Rick Hess of the conservative American Enterprise Institute explains why Nevada’s recently passed vouchers-for-all is a terrific step forward. He calls it a “landmark” in the struggle for school choice. There are few limits on who can get a voucher worth about $5,000. This is a boon for religious schools and home schoolers.
He writes:
“Nevada’s ESA is a landmark bill due to two striking features: it’s universal and it one-ups school vouchers by offering ESAs (more on why that matters below). Nevada’s ESA is available to all families as an alternative to attending a Nevada public school, so long as the student in question has attended a Nevada public school for at least 100 days. The ESA can be used to fund tuition at approved private schools, textbooks, tutoring services, tuition for distance learning programs, the costs of special instruction for students with special needs, and so on. Students with special needs or whose families earn less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level ($44,863 for a family of four) will receive between $5,500 and $6,000—the full amount of statewide base per-pupil support. Students whose families earn over 185 percent of the poverty level will receive about 90 percent of base support.”
He is puzzled by the lack of enthusiasm from public school teachers.
I am puzzled by his enthusiasm. Surely he doesn’t believe that Nevada will emerge at the top of NAEP in five years, ten years, or ever because of all this sudsidization of nonpublic schools.
What is the point?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s be clear. The point of current education reform and support for vouchers and charter schools in particular is not equity. Even in its most altruistic intent (leaving the profit motive aside) the point is only to provide opportunity for few among the “deserving poor.” From that perspective, disruption and lack of systemic impact does not matter.
Yes, careful listeners will note the frequent distinction between the deserving poor and the working poor and the rest of those poor who are unworthies. The tacit endorsement a cast stystem is built into the language of politicians who distinquish between “worthies” and “unworthies” in language only one step removed from more vulgar references to the “undeserving poor” including those infamous “welfare queens,”
Rick Hess in the article linked above:
5 Thoughts on Nevada’s Landmark School Choice Law
Pudicity – June 11, 2015
“Now, I’ve met Murillo (Nevada NEA President). He knows that plenty of teachers in Nevada are frustrated with testing, disciplinary issues, teacher evaluation, accountability systems, and more. And the opportunity for families to choose the kinds of teaching and schooling that will best serve their children means more kids will be in different kinds of schools—which gives teachers opportunities to work in schools that aren’t wired into the system of state-mandated evaluations and accountability, if they wish. After all, many of those “private school interests” will offer a very different school culture and approach. Seems like a win-win to me. I hope Nevada’s educators proceed with that possibility in mind.”
On February 5, 2015 Rick Hess moderated a series of panels at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute which was geared towards developing standardized tests for teacher evaluation. Apparently the new tactic has evolved from starve the public schools, feed the charters to flee from public schools to escape standardized testing (which the corporate education reformers hope no one notices they have created and promoted).
For a post on the February 5 AEI conference see my post:
Talking to the Choir: AEI panels discuss their attack on public education
http://goo.gl/Bq9V8Q
Rick Hess: duplicity personified!
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Hess has a long history of disdain for public schools, which he often flaunts in his Education Week column. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
In a state where gambling is legal, this is a travesty. I can see people moving there with their kids. Saying they’re homeschooled to get the $5,000. Then gambling those same $$$ away in a weekend binge. I was just there and I’ve never seen so many small, sad desperate towns on the edge of one big mecca of decadence (Vegas). There were sad homeless gamblers everywhere….well you know some of them must have had kids…why not use them to get an extra $5,000.
Hess wonders why unionized teachers in tradtional public schools would be all upset about the voucher program he’s celebrating?
In Nevada and elsewhere, vouchers drain the public school coffers, which causes an increase in class size, elimination of teacher positions, and cuts in salary. This, in turn, causes even more teachers to leave, and makes it even more difficult to recruit teachers to replace them … in a continuous downward cycle, with the crisis ever-increasing.
Now add Hess’s voucher program to the Nevada public schools’ already severe shortage and inability to recruit teachers—and the accompanying de-professionalization of teaching, and the accompanying lowering of the caliber of the teaching force.
The Nevada teacher shortage by NPR is covered here:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/06/402887228/las-vegas-betting-on-new-teachers-but-coming-up-short
—————————————-
NPR Story:
“‘ ‘I feel like I’m being challenged, which is a definite change,’ says first-year teacher Jessica Adams. She used to work as a cocktail server at the Planet Hollywood casino and resort on the Vegas strip. Unfulfilled with that career, she joined a fast-track teacher training program to get into the classroom.
“Server Jessica is now Ms. Adams, the fourth-grade teacher.
” ‘I really enjoy being with the kids and making a difference instead of serving tables,’ she says with a chuckle.
“The 26-year-old, who has a college degree in hospitality management, now works the floor in a temporary classroom trailer at Robert Forbuss Elementary, an overcrowded school in southwest Las Vegas.”
———————————–
————————————
Now, Jessica… if you’re out there reading this, I don’t mean to denigrate low-level service work such as cocktail waitressing, or degrees in “hospitality management”, but as kids these days say, “WTF!” (What the f-word!)
Are Bill Gates kids at Lakeside being taught by cocktail waitresses with a couple weeks “training”, attending classes given in makeshift trailers? Obama’s kids? Rahm Emanuel’s? Michelle Rhee’s? Campbell Brown’s?
The enrollment at ed departments in Nevada and elsewhere are dropping like an elevator ride at a Disney park… and current teachers are fleeing teaching like… like… like… I can’t think of a metaphor …
So what do they have to do in places like Nevada, where this crisis is being felt earliest and most acutely—and there’s no union, or an extremely weak union (i.e. right-to-work-FOR-LESS states)?
