As Peter Greene explains, Nevada has decided to forego all the half-measures and subterfuges about vouchers. No more insincere rhetoric about vouchers (or “opportunity scholarships”) for poor kids, kids” trapped in failing schools,” or kids with disabilities.
Nevada wants vouchers for everyone.
Greene writes:
“Nevada has made its bid for a gold medal in the race to the bottom of the barrel for public education. The state’s GOP legislature, with help from Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (a name that belongs in Orwellian annals right next to “Peacekeeper Missile”), has created an all-state voucher system.
“This is the full deal….Next fall every single student in Nevada gets a taxpayer-funded voucher to spend at the school whose marketing most appeals to that student’s parents.”
The backers of the bill believe that competition is the answer. Peter Greene explains that competition produces winners and losers, not equal educational opportunity.
Anyone looking for the fruits of competition might consider the television industry. Newton Minow, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, told the leaders of the broadcast industry that television was “a vast wasteland.” He dared them to spend a day glued to their own television sets. Now, there are hundreds more channels to choose from, but Minow could give the same speech with equal conviction.
To destroy public education in pursuit of competition is just plain ignorant or mean-spirited. There is no evidence to support this policy. It won’t improve education. It won’t increase equity. It won’t inspire excellence. It will lead to greater inequality and greater segregation. It is bad for our democracy.
Greene writes:
“Nevada was already well-positioned for the Race to the Bottom prize, consistently ranking among the bottom ten states for education funding. With this bold step, they have insured that even that little bit of money will be spent in the most inefficient, wasteful manner possible. Not only will they be duplicating services (can you run two households with the same money it takes to run one?), but by draining funds away from public schools, they can guarantee that those public schools will struggle with fewer resources than ever.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These efforts to undermine public education are taking place in states across the country. The ability of privatizing reformers to score wins at the state level, is precisely why many want on the one hand to loosen federal control of education, while on the other maintain annual testing in order to undermine confidence in public schools and weaken unions. We need to fight for the idea that the federal government is the ultimate guarantor of equity.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
There may be some real competition in the race to the bottom from it’s next door neighbor, Arizona. At a recent “Leadership Council” on education called by the Governor, Ducey made a point of saying that the money should follow the student, not the district. Who supported this really great idea? The two keynote speakers: Louisiana schools chief Paul Pastorek and ex-New York City chancellor Joel Klein.
“Some real competition”? Heck, the competition is fierce in that race. New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, even Illinois is jumping into the fray.
I don’t know how federal and state politicians (and their lobbyists) can continue to claim they aren’t getting rid of public schools.
At this point I’m embarrassed for them. I mean, really. Have SOME respect for constituents. Do they think we won’t notice? 🙂
Arizona is already in the post position, at the very bottom according U.S. Census.
This is another example of trickle down stupidity! It is clear Nevada cares very little about the future of its young people.
retired teacher: pardon the suggestion, perhaps you might edit your fine comment—
“This is another example of trickle down stupidity!” could be “This is another example of a tsunami of stupidity overwhelming good sense and experience and decency!”
Or so it seems to me…
😎
It’s not a real competition. The two preferred sectors, charter and private schools, won’t be regulated.
They can cherry-pick, refuse to “backfill”, do whatever they want because they’d have to hire an army or regulators to oversee all those individual schools, which they’re obviously not going to do.
They’re just winding down the “public school sector”
That stipend is really low. I wonder how low teacher salaries will go. 30k might start looking like the good years.
Have ed reformers considered that this will be a radically different country without public schools? Aren’t they under-pricing the risk of getting rid of public schools? There’s always a downside risk to any radical upheaval and as we know it takes a certain amount of financial security to bear up well under any downside when lawmakers and lobbyists roll the dice.
They’re just winding down the “public school sector”
And this is not simply a partisan issue. Breitbart has reported that homeschool parents don’t even want vouchers and that many private schools don’t either: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/28/why-homeschoolers-dont-want-school-vouchers/ & http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/06/indiana-conservatives-coalition-school-choice-with-strings-attached-not-conservative/ . I wrote a letter to the editor on Indiana’s http://www.journalgazette.net/Opinion/letters/Letters-6627563 pointing out that the evidence indicates public and private are not really in the same market and amount to an unfunded program by those that claim to be conservative.
Our lead Republican here in Nevada actually stated that this measure would relieve the overcrowding in the Clark County School District, thus reducing class size, and would also eliminate the need for bond measures to build new schools. He said it would help save the public system. Chiara, the movers and shakers are affluent enough that they don’s send their children to public schools. Our governor, while still a federal judge, suggested that he believed we should get the public out of public education. He himself when to Catholic schools and supports them heavily. They believe in the true Ayn Rand variety of Libertarianism, each for themselves. The poor less affluent that vote for them do not realize they are voting against themselves, they think they are just momentarily embarrassed millionaires waiting to take their rightful place in the oligarchy.
