Russ Walsh, literacy expert, describes the Three are of vouchers: They are for the Rich, the Racists, and the Religious Right.
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2017/03/school-vouchers-welfare-for-rich-racist.html
Russ writes:
“Our new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is rich, white, and a proselytizing supporter of the Christian religious right. DeVos is also an outspoken champion of school vouchers. These two things are not coincidences. While voucher proponents will tell you, and some may even believe, that their push for vouchers is a push to make sure all children have the opportunity to get a great education, the real benefactors of school vouchers are the rich, the white and the religious right….
DeVos claims that voucher opponents are foes of change and champions of the status quo. I hope to show that it is the voucher schemes and the DeVos’ of the world who are championing the status quo – the status quo where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as we see happening in this country right now.
“What are the problems with vouchers? Do vouchers achieve the supposed goal of improving educational opportunity for low-income and minority children? Many have cataloged the issues, but here is a quick list with some links for further reading.
*Vouchers do not improve student academic performance
*Vouchers do not improve opportunities for low-income children
*Vouchers lead to private schools of questionable quality
*Voucher divert public money to unaccountable private institutions
*Vouchers undermine religious liberty
*Vouchers do further harm to already struggling public schools
*Vouchers enable discrimination and segregation
So why the push for vouchers? Because vouchers are very good for the rich. If the rich can sell vouchers as the cure for educational inequality, they may be able to get people to ignore the real reason for public education struggles – income inequity. If the rich really want to improve schools, they need to put their money on the line. If the rich are really interested in helping poor school children they need to invest – through higher taxes (or maybe just by paying their fair share of taxes), not unreliable philanthropy, in improved health care, child care, parental education, pre-school education, public school infrastructure and on and on. This will be expensive, but we can do it if the wealthy would show the same dedication to the “civil rights issue of our time” with their wallets as they show to harebrained schemes like vouchers.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The list includes active links for each point, and these are strong links from credible sources.
I see that the entepeneurs who are meeting at the South-by-Southwest education conderence are eager for voucher money and beating the drum for education as the “civil rights issue of our era.” What that seems to mean is allowing almost anyone to use schools, and the students who attend them, in the same capacity as lab rats, to try out various apps and interventions.
The whole “19th century model” argument doesn’t make sense to me.
If public schools are a 19th century model then every single person currently inventing anything was schooled in a “19th century” model and it obviously didn’t stop them from inventing things because there they are- selling the things they invented.
How did they manage that without a Chromebook in school?
It’s just such sloppy thinking. “19th century people” aren’t actually wholly different organisms than 21st century people and inventing something assumes that something doesn’t currently exist.
How did anyone invent anything before ed reform? The people at that ed tech conference somehow surmounted the “19th century model” when they all went to school. I know they did because there they are, selling product to public schools.
Like!
I read that DeVos is taking a teachers union leader to a “choice” school and the teachers union leader will in turn take DeVos to a public school.
So is this the official position of the US Department of Education? They don’t work for or advocate on behalf of public schools?
Why are public school children depending on teachers unions as their sole advocate?
I don’t actually have to prove to Betsy DeVos that my school is somehow “worthy” of her support. She took a job that includes 90% of children in public schools. I don’t care if she’s ideologically opposed to public schools and I don’t know how public schools somehow ended up in the position of petitioning federal employees for “support”.
Instead, I would ask DeVos what she brings to the table to improve public schools. If the answer is “a voucher” then the answer is “nothing”.
Cross posted at Oped news: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Russ-Walsh-Vouchers-Are-f-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Inequality_Public-Education-170307-940.html#comment648993
With these comments which have more embedded links at the address above.
Those of you who read my education commentary have heard this before, but I must add it here for those who are just beginning to follow the assault on our democracy…NOT JUST OUR ‘SCHOOLS’
Diane Ravitch WAS Undersec’y of Education for the first Bush administrations, and IS the top academic on our education system! 30 million people have visited this special ‘teacher’s room,’ where teachers and parents talk… and tell it the way it is IN OUR SCHOOLS!
Here is a number for you–15,880– that will help you to grasp how easy it was to hide the destruction of THE ONLY ROAD TO INCOME EQUALITY, which is our schools. There are 15,880 SEPARATE school systems. They picked off the top 2 (NYC and LAUSD)and now they are going after the rest, turning the schools over to the legislatures with not a single educator on board.
https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/03/zephyr-teachout-hedge-funders-and-their-corrupt-effort-to-take-over-public-education-in-new-york
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/12/14/how-the-billionaire-boys-club-paved-the-way-for-betsy-devos/
FAKE NEWS in the MEDIA which is totally owned by the perpetrators of the destruction…the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX has brought to this moment. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
While the election circus is hiding this American tragedy there are EDUCATION sites where you can get the TRUTH:
FOLLOW Diane Ravitch or the Network for Public Education (NPE), to learn how fast YOUR PUBLIC EDUCATION is being usurped by the plutocrats of the deep state!
https://networkforpubliceducation.org/newsletters/
DO NOT not miss the blog of Peter Greene CURMUDGUCATION, http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com
where this week he says : ‘The argument in favor of school choice continues to evolve, and post-DeVos, the conservative version is taking on its most honest form to date. It has been peeking its head out here and there for a while, but this week emerges full-blown in a US News piece from Robert Pondiscio (Fordham Institute).’
There is Anthony Cody’s Living in Dialogue http://www.livingindialogue.com/bloodbath/ a great site, like that of Lloyd Lofthouse CRAZY NORMAL: THE CLASSROOM EXPOSE https://crazynormaltheclassroomexpose.com
Tell others to go to the sites above, TO LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT THE END of our INSTITUTION of public schools, the ONLY way for our people to achieve income equality and the American dream
Just wanted to offer encouragement. You have detailed the facts very succinctly, and in my opinion correctly. I would add one thing, which I cannot prove, but an uneducated base of labor, who can be led easily, will work of less, and will except more hardship in order to survive is the happy outcome for rich industrialists and business in general who only need warm bodies. The managers and executives they figure will come from their own go the private segregated school of their choice.
I think there is a more direct way vouchers benefit the rich: at least in TN, the voucher bills allow the vouchers to be used by anybody. Even if they give some preference to low income families, the fact is, poor people cannot really use vouchers.
In TN, the value of the voucher is $7K, while a good private school in $20K. Can a poor family shell out $13K remaining cost per year per child? I certainly wouldn’t be able to pay 2x$1,000 per month for my two kids. Can you?
So who is going to use the vouchers? Certainly not the poor, hence vouchers are, in fact, aid the education of the rich: they get $7K for their kids’ education from the taxpayers.
Well, but of course, MW.
Vouchers are mainly a way for rich people (who could afford to send their kids to private schools, anyway) to get a break. Which they don’t need.
And vouchers are another way to re-segregate schools, not just racially, but in a number of ways. They do not have to accept all students. They do not have to accept special needs kids or English Language Learners. They can bounce kids out of there who do not “fit” into the slot of kids that they are willing to educate.
And actually, the same is true of most charter schools.
{{Sigh}}
” They do not have to accept all students. ”
As far as I can understand, they do not have to do any rejection, since they won’t see poor kids: poor kids cannot afford to go to a school where they’d have to pay $1K/month.
I just looked the 4 well known private K-12 schools in Memphis. In all 4, the tuition is over $20K.
There are other implications to the tax credits. When many businesses get tax credits or write offs, the loss of funds must be supplemented by regular people, or services must be cut. In Florida where there is no state income tax, taxes are raised on sales, gas and property taxes as well as high fees on services imposed by the state. This is another robbing Peter to pay Paul scheme.
Retire teacher,
Step Up says it has collected $1 billion that did not go into the state coffers as taxes. The public schools pay for vouchers.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul while giving 10% right off the top to those who are “administering” the game….