August 2000 - NEA Delegates OK Dues Hike to Fight Vouchers
CHICAGO, IL - Delegates to the 2000 National Education Association’s Representative Assembly (RA) held at McCormick Place over the July 4” holiday voted to impose a $5 a year increase in each member’s union dues. Sixty percent or $6 million of the additional $10 million raised per year will be used to combat vouchers and other related ballot initiatives.
from the Education Reporter

June 14, 2000 - How Members of Congress Practice School Choice
One of the most controversial proposals for educational reform in America today is school choice. To most Americans, allowing parents to send their children to a school of choice may seem fundamental to efforts to ensure that children receive the best education; yet the right to do so continues to be hotly debated in the political arena. Indeed, while surveys show that the strongest supporters of choice are low-income parents whose children are trapped in failing public schools, many of those who oppose efforts to give parents this fundamental right are blessed with the means to select the schools their children attend.
-from the Heritage Foundation, The Backgrounder

March 2, 2000 - The Saturation Campaign of Lies and Distortions about Education Vouchers
Surveys show that a majority of low-income parents, mostly of color, support expanded educational options for their children. Opponents of this movement want to end its growth. This paper documents that campaign of distortion, a campaign that typifies the broader effort to discredit the movement for expanded educational options.  
-By Professor Howard L. Fuller, PH.D.

January 2000 - Information on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is America's oldest program giving children from low-income families tax support to attend private schools. Citing initiatives such as the MPCP, Education Week has called Milwaukee "ground zero" for urban school reform experiments.

April 2000 - New Information on School Choice
The school choice debate has generated an array of competing claims and information.   Many reporters seeking objective information have concluded that the evidence is "inconclusive," "mixed," or "contradictory."
-from Education Writers Association National Convention  

January 26, 2000 - A Few Schools Will Fail and Close
Renewed debate about Cleveland's four-year old school choice program has been spurred by news of fraud at one of the program's 57 private schools. 
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer,

January 18, 2000 - Letter to the School Choice Committee from Jim Petro, Ohio State Auditor
I want to express my personal thanks for The School Choice Committee's "heroic" gesture.  By raising the funds to pay the findings for recovery in the Islamic Academy audit, the Committee has graciously restored...
--from The State of Ohio Auditor's Office

January 16, 2000 - Voucher a Bridge, Not a Solution
For months, school voucher watchers around the country have been handicapping the "race to the U.S. Supreme Court": Would the Cleveland case or the Milwaukee case get there first? 
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer

January 14, 2000 - Petro Already Has a Job
State Representative James Trakas has every reason to worry about how the state's voucher program spends tax dollars.  And State Auditor Jim Petro's critical report on the program last week gave Trakas still more cause for concern.
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer 

January 14, 2000 - Voucher Backers Repay Funds
A pro-voucher group yesterday repaid nearly $70,000 in tax dollars that the state auditors said was paid to a Cleveland private school as tuition assistance for no-show students.
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer

January 14, 2000 - Tuition Voucher Donations Repay Debt of School
State Rep. James Trakas yesterday called for Auditor Jim Petro to take over Ohio’s tuition voucher program in the wake of an audit that showed a school was paid for no-show students.
--from The Columbus Dispatch

January 11, 2000 - State Legislator Wants Auditor to Administer School Vouchers
Anonymous supporters of a tax-funded tuition-voucher program in Cleveland yesterday paid the state $80,000 owed by a school that received money for phantom students. Supporters wanted to get the controversy resolved and return the focus to improving oversight of the 4-year-old program, said David Zanotti, chairman of the School Choice Committee. 
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer

January 2, 2000 - School Choice Gains Traction
Federal Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.'s latest ruling against the Cleveland voucher program was no surprise.  He demonstrated his aversion to school choice in the fall, when he tried to kill vouchers as school opened, stranding kids and families and drawing a rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court.
-from the Cincinnati Enquirer

September 20, 1999 - Senate Declares September 19-25, 1999 "National Home Education Week"
On September 16, the United States Senate, by unanimous consent, officially passed Senate Resolution 183, designating the week of September 19-25, 1999, as "National Home Education Week."