The ability to bear risk is directly tied to income and (many times) unearned privilege. Security in the face of chaos and upheaval is something most people can’t buy. That’s why they don’t take excessive risk. They can’t afford to lose. They are very aware of downside risk, because they have to be.
Easier to pick pockets if money follows the kids. Let the buyer beware of the hustlers. The target is not just public education at all levels, including public higher education, it is all social services with a preference for those provided to children, the aged, and to poor people. That focus provides a thin veneer of respectability to the exploitation along with much postering about best practices, and scale ups, and transformations.
Remember when ed reformers in the Bush and Obama Administrations told us all we had to do was go along with testing and VAM and school closings and union-busting and privatized services and unfunded mandates like the Common Core and then public schools would be STRONGER?
How’s that working out for public school parents? Are they starting to get it, or will they wait until their school is actually gone? Because they aren’t coming back once they’re gone.
American humorist Garrison Keillor wrote, “When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.” Well, the vandals have scaled the schoolyard gates, and it will take an informed citizenry to repel these vandals who are hell-bent on destroying one of our most basic democratic institutions, public education.
Never fear! They’re already working on ways to “build community” after public schools are gone.
It will involve public/private partnerships because God forbid the whole community should have to support something they don’t directly benefit from. Maybe Gates can fund town squares for the working and middle class or we can just meet up occasionally at the Wal Mart.
Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Nevada-Aba-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_MARKETING_Orwellian_Public-Education-150605-732.html#comment548124
It’s hard for me to imagine this county without public schools. There is literally nothing else the vast majority of us share. They’re really just going to pitch that in the trash?
Wow.
All they need to do to fund their underfunded schools is put slot machines in every other building that doesn’t have one now. I can’t believe (after just being there) that they don’t have a law making sure schools get a piece of the gambling pie, like they do with the lotto everywhere else. After all Vegas needs employees, employees have kids, why not attract good employees with good public schools? Oh, but wait, I forgot, charter schools are the hottest new thing to gamble on, silly me.
The next time an organization you are associated with is holding a convention/meeting in Las Vegas, DON’T GO! Nevada must be schizophrenic. On the one hand they re-elect Harry Reid, and on the other hand they adopt the most radical free market education policy in the developed world. Don’t be surprised if the SEIU starts opening its own schools.
Here’s a Slate article about the voucher system in Sweden titled “Sweden’s School Choice Disaster”:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2014/07/sweden_school_choice_the_country_s_disastrous_experiment_with_milton_friedman.html
“Competition was meant to discipline government schools, but it may have instead led to a race to the bottom.”
Unfortunately, the article also touts “high performing charter schools–the KIPP academies, the Uncommon Schools, and so forth” in the US, but at least they got part of the story right.
All true, but you can’t refute a theology.
Can you go double or nothing on your voucher?
A good employee in Las Vegas is a cheap employee. You must remember, most workers in casinos make minimum wage and have no rights. Nevada is a right to work state. The moguls here make money on charter schools by renting out the land they received tax breaks on for donating it to a public use. They make a fortune in rent whether or not the school “succeeds.” The moguls that own Vegas want a vast supply of cheap labor so they are pleased that most of the help can’t afford to live in Vegas. I teach at one of the poorer schools in the district, the people commute together to get to work. My school has over half the students on free lunches, and most families are on assistance of one sort or another. The only union with some teeth is the politically hated culinary union. They are mostly Hispanic so now they have some political teeth. They dare to strike and cause embarrassment to the politicians, fearing their illusion will be dispelled as the union demands decent wages and insurance.
Nevada Repubs have thumbed their noses at Article XI, Section 10 of the state constitution. Hopefully the state courts will remedy the matter. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
The power struggle for the minds of our citizens continues.
Where are “glimmers of truth” to be found? By corporate interests whose bottom line is money or by scholarship vindicated by a wide variety of scholars, by what research shows to be closer to “truth” or by the moneyed interests?
Will people educate themselves to what is really going on by in depth research or by propaganda by these same moneyed interests?
Social sorting mechanisms (like tests) that convey advantage in the context of inequality cause people to operate to maximize their individual advantage– in the absence of a social movement for equity that conveys hope and solidarity. If degrees from some universities are thought to provide personal advantage, then individuals will take the SAT prep courses and do whatever they think will give them a leg up–even when they become convinced that the test is meaningless as an actual measure of knowledge or ability. Similarly, parents who perceive that their local public school is weak may take a chance on a charter school that may provide an advantage. Data that challenges whether the advantages are real usually fail to persuade. Accounts of individuals who succeeded without the advantage of a Harvard degree or the perceived benefits of a charter or private school are unlikely to influence individuals. It is more important to convince people about what policies our government should pursue. We need to shift the frame of reference in policy debates from what is best for me to what is best for we.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
I appreciate the concern of those who claim they can better pick a school for my child (or “all children”) than I can, but I believe I better know what my child and the public needs educationally – and I will trust other parents with the same broad discretion. In a competitive school system, the children in “loser schools” at least have a choice to go elsewhere – more choice than the government system traditionally allows for those in its “loser schools.” However, my bigger concern is your assumption that “better schools” look the same to everyone… and they don’t. Obviously, your “bottom” schools stand a good chance of being my “top” schools. I’m less into the efficiency of mass education than into school diversity that meets the concerns and educational needs of caring families.
