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Senator Mark Kelly: We Need Great Public Schools, Not Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2026 //
3

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona is a decorated military veteran and a former astronaut. He recently introduced legislation to roll back Trump’s federal voucher program. The Wall Street Journal denounced Kelly’s proposal, and he responded with this letter to the editor.

He wrote:

Your editorial “Mark Kelly’s Bad Education Choice” (April 18) misses some key facts. We can all agree on one thing: Every parent wants their kid to get a quality education that sets them up to succeed. There’s no better path to the middle class than our public schools. I’m the son of two cops. I went to public schools from kindergarten through the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. That system gave me a shot, and every kid deserves the same, no matter where they grow up. Massive voucher programs threaten that.

Take my state. Arizona’s universal voucher program now costs about $1 billion a year and is growing. In your editorial, you note that’s only 8% of the state’s education budget, but that billion dollars is forcing real tradeoffs in the state budget, like cuts to community colleges and water infrastructure in a state facing a severe drought. Meanwhile, more than half of voucher recipients were already being privately educated. That means in Arizona hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are going to subsidize private tuition for families who were already paying for it.

The federal tax credit your editorial defends isn’t free, either. You acknowledge this reality when you criticize clean energy tax credits. With these education tax credits, the cost could reach as high as $50 billion in lost revenue in a single year. That adds to the federal deficit and will likely largely benefit wealthier Americans’ taxes because the credit is nonrefundable. Likewise, because the scholarships can go to households with up to 300% of the area median income, it will subsidize families who can already afford to spend thousands out of pocket to send their kids to private schools.

And public schools across the country will pay a price. When students leave, funding drops. Schools cut programs and staff, sometimes creating a downward spiral. It’s happening in Arizona now. Then what “choice” does a parent have when their local school closes? I support parents who choose private school or homeschooling for their kids. But if we want better outcomes for everyone—higher scores, higher graduation rates—the answer isn’t to take resources out of public schools, it’s to make them better.

I refuse to accept that in the richest country in the history of the world, only a small percentage of our kids get a good education. We should aim higher. My dream when I was a kid was to become an astronaut. I got to achieve that. Every kid deserves the chance to chase their dream too, and that starts with good public schools.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.)

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Funding, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Vermont: Malign Rightwingers Target Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2026 //
3

Ken Fredette is a Vermonter who is dedicated to improving the state’s public schools. He is a former President of the Vermont School Boards Association and is currently active in Friends of Vermont Public Education.

A decade ago, when I visited Vermont, I was very impressed by the State Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcomb. She had a vision for public schools that was centered on the well-being of children, not punishments for teachers and schools. She ran for Governor and unfortunately lost. She is currently serving in the Legislature.

The current Governor is Republican Phil Scott. Ken Fredette wrote me that Scott left the Secretary of Education job open for a year (after Holcomb’s replacement Dan French resigned). Then, Ken wrote:

In 2024, following Phil Scott delaying appointing a replacement for SecEd Dan French for a year, he then appointed Zoie Saunders, from Florida, who worked for a for-profit charter school organization, and whose only experience with public schools was closing them. I was in the Vermont Senate chamber when the vote was 19-9 against approving the appointment – that advise and consent thing – and Scott reappointed her to “fill the vacancy” created by that vote before I was out of the building. You can’t make this stuff up.

So, clearly, Vermont has a Governor and Secretary of Education who have no commitment to Vermont’s public schools, attended by 90% of the state’s children.

You can help save Vermont public schools! Log in here. Stay informed.

Ken wrote this article, which was published by Weekender Rutland Herald and also the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.

If anyone had any doubts that there is a concerted effort to undermine public education here in Vermont and throughout the country, those doubts should have evaporated on March 20, when an assistant U.S. secretary of education — on a tour to visit a school in all 50 states — opted to visit a small (less than 60 students) parochial school in Newport for a good example of schools in Vermont.

The plan to shift support from our constitutionally-mandated public education system to private schools — sometimes religious, sometimes for-profit charter schools in other states — has been orchestrated somewhat quietly for decades by groups employing tactics from a national playbook.

