After many years of being rebuffed at the polls, the pro-voucher forces seemed to have given up. Voucher supporters turned to charter schools as their best hope for wresting public dollars out of public schools and putting them into private hands. But in recent years, vouchers have made a comeback. The Wisconsin legislature approved vouchers for Milwaukee in 1990, and the Supreme Court refused to overturn the law. Then the Ohio legislature approved vouchers in Cleveland, and a Republican-controlled Congress installed vouchers in the D.C. Schools. Other states have enacted tax credits or other means of subsidizing nonpublic schools, and few are willing to cal their voucher programs by their true name. instead they are “opportunity scholarships,” because they know the public doesn’t like vouchers. Thus far, the evaluations have failed to show any academic advantages for voucher schools. Some have a higher graduation rate than their peers in public schools, but their attrition rates are so high that it’s hard to cite the graduation rate (of those who did not drop out) as a victory. Despite the lack of results, and despite the lack of any popular mandate, the voucher movement continues to grow.
As I have learned in various public debates, voucher proponents make outlandish claims. Evidence is irrelevant. They claim success even when none exists.
It is time, I thought, to consider the philosophical and political case against vouchers. In this post, it is stated by Nicholas Meier. It may not surprise you to learn that Nick Meier is the son of famed progressive educator Deborah Meier.
Nick Meier’s first argument against vouchers is economic. Society is unwilling to pay the cost of elite private schools for all.
His second argument is about who gets to choose:
“The other issue is who chooses. Most private schools have selective admission, and limited space. Since unlike public schools they get to choose their students, even if the voucher fully paid for them (which of course it will not), they would still most likely cream the easiest students to teach, leaving the more difficult to teach children in the public schools.
“These two factors in combination would end up subsidizing private schools and middle and upper class families at the expense of public schools and the poor that are left in them. This would further segregate our schooling system into the haves and the have-nots.
“Since I have never heard voucher proponents either suggest that vouchers should be at the levels necessary to have them cover the full cost of most private schools, nor to force private schools to take those children, I find their arguments disingenuous.”
Not even charter schools pass muster, in Meier’s view:
“Why I still do not favor even this [charter schools] is that it fundamentally changes the purpose of public schools. Traditionally we have considered the education of the next generation to be a concern of society as a whole. In fact, virtually every society has considered this to be true throughout history. For this reason, locally elected school boards have governed our public schools.
“Charter schools and voucher systems make schooling a private consumer choice. In the charter and voucher systems consumers choose among the choices offered them, but have no guaranteed right to have a say about the schooling other than making that choice. Those who do not have children in the schools have no say at all. Private schools are run privately, and do not have to answer to the public. Charter schools usually have to answer for test scores and financial responsibility, but even there it is to the state and not in any direct way to the local public. While charter schools have governing boards, they select their own members of those boards. This gives control of the content of schooling to those who run the schools, often for-profit concerns, but even if not, private concerns of some sort. While our government is not perfect, should I really trust those who have private agendas and do not have to answer to the public to decide the how and what of our next generation’s schooling? Public school boards are elected, and have open meetings; private schools do not have to. Even if the charters do have open meetings, they are often run by national organizations and so are inaccessible and would probably just say, “Don’t send you child here if you don’t like our agenda.”
“Vouchers and charters are about redefining the public as consumers rather than citizens, which is part of a larger corporate agenda to destroy public institutions and the limit the power of the public.
“For the above (and other) reasons, I see truly public schools as the only answer for those committed to a democratic society.”
I agree with Mr. Meier about vouchers.
But I find his argument about charters ironic since Deborah Meier, his mother was one of the leading advocates for creating options in public education. The school she helped create, Central Park East, encouraged others to create other new schools.
The New York City District 4 program in which Ms. Meier worked, allowed teachers, parents and community members to create new schools, and schools within schools, was rightly hailed for considerable accomplishments. And the District 4 program did encourage families to make choices among different kinds of schools.
Ms. Meier went on to create an excellent option in the Boston Public Schools, Mission Hill. Once again, this was one of many options available to families.
Details of choice plans matter a lot. Some don’t provide transportation. That’s wrong. Others permit schools to have admissions tests. Again, I think that’s wrong.
But there are few things more American than allowing families to select among various options, within some limits. That’s in part why various public school continue to grow.
