spend state money while likely damaging the public school system through even less funding.
Nebraska already offers lots of "choice" and an option enrollment program that not many other states allow.
* Over 22,000 students use their “option enrollment choice” throughout the state.
* Within YPS, we have students from seven school districts that use their option in or out choice with us.
* We currently have about 30 more students that option in as opposed to optioning out.
* Over 37,000 students using their “non-public school choice” with an estimated 8,000+ of them being “home-schooled.”
* YPS has about 35 home-schooled students living within our boundaries.
Public education is always going to be a "work in progress." There will always be tons of success stories to share and some challenges to overcome. The "success" we strive for is a journey; not a destination. Come visit us and see for yourselves.
Privatization of public education isn't needed in Nebraska. Chadron isn't Chicago. Bennington isn't Boston. York isn't New York. Alliance isn't Atlanta.
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