But the campaign is no longer quiet, bolstered by edicts from the White House, such as the federal voucher program; The Heritage Foundation (which carved out the dark caverns of Project 2025); questionable opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the separation of church and state, enshrined in the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and articulated by Thomas Jefferson; and countless other conservative groups.

The never-ending attacks have presented in blatant falsehoods: Remember the absurd claim that Critical Race Theory — a college level course — was being taught in our public schools? Lacking even a shred of evidence, it seems the fallback position of those promoting this was the more times the lie was told, and the louder the bombasts got, the more people would buy into it.

At the height of that hoax, a sitting member of the Vermont Legislature came to a local school board meeting with a list of words and phrases I recognized as having been generated by the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (one of the above-mentioned conservative groups). I watched with my eyes growing wider as they rattled off the list, ending by demanding the board immediately issue a directive to all teachers that nothing on it would ever be spoken in a classroom.

When the air let out of the CRT balloon, it merely meant it was time to turn to the next page in the national playbook. That presented as empowering parents. Seriously, what possible argument could be given against parents having a say in their children’s education?

Choice has been a highly charged topic around the country for many years. Here in Vermont, this has reached a point where it is pitting the administration against our Legislature. My faith is placed with our representatives and senators to thoughtfully deliberate such important policy matters, and not afford so much decision-making authority to the governor’s office.

Also on March 20, a commentary from the director of policy and communications at the Vermont Agency of Education sang praises of Mississippi raising their fourth-graders’ reading proficiency dramatically, and relatively quickly; our governor had also pointed to this remarkable achievement during his recent State of the State address.

I’m very glad for the kids of Mississippi, but to imply Vermont students are falling off some sort of educational cliff by cherry-picking numbers and using vague phrases like “… trending downward for a decade” (starting about when our current governor took office) is chicanery. So is skipping over a major piece of the story: Mississippi third-graders who weren’t likely to excel in the fourth-grade assessments were forced to repeat third grade.

Vermont is unique in many ways, including — and perhaps especially — our education system. When 30% of school budgets failed at Town Meeting 2024, Vermonters weren’t saying to tear down our school system — they were saying that property taxes were burying them.

There are some pretty basic steps that could be taken to relieve those tax burdens on longtime working Vermonters. Asking those affluent enough to have a second home here to pay a fairer share is an obvious one, and that’s been a very successful program in a couple of other states already. Following that, let’s update the Common Level of Appraisal system such that if I buy a place in Vermont for $475,000 that was listed at $247,000, I just agreed the new value is $475,000, and my new neighbors’ property tax rates won’t float up to subsidize mine.

There are other steps we could take, but going back to a foundation formula is not among them. When you hear talk from the administration about a plan that is “evidenced based,” please bear in mind that the highly paid outside consultants providing the evidence repeatedly conceded that it didn’t really apply to Vermont, because we are different from any of the places they’d studied.

We need to look at data germane to who and where we are in order to make informed decisions on how to best proceed, because we need to get this right.

Ken Fredette lives in Wallingford.

Categories Democracy, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Vermont

46 States Have Charter Schools But NOT South Dakota!

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2026 //
2

South Dakota is one of the few states that has not allowed charter schools, the schools that are paid for with public funds but managed by private boards.

Democrats oppose charter schools because they take money away from real public schools, which are usually underfunded.

Republicans love charter schools because they own the door to the next step: vouchers. Charters tell the public that schools are a consumer choice, not a civic duty.

The South Dakota legislature just defeated charters in a tie vote, and the Republican Governor refused to break the tie.

No charter schools in South Dakota!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, South Dakota, Supporting public schools

Bernie Sanders Speaks Out Against Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2026 //
4

Blogger Meg White posted on her WordPress blog (@reflectionsined) about Senator Bernie Sanders’ opposition to vouchers, which are overwhelmingly used by students who are already enrolled in private schools and are free to discriminate. The Trump administration has passed voucher legislation and is encouraging the spread of vouchers. In theory, vouchers enable poor students to transfer to better schools. In practice and in reality, vouchers are a subsidy for the rich.

Meg is an advocate for public schools and co-author of a valuable book about desegregation in New Orleans and how it affected one school: William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans.

