It is baffling that there is a sector of the Democratic Party that aligns with far-right Republicans on education issues. The Republicans want nothing more than to turn education into a free market, a strategy that has no evidence behind it.
Steven Singer bemoans the fact that a group of Democratic legislators in his state of Pennsylvania are supporting the Republican push against public schools.
He writes:
“Democrats are supposed to be liberals, progressives.
“That means upholding the Constitution and the Separation of Church and State.
“So why are so many Pennsylvania Democrats sponsoring an expansion of the state’s de facto school voucher bill?
“A total of 11 out of 84 sponsors of HB 250 are Democrats. The bill would expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs.
“The Commonwealth already diverts $200 million of business taxes to private and parochial schools. That’s money that should be going to support our struggling public school system.
“The new bill would add $50 million to each program for a total of $100 million more flushed down the drain.
“Pennsylvania has a budget deficit. We’ve cut almost $1 billion a year from public schools. We can’t afford to burn an additional $300 million on private and church schools.
“We expect Republicans to support this regressive nonsense. Especially in gerrymandered Pennsylvania, they’ve gone further and further right to please their Tea Party base and avoid being primaried.
“But the few Democrats left in the House and Senate are likewise in districts that would never vote Republican. You’d expect them to get more and more progressive. Instead, even here we see them taking steps to the right!
“Democratic sponsors of the bill are almost exclusively from the state’s urban centers – Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.”
He lists the Democrats who support corporate giveaways.
Don’t vote for them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Because the DFERS are sell outs: another reason why we have Humpty Drumpty in charge.
Because they represent urban areas and parents do not want to send their students to “inner city” schools, even parents who live there. These parents prefer their children to be in schools that support their life values. When judges made it nearly impossible for principals to assert discipline other than through one’s individual personality, parents were easily influenced that it was all the school’s fault when their child misbehaved. It has taken 40 plus years for the privatization movement to use this to privatize schools at public expense.
I personally would have preferred a movement to support public schools by spending 40,000 per student as some private schools do. It need not be on the school but in supporting the families with adequate salaries, health care, and safety. But then Bill Gates would have to pay 90% of his income in taxes and that will not happen.
American’s new exceptionalism is now in how fast it can revert to 1890, a roller coaster financial system, last in health care, last in education, and last in income distribution.
What is happening now was predicted by Reagan’s presidency.
Politicians put themselves first, at the expense of the nations’ communities, children, and civil rights, …America weeps.
KnowYourCharter.com makes the case about how many and, who suffer, as a result of privatization of America’s most important common good.
They hope to funnel the dollars to private schools via tax credits and vouchers, specifically Catholic schools, is my guess.
This is an interesting situation. The Democratic sponsors of the proposal, are representing the wishes of their constituents (the voters). These Democrats realize that they must put the voters first, or else, they will be voted out at next election.
Is Pennsylvania gerrymandered like Ohio? Are voter rights suppressed in Pennsylvania like they are in Ohio? If so, the politicians aren’t legitimate. Do lobbyists and ALEC wine and dine Pennsylvania politicians, like they do, in Ohio? Have the people of Pennsylvania ever been told that there schools are being privatized, because they didn’t hear it from either party? With luck, Charles will suffer the consequences of oligarch rule.
Pennsylvania can ill afford to continue to make deals with the devil. The risk the collapse of the commonwealth’s economy. Gerrymandering has created such an imbalance of power in Pennsylvania. Some Democrats may be willing to sacrifice education in order to get another item passed. The fact that only public schools can “fail” under their system gives an unfair advantage to privatization, even when the ignored cyber charters’ results are among the worst in the country. The taxpayers should revolt. They need to understand that when the commonwealth gives businesses tax credits to fund vouchers, the rest of the taxpayers either get a tax hike, or services are cut to address the lost revenue. Pennsylvania is in need of ethical members in the legislature. If Obama wants to address the problems of gerrymandering, he should start with Pennsylvania before the whole system collapses under the weight of recklessness and greed.
Off topic but noteworthy from Politico
Begin quote
Less than a week after President Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, The “Center for Individual Rights” is again challenging California’s mandatory union fees in court.
The nonprofit previously sued over the same issue in the Friedrichs case, which the Supreme Court deadlocked over last year.
The new lawsuit alleges that state law violates the First Amendment by forcing teachers who are opposed to the union’s activities to pay collective-bargaining fees. The plaintiffs in the new case are eight California public school teachers and the Association of American Educators.
End Quote
So the First Amendment becomes the latest legal tool to get rid of collective bargaining rights for teachers.
In related news: Missouri, JEFFERSON CITY • Quote – A moment long dreaded by the state’s labor unions and their supporters arrived Thursday, as Missouri lawmakers sent a proposal known as “right to work” to a Republican governor who has promised for months that he would sign it.
When he does, Missouri will become the 28th right-to-work state, marking the first time in U.S. history that more than half of the nation’s workforce lives in states with such laws.
The fast-tracked bill, which will prohibit unions from requiring workers to pay dues as a condition of employment, has been deemed both a solution for the state’s stagnant job growth and a thinly disguised effort to weaken union influence. End quote
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-lawmakers-send-right-to-work-bill-to-gov-greitens/article_93d1ce22-25cd-5fbd-a35b-b89c3e7e57db.html
The GOP wants to turn the USA into a right to work (FOR LESS) country.
What I love about ed reform is how there’s no learning process. There’s no cumulative benefit from experience or experiments.
They push something thru in Ohio and then the exact same thing is “tried” in Pennsylvania, no matter how the Ohio experiment turns out.
It’s not like these places are even far apart. They could GET IN THEIR CAR and see the experiments in action! They know a lot about vouchers! It’s been 25 years!
