Campanella, who previously served as the vice president of public affairs for National School Choice Week, brings more than a decade of experience in public relations, event management, and school choice policy analysis to the position.

Held in January, National School Choice Week (http://www.SchoolChoiceWeek.com) features hundreds of events designed to shine a bright spotlight on the need for – and benefits of – enhanced educational options for all children, including high-performing public schools, public charter schools, virtual schools and blended learning, private schools, and homeschooling.

“Education is the single most important issue of our time, and National School Choice Week brings together a diverse, bipartisan and passionate coalition of individuals and organizations working to enhance educational opportunity for children and families,” Campanella said. “It is an incredible honor to work with such a dedicated, knowledgeable, and talented group of people on an issue that makes a difference in the lives of tens of millions of Americans.”

In January 2012, nearly 300 organizations independently planned more than 400 events spanning all 50 states, and a bipartisan coalition of governors and legislatures in 28 US states and territories officially recognized School Choice Week. National School Choice Week 2013 will be held from January 27 to February 2, 2013.

An award-winning communicator, Campanella served for nearly five years as the national director of communications for the Alliance for School Choice, where he led the public relations battle to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and co-wrote four consecutive editions of the School Choice Yearbook. He also worked as senior director of teacher recruitment and communications for the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, working in partnership with school districts and nonprofits to recruit 3,500 career changers to teach in America’s public schools. He lives in Walton County, Florida.
For more information about National School Choice Week, visit http://www.SchoolChoiceWeek.com.

That’s the question I asked yesterday, when I learned of President Obama’s newly minted plan to grant $80 million to the U.S. Department of Education for a competition among the states to support innovative teacher preparation programs, with an end goal of recruiting 100,000 new math and science teachers.

The plan is laudable, but it will succeed only if the money goes toward proven programs that attract talented individuals to teaching, individuals with the knowledge and abilities to dramatically increase student learning.

But to execute the plan, the president and his advisers won’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Instead, they should turn south — to Florida.

The Sunshine State was one of the first states to adopt a revolutionary new route to teacher certification that places a premium on a prospective teacher’s level of knowledge in the content they teach, allowing individuals with bachelor’s degrees to bypass arduous, costly and completely unnecessary lower-level pedagogy coursework.

The certification is offered by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE), my employer in the early 2000s. Interestingly, ABCTE received start-up funding from the U.S. Department of Education during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/08/will-the-80-million-teacher-training-grant-go-to-waste/#ixzz1nyUV5jdh

In a nation where far too many children cannot read, can’t write, and can’t perform basic math at grade level, Floridians should be proud to live in a state where leaders have taken seriously the need to reform education. It’s the type of courageous , reform-minded spirit here in Florida that we celebrate during National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2012), and that we hope will catch fire in states across the country.

During the term of Governor Jeb Bush, Florida led the way in expanding access to these types of schools by empowering community leaders and educators to create high-performing charter schools, increasing access to private schools through a corporate scholarship tax credit program, and embarking on an ambitious effort to blend traditional learning with virtual options.

Now, these efforts are supported by a healthy mix of Democrats and Republicans—including a large contingent of courageous legislators here on the Panhandle. In Florida, school choice and education reform is no longer constrained by political or ideological lines; it’s about doing what’s best for kids, regardless of the obstacles.

And the results of school choice and education reform in Florida? Remarkable. Achievement for all of Florida’s students has skyrocketed, and the healthy competition generated by providing parents with a multitude of options – public schools, public charter schools, private schools, virtual education and blended learning, and homeschooling – has led to dramatic achievement gains for students.

Not surprisingly, the programs have led to important efficiencies in the delivery of education – saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars while increasing the quality of education that is delivered to children and families. And companies in the state, which will ultimately hire Florida’s high school graduates, have been incentivized to get involved in the business of fixing the state’s schools.

Florida’s successes have been so impactful that the nation now views the state as a model for the nation in how to take a severely challenged education system and jumpstart it – with students and parents, not bureaucrats, as the focus.

In 2012, more children are benefiting from school choice than ever before, with parents having true options in education, just as they enjoy in every other aspect of American life. Last year, legislators in nearly every US state introduced school choice legislation – 130 bills in all – and more than 500 charter schools opened their doors. It was, as The Wall Street Journal proclaimed, “The Year of School Choice.”

During National School Choice Week, we shine a bright spotlight on the successes here in Florida and across the nation, celebrating school choice where it exists and highlighting the need for it where it doesn’t. Our coalition is broad and diverse and includes everyone from educators to parents to children to policymakers to community leaders.