September 3, 1999 - How Much do Cleveland Public Schools Make from Vouchers?
In the wake of federal Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.'s decision to halt the Cleveland voucher program, union officials have repeated their familiar claim that vouchers deplete money from public education. However, a policy report from the Buckeye Institute shows that publicly-funded vouchers have been a boon to Cleveland's government schools.
- from the NCPA

August 29, 1999 - U-turn on Vouchers
Cleveland's school voucher program, which provided 3,800 low-income students with state aid to attend private and parochial schools, was thrown into confusion last week when a federal judge blocked the program from entering its fourth school year.
- from the Washington Post

August 27, 1999 - Children's Crusade
No doubt Federal Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. thought he was killing Cleveland’s four-year-old voucher program when he ordered it halted one day before school started in the city. But he clearly underestimated the value Cleveland families place on the tickets to a private or parochial school education their state has provided for their children these past four years.
- from the Wall Street Journal

August 18, 1999 - Home-Schooled Ace ACT Test
Students who are taught at home tied for first place with Rhode Island students in the latest American College Testing (ACT) exams. The test -- which measures skills in reading, English, math and the sciences -- is measured on a 36 point scale.
-from the NCPA

July 28, 1999 - Mother's Defend Voucher Plan
Five mothers with children in private schools want to help defend Ohio’s tax-supported tuition , vouchers against a constitutional challenge in U.S. District Court in Cleveland. 
-from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

July 5, 1999 - Hillary Rodham Clinton voices support for charter schools
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the National Education Association Representative Assembly today and called for greater support and resources for public education and teachers. Mrs. Clinton received wild applause for virtually every point she made and received several standing ovations. But it was the non-reaction of the assembly when she delivered fulsome praise for the nation's charter schools that was the only unplanned-for incident during the entire speech.

April 22, 1999 - Vouchers Give Chance at Best Education
American society changed in a fundamental way when the Supreme Court heard Brown vs. Board of Education in 1953. In perhaps the seminal civil rights case of the century, America's greatest legal minds debated whether to allow black children an equal opportunity at education.
-from the Los Angeles Times

April, 1999 - Satellite Charter Schools at the Workplace
Areas which face a lack of school facilities should investigate the possibility of allowing private businesses to operate satellite charter schools, says a new study from the Reason Public Policy Institute. Such "workplace" schools offer a number of advantages, aside from alleviating overcrowding.
-from the NCPA

March 29, 1999 - Home Schoolers Lap the Field
Some put the number of home-schooled children in the U.S. at about 750,000. Other say it’s much higher - closer to 2 million. One thing's for sure: The home-schooling movement has exploded ovcr the last 20 years. How are those students doing academically? Are they well-adjusted socially?
- from Investor's Business Daily

March 22, 1999 - Rule of Law
As critics, including me, predicted, Bill Lann Lee, the thrice-nominated, never-confirmed “acting” chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, has relentlessly pursued racial preferences in his 15 months at the helm.
- from the Wall Street Journal

March 22, 1999 - Voucher Experiment Fails
The first rule of experiments is “do no harm.” Vouchers fail that test.
- from USA Today editorial

March 22, 1999 - As Vouchers Spread, Public Schools' Response Comes up Short
Surrounded by housing projects in downtown Pensacola, Fla., A.A. Dixon Elementary School is ground zero in the growing national debate over school vouchers.
- from USA Today editorial

March 18, 1999 - "The News Elsewhere" Column
Anyone who just can’t take anymore of the poisonous atmosphere this administration has brought to the political life of Washington should spend some time following the action in the states.
- from the Wall Street Journal

March 11, 1999 - Never-Ending Suit
A plan to remove the courts from the process of funding Ohio public schools has a lot to recommend it. But even its sponsor, state Sen. Eugene Watts, R-Dublin, hopes Senate Joint Resolution 4 never has to reach the statewide ballot in 2000.
- from the Columbus Dispatch editorial section

February 11, 1999 - America's Kids Reading Better
The Clinton administration yesterday reported modest gains in student performance on reading tests, but said they were significant because the increase reversed a downturn that occurred in the early 1990s.
-  from the Cleveland Plain Dealer