White writes:

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) released a report that addresses the federal school voucher program. In the report, Sanders charges that “The Trump administration’s school privatization agenda threatens our nation’s public schools and harms working-class students, students with disabilities, and students from diverse religious backgrounds” (forbes.com). Sanders is a ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP).

Sanders said, “President Trump and his billionaire campaign contributors have been working overtime to create a two-tier education system in America: private schools for the wealthy and well-connected and severely under-funded public schools for low-income and working-class students. That is unacceptable. This report makes clear that vouchers are being used to benefit private schools that reject students because they have a disability or because of their religion, and benefit some of the wealthiest families in America. Trump’s voucher program will only make a bad situation even worse (sanders.senate.gov).

The report analyzed state-level school voucher programs, including 111 SGOs and 1,600 voucher-accepting private schools across eleven states. 

The report finds that school voucher programs:

  • Subsidize private education for the rich. School vouchers, on average, cover just 39% of middle school private school tuition across the sampled states. Even with a private school voucher, tuition prices are often out of reach for working-class families, meaning that the vouchers function as a subsidy to the rich who can already afford to pay for private education.
  • Allow private schools to systematically deny admission to students with disabilities, limit how many students with disabilities they serve, only serve children with certain types of disabilities or charge extra tuition. While public schools must provide all students with the same opportunities to learn and excel, 48% of private schools analyzed in this report choose not to provide all students with disabilities with the services, protections and rights provided to those students in public schools under the IDEA.
  • Enable private schools to discriminate against students based on their religion. This report finds that despite the fundamental right of freedom of religion enshrined in our constitution, voucher programs benefit private schools that discriminate against students based on their religious beliefs. Specifically, 17% of private schools reviewed in this report charge different tuition rates based on the family’s religious beliefs.
  • Benefit private schools that lack basic credentialing, accountability and transparency requirements. Fewer than half of states reviewed require private schools to be accredited, while even fewer require student learning assessments. Unacceptably, only two states require teacher credentials in private schools receiving vouchers (sanders.senate.gov).

“Bottom line, in my view, we should be strengthening and expanding public education, the foundation of American democracy, where Black and White and Latino, rich and poor kids come together in one room” rather than privatizing public education, Sanders said (k-12.com).

The report comes ahead of a HELP Committee hearing where Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia will testify about the harms of private school vouchers in her state, which has the nation’s largest universal school voucher program and is a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation. The state is now spending nearly $1 billion annually on private school vouchers, while public schools are being forced to shut down (sanders.senate.gov).Researchers found that the use of vouchers in Arizona is highest in affluent school districts, and lowest in poorer school districts. More than half of voucher students came from the wealthiest quarter of zip codes in the state, with median incomes ranging from $81,000 to $178,000. Most of those students have never attended public schools (azmirror.com).

After Florida cleared the way in 2023 for any family in the state to get a taxpayer-funded school voucher regardless of income, students signed up in droves. Enrollment in the voucher program has almost doubled to half a million children. But by the end of the 2024-25 school year, the program cost $398 million more than expected. When students switched between public schools and voucher-funded programs, tax dollars did not move with them as lawmakers had promised. “On any given day, Florida’s education department did not know where 30,000 students were going to school and could not account for the $270 million in taxpayer funds it took to support them, according to the state Senate Appropriations Committee on Pre-K-12 Education” (msn.com). in 2023, of the 122,895 new students who signed up for vouchers, 69% (84,505) were already in private school, 13% (16,096) came from public schools, and the remainder were new kindergarteners (ncpecoalition.org).

According to the Arkansas Department of Education, 95% of the participants in the state’s universal voucher program had never attended public schools before receiving a voucher  (ncpecoalition.org).

Most students in Indiana’s voucher program come from well-off families. During the 2022-2023 school year, voucher recipients were more likely to come from families that made more than $100,000 per year than families that made less than $50,000 per year (the74million.org).

Since Ohio expanded its voucher program to wealthy families, the percentage of low-income students using vouchers in Cleveland fell from 35% to 7%. Now, most Ohio voucher students did not attend public schools before they took a voucher: the percentage of voucher students statewide who had already attended a private school in the year prior jumped from 7% in 2019 to almost 55% in 2023 (ncpecoalition.org).