Will you join this coalition? Will you stand up and say that you agree: no American child should be denied access to a great school, to the American dream, to the opportunity to pursue their God-given destiny? If you’ll stand with us, you’ll find lots of friends here in the National School Choice Week coalition.

Andrew Campanella is a resident of Miramar Beach, Florida and is the vice president of public affairs for National School Choice Week and a nationally-recognized education reform author and advocate.

A year ago this week, more than a dozen students sat in Speaker John Boehner’s viewing box to watch President Obama’s third State of the Union address.

These children were just like every other student in Washington, D.C., except for one thing: they were about to be removed from the best schools they had ever known.

These were students in the District of Columbia’s school voucher program, and the leader they were watching deliver his State of the Union address had, for two years, not only ignored their impassioned pleas for help, but allowed his Department of Education to revoke scholarships from 216 children.

Speaker Boehner — who had long advocated for the program — thought that the sight of these children, sitting quietly in the chamber that night as the world’s most powerful leaders milled about, would inspire legislators, perhaps the president, to take up their cause.

He was on to something.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/27/parents-nationwide-can-learn-from-d-c-success/#ixzz1ljp1uTrJ

For a moment, try to envision an America where, regardless of how much money you make or where you live, the government empowered you – even encouraged you – to send your children to better schools.

I’m talking about schools that inspire your children, challenge them to excel, and encourage them to dream big and plan for their futures, all while teaching them to love learning.

Sounds impossible. Sounds impractical. Sounds expensive.

But it isn’t.

It’s called school choice, and it’s the notion that across the country, families should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children – public schools, public charter schools, private schools, virtual schools and even home schooling.

Millions of Americans now agree that we must abandon archaic central planning that told us that if you live in one ZIP code, you can choose only one public school. Choice has become a centerpiece of American life, so why shouldn’t it extend to education?

Read more at CNN.com:
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/category/school-choice/

Andrew on WWL in New Orleans to preview National School Choice Week’s kickoff.

Andrew on KUSA in Denver, Colorado discussing bipartisan support for education reform.

Andrew on KOSA in Texas, via Skype discussing education reform and National School Choice Week.

Andrew on WMAR in Baltimore discussing the National School Choice Week kickoff.

Andrew on KTNV’s Morning Blend (Las Vegas) talking school choice.

Andrew on WVUU in Las Vegas discussing how parents can choose great schools for their kids.

Andrew on KTUL in Tulsa, Oklahoma discussing how school choice works.

Indeed, when parents are empowered to select the best educational environments for their children – public schools, private schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, homeschooling, and virtual education – student achievement rises, student attainment increases, parental satisfaction skyrockets, and communities are revitalized.

America needs school choice—and more of it.

But throughout this week, the question I am asked most often about education in America is “why?”

The question is not: “why do we need school choice?” For the most part, everyone I’ve talked to this week, from cab drivers to flight attendants to television producers to doctors and lawyers and reporters – see the need for educational options. Americans know that our education system is in dire straits, and they want their leaders to pass and implement the boldest of school choice options for families.

But instead, I’m asked: why did we—the greatest nation on earth—allow our K-12 education system to devolve so tragically, to the point where an American child drops out of school every 26 seconds? Why did we—the globe’s superpower—fall so far behind (35 other countries!) in key areas like K-12 math and literacy?

It’s not an easy answer. But in the answer is a lesson we must learn.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, the traditional concept of public education worked, for the most part, quite effectively for America’s children.

In a time before free trade, before the lack of foreign competition for jobs, and before modern technology, public schools adequately prepared children to pursue a variety of different career paths – everything from hard work in a factory, at a farm, or at the corner store…to jobs in law, journalism, and medicine.

As a result, educational standards were set for the workforce and the industries that our country anticipated sustaining. Colleges of education set their coursework and expectations for potential teachers accordingly. Students of all levels of knowledge and with a variety of abilities were able to pursue—and, for the most part, get—different types of jobs.  As such, our current education system is modeled on that economy of long ago– one that was diverse and experiencing an agricultural and industrial revolution.

But when it came to the other revolutions—the ones of the 20th century—our education system acted as if they’d never existed. And that’s how, and why, we got here.

Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, America experienced unprecedented competition from abroad. Foreign cars, electronics, and thousands of other international products and services were introduced to the American marketplace.

In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, we experienced an unprecedented technological revolution in our country – with computers, machines and increased automation making work on farms, in factories, and in plants less expensive and less labor intensive than ever before.

These revolutions transformed the basic need for labor in America – with a significant need for a more skilled, highly-educated, professional workforce that could compete with people across the globe in a marathon race for jobs.

