The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette published a stinging editorial against the state’s voucher program, which Republican leaders want to expand.
The newspaper is one of the few strong voices supporting public education in a state that was once known for its excellent public schools. Now it has a governor and legislature determined to undermine the public schools, take resources away, punish its teachers, and transfer funds to charter schools and religious schools.
Indiana permits for-profit charters, and they are making money at the expense of children and taxpayers.
Any number of sleazy, for-profit operators have opened schools in Indiana.
The voucher program this year, the editorial estimates, will cost taxpayers about $130 million, which should have gone to community public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
SB 334 expanded vouchers to benefit about a 100 kids at a private school, adding new theft of tax dollars from public schools.
The vouchers were funded by tax dollars that were given back to parents to spend them at whatever school they want. I do not believe that qualifies as theft.
The vouchers are theft from taxpayers, not parents who get them.
If Indiana legislators thought that taxpayers want vouchers, they would hold a referendum.
And every time that a referendum on vouchers has gone to the voters, it’s failed.
Thank you Diane for this article, link, and support of public schools!! I’m currently waging information war against Hoosiers for Quality Education, formerly Hoosiers for Economic Growth. They are a lobbying group that receives millions from out of state operators and in-state far right religious elites. The last Facebook discussion I had with them, they deleted all of my comments and linked information to Milton Friedman’s vision of using vouchers as “a means to make a transition from a government to a market system” and ultimately “profits for private
What happened to all the ed reformers who supposedly opposed vouchers?
You remember- they had a principled objection to vouchers. They wanted everyone to know they supported charters, but not vouchers. Why do we never hear from any of them as vouchers follow charters in state after state after state?
Has “public” been redefined to mean “publicly funded”? I haven’t checked my “transformational” dictionary lately.
If a school accepts public money, then the school must accept public governance.
Public governance, yes, as well as following all the civil rights and education laws that require the disabled, ELL’s, and students of color to be taught in an appropriate, non-discriminatory environment.
Not that they do that, either.
Indiana’s school voucher supporters are bringing in the star power to mark National School Choice Week this week.
TV personality Campbell Brown is the keynote speaker for the Quality Education Celebration at the Statehouse on Monday, an annual event to rally expansion of the nation’s most expansive private-school voucher program. No doubt, Brown and others will proclaim the Indiana program a tremendous success.”
Did public schools get anything during “school choice week” or was this another year where they were left off the agenda?
Which lawmaker acted as their advocate during this star-studded get-together? Anyone?
Can we pool our money and hire an advocate? This huge group of public employees we’re paying don’t seem particularly interested.
Can we get some of the civil rights groups to take this to court, the way they are now doing in Massachusetts?
They need to be pro-active in a whole lot of states.
And Campbell Brown? Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little. 😦
Didn’t Indiana’s testing system for public school kids melt down last year? Seems like testing season is upon us. I wonder if any of the lawmakers could be persuaded to work on that rather dull task. Maybe a celebrity visit would do the trick.
It seems like if they’re going to force children to take these tests the adults who impose the mandates could put some effort towards making that less nightmarish for the public school children who have to take them.
Zorba
January 28, 2016 at 3:44 pm
Can we get some of the civil rights groups to take this to court, the way they are now doing in Massachusetts?
Right. I want a lawyer. We’re all paying a whole bunch of them in these states. What are they up to, besides defending voucher schemes and crafting charter laws that will survive a court challenge? Cutting public school funding doesn’t count.
I do not understand the fear and constant moaning about voucher programs and charter schools. These programs are used around the world to stimulate competition and innovative thinking as to what constitutes best practices given today’s environment. The programs are increasing competition and those public school leaders that don’t sit around constantly complaining about their lot seem to be responding quite well.
“I do not understand the fear and constant moaning about voucher programs and charter schools.”
Well, Diane has nearly four years worth of archives here. I recommend you start reading.
But then, someone who thinks competition is a good thing in education probably won’t be convinced by anything anyway….
Ah, yes. “Competition.” The mantra of the corporatists who think that competition will always lead to stellar results, as opposed to, you know, the “socialist” belief that there are certain things that need to be funded and overseen by our tax dollars, for the public good.
Well, call me a socialist, because I believe in that public good.
And Ayn Rand must be laughing it up, wherever she is.
Please show me how Indiana’s “choice” efforts have benefited either children who attend public schools or the public school system in the state.
Be specific. “Competition” and “innovation” are slogans, not specifics.
We’re talking about at least 90% of children in the state, so one would think that would be a consideration, although apparently it’s not.
jdhollowell,
No high-performing nation in the world has vouchers or charter schools.
Chile has them, and it has caused great segregation; the new government is trying to get rid of them.
Sweden has them, and since adopting them, its rankings on international tests have fallen and segregation of all kinds has grown.
Initially the vouchers did not seem as unfair. The legislators pronounced that they would be a way for low income parents to opt their children into charters, private and parochial schools. Seemed like a win for many and most taxpayers okay with moving funding for children with financial disadvantages. But the game has changed in Indiana. And many of the private, parochial and charter do not make the needed accommodations for even the children whose parents can pay tuition without state assist. Yes, the voucher programs are increasing competition for funding. That is certainly true. But children with other disadvantages and special needs are not being adequately served by many of the nontraditional non public schools. The law keeps morphing and now they have actually engaged CAMPBELL BROWN as their keynote speaker to promote the concept of choice. Not a good PR move. I changed news stations when she appeared on screen earlier in the week. (Check out her 74 interview with John Kasich and view her evil laugh as he responds about teachers complaining in lounges if you are keen to find a kindred spirit.) If you don’t understand, perhaps you need to become more aware and engage with some public school leaders who are sitting around constantly complaining about their lot and hear what is going on in their districts. Or just keep making responses on blogs of those who are very well informed and do understand the pain to the point that they live in fear, and constantly moan. Maybe some responses will help you to understand. Looking through Diane’s blog and perhaps reading some of her books, view youtube some of her speeches. Try some empathy, attempt to understand. Engage in innovative thinking about why the FWJG would publish such an editorial.
I do not understand the fear and dismissive attitude towards cooperation. Teaching isn’t a dog fight or pro football league. Unrestrained, cutthroat competition leads to self destruction. I find those people embracing competition and free markets the most are well insulated from the negative effects. The conclusion innovation arrives only from educators clawing each others eyes out is ridiculous.
Vouchers are sham for tax rip-offs. They don’t provide high quality of instruction and learning whatsoever because they are administered by corporatists who don’t have any expertise in education. No qualified teachers or any professionals with appropriate qualifications. They compete for money and right-wing religious indoctrination(i.e., Creationism, christianity based on white ideology)– not for educational achievement.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranking is included in these countries that offer some form of school choice as we experience it here in the United States:
South Korea – #4 – tuition tax credits
Chinese Taipei – #6 – vouchers
Estonia – #8 – vouchers and tuition tax credits
Macao-China – #10 – vouchers
Poland – #12 – vouchers
Germany – #16 – vouchers and tax credits
Belgium – #19 – vouchers
New Zealand – #20 – vouchers
At #29 on the PISA rankings, the USA has some work to do and innovative approaches that reward performance are working around the world – and they are on the rise. The number of countries injecting competition into the education marketplace is increasing because leaders know that human growth and flourishing is the fruit of freedom of choice for our children and their parents.
jdhollowell, why don’t you read up on Chile and Sweden, where the same approaches have failed? Better yet, why don’t you read the literature on vouchers and charters in the U.S., where there are no examples of success for vouchers, and where charters cherry pick their students to get “success” by undermining the public schools attended by the majority?
jdhollowell, I don’t want to have to spend hours researching your claim about the “success” of vouchers around the world, so I picked one country at random–Estonia–and googled “Estonia school vouchers.” This was what I encountered: http://www.ttu.ee/public/k/kaire_poder/EERJ_logit_Article_3.pdf
The title is: “When Public Acts Like Private: The Failure of Estonia’s School Choice Mechanism”
Caution: voucher in other countries is not necessarily the same one seen in the US. Many of those are still subject to public scrutiny for accountability– which many charter and vouchers in the US are not. Also, high ranking in International tests does not promise anything about student social- well being. It doesn’t fix the educational system in the first place. It’s obvious to see many students in top PISA scores like South Korea and Japan are suffering from mental anguish because of excessive competition culture in school. Some of those in these countries even end up taking their own lives due to undue pressure for exam ordeal. Finland is one of the very few exceptions that come on top without following the mantra of privatization.
Hello Diane,
Thank you for the reply. It looks like you simply googled “failure of school choice in Estonia” and came up with this journal article but perhaps you did not read the research. Reading research is time-consuming to be sure.
The “failure” that is alluded to in the title was the failure of the system developed to select students who would get a chance to attend the schools of their choice because so many students were trying to participate in the choice program in Estonia. The schools themselves were not failing but were perceived to be thriving.
People who get an opportunity to select the school of their choice for their children exercise that freedom with good reason. People want the best possible opportunity for their children – both in Estonia and the U.S.
The simple logic of this idea is sweeping the world.
I did not google “failure.” I googled “Estonia school vouchers.” And the article that popped up was about their failure. Sorry.
No worries!
Real “failure” is the inability of the system to provide learning opportunity to all students–regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic income of family– with assurance of high quality and accountability. Not a bogus standardized test and VAMpire machine.
And the US is leading the whole world in throwing billions of dollars nationwide to create the facade of “choice” system that is doomed to fail. It’s kind of like chartering corporate-funded English conversation bubble schools to function like public schools entity under a false promise of making all Japanese students fluent in English like Americans in mere 6 years–which is absolutely nonsense.
I “exist” in Indiana.
How they get away with something that is so obviously unconstitutional is mind boggling but
that is the power of money.
I write to our legislators and get form letters back.
Best government money can buy.
Over and over again.
So it should be noted that data exists on the voucher program. It lives, however, at the University of Notre Dame in the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity. These data were moved out of the public universities in the state, by Tony Bennett, and they are under the auspices (if not exclusively, then first) of CREO (http://creo.nd.edu/research/projects/) which is, at least in part, supported and funded, by the Institute for Educational Initiatives (http://iei.nd.edu/programs/) which houses a voucher advocacy organization (https://ace.nd.edu/pea/). One might guess that the reason the data haven’t been publicized is that the data aren’t friendly to the voucher cause. One would have to be a cynic to think that, though…
My parents had school choice in Indiana when I was growing up. Free public education with free transportation to and from school. Or parochial education for which tuition was paid and we walked. My first grade class had 35 students. By 7th grade we had 48 in the self contained classroom all day. No school nurse, no physical education program, no hot lunch cafeteria and never any substitutes….my teacher was also covering the first grade class on the day Kennedy was shot and had to shuttle between rooms all day, leaving my class alone for about a half hour after telling us our president was killed. During 8th grade I was sometimes sent to a first or second grade room to be the substitute so our teacher could remain in our classroom (imagine the shenanigans with over 40 8th graders unsupervised). In high school we did have a cafeteria and the head lunch lady could be seen as school nurse, to dispense aspirin. Tuition was earned by babysitting, working at the state fair, detasselling corn, and jobs at the school like custodial or office assist. All of my siblings worked to contribute to our tuition costs. And of course we were always selling products to fund raise for the schools and Dad had to work the Bingo games each month. My parents had 12 children in the span of 15 years so our education costs piggybacked and they just could not afford to pay for the parochial education they chose for us. So, we did it. Again in high school I never had a substitute, just instructions on the board if teacher absent. And if I had a coach on a Friday home football game he was out on the tractor mowing and then chalking the field. It would have been awesome for us to have had vouchers from the state. My parents didn’t actually pay all those taxes though, as the deductions per child rendered all their payments back in refunds. Our lives would have been much improved had the state supported our parents choice to send us to parochial schools. So, yes in those days I would have approved. However, one of my siblings was not “accepted” to the same school that his 11 siblings attended. He did not score well enough on the entrance examination. He had “special needs” and was only permitted into the school for religious ed which he attended in the evenings. The public school came through for him and he had physical education, art, music and a school nurse to keep his seizure medications regulated. But he had to ride a bus for miles and go to school without any siblings and the other neighbor children not acceptable to the same school their siblings attended. The rest of us just walked down the street. I feel that the vouchers would have been wonderful for our family but I still resent deeply that my one brother was not accepted to the school all his siblings attended and that we had so many basic services not provided. I feel that if a charter or parochial or private school receives voucher funding they should also be expected to accept all students who apply. If they want to remain exclusive and select their students then forget the vouchers. I do not want my tax payments, which I don’t get refunded annually, to pay for students to attend schools which exclude students with special needs. It is not truly competitive to admit only high performing students and to select only the best applicants. Initially the legislation for vouchers did seem like a benefit to all. But it has morphed. Schools that serve everyone are being shortchanged and schools that exclude some are reaping the rewards. Regardless of what other nations are doing that is not right.
