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A weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else — from the nation’s leading voice on education innovation and opportunity.

GROUNDHOG DAY FOR UNIONS, CELEBRATING CATHOLIC SCHOOLS, #FUNDFAMILIES and more

GROUNDHOG DAY IS YEAR-ROUND FOR THE UNIONS. Failing kids don’t matter to them...failing schools don’t matter to them. It’s the same day every day for the unions. But our kids can’t afford another “continuous loop” groundhog day of

2020’s disastrous loss of learning in 2021. They need an immediate start to school...not more “groundhog” excuses from the unions.

WILL PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL SPRING FORWARD FOR ED OPPORTUNITY? Necessity is the mother of invention, and the necessity of union teachers refusing to teach has spawned innovative new ways to make sure kids learn. Jeanne Allen explains in Forbes: [[link removed]]

"Akin to the DIY craze in cultural areas of life, an explosion of parent pods and micro-schools, both organic and well developed programs, have been an apt, and often better, substitute."

Also consider that In North Carolina more than 18,800 families filed to operate a home-school from July 1 to Jan. 22 — more than double the school-year before. In Connecticut, the number of students who left public schools to be home-schooled jumped fivefold this school year, to 3,500. In Nebraska, the number of home-schooled students jumped 56%, to 13,426. Powerful numbers from a growing and powerful movement.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK. We should be celebrating how many are actually open compared to the bulk of schools around the country. Their success should be recognized by the man they helped educate, who sits in the Oval Office. The test for the President as Jeanne Allen posed in

this Wall Street Journal piece [[link removed]] "will be whether the President supports efforts to ensure that poor and working-class kids just like him have the same life-defining opportunity he had.”

PARENT POWER DENIED IS THE PROBLEM. Yesterday’s New York Times carried a blunt but important report on widespread distrust of public schools districts among black parents [[link removed]], noting that hesitancy to send their kids back to school reflects “the profound lack of trust that Black families have in school districts, a longstanding phenomenon exacerbated by the pandemic.” And why should they trust a system that has for decades failed black students who, because of their zip codes, are stuck in underperforming schools with underperforming teachers? As one parent said "for generations, these public schools have failed us and prepared us for prison, and now it’s like they’re preparing us to pass away."

The article points out that “home-schooling among Black families has been on the rise for years [[link removed]],” that “for some families, remote learning has offered a measure of control over an education system that can often feel opaque... so parents can see how their children are taught and treated by their teachers. It has also allowed some children to largely escape hostile school environments.” Black parents have had enough...they deserve real power over their kids' education.

THE SOLUTION IS TO FUND FAMILIES - NOT FAILURE [[link removed]]. Watch the video and learn how to give every child a “virtual backpack” so that every family can choose the best learning environment for their kids.

Such innovations in how we operate schools matter more now than ever. Georgia is close — new legislation [[link removed]]creates educational scholarship accounts for Georgia students. And the “Show Me” state of Missouri is set to vote today on HB 739 [[link removed]] which would would create a program providing Missouri children with access to education savings accounts-ESA): the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program. [[link removed]] According to the bill, funds allocated for a child are placed in a parent-controlled ESA. Parents access the funds to pay for the resources chosen for their child’s unique educational program. Fund families and let parents choose their child’s “unique educational program”—the essence of parent power. Stay tuned.

For a complete national rundown of parental power by state, check out our Parent Power Index. [[link removed]]

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP. Actually, we wish we had made up the fact that Unions are suing Cincinnati to stop return of in person learning [[link removed]] and that a Parents rally to re-open Oregon schools drew the ire of the union [[link removed]], noting that even though teachers had moved ahead of seniors for vaccines, that was not good enough for the unions. And we take no joy in reporting that a “ Former Broward schools administrator was arrested in a corruption probe [[link removed]].” We note it as a, dare we say vaccine, to the common union smear that corruption only happens around for-profit schools. As the Almighty advised, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Whether or not Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, our kids can’t afford even one more day - let alone six more weeks -of missed learning and socializing. For their sake make your voices heard! In the meantime, did you know there was a

Groundhog Day song for kids? [[link removed]] Don’t feel bad - neither did we. But with or without your kids we think you’ll enjoy it.

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