Joe is missing the point as usual, most likely deliberately so,
It is perfectly possible to give people educational options without the Monopoly Money Madness of vouchers. Many advanced nations, of which we are quickly becoming not one, do this already. It is only the market-brain mentality of capi-dull-ism that stands in the way. Local control was our last best compromise between equal opportunity for all and the principle of more for those who can afford more, but the power of privilege is no longer content with that modus vivendi and so they now demand more, more, more, at the expense of the whole nation’s civic health.
Joe,
The writer was concerned with vouchers subsidizing the elite/middle class, and disenfranchising the poor, to create an anti-democratic two tier system which also excludes the voice of taxpayers with no children in the system.
He also discussed how charters are not accountable to the public.
You did not refute those two points: you brought up a third, unrelated point, that his mother was an advocate of the public using public institutions which are transparent and accountable to the public, to create more public school options.
That point you brought up, is not “ironic”, but rather, it reinforces the author’s point that public schools are more accountable and democratic than charter or private. It also additionally supports the argument that public schools can easily offer a full range of “options” demanded by the public, while still being democratic and transparent: your point proves that charters are not needed, nor vouchers, to create “choice”.
I agree admissions tests are not reasonable for public schools.
I just don’t understand how your comment addresses the author’s concerns: what do you have to say about those two aspects that I mentioned, and he mentioned?
Titleone,
If your concern is about the creation of a nun democratic two tiered system, isn’t the most I democratic part of education the existence of private schools like Dalton, the Lab Schools, and Phillips Exeter? Surely those schools should be targeted for closure before the Walton Rural Life Center Charter School on those grounds.
Exactly which school of Meiers was a charter? My understanding is that a choice of schools within districts was Meiers’ aim, not PIMOs, e.g., public in money only –not schools with virtually no regulatory oversight that take public funds but essentially function separately from districts.
Today, there is nothing considered to be more American by a selfish subset than sacrificing rights that benefit our society, including democracy, for things that benefit the few. Privatization benefits private enterprises, not the public.
Thanks for the comments from Victorino, Title One Teacher, Jon & Chiara.
Other the last 30 years, we’ve seen an expansion of opportunity in many areas – marriage equality, voting, housing and civil rights for people of color, etc etc.
Just as opportunity has expanded in those areas, it has expanded to include many schools/universities/programs not governed by local school boards. For example:
* More than 20 states allow high school students to take courses, part time in some places, full time in others, on college campuses, with state funds following them, paying tuition, books, etc. These college campuses are not governed by local school boards.
* A number of states have statewide schools funded by taxes that have a particular focus – math, the arts, etc. These statewide schools are not governed by local school boards.
Moreover, when some of us started creating new public schools within districts in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, we (public school educators) were attacked in some of the same ways that charters now are attacked – creating a “consumer” mentality, detracting from neighborhood schools, ignoring students who stay in traditional schools, etc. etc.
Hope that is useful. I’m going to work now so won’t be able to respond to other comments, if there are more, until tonight. Have a good day.
Typical TIGO (truth in, garbage out) response from privatization promoter Joe.
I invite everyone to click your name and visit your website; there, they will find out everything about your position on the gaming of education.
President Obama’s only objection to vouchers is they “don’t work”. He doesn’t present any “public education, small-d democracy” argument at all.
Presumably if they “worked”, meaning increased test scores, we could have a 100% voucher system without losing anything of value at all.
My own view in my state is that the ed reform coalition is a political coalition as much as it is a “policy” view and ed reformers continue to expand vouchers because if they didn’t, the lower cost private schools (Catholic, overwhelmingly, here) would not be able to compete in our “saturated” charter school market (the Columbus Dispatch describes it as ‘saturated’) and Catholic schools would jump off the ed reform bus. Lower cost Catholic schools in Toledo are only surviving because of vouchers. They’d close without them. The more prestigious (and really selective) Catholic schools would do fine. They’ve always had a market.