State-provided data shows that about two-thirds of students receiving vouchers in Iowa’s new statewide program were already attending private schools before getting taxpayer money for tuition. Only about 13% of voucher recipients had ever previously attended a public school (ncpecoalition.org).

Savannah Newhouse, Department of Education Press Secretary commented, “Opponents of President Trump’s Education Freedom Tax Credit are quick to lecture about equity and fairness, but they’re fighting to keep families trapped in failing government-run schools and environments that don’t meet kids’ needs. The reality is this historic tax credit, funded entirely from private philanthropic dollars, puts parents in the driver’s seat—supporting scholarships that can be used for tutoring at public schools, tuition, and essential services for students with disabilities. Expanding school choice levels the playing field so that every family, no matter their income or needs, can better prepare their child for success”. (forbes.com).

Sure, because it’s working so well.

Public Schools in the U.S. educate 90% of the children. Strengthening and supporting public education is essential to maintaining a fair and equitable society. As Sanders’ report illustrates, universal voucher programs serve as a taxpayer-funded subsidy for the wealthy, leaving working-class families behind. Diverting billions of dollars to unregulated private schools not only creates massive budget shortfalls but also destabilizes neighborhood schools that serve the vast majority of American children.

These are my reflections for today.

If you like what you’re reading, consider sharing and following my blog via email.

@reflectionsined

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

The War on Public Education Hurts the Most Vulnerable Students

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2025 //
4

Garry Rayno, veteran journalist in New Hampshire, understands the war on public education. He knows that privatization is meant to diminish public education. He knows that it is sold by its propagandists as a way to help the neediest students. He knows this is a lie intended to fool people. He knows that the children who are hurt most by the war on public education are the most vulnerable students.

You might rightly conclude that the war on public education is a clever hoax.

Rayno writes:

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” 

The quote is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but is also similar to words from British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.

What better measure of treating the most vulnerable than the public education system open to all, not just those with the resources to send their children to private or religious schools.

Public education is often called the great equalizer providing the same learning  opportunities to a community’s poorest children to the richest in stark contrast with today’s political climate driven by culture wars and fear of diversity, equality and inclusion.

Public education has provided an educated citizenry for businesses, government and political decision making for several hundred years.

Public education is the embodiment of “the public good,” as it provides a foundation for a well-lived life that is both rewarding and useful to others.

But for the last few decades there has been a war on public education driven by propaganda, ideology and greed.

While the war has intensified in the last decade, it began with the US Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka decision in 1954 declaring racial segregation in public schools a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The decision overturned the court’s earlier Plessy vs. Ferguson decision which established the separate-but-equal provision for public education.

The Brown decision required the desegregation of public schools sending a tidal wave through the south reaching north to Boston.

The southern oligarchs who never really believed the South lost the Civil War soon colluded with others like them to develop a system to bypass their obligation to pay to educate black kids. Instead they established “segregation academies” where their children could learn in a homogeneous setting.

The system was created with the help of libertarian economist James Buchanan who touted the belief that the most efficient government is one run by the wealthy and educated (the oligarchs) because the regular folks are driven by self interest which makes government inefficient, and most importantly, costly through higher taxes.

This philosophy continues today as libertarians and other far right ideologues want to privatize public education because it takes too much of their money in taxes, and a humanities-based public education induces children to develop beliefs different from their parents, which once was the norm for American families.

It is not by happenstance we see parental bills of rights, opt outs, open enrollment and greater and greater restrictions on what may be taught, along with increased administrative work loads piled onto public education by politicians in Concord as they double down on refusing to do the one simple thing the state Supreme Court told them to do 30 years ago, provide each child with an adequate education and pay for it.

Instead they have pushed a voucher system costing state taxpayers well over $100 million this biennium, with 90 percent of it paying for private and religious school tuition and homeschooling for kids who were not in public schools when their parents applied for grants if they ever were in public schools.

Most of the voucher system expansion occurred under the Chris Sununu administration with his back-room-deal appointed Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut.

Edelblut nearly beat Sununu in the 2016 Republican primary for governor for those with short memories.

Sununu sent his children to private schools while he was governor and Edelblut homeschooled his children.

Public education during the eight years of the Sununu administration was not a priority although 90 percent of the state’s children attend public schools.

And it is not coincidence that after the Republican House resurrected House Bill 675 which would impose a statewide school budget cap, that Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s small DOGE team — led by two “successful businessmen” — issued its long awaited report and one category targeted schools following the legislature’s Free State agenda of greater transparency and efficiencies, seeking Medicaid and insurance reimbursements and reforming school audit requirements. 

HB 675 failed to find enough support last session because it violates the once sacred “local control ideal” often touted for local government.

House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, issued a press release linking the report and the bill.

“HB 675 applies the findings of the report where they matter most. When dollars are committed and taxpayers are on the hook, HB 675 puts power back into the hands of the voter by requiring a higher threshold of consent,” he said.

Yes a higher threshold which means the will of the majority is nullified by a minority.

State lawmakers fail to acknowledge they provide the least state aid to public education of any state in the country. Instead local property taxpayers pay 70 percent of public education costs and should be able to set their school budget and various other realms usurped by state lawmakers without a “higher threshold of consent.”

The battlefield in the war on public education shifts over time. It began with religious and political ideology; moved into gender and sexual identification; parental rights, including who decides whether school materials and books are appropriate; school choice such as open enrollment, which will exacerbate the already great divide between property poor and wealthy school districts; and is now positioned to impact the most vulnerable of public school children, those with disabilities.

Last week special education administrators gathered for their annual meeting and to celebrate 50 years of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to improve access to education and to integrate classrooms to include those with disabilities.

Today’s special education services and supports are lights overcoming the darkness of institutionalization or stay-at-home kids separated from their peers in public schools.

Many children with disabilities were told to stay home and not to attend school as there were no specialized services or therapies for them.

But services are expensive as federal lawmakers knew they would be, promising to pay 40 percent of the cost, but reneging on that promise and paying only about 13 percent.

In New Hampshire, most of the remainder is paid by local property taxpayers.

The state pays little until a student’s costs reach three-and-a-half times the state’s per-pupil average or about $70,000.

But state lawmakers have also failed to live up to their  obligation to pay their state of the catastrophic costs, so local school districts are reimbursed at less than 100 percent.

Last session lawmakers approved an 80 percent threshold as the low end of the reimbursement scale.

Special education costs are difficult to predict and a budget can be blown quickly if a couple students needing costly special education services move into a district.

The federal government is potentially moving the Office of Special Education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services which local special education administrators said would change the goal from education to a health model which would imply there is a remedy or an illness.

And they said it is the first step back down the road they began traveling 50 years ago when students with disabilities were institutionalized or warehoused in one facility.

Several bills to come before the legislature this session will explore going back to centralized facilities to provide services and supports and explore if the private sector can better provide the services, which is consistent with the libertarian ideal of private education.

Great strides have been made in the last 50 years allowing people with disabilities to lead productive and rewarding lives independently, but that could change as lawmakers focus on costs and greater efficiencies, and the political climate seeks a homogenous environment without minorities, disabilities or vulnerable people.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Fake, Fraud, Funding, Lies, New Hampshire, Privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Carol Burris Interviews Me About My New Book

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2025 //
2

The Network for Public Education sponsored a conversation between me and Carol Burris about my new book: AN EDUCATION: HOW I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT SCHOOLS AND ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE.

I think you will enjoy it!

https://vimeo.com/1137499967

https://share.google/OUhluBgNodmED08UF

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Personal, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Tom Ultican Reviews My New Book, with Some Personal Reflections

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2025 //
3

Tom Ultican had a successful career in the private sector when he made a decision that changed his life: He became a teacher of physics and advanced mathematics in California. After he retired, he became blogging about education. He became one of the most perceptive investigators of the powerful people and dark money behind the organized attacks on public schools.

I am delighted to present his review of my just-published memoir, titled AN EDUCATION: HOW I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT SCHOOLS AND ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE (Columbia University Press).

I am posting a portion of his review here. I encourage you to open the link and finish his fine commentary.

He wrote:

An Education; How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else, is highly recommended especially for the thousands of us who consider her a friend. Diane is a very generous person with both her time and resources. I first met Diane through her blog in 2014, then in person at the 2015 NPE conference in Chicago. It was in this time period that she started posting some of my articles on her blog while simultaneously informing me about who was working to destroy public education. At the time, I did not realize what a privilege this was. Her latest book is an intimate memoir that introduces us to Diane Rose Silverstein of Houston, Texas born July 1, 1938. It tells the story of a Jewish Texan from of large struggling family becoming politically influential and a national treasure.

On a page following the dedication page, she quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and devines.”

I knew that Diane had made a big change and reversed herself on test based accountability and other school reform agendas driven by conservatives and neoliberals. However, the courage this change took and the depth of her reversal were profoundly illuminated by reading this book.

Although growing up in a Roosevelt supporting family and being a registered Democrat, she became deeply conservative. Diane served on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham foundation, contributed to the Manhattan Institute and was a member of the Koret Task Force with the likes of Eric Hanushek and E. D. Hirsch Jr. Her best friends personally and politically all supported the ideas she abandoned. By reversing herself, she walked away from professional security and long held personal friendships. It was courageously principled but must have been a personally daunting move.

Me and Diane

The best part of “An Education” for me was Diane’s recounting growing up in Houston and going to a segregated public school. Her experience was just so relatable. She liked all the music my oldest sister liked. Cheating was rampant in her school just like mine and like her; I let my classmates copy my work. My rural Idaho school was kind of segregated but that was because only white people and a few Mexican families lived in the community. The Mexican kids were very popular in our school. I never met a Black person until I was a senior in high school and had only seen a few through a car window when vacationing in Kansas City. It was wonderful to find some commonalities.

I had studied engineering, worked in Silicon Valley and pretty much ignored education. But I did hear from Diane and her friends about what a failure public education had become. By 1999, I became tired of hearing about people becoming rich off their stock options, working on the next greatest hard drive or dealing with the atrocious San Jose traffic. I decided to return to San Diego and do something to help public education by enlisting in a master of education program at the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

The UCSD program was oriented toward constructivist education which I really liked. I read books by Alfie Kohn and papers by Lisa Delpit and was ready to revolutionize public education. Then I got to my first job at Bell Jr. High School and discovered that the teachers there were well informed pros with lots of experience. By comparison, I was not nearly as competent as most of them.

It was then that I started to see that I had been bamboozled about how bad public schools were and started looking for like minded people. Two books, David Berliner’s and Eugene Glass’s “50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools” and Diane Ravitch’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” were like water for the thirsty. Soon after that, I found Diane’s blog and joined the Network for Public Education (NPE) along with many other public school advocates.

I saw Diane at the 2015 NPE conference in Chicago’s Drake Hotel. It was an absolutely inspiring event with a keynote by the amazing Yong Zhao. Although we started communicating a little by email, I did not meet Diane personally until NPE 2016 in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was there that the Reverend William Barber gave a truly inspiring speech.

Tom Ultican and Diane Ravitch in Raleigh (by Ultican)

Please open the link and keep reading this excellent review!

Categories Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, History, Network for Public Education, Personal, Ravitch, Diane, Supporting public schools

Colorado: Voters Like Their Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2025 //
4

Paula Noonan of Colorado Capitol Watch reported on a nearly statewide sweep of school board elections by pro-public school parents. This vote of confidence in public schools is even more remarkable in light of the heavy spending by pro-charter school advocacy groups.

In addition, Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis is an enthusiastic supporter of charter schools, having opened two himself. Michael Bennett, one of the state’s U.S. Senators, is also a champion of charters, a former superintendent of the Denver public schools, and plans to run for governor. The mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston, is a former Teach for America activist and state legislator, who supports charter schools and authored a harsh teacher evaluation bill.

Mike DeGuire, former principal in Denver Public Schools, uncovered the dark money supporting the “reform” candidates. They include billionaires Philip Anschutz, the richest man in Colorado, Reed Hastings of Netflix, and John Arnold, former Enron trader.

Despite this lineup of big money and political heavyweights, the public in key districts chose their public schools.

She writes:

Swoosh — that’s the sound of money flushed down the toilet by Denver Families Action on their expensive-but-weak candidates for Denver Public Schools Board of Education. Bravo — that’s the sound of praise from Denver voters for Denver’s public-school teachers.

The mission of Denver Families Action led by Clarence Burton and Pat Donovan was to flip the Denver Board to a pro-choice, pro-charter majority. Many experts in the public-education sector see pro-choice advocacy as a lead-in to school vouchers.

In Denver, charter schools essentially serve the purposes of private school voucher programs. These schools and networks get tax dollars to operate their schools but have private, unelected school governance. The oversight of hundreds of millions of public dollars spent by these charters is at stake. Wealthy elite donors plunk down additional millions of dollars to support these education programs with accompanying tax write-offs.

Meanwhile, DPS had to close neighborhood schools recently due to low population and dropping revenues. The disruption from these school closures played out in Xochitl Gaytán’s southwest District 2. Gaytán was the only incumbent endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. She is on record as rejecting future neighborhood school closures. She defeated her Denver Families’ opponent 57% to 42%, a big number with a big message.

Amy Klein-Molk ran against former district employee Alex Magaña in a head-to-head for the at-large board seat. Magaña had an ongoing dispute with DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero over the administration of Beacon innovation network of middle schools. Marrero found mismanagement and acted to dissolve the network. Beacon sued the district and lost. Klein-Molk crushed Magaña 55% to 44%, a nice 11-point spread.

Further confounding school district elections, Douglas County voters turned out its conservative majority. The “community not chaos” slate will seek to refocus the district away from contentious political issues, of which there are many and good luck with that. The slate emphasized teacher recruitment and retention based on a stable, positive work environment. Like other metro area districts, declining enrollment in older neighborhoods and increasing populations in newer neighborhoods create important, bottom-line challenges around opening and closing schools.

Pueblo County put up a split decision in its hotly contested school board races pitting public teacher-backed, public school-supporting candidates against parents rights, Christian education-oriented conservatives. In District 60, one candidate from each side won. In District 70, two public-school supporting candidates won and one non-aligned candidate took a seat.

In resounding support for providing good nutrition for school children, voters across the state supported propositions LL and MM. State residents on the high end of income, $300,000-plus, will contribute more tax dollars to the food-for-all school meals program by reducing state income tax deductions. This change will produce $95 million to fill the funding gap in the nutrition program.

What’s interesting about this result is 785,000 voters said NO to the tax increase in MM, or 35%. About 8% of Colorado taxpayers earn more than $300,000 per year, so quite a few people voted to allow wealthier individuals to keep their charitable contributions at the higher level. That’s the base of people against any tax increases for any reason.

Based on these overall results, several implications emerge where public education connects with taxation and the 2026 governor election connects to public education policy.

Great Ed Colorado and other groups will seek to offer a tax initiative of some sort to bring more money into the state’s school finance budget. The school nutrition vote put 65% of voters into the “we will nourish the kids with food” camp. It’s unknown whether nourishing kids with food also extends to nourishing kids with learning.

The governor’s race between U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser contains the public education and tax increase intersection. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, TABOR, creates much of Colorado’s taxation and state finance problems. The federal government’s animus to our state politics puts another kink into how Colorado can fund Medicaid, public schools, and an array of other needs adequately.

Sen. Bennet has received gobs of campaign money from wealthy east coast and west coast money-people who support school choice, charters and probably vouchers. Their preference is for public schools to turn charter or, better yet, private. Sen. Bennet will have to explain exactly how that will work in Colorado. Does he want more than $10 billion in public tax dollars to move to oversight by unelected charter boards with schools presenting curriculum that doesn’t meet state standards? Will he support changes to TABOR to bring in more tax dollars for school finance?

Attorney General Weiser will have to address the same questions with concrete offers. Right now, he supports a “livable wage” for teachers and down-payment assistance for teachers to live where the teach. He will “stand strong” for public schools and against privatizing. But will he go after TABOR reform and counter lack of transparency in charter-school governance?

This election gives hints. Voters supported the public in public schools and providing students with nourishment to flourish in school. The next election will decide whether public schools will flourish in teaching and learning as well.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.