God bless your parents! You are a blessed to grow up in such a home.
It sounds like you are describing a Catholic school. I do believe you are right in calling for more accessibility to Catholic education by students of all levels of intellectual ability. This is a matter of the higher cost of educating children with special needs and many Catholic schools are facing stiff financial challenges which has led to a closure of nearly half of the Catholic schools in the country since the 1960s.
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and a handful of European nations fund their Catholic schools and embrace them as a way of increasing diversity of thought among the people – a diversity that they think add strength to the nation. Perhaps at some point we will start to consider such funding of schools that are faith-based in nature in the United States.
Jdhollowell,
I support Catholic schools by contributing to them. If the government funds religioius schools, it cannot fund only one religion. It must fund Jewish schools, Muslim schools, atheist schools, and every other kind of belief. Are you okay with that?
Yes I am. That is how they do it in Australia and New Zealand. They fund both Christian and non-Christian schools – as long as they have students that want to attend. In both countries (but especially New Zealand) they seem to embrace the fact that people are both physical and spiritual beings. They also embrace and support with their funds the strength that diversity of thought brings to their culture.
I think such an approach would be worth considering in the U.S. It does seem to me to be the way we are heading now that the courts are allowing for more and more erosion of the “wall between church and state” which seems to be in our national DNA.
Give the money to the parents. They can decide best how to spend it.
To jd
Yes, My parents were blessed in many ways. Eleven of their children thrived and were able to go on to earn at least a bachelor degree. Several of us have earned MS/MA and several added other BA/BS and another a PHD. We were blessed with high intellectual abilities. And the discipline we learned earning our own tuition fees paid off when college came and nearly all of us earned our post secondary degrees without financial assist of our parents.
I must credit much of our strong academic success to the diligent and overworked nuns with class sizes above what was reasonable. Also, both of my parents were college graduates and my mother was a licensed teacher who resumed her career after the youngest child went to school. She was employed in public schools due to the lack of openings in parochial schools for her choice of position Special Needs Education. I became a teacher and taught for 35 years in public schools. I have worked with students far more disabled than my brother who were supported in public schools and provided with assistance and accommodations that aided them to succeed.
I think that many of the Catholic schools have closed for reasons in addition to financial. There are not as many Catholic children in generations following our baby boom era. Many of the Catholic schools operated in inner city areas that once had dense Catholic population. Most families do not grow to the size that ours did. Many in my generation decided not to enroll their children in parochial schools for various reasons. And there are fewer nuns to provide the instruction than in the past. I do think that the quality of Catholic schools has improved but in the area of providing for those with special needs there has not been enough progress. Not just for students with intellectual disabilities but those with physical limitations and mobility issues, there are not adequate accommodations in many Catholic schools.