I suspect it’s the same in a lot of states; WI. MI, OH, IL, where Catholics are a measurable and influential political constituency for both Republicans and Democrats.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/05/obama-smacks-bill-oreilly-on-school-vouchers/
In 2005, a Kearny, nj catholic K-8 school graduated its 8th grade class, which included TWELVE kids. Thereafter, it closed its doors. Before that, it was pushing vouchers, and also had “locally grown” scholarships. Kids were enrolled from neighboring Newark and Belleville, as well as Kearny, Harrison, North Arlington. As Chiara wrote, the tuition wasn’t too terribly high either — especially when people were used already to paying for daycare; it was comparable. However, even with lowly paid teachers, it couldn’t keep its doors open.
Numerous catholic schools in NJ have closed their doors due to lack of enrollment; then you have the Del Barton school and the Morristown Beard school, and the like, that are ridiculously expensive, to keep “their” kids from mingling with “those” kids, and the hilarity of that is “their” kids’ local schools likely rival private academies, yet such schools thrive.
How about we fix the safety issues in public schools, and fully fund them? Isn’t that the true fix?
Christie is right on it Donna working in close collaboration with cronies Sweeney and Norcross.
“Most vouchers go to Toledo’s Catholic schools. Christopher Knight, Catholic Diocese of Toledo schools superintendent, said they have become a major enrollment component for those in central Toledo, with the biggest recipients Central Catholic High School, Gesu Elementary, and two Central City Ministries of Toledo schools — Rosary Cathedral and Queen of Apostles. The program has largely kept Rosary Cathedral School afloat, with about 75 percent of its students on EdChoice scholarships.
The program redirects funds targeted for public school districts to private schools — up to $4,250 for elementary students and $5,000 for high schoolers. That meant more than $8 million shifted from TPS toward mostly Catholic schools. Mr. Knight said that although the program has helped stabilize some Catholic schools’ budgets, the diocese advocates for vouchers because of benefits to parents.”
“Stabilize” is amusing. The school would have closed without the voucher rescue from the legislature.
I object to the discriminatory hiring and firing they’re permitted to do although they’re 75% publicly-funded at this point. I’m waiting for the lawsuit that will result when they expel a pregnant teen girl who is a voucher recipient. That should be interesting, as far as “students first!”
Thank goodness we still have some public schools to provide the “universal” in public education, huh? They better leave at least 10% public, or they can’t really call it a “public system”, can they?
http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/06/18/Demand-for-vouchers-declines-in-TPS-district-reversing-trend.html
That must be the “nun democratic two tiered system” that TE is talking about …
Jon,
Actually I a thinking about the schools that Krazy posts about the elite private schools. It seems to me that there are many tiers to K-12 education in a place like NYC. A variety of private schools that charge more for a year than a college education costs at my institution, qualified admission public schools, highly segregated zoned public schools, etc.
Yes that would be the non democratic two tiered system that I was talking about, that TE questioned me about;)
TE, you said “Isn’t the most I democratic part of education the existence of private schools?”
Look above to find your answer in Chiara’s post. Why should public taxes pay for religious private education, or any education, that results in a local school being defunded, which educates ALL children?
If you want your kids in private school I salute you. My parents had me in private school for a few years, it was a Catholic school. I learned the same things that other kids did in public school, in a religious environment, with small class sizes, and my lessons included church several times a week. They paid for that.
They also paid for the public school that I went to prior, by paying their property taxes. This was a very respectable school in a “good” neighborhood… Had the students been poor there, and my parents’ money from their taxes given back to them, so that they could afford religious education for me, they would not have been complying with their responsibility, as citizens, to give back to the community, according to their income.
My mother and father both have/had Masters and also they both were, at one point, teachers for about 8-15 years each. My mother in English, my father in math. Although they wanted me to go to private school to learn about the religion that they were impressing upon me, they would have probably not been impressed with vouchers; they both had a sense of fairness.
Years later, I went to 6 different high schools ( long story). Some were in very wealthy areas ( Westport CT), some were in poor areas ( Sommerville, MA in the 80’s). I can assure you, that there was a HUGE difference in the options that I had at my disposal in Westport versus Sommerville. The teachers in all these schools, though, were the same: most committed, several super inspired, a few tired, one mean. Aside from the mean one, I can’t say that the education in the classroom was different, but the environments were markedly different, and the expectations that my classmates had for themselves were markedly different. Mostly because of the communities that they were tied to.
Public schools should all have the same money, the same opportunities, the same class size limits…and my tax dollars should not fund parents’ desires for religious education for their children, nor benefits that are less( i.e. smaller class sizes, more art, nicer campuses), than local public schools afford for all children.
Your version of democracy does not jibe with what I know of democracy.
Title One,
I don’t believe the initial concern had anything to do with taxpayer money, but about control over education that students receive.
The problem with the argument that public funds should not be given to private organizations is that the government does this all the time. If successfull, that argument ends Pell grants, Head Start, NSF research grants, cash aid to poor households, etc.
Here’s a very heartwarming story from a private school that is now publicly-funded in this state:
“In the fall of 1995, Cline and her boyfriend (now husband) Tom Cline met with Fr. Brickner, the associate pastor of St. Paul Church, to discuss their intention to marry. The Clines married at St. Paul in February 1996. In early March, Leigh Cline informed the assistant principal, Stephen Schumm, and other St. Paul teachers that she was pregnant. Around late March or early April, Cline became visibly pregnant and began to wear maternity clothing to school. Based on his observation of Cline’s pregnancy, Fr. Willman correctly concluded that she had engaged in premarital sex.2
On learning that she had engaged in premarital sex, St. Paul officials did not immediately terminate Cline. Instead, Fr. Willman considered “all options,” including immediate termination. Ultimately, according to Fr. Willman, he decided that the most appropriate course of action was to permit Cline to continue teaching for the remainder of the school year, without renewing her contract after the year had finished. On May 3, 1996, Fr. Willman advised Cline in a conference that “under the circumstances,” St. Paul “would not renew her contract or hire her for the next school year.” According to Fr. Willman’s deposition, the “circumstances” he was referring to were that “Leigh [ ] became pregnant before she got married.” J.A. at 536. In a formal letter explaining the decision not to renew her contract, sent May 4, Fr. Willman wrote:
– See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1438382.html#sthash.kXhfyKVQ.dpuf
Women fired for premarital sex. We’re all funding that.
That is an abomination.
Chiara, have suits been filed in OH (or elsewhere) disputing the constitutionality of publicly funding religious schools in this way? Have any succeeded?
My state has many charters, which are wreaking havoc on public districts, but as yet no voucher program. Private school enrollment is declining significantly as charters expand. I grew up outside Columbus. Your account of what is happening there is amazing. (I attended a parochial K-8, but not with state funds!)
Have any men been fired for engaging in premarital sex?
Can religious schools expel girls who get pregnant from publicly-funded private schools?
They expel them now.
They’re sent to public schools, who (thankfully, still) have to provide an education to everyone. They’re welcome at my public high school, for example.
Do ed reformers support this? Why don’t they ever speak out against vouchers, then, other than reciting test scores and relying on technocratic explanations of “what works”? Why don’t they defend the basic, bed-rock principle of public education?
Is it because they’d lose and essential part of their bipartisan political “choice” coalition if they did that?
http://community.feministing.com/2009/07/03/girl_suing_school_after_expuls/
I would be very curios about his position on private schools. Surely those schools are the schools that go the furthest in making schools a choice and should be eliminated. After all, many more students go to private schools than use vouchers or go to charter schools.
I can’t speak for Mr. Meier, but private schools don’t bother me, AS LONG AS they are not paid for by public funds. I do not want the lack of transparency and the supporting of religious schools done with my tax money.
Wait until they start expanding preschool under the Obama Administration! There will be an absolute explosion of public funds to religious schools, particularly given the Obama Administration’s hostility towards existing public schools:
“Starting this fall, under an expansion led by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the number of Catholic schools in the city receiving taxpayer money for preschool will nearly double. Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools and a variety of community-based nonprofit organizations that conduct preschool classes.
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, about one-third of students enrolled in state-financed preschool programs attend classes conducted outside the public schools. In some states, the proportion is much higher: in New Jersey, close to 60 percent of students in publicly financed preschool are enrolled in private, nonprofit or Head Start centers, and in Florida, about 84 percent of 4-year-olds in state-financed prekindergarten attend classes run by private, faith-based or family centers.
Now, as President Obama pushes a proposal to provide public preschool for all 4-year-olds from families with low or moderate incomes, his administration acknowledges that many children will attend classes outside the public schools.”
I guess discriminatory practices are A-OK now in the Democratic Party! Glad we got rid of THAT pesky “bed rock” principle that was holding us back from “what works”.