Every day is a new day and the experiments are always treated as if no one has ever done them before.
I disagree. There is a learning process. They learn that it works to funnel money to cronies making profits. Because that’s the real goal. Not properly educating our civilization’s youth.
We keep thinking that there must be some politicians or political party that can see that what is going on with the destruction of public education is going to be harmful to children and society. But I think that we can no longer act surprised when politicians willfully choose to allow public education to disappear and even rejoice for it’s demise. Sadly we will likely have to go through years like early 1900’s where not everyone was able to have an education. This saddens me because I have a 9 month old grandson now that I’m really concerned about his education and what life will be like under the autocracy we have now developed into.
Start a bank account to supplement his vouchers.
There may be, however, finally a real understanding across the nation that citizens must either be for an all-student-inclusive public education or against it: it has been the fuzzy “middle” ground which has allowed politicians to be elected and supported while they slowly killed off tradition.
Why are so many Democrats in Pennsylvania supporting vouchers?
If something does not make sense, best to check one’s assumptions.
“Why?”
Why do scarecrows help the crows?
Why do sheep support the wolves?
Why do highs support the lows?
Why do Democrats sell their souls?
Supporting vouchers, just like charters, is also anti-union –another aim that used to only be characteristic of Republicans. Ever since Bill Clinton, the party has been primarily composed of “New Democrats,” who promote neo-liberal economic policies, based on the glories of the free market, including privatization, which was fostered originally by Milton Friedman in the GOP. I first noticed what was happening in the 90s, when my Democratic mayor started complaining about unions, brought in non-union big box stores despite public protests, and began privatizing public assets.
Democrats can only be counted on to be socially liberal now. Since Clinton, they’ve been entrenched as fiscally conservative (like Country Club Republicans) and promoters of policies benefiting the rich. That’s why Welfare was gutted under Clinton, not the GOP, and why some billionaires identify with Democrats, such as Gates, the Pritzkers, hedge funders, etc., though many of them donate to both parties –as the so-called president said he did.
So basically, working class people haven’t had a party representing them in decades, while corporations and the super-rich have had two parties that are filled with politicians who’ve been bought and paid for by the rich, thus the increasingly inequitable distribution of wealth (and power) over time. Occasionally, Democrats remember their base and throw us a bone though, hence ObamaCare.
Democrats that have been blinded by free market ideology should be held accountable. They should be forced to evaluate its impact on public education instead of blindly throwing more money down the drain. Privatization has brought no miracles or solutions, and it has delivered lots of inequity which is in direct conflict with the promise of our country.
Bingo! Both are cut from the same cloth and answer to the same masters but the majority of individuals are simply too naive to see the obvious.
One of the Democrats, Vanessa Lowery Brown, sponsoring the bill is soon to be tried on bribery charges. With that in mind I would suggest following the money as to why those Democrats are sponsors of the bill. It’s a win-win for them. They’ll please some of their constituents and they’ll top up their campaign finances as well.
And people wonder why the Democratic Party is collapsing?
The Democratic party is only collapsing in terms of winning elections. Mark Zuckerberg announced a burgeoning interest in politics. He has been referred to Corey Booker’s, Center of American Progress (the club of Bill Gates’, the Walton’s’, etc.)
I feel like it would be worthwhile to turn the question around.
Why do so few Democrats support public schools?
Why is it okay to say you’re an advocate for vouchers but NOT okay to say you’re an advocate for public schools? Public schools are just the default that politicians can demean and ignore with no political risk?
Every Republican in the Senate is proudly announcing their support for charter schools and vouchers. Why can’t public schools have ACTUAL advocates- not “agnostic” technocrats who are using our kids as some score “baseline” to be compared to charter and private schools but actual advocates for existing public schools?
I don’t understand the double standard. Charters and vouchers get advocates and I get mushy technocrats who think public school kids exist to generate “data”?
I want better advocates.
The DeVos pushback is amusing because ed reform is ONCE AGAIN caught completely off guard when they find out parents care about public schools.
This exact same thing happened with Common Core. They were shocked that parents cared about the standards they jammed in with no debate and no public discussion. Of course they cared.
These people have convinced themselves that no one in the country values public schools because THEY don’t value public schools. It doesn’t matter how many times people tell them “yes, we actually DO value public schools!” They’re shocked each time there’s pushback.
Parents may have to be the last line of defense of public education. We need activist parents to fight for their children and their schools.
Betsy DeVos just got confirmed as Secretary of Education. Pence made the tie vote.
Oh good grief. The misery that kids will be feeling.
Yuk! Everyone run to your battle stations!
Simply follow the money trail and see where it leads. How many US Senators who just voted to confirm DeVoss received campaign contributions and support from allied far-right “educational” think-tanks and such groups as the Alliance for School Choice?
Alliance for School Choice – SourceWatch
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alliance_for_School_Choice – 38k
Where is the list?
Because education is one of those issues few politicians bother to educate themselves about. No one asks them tough questions about it when they’re on the campaign trail so why bother? Democrats ARE progressives but sometimes they equate “new” with “progress” and school choice and vouchers are relatively new ideas. Schools aren’t working? Let’s try something new!
Sometimes it is not an ideological decision. Sometimes politicians in their need to feed the campaign machine ignore their base and take money to pay for their next campaign. Many “reformers” have deep pockets.
There’s truth in that but I think it’s something where they feel comfortable with that money because they also feel that it’s a good step forward. That’s it’s revolutionary and that those schools are doing wonderful things that the public schools are not. There’s certainly enough propaganda out there saying as much but very little that touts the benefits of a good, well funded public school system.
The politicians know what they are doing. They know that privatization sets the stage for a Bill Gates’ business- for-profit schools-in-a-box, a business model that returns 20%.