Further, one of the most vital public interests associated with education is the moral development of children, and First Amendment limitations prevent government schools from effectively working in this area. Nevada is not abandoning public education, it is merely redefining it away from centralized, elitist control. We must redefine public education to include schools that broadly support the public’s educational interests… and this new definition will include most “private” schools.
Though I have extensively read arguments for competition as a rationale for school choice, I agree that it is a limited paradigm that has its merits as well as its drawbacks. However, many of Greene’s criticisms fall on the traditional public system as well. It doesn’t fit many people’s definition of “excellence,” it creates “perverse incentives”, it “disenfranchises” taxpayers”, and look at the “lies and fantasies” that are coming out of many government schools motivated by the pressures of testing and accountability. And Mr. Greene, please avoid the demonization of Nevada’s schools choice supporter. It makes little sense for political leaders to intentionally try to undermine their state’s education system… unless you think they are merely selfish, bigoted, and stupid. As an American, you should give your fellow citizens a little more confidence then that… Especially since that confidence is not only at the heart of the school choice debate, but at the heart of the “Great American Experiment.”
“Further, one of the most vital public interests associated with education is the moral development of children, and First Amendment limitations prevent government schools from effectively working in this area. ”
If by “moral development”, you mean religious values, yes, the First Amendment does not allow that in public schools. If by moral development, however, you mean learning to understand others unlike ourselves and the multiple value systems that strengthen the whole of our diverse nation, then the public schools are perhaps one of the few venues left in the public arena where that intercourse can occur.
What Engelhardt is pushing for is to have government force all taxpayers to support a growing proliferation of sectarian private schools that fragment the school population along religious, ideological, class, ethnic and other lines. Nuts to that! — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
Just a note to one and all, Craig Engelhardt is the director of the Society for the Advancement of Christian Education. HIs group advocates religious education for all, and is a prime advocate for vouchers for religious schools. In his writings he does not support the notion of supporting a secular education system, but seeks the preeminence of religious education.
If a group advocates “religious education for all,” which schools do the agnostics, atheists, nonbelievers attend?
How about if they start their own private schools? (I say this in jest to illuminate how ridiculous it is that religious schools have had to be private for 150 years.) In most western nations, public education is offered within schools of differing religious orientations. I don’t think this is such a bad idea.
You almost got it… we advocate that religious education be available to all on a level financial playing field with secular schools. The preeminence we seek relates to parental authority – not school philosophy. Parents should be able to choose the philosophy of their child’s education without government manipulation.
Craig,
Why should everyone pay for your choice of a religious school for your children? If you don’t like the free community swimming pool, should we subsidize your own pool?
Good question. Several simple answers: It is Constitutional. It is in the public’s educational interests because secular schools cannot teach many of the public ideals that support the nation. You already support religious schools by paying taxes for fire and police services that they use.
and in the end, all the kids will be sitting in front of computers wherever they are…there will be no school buildings left, no teachers left just computer programs….cheap cheap cheap
Anyone can walk away with $5,000 and buy a car – no regulation necessary. They have to only attend ninety days in public school.
I testifies that we were actually encouraging people to take the money and buy a Cadillac while others were not even walking with shoes on.
Not only that, they can come back to the public school, which will not receive any money when they come back. We should all be worried, Ponzi has nothing on this scheme in terms of fraud potential.
this may be highly specific to Arkansas but she does have a review of literature; I think I know where Sandra Stotsky was coming from (her work history at Center for Civic Education and Massachusetts that can be admirable) but I hesitate to go along where she is going when it comes to policies she might recommend (if I’m not mistaken she sets out block grants as a remedy)…. For informational purposes I point it out….You can download it from University of Walton (sorry: University of Arkansas)
title: The Costly Damage Wrought by Federal Intervention in Local Education:
The Effectiveness of America’s Choice in Arkansas
Sandra Stotsky
Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas
Trae Holzman*
Oklahoma Department of Education
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since passage of the No Child Left Behind act in 2001, all states have been under federal pressure to identify “failing schools.” The US Department of Education has strongly encouraged “turnaround” as an option for schools to use in order to improve student achievement. The study reported here reviewed the research literature on school “turnaround,” with a particular focus on the results in Arkansas of the use of the same “turnaround” partner (America’s Choice) for over five years for many of the state’s “failing” elementary, middle, and high schools.
But taxpayers should not be compelled to pay for religious indoctrination — er, “education”. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)