Separation of church and state anybody?
This is one of the things that we’re getting now in NYC.
On preschools, here’s an interesting story.
The Obama Administration contracted out what was a public preschool program (to a for-profit in CO). Marcy Kaptur managed to wrest the public funds back to the local area, but she only was able to get a portion. Now a portion goes to a for-profit in PA.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2014/06/10/Toledo-Public-Schools-receives-a-portion-of-Head-Start-grant.html
Toledo Public Schools will receive the majority of the local Head Start grant, with the rest going to a Pittsburgh-based, for-profit early education and child-care provider, according to U.S. lawmakers.
A TPS-led community collaborative will receive about $8 million to serve 1,126 children, while Brightside Academy will receive about $5 million to serve 455 children, according to U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur‘s office.
The local Head Start program was one of dozens that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services put up for competition in 2011 for the first time. None of the bidders, which included the Economic Opportunity Planning Association of Greater Toledo and TPS, was selected. The U.S. government bid it out again late last year.”
Duncan also privatizes Head Start. To for-profits.
If you think the Obama Administration is bad on public schools now, wait until we see their preschool program! Privatized. Public schools won’t run any of those programs.
Hasn’t Head Start always been financed through grants going to independent organizations? That is usually what folks here mean by privatization.
That’s not the way it is in my state, at least. All Head Start centers run out of public schools.
No. Dating back to the mid 60s and through the late 2000s, I worked in several Head Starts, all of which were in public schools. However, in their infinite wisdom, the federal government decided long ago that Head Start could save a lot of money by contracting out to private child care programs, too, because teachers there aren’t required to have BAs and be state certified so they’re paid significantly less. But all of the Head Starts in private programs in my area have been situated in non-profits, not in for-profits.
ECE,
It is not a question of where the services are provided, but who is administering them. If memory serves, Joe Nathan’s mother founded Head Start in Kansas, for example. I think a google search “head start of” will reveal many independent not for profit organizations.
Head Start started in many communities as part of war on poverty, non-profit agencies, not school districts. This was in part because some of the founders of Head Start were leery about being part of school districts.
My mother was the first Head Start director in the state of Kansas. I talked with a number of Head Start directors around the country while in college. Most wanted to be in non-profits, not in school districts.
Gradually Head Start evolved to being run sometimes by school districts, sometimes by other non-profit agencies.
The Obama Administration shopped out the contract in 2011. It first went to a for-profit in CO. Local people (with the help of Marcy Kaptur) mobilized and were able to take part of it back public. Millions will still be going to a for-profit in PA, so local people didn’t get the whole thing back.
Joe Nathan: “Other the last 30 years, we’ve seen an expansion of opportunity in many areas – marriage equality, voting, housing and civil rights for people of color, etc etc.”
Let’s all hear it for Marriage Vouchers!
Every citizen will be issued — hmm, how many? — at birth, to be cashed in with the partner(s) of choice on attaining the age of emancipation.
Jon,
It seems to me that this blog is not the place to belittle the expansion of civil rights to include gay and lesbian citizens.
You work too hard at mis-interpretation, You should take a break.
Without being subject to open records and open meetings laws and without an ability to run for or elect private school boards, voucher lawsuits should be based on taxation without representation. Non-parents have NO CHOICE or rights of representation in exchange for their taxation. Has any voucher lawsuit been based on this premise?
Truman,
The same criticism can be made of Pell grants. Should we eliminate them?
Truman,
Should you pay for the fire department even if you don’t have a fire?
Vouchers and charter are the ruination of the public school system. Enough said.
“Vouchers and charters are about redefining the public as consumers rather than citizens, which is part of a larger corporate agenda to destroy public institutions and the limit the power of the public.
“For the above (and other) reasons, I see truly public schools as the only answer for those committed to a democratic society.”
For me, the redefining of citizens as consumers is the issue. Our country is slowly being bought by monied interests. We are being courted by the propaganda of choice. Ultimately, we are being asked whether we choose to remain a democracy.
I’m starting to have doubts about the “job training” coming from DC, too. It was announced with much fanfare in Ohio last week, so I looked into one of the Cleveland programs. It’s an 8 week CNC course, machining.
