NPE Action exists to fight school privatization and to demand better resourced, more equitable schools.
Here is the latest news on the privatization front.
Good News! House Bill HR 610, the School Choice Act, Appears to Have Stalled
HR 610 was written to eliminate the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was passed as a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” and to create block grants to “distribute a portion of funds to parents who elect to enroll their child in a private school or to home-school their child.” It would also lower nutritional standards for free or reduced priced lunches.
Thanks to your efforts, the Network for Public Education generated over 32,000 emails to members of the U.S. House of Representatives in opposition to this bill. That is a job well done, members!
Be our Eyes and Ears in Your State
Voucher bills and bills that expand charter schools are popping up in nearly every state. When we learn of such bills, we create an action alert that produces a barrage of emails to lawmakers. We need your help in keeping us up to date.
Become a member of our state alert system. If you know of a bill in your state that would promote vouchers, so-called education savings accounts, or tax credit funded “scholarships” to private schools, let us know using the form below. If there is a bill that would expand charter schools or reduce their governing regulations, tell us.
You can find the sign-up form here. Please be sure to save it in your favorites for easy access.
We will then investigate the bill and help mobilize activists in your state.
NPE Action Welcomes Tina Andres to its Board of Directors
Tina Andres has been a public school teacher for 30 years in Santa Ana, California. She has taught elementary special education classes and middle school mathematics for 25 years. She has served as a math curriculum specialist, and mentored over 50 student teachers from public universities throughout her career. Tina is married with two children who attend Santa Ana schools. She is an active member of NEA and CTA and serves on the State Council. Tina is also a member of the BATs Board of Directors. She is a proud advocate for public schools. We welcome Tina to our NPