Legislators in North Carolina are on track to create a voucher program that would divert $90 million from the state’s underfunded public schools.
NC Policy Watch says beware. Deregulation in other voucher programs has left at trail of fraud, corruption, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, with no benefit to the students. Despite the claims of voucher cheerleaders, students in voucher schools perform worse than their peers in the public schools.
Going for vouchers means an abandonment of accountability, for students and for taxpayer dollars.
Public Schools First NC summarizes the legislation as follows:
“School Vouchers: Did you know…
“House Bill 944 contains some interesting provisions. As we said when the bill was filed, it benefits relatively few students and will unlikely serve the low-income children for whom it was ostensibly created.
“If you read the fine print, here are just some of the details:
“If families received the maximum amount of the voucher ($4200) then based on the funding, only 9,524 students could be served in year one, growing to 11,905 in year two. NC’s public schools serve nearly 1.5 million students.
“Information about vouchers and the application process will be available on a Web site. The bill does not indicate how families who do not have easy access to the Internet will obtain the information.
“Vouchers are awarded based on the order in which applications are received–not based on relative need.
“Aggregated standardized test performance data of voucher recipients is not part of the public record and must only be reported if a private school has more than 25 students receiving vouchers.
“Private schools accepting vouchers are only required to provide an annual written progress report to a student’s parent or guardian
“A private school is only required to conduct a financial review if it accepts students receiving more than $300,000 in scholarship grants (a minimum of 72 students).
“Only the highest ranking staff member at a participating private school would be subject to a background check.
“Imagine what our public schools could do with the $90 million proposed to fund this limited program!”
Public Schools First NC – PO BOX 6484 Raleigh, NC 27628 (919) 576-0655
publicschoolsfirstnc.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not to mention, what does $4200 do for a really poor family? It’s maybe enough to pay tuition at a very cheap Catholic or other Christian school, but most private school tuition is well above that. And even if it pays tuition, it doesn’t cover all the other expenses, such as uniforms, transportation and the “voluntary donations” private school parents are expected to make. Basically, it’s just a boost to families who are probably already sending their kids to private school.
YEP!!
Yes, where privatization has taken hold in other countries, the middle class and rich take their vouchers to selective private schools and the poor and disabled get storefront “academies.”
In our own country, privatization at the college level has given us UC Berkeley for the rich and Pay N Pass Tech for the poor. Ever notice how all those TV ads try to entice poor young people of color to attend “career academies” to “prepare you for a job in the medical field?” Well, we all know how that ends up – no job skills and huge debts. The “winners” are the entrepreneurs that own the schools, all at taxpayers’ expense, of course. Once these schools are established, it’s very difficult to get rid of them.
Hopefully our citizens are smart enough to prevent this travesty from spreading (further) to our k-12 public schools.
There are so many people who can’t see out of their own life situation. The tunnel vision of thinking “my money can buy whatever I want” doesn’t stop to realize that many other people cannot do that. If people with the means to do so want to buy their child’s education outside of the public system, they can just do so. But they are clueless as to understanding all of the abover mentioned factors that make the private school situation a less than viable option for others. I always felt that my kids needed to know the whole of society, not just other kids who are bright. There are so many factors that help to develop a well-rounded child and adult. Insulation rarely gives the child a realistic view of life and his/her obligations.
But as in many of the ideas currently being pushed in the political arena, there is no recognition (or care) given to those who cannot fit into the bubble of safety they seem to have created for themselves.
I am just so tired of the selfish and condescending view of people in our society. From the “invisible” people under the bridges to the poor of urban and rural areas, a substantial group of our political representatives fail to really represent everyone. Yet, they are pushing the Pledge of Allegiance, seemingly ignoring what it says. All they seem to hear is “one nation under (their) God” and to heck with the rest.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Liberty and justice for ALL. Hmmm.
“I always felt that my kids needed to know the whole of society, not just other kids who are bright. There are so many factors that help to develop a well-rounded child and adult. Insulation rarely gives the child a realistic view of life and his/her obligations.”
Totally agree with the quote and find it interesting how the “reformers” almost all attended private school ( that is, insulated and unrealistic views)
If I was asked to design a system that would both weaken our educational standards and invite taxpayer fraud, it would look like what the NC legislators are currently trying to do in my state.
Loonis McGlohan: “Tar on my heels feels good to me. . . ”
But this tar heel still can’t tell what’s really going on. On this blog, it seems Common Core is right in there with the evils of vouchers, charters, ending tenure. I know Common Core has created large debate and there is a new book about it published by a NC teacher who resigned over it and all that goes along with it. I have so much trouble compartmentalizing it all. . .particularly when the leaders who are not pushing for vouchers still stand strong for the Common Core. I suppose having tar on the heels means some leaders will not say Common Core is wrong (because they helped put it in place), or perhaps it is still too soon to tell. I would love to see a graph or flow chart about how all these elements (RtTT, Common Core, contracts with Pearson, push for ending tenure, lifting caps on class size, vouchers and charters) truly fit together. What is the Venn diagram here? It’s starting to all run together.
And our state superintendent says this about Common Core:
“A few years ago and in my early time as North Carolina’s State Superintendent, I met with at least 45 of my state superintendent colleagues in Chicago to talk about how all of us could work together to determine what students should know and be able to do in mathematics and English language arts as result of going to school for 13 years, kindergarten through 12th grade. We decided that one of the best things we could do to save our states’ money, share materials, and to ensure that our students, regardless of where they live, would be prepared was to work together on common standards that could capitalize on the best thinking in these two foundation subjects.
As a result of that meeting, we asked some of the brightest minds in mathematics and English language arts to identify what students should know and be able to do. That work is now the Common Core state standards. The work went through many drafts before it was completed. In fact, in North Carolina teachers, business people, and citizens gave feedback to these drafts, and we made changes to improve the initial ideas. That same process also happened in the other states. Then the NC State Board of Education adopted those standards in 2010, and the new standards – along with North Carolina-developed new standards in all other subjects – were implemented last fall in classrooms across the state.
What do the standards include? They include items that will probably be familiar to most of us in some way. For example, the math standards state that all students should be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, do fractions, percentages, algebra, geometry, functions, and statistics. In addition, students are expected to be able to apply that knowledge in real-world situations. In English language arts, the standards balance the traditional focus on literature with a stronger emphasis on reading technical and informational text. I encourage you to go to our website to read what students are expected to learn at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/ .
What are the benefits to this new standard course of study that so many states came together to build? For students who move from state to state, especially students in military families, this means that they will not be making tricky transitions when they leave one state and enter school in a new state. It means that states can share instructional resources and that textbook and other educational resource publishers will not need to tailor special editions of their materials for each state.
There are some who are making wild claims about the Common Core and what it is. I can tell you, because I was there at its very beginning, that it is not an effort that the federal government directed. I was there and was a part of the work so I have first-hand knowledge of the truth. This work, this new set of standards, is an attempt to bring together the best thinking about math and English language arts standards and to bring some uniformity to these two basic curriculum areas.
Take a look for yourself. The Common Core is math and language arts. It’s fewer standards that provide teachers with more opportunity to dig deeply into core subject areas so that they can help students learn the key facts and skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.
This is what amazes me about “liberal” reformers.
They really didn’t see this coming? They thought they’d be able to pick and choose reforms when they climbed into bed with these folks?
Of course there’s a voucher explosion. What did they think was going to happen when they sent public money to charters?
The next logical step was vouchers. Once you uncouple public funding from public schools, it’s inevitable
The “liberal reformers” are all bought off. They don’t care.
Is there “buying off” involved with backing Common Core? I would like to know. Does Pearson give kick backs? How can that be researched?