I know that many of the public schools will coordinate some services for children in the Catholic schools and I like that arrangement. But, now that there are vouchers going to parents with taxpayer money I think that ALL students who apply to the charters, private and parochial schools should be admitted and their needs provided for. In my opinion the legislature should limit the voucher use to schools who serve all children. If the school wishes to limit to the children who practice the particular faith or are most capable physically or mentally of being high achievers or of a particular race/ethnicity then I don’t think that taxpayers should cover the tuition cost, even partially. Exclusivity should not be supported by public funding.
I base my opinions not on what is happening in Australia or New Zealand or Estonia. I speak up as a resident of Indiana who has been very concerned about legislative decisions in this state since 2011. And I speak from personal experience. I don’t require any research to know what I know. I have lived it. My childhood family was greatly impacted by the exclusion of our brother from the academic programs that we and our parents worked so hard to procure. I cannot even begin to explain the pain that situation caused. I thank God that the township school was available to him and he was able to attend school. It makes me sick to think about how it felt for him to have to take a different path from his siblings and not be able to attend the school just 3 doors from his home. I also ask God to help me to forgive those who excluded him. They had their reasons. I surely hope the reasons were not based upon expense.
Continued to jd,
I gave credit to the nuns and to my parents education level for much of the achievement of myself and siblings. My sister was among the first females to attend Notre Dame on a full ride scholarship so I want to give credit to Father Hesburgh for the decision to admit females. However, upon thinking about it I realize that my parents and others compensated for much of the services missing in the Catholic school we attended. We went home at lunch time. No kindergarten was offered at our school but a woman in the neighborhood who was a minister’s wife (nor sure what protestant faith) had a private kindergarten in her home that many of my siblings attended. Our school had no library but my dad took us to the Indpls. Public library each Saturday afternoon on his lunch hour and we stayed until closing. He dropped us at the YWCA for physical ed program every Sat morning which compensated for the lack of a PE program at our school. My mom realized my handicapped brother would have trouble gaining entry to the school via the entrance test. She found a preschool program in another protestant church and learned to drive and they bought a second car so she could take my developmentally delayed brother to the program designed for special needs kids. And he attended kindergarten at that church the following year. She tutored him at home and also arranged for private assistance from other teachers she knew. She even volunteered to accompany him to school and take him home if he couldn’t function or had a seizure during class. When he did attend public school she went in to his classroom often as a parent volunteer and she eventually was hired as a special ed aide full time. He was very lonely and did not understand what he had done to be separated from the rest of his family. It broke my mother’s heart. And it breaks mine to this day to remember how the exclusion affected him and her. He should not have been excluded and I do not want my tax payments to go to any school that would exclude a child with disability. If, after the next election this is something that I have control over through a referendum I will not vote in favor of voucher payments supporting schools who do not accommodate all children. I will vote against the legislators in my district who have voted for vouchers. I do expect that in 2016 we will see some political changes. Currently, children with disabilities are harmed twice, first not being admitted to any school their parents choose and second that the schools that do accept them are losing funding due to the acceptable students opting to leave public schools using their public funding.
Hello Cecilia,
Thank you so much for your heartfelt reply. Your response deeply saddens me but it also is a reminder to me of how far Catholic schools have come in rectifying this injustice. Here is what I know about Catholic schools in Indianapolis.
In 1990, no Catholic high schools had a program to serve students with disabilities. In 2016, all eight high schools in the area have such a program. In 1993, the first school to start such a program, Roncalli High School, served 5 students in the first year these services were offered. This year the school and its staff of 8 specialists serves over 170 students with identified learning disabilities.
This growth comes during a time in which Catholic school enrollment has dropped drastically which puts in enormous strain on these schools and their finances. I applaud the Catholic schools for committing to growing their services in this area in spite of the financial difficulties.
Hopefully, future generations will not have to suffer in the way that your family did. Progress is being made towards that end thanks in part to an increase in public funding of these services in a way that was never available 50 years ago. The money for special needs resources now follows the student and not the school district the student lives in.
The same principle is still unfolding today as more states adopt school vouchers that follow the student and not the school district.
God bless you in your sacred work of teaching!