Jonathan Butcher, Author at NextSteps: Step Up For Students

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Butcher

My background story

What I did before joining Step Up For Students

What do I do on my day off?

How to reach out?

09/13/24 | Jonathan Butcher

Commentary: Lawmakers should consider Oklahoma funding model after South Carolina high court’s rejection of ESAs

For David Warner, choosing a school for his son was a “very personal” decision, he said. The ability to select the place where he could learn near their home in...

09/28/23 | Jonathan Butcher

North Carolina families win with passage of universal ed choice eligiblity

And North Carolina makes nine. After a transformative year in which lawmakers in more than a dozen states either created new learning options for children in K-12 schools or...

05/11/23 | Jonathan Butcher

South Carolina’s education savings accounts a love letter to the next generation

Editor’s note: This commentary from Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, is an exclusive to reimaginED. Shelricka Burnside is a single...

03/30/23 | Jonathan Butcher

Jonathan Butcher: Good ideas in education travel in packs

Earlier this year, I wrote for reimaginED that South Carolina educators were publicly debating the nature and purpose of education in the state. Whether schools should focus on STEM or...

02/09/23 | Jonathan Butcher

South Carolina must sweat details on school choice

All education committee hearings in South Carolina should open with staff placing flags on a map marking the states that adopted new choices in K-12 education since the last meeting....

01/18/23 | Jonathan Butcher

S.C. should trust parents to make the best education choices for their kids

Should schools do more to train students for the workforce, or focus on the three R’s? South Carolina K-12 officials have been debating that very question lately. A few education...

12/21/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Best of 2022: Offering hope to Oklahoma students, families with education savings accounts

Editor’s note: In keeping with our year-end tradition, the team at reimaginED reviewed our work over the past 12 months to find stories and commentaries that represent our best content...

10/13/22 | Jonathan Butcher

‘Getting and spending’ wastes parent, student power

In Baltimore, local media are reporting that a student with a 0.13 GPA ranked in the top half of his class. After finishing four years of high school, district officials...

09/07/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Biden administration ‘had a plan’ for school re-opening; let’s review

On Sept. 1, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona claimed that the Biden administration had a plan to “focus on safely getting back to in-person learning” last year. On the same...

07/06/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Close enough in education choice no longer good enough

Those defending discrimination in education received a well-deserved comeuppance last month—from two quarters. The first, a lesson in constitutional law, matches nicely with the second, the creation of expansive opportunities...

06/21/22 | Jonathan Butcher

West Virginia, businesses investing in innovative education options

With rising inflation and a stock market on the rocks, any big investment is worth watching. And with researchers reporting poor returns on student achievement in assigned schools during the...

06/09/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Time to help South Carolina students dream big

South Carolina parents and students are ready for summer. In Greenville, high schools like Eastside and Riverside held their graduations last week. Charter schools around the state also had their...

03/28/22 | Jonathan Butcher

South Carolina lawmakers must finish job of creating options for K-12 students

Horse racing, teacher raises, and a budget flush with cash. South Carolina lawmakers have plenty to debate before the legislative session ends June 15. But parents hope legislators don’t bolt...

03/15/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Offering hope to Oklahoma students, families

Oklahoma parent Kelly Shank says that if her youngest son had anything to say about it, he would not socialize at all. Now in sixth grade, her son has been...

02/08/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Hopeful idea from Washington: Give students options when schools close

Editor’s note: Jonathan Butcher, senior policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy’s Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation and a reimaginED guest blogger, interviewed Sen. Tim...

01/03/22 | Jonathan Butcher

Why we can hope for a better K-12 world in 2022

Federal officials are trying to appear analytical. Facing dismal student outcomes and lower enrollment at assigned schools in the wake of—and, in some places, in the midst of—school closures, policymakers...

12/29/21 | Jonathan Butcher

Best of 2021: Fact-checking the pundits as a new school year begins

Editor’s note: reimaginED is proud to reintroduce to our readers our best content of 2021 such as this commentary from guest blogger Jonathan Butcher. As students head back to school,...

12/09/21 | Jonathan Butcher

Commentary: Washington is coming to micromanage your preschool, giving you fewer options

Presidents should resist the urge to rewrite the dictionary. Such powers are not in the Constitution. Yet, President Joe Biden seems bound and determined to treat language in the style...

11/02/21 | Jonathan Butcher

South Carolina, education savings accounts have the potential to make the state a student’s market

Educators are in such high demand in South Carolina that observers are calling it a “teacher’s market.” While it’s reassuring that teachers have options, shouldn’t state officials make the education...

10/21/21 | Jonathan Butcher

Research shows education savings accounts are being used precisely as intended

Recently, reimaginED executive editor Matt Ladner noted the 10th anniversary of education savings accounts, which debuted in Arizona in the form of the Empowerment Scholarship Account. In the past decade,...