The starting wage is “10 to 14 dollars” an hour. Anyone who works in manufacturing makes 10-14, right now. You don’t need any additional training to make that wage. That’s the lowest manufacturing wage, locally, in the rust belt.
It looks like yet another taxpayer subsidy to business which will not benefit working people at all. We’re subsidizing training for a wage that any 20 year old who is reasonably healthy and has a high school diploma in this county can make, tomorrow.
They may actually be driving wages DOWN with these programs. They may actually be hurting people here.
I used to think TE was not really a dunce, just playing one on the interwebs.
I am beginning to revise that opinion.
Every other reasonably well-informed person — who is not hell-bent on pushing false equivalence and slippery slop arguments — knows that there have always been very strict rules about the distribution of public funds through the public-private filter, designed to ensure that democratic egalitarian principles are not abandoned in the passage.
Jon,
Addressing my argument is more effective than simply calling me names.
Neither has any effect on you, but doing both gives fair warning to others.
Jon,
Well reasoned arguments certainly have an effect on me, as do attempts to bully.
Perhaps the problem is that I take arguments seriously.
It doesn’t show.
Jon,
I take arguments very seriously. Take this statement by Nick Meier quoted by Dr. Ravitch:
” Traditionally we have considered the education of the next generation to be a concern of society as a whole. In fact, virtually every society has considered this to be true throughout history. For this reason, locally elected school boards have governed our public schools.”
If education should be controlled by society as a whole, we should first look at the largest group of schools where that is not true, private schools. Far more students are educated there, much further out of reach of the general society than in charter schools. If you think private schools are fine, it seems to me that you are not taking the posted argument seriously.
Let’s go back to the original assertion, “For this reason, locally elected school boards have governed our public schools.”
Actually, education in this country has been governed by a combination of groups at the national and state, as well as local levels.
Some people posting here seem want local school boards to be the final authority. But having grown up in the mid-south, I (and others) see many problems with that. Many local boards did not equalize opportunity for young women until Congress adopted Title IX. Many local boards did not provide much for students with special needs until Congress adopted Education for All Handicapped legislation was adopted. Some local boards were kind satisfied offering vastly inferior education for African American, Native American and Spanish Speaking American students until there was federal and in some cases state legislation.
Unquestionably there have been problems with some federal, and some state legislation. But no single part of government in this country has been all powerful. I think that’s been one of our strengths.
I find a gaping hole here.
Mr. Meier writes, “Since I have never heard voucher proponents either suggest that vouchers should be at the levels necessary to have them cover the full cost of most private schools, nor to force private schools to take those children, I find their arguments disingenuous.”
Begging the question, *what if* someone advocated for vouchers at amounts that cover the full cost of private school tuition, and *what if* private schools, in return for using vouchers, either didn’t turn away kids, or agreed to use only random lotteries to resolve over-enrollment? Would he then support vouchers? It’s a pretty fair question, since those are his reasons for opposing vouchers. It’s fair to ask if those issues were to be resolved, would he drop his opposition? He doesn’t say.
Because I have good news — I could bring him to schools today, literally, that accept a government voucher as a full tuition payment, that don’t turn away kids, and that have saved the lives of children, according to those parents. On the other hand, if Mr. Meier or Ms. Ravitch would like to visit those and explain to low income families why the program that they deeply cherish should not exist… I’m up for that too.
I’ll bring a video crew.
Bob Bowdon,
Too bad you don’t read any of the research about vouchers. In no district do low-income children get higherscores than public schools.
When they have higher graduation rates, it is because so many kids dropped out.
Meanwhile, if you want to use public dollars to pay for schools that don’t tech evolution or other modern science, you have found it.
No choice programs or privately-funded schools will ever work unless the state sets a high standard to private founders regarding obtaining permission to open school, strict compliance to state/local education foundation laws, and mandatory public transparency on school management, funding, and budget expenditure, etc. Good ‘privately funded’ schools know how to keep up with a higher demand of academic standard by maintaining high ethics on school management, academic integrity, and intensive care on students with a lower attrition rate(which means, KIPP doesn’t count). Of course, they have some issues(i.e., test-driven instruction, elitist mentality, reluctance to take ELLs and students with disabilities). But they are at least capable of providing good service much better than dime-a-dozen charter and voucher choice brands. And they don’t brainwash students with bogus religious ideology(ID for Creationism) or nationalism.