To get a sense of the infighting, extremism, and partisanship that shaped many of Colorado’s school board races, read Logan M. Davis’ account of the outcomes in many other districts. His account appeared in the progressive Colorado Times Recorder..

Categories Colorado, Education Reform, Elections, Supporting public schools

Chalkbeat: Union-Backed Candidates Sweep Denver School Board, Beating Big-Money Charter Supporters

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2025 //
8

The big money promoting privatization in Denver tried to capture the Denver school board, but was defeated by candidates endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

Chalkbeat Colorado reported:

Denver school board candidates backed by the teachers union won all four open seats Tuesday, unofficial election returns show, making it likely the board’s current balance of power will hold.

Eleven candidates were vying for four seats on the seven-member Denver school board.

Union-backed candidates won by commanding leads in three of the races and a solid lead in the fourth, according to unofficial returns. Two of the three incumbents who ran for reelection, Michelle Quattlebaum and Scott Esserman, lost their seats.

Teachers union-backed board members have controlled the board of Colorado’s largest school district for the past six years. Members who support charter schools and other education reform strategies gained a bigger foothold in 2023 and had a chance to flip the board majority this year.

Now, the board will continue to be composed of four members who were endorsed by the teachers union and three who were backed by reform interests.

Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Rob Gould called the early returns on Tuesday a victory of “people over money.” Like in past elections, reform groups were on track to outspend the teachers union, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Colorado, Democrats for Education Reform, Denver, Education Reform, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Unions

Josh Cowen Is Running for Congress as a Champion for Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2025 //
0

You may have read about Josh Cowen . He’s a professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University. For twenty years, he worked on voucher research, hoping to find definitive evidence that vouchers helped the neediest kids–or didn’t.

About two years ago, he concluded that the answer was clear: vouchers do not help the neediest kids. Most are claimed by kids who never attended public schools. In other words, they are subsidies for families who already pay for private schools. When low-income kids use vouchers, the academic results are abysmal. He concluded that the best way to improve the schooling of American students is to invest in public schools.

Josh did his best to stop the billionaire-funded voucher drive. He published a book about the evidence, called The Privateers. He wrote articles in newspapers across the nation. He testified before legislative committees.

He concluded that the most important thing he could do is to run for Congress. He’s doing that and needs our help. I’ve contributed twice. Please give whatever you can.

Public schools need a champion in Congress.

Josh writes:

Hey everyone. You may have heard that I’m running for Congress in my home district in Michigan. It’s one of the most important seats to flip next year for Democrats to retake the US House. I’m hoping you’d consider chipping in today to help us meet a big deadline by 9/30.

I’m probably the most prominent congressional candidate in the country running in part on the idea that we need to stand up for and renew our public schools.

I took on Betsy DeVos and the Koch operation all over the country, trying to stop school voucher schemes. I’m a union member and work closely with labor—check out my book excerpt about vouchers in AFT’s New Educator right now!—and I was just given NEA’s highest honor, the Friend of Education award. Diane herself won a few years back—I’m truly honored. 

But the DeVoses and a MAGA Texas billionaire are going to spend big here to hold Congress and defund schools. Former MI GOP Governor Rick Snyder is planning to raise $30 million to make 2026 the “education election” for Republicans in Michigan. This is the same guy at the helm when kids were poisoned in Flint. And the same guy responsible for the disastrous EAA charter school fiasco. 

My GOP opponent is the Koch’s bagman in Michigan. This is a guy who eked out a win in our district just last year when Elissa Slotkin had to give up her seat to run for Senate. So it’s a very winnable race. But we need help. 

Last month just for starters: 14 statewide and local school and community leaders in Michigan endorsed us. Last week, UNITE HERE!, the big hospitality workers union, endorsed our campaign. And just this week, Dr. Jill Underly, the statewide elected chief of Wisconsin public schools, announced her support. You may remember that Dr. Underly beat back Elon Musk’s plan to buy the off-year elections just this spring in her state. She showed how a strong, positive message of standing up for public schools and standing up to billionaires can win a swing state election.

We can do that too. So I’m asking for your help to close this month strong.

Thanks for your support!

Josh Cowen

Categories Charter Schools, Courage, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Funding, Michigan, Privatization, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Vouchers
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