Again, let’s take a trip to Sin City, U.S.A. and find out
about the teacher shortage there:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/06/402887228/las-vegas-betting-on-new-teachers-but-coming-up-short
“Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short”
The title of the NPR piece is wrong; those in charge in Clark County and Las Vegas are most certainly NOT “betting on” teachers. “Betting” implies you’re putting money on the table on the square marked “teachers”. They’re doing nothing of the kind. They’re only betting on… or hoping… that they can continue “cheaping out” on what they have to pay teachers. They believe that they do this, in part, by coming up with ridiculous gimmicks to get teachers to work in lousy conditions and for lousy pay.
Back to NPR:
—————————–
—————————————
“Many veteran educators here say the shortage is undermining morale and student learning.
” ‘It shouldn’t necessarily all be put on the veteran teachers to help the new teachers,’ says fifth-grade teacher Rob Rosenblatt. The shortage and overcrowding issues, he says, mean more work and more stress for teachers.
“The district increasingly relies on long-term substitutes and online classes to help plug the holes. And there is a critical shortage of qualified substitutes.”
“Sarah Sunnasy teaches fifth grade at Bertha Ronzone Elementary School. She has back trouble but says she almost never calls in sick.”
(SCARY GRAPH ILLUSTRATING SHORTAGE)
” ‘I’ve come to school on days where I cried trying to get out of bed,’ Sunnasy says. ‘Because I know if I try to call in a sub, there is not going to be anybody there. And I’m not gonna put that pressure on the people that I work with to split my class or cover my class.’
“Last school year in the district about 500 teachers quit without giving any reason. One of Rosenblatt’s colleagues resigned a few weeks into the new school year. Rosenblatt says he and a colleague have had to pick up all the slack — lessons, report cards, grading and tests.
” ‘Basically it was the two of us teaching not just our two classes but a third class on top of it. I even told my kids, ‘I’m neglecting you guys.’ ”
“He apologized to his regular class but told them he had to step in because the class next door “just wasn’t getting the education they deserved.”
————————-
——–
Things there are so godawful that to solve the problem, those in charge
even come up with this idiotic “superhero” teacher recruiting campaign where
Las Vegas’ (i.e. Clark County’s) anti-union school superintendent Pat Skorkowsky
went zip-lining through downtown Las Vegas like a superhero to drum
up publicity, and where all human resource dept. workers now wear superhero capes.
I’m not kidding… watch this video of this blithering idiot soaring through the air:
Hey, Pat Skorkowsky… why don’t you just pay educators a decent, (union-negotiated?) salary, with decent benefits, job conditions, etc.? This is a profession, not a low-level service job like cocktail waitressing!!! No… the rich Red States’ folks don’t want their taxes raised.
The Ed Week article BELOW has Staci Vesneske, the district’s chief human resources officer, implicitly dismissing the notion of raising teachers’ salaries will be part of the campaign. There’s more details about the “superhero” campaign here:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2015/04/are_you_a_certified_teacher_cl.html
———————————————-
———————————-
ED WEEK:
“One challenge in attracting candidates is wages. The starting salary for teachers there is just under $35,000, less than the national average and lower than other similarly sized urban districts. (The 2012-13 national average teacher starting salary was $36,141.) But that number may appear deceptively low, Vesneske said, because district employees do not pay for Social Security withholdings—the district covers those costs—and there are other financial perks that may make the salary worthwhile, she said.
“The need for teachers is more crucial in the elementary grades, but the district is looking for candidates in high-need areas such as math, science and special education, Vesneske said. Of the 2,600 teacher candidates the district is seeking, at least 1,000 will be elementary teachers, she said.
” ‘We are still looking for quality,’ she said.”
—————————————–
—————————————–
…but we don’t want to have to pay anything for it….
she should have added.
The top comment from the Ed Week article of Vegas’ teacher shortage crisis—written by one “Sir Johnny”, nails it:
—————————————–
————————————————
9:19 PM on April 10, 2015
Sir Johnny:
“$35,000 / year doesn’t cut it anymore. Trying purchasing a house for that amount of money as a single person. You want me to fork out $85K for a bachelor’s degree (what Pitt or Penn State now cost) and you can only pay $35K … nope, not going to happen. Doesn’t matter if you are paying both sides of Social Security or not. Pay needs to be around $60K/year to make it worthwhile.”
————————————————
—————————————–
Another comment from “eppie”, a licensed veteran teacher in Nevada, says that it’s not all about money:
—————————————–
———————————————-
7:18 AM on April 11, 2015
eppie:
“As a licensed Nevada teacher for both elementary and middle school (including math and science), I will not go back in the class room until Common Core, the SBAC testing, and the student data tracking, storing and sharing, is removed from our state. The article failed to mention the reason many NV teachers retired early is because of Common Core.”
The state has already admitted they do not have any apparatus in place to monitor these vouchers, and, parents can return their kids to public school if home schooling isn’t working for them. The public schools, of course, will not then receive any funding to account for returning students from charters, private school, or home. This is disaster in the making.
Let the lawsuits commence!
Last in funding public schools – first in giving $5,000 to all who ask to leave the system?
This is going to be the hugest bundle of fraud in the history of paying taxes.
Kids will wander the streets – while parents but a new car every year.
Extremely sad for my state – two steps forward and three steps back.
We will be the laughing stock of the United States and an example of how to drain the system and funnel money to who knows who.