Our economy had been fundamentally transformed to be more competitive, more efficient, more choice-oriented for consumers and companies. But our education system remained exactly the same as it was more than 100 years ago, with no choice and competition, low standards, and a lack of financial efficiency.

Some organizations identified these disconnects early on, pushing for higher academic standards, fair and consistent testing to measure whether students were learning at high levels, more content-knowledge training for teachers, and for increased educational options for parents.

But these leaders and groups were few and far between, and progress on revolutionizing American education to match the trade and tech revolutions of the 20th century, was incremental at best.

Why? Because one labor force in America was undergoing its own transformation – just as America entered its new world of free trade and advanced technology.

When Wisconsin passed the first public employee collective bargaining law in the 1960s, teacher’s unions transformed from professional associations for educators to negotiators and lobbyists. The result was that unions advocated for the strictest of work rules (in some cases, even regulating how much time teachers were permitted to spend assisting struggling students after school, as an example) and insisting on uniform salaries for educators – regardless of their effectiveness.

The result was that while many teachers remained innovative and creative, they were treated as if they were factory workers making widgets, not as people whose work and individual effectiveness were so important to America’s future.  The impact on the profession was depressing. But the unions – essentially privately held corporations running pension funds, selling benefits packages, and managing a bottom line for a select few leaders – gained unprecedented political power. They wielded that power decisively, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat any and all school reforms that threatened to endanger the “corporation”.

School district administrators didn’t want change, either, and they fought it, often using excuses – the need for “more money” and “more time” as justification for mediocrity and failure. After all, who wants to change how they’ve done their jobs for 25 or 50 years?

And so, instead of reforming our schools to meet the challenges of our new economic outlook, we simply poured more money into them—dramatically more money—without any concept of expecting results. That money never went to classrooms, to pay great teachers more money, or to improve outcomes; it was absorbed by a bureaucracy resistant to change and clinging romantically to the pre-20th century vision of public education.

That’s how we got here. That’s how a superpower like America can conquer any enemy, defeat any threat, feed the world, and lead the globe in almost any other aspect of life – but failed in one basic tenet of democracy: educating its citizenry.

The crisis remains very, very dire, but the solutions abundant, and they’re growing.

School choice has become the fastest growing sector of American education. Educators from New York to Minnesota to Florida to California and everywhere in between developed the concept of public charter schools, which now serve 2 million children after 20 years of hard work.

Parents and educators and public school officials developed innovative new magnet schools to cater to the learning styles and interests of students.

Private schools –and the teachers that fuel them – innovated and enhanced their already-stellar academic programs, while parents began demanding scholarships to send their children to these schools.  More than 200,000 children now benefit from some form of private school choice.

Virtual education, or digital learning, has recently become so effective and so popular that public schools and private schools are turning to the Internet for courses by master teachers—raising achievement for millions of children.

And, of course, 2 million dedicated parents have sacrificed so much to homeschool their children.

The tide is turning for bold reform in American education, but we need a tidal wave. We need a revolution. National School Choice Week is about celebrating the dynamic, effective choices that are taking root in so many states. But at the same time, this Week is also about demanding reforms where they do not exist.

At it’s core, National School Choice Week is about tapping into the uniquely American spirit of competition, innovation, and excellence – that American quality that nobody in the world possesses like we do—and harnessing it to right a 50-year-long injustice.  And I’m proud to be a part of a movement that is matching America’s economic revolutions with an educational revolution we so desperately need.

“Students, parents, and school choice advocates recently held a rally at the Pennsylvania State Capitol to urge the House to pass a sweeping bill that would grant scholarships to children in the state’s bottom schools.

The Senate has already approved the Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act (S.B. 1), and Republican Governor Tom Corbett says he is ready to sign it. However, there is still some delay with it becoming law. So, National School Choice Week’s vice president, Andrew Campenella, tells OneNewsNow the rally was held to urge the House to act quickly on the measure before the end of the year.”

Read the rest here: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=1482334

“During Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, the candidates ought to make education a major point of discussion. Recent debates have been mundane and redundant, focusing on the same issues and allowing the candidates to regurgitate tired campaign talking points. School and broader education reform should be one focal point of the debate because it is an issue most Americans consider when voting and because a functional education system is inextricably connected to economic stability and job creation.

Simply overlooking education is a bad idea for Republicans, especially considering recent national polls that show voters consider it one of the most important issues. “According to Rasmussen’s Oct. 16-19, 2011, polls on key issues, education is the sixth most important issue to voters, beating out immigration, national security, the “war on terror,” the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq,” says Andrew Campanella, vice president of the group National School Choice Week.”

Read the rest at:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/education-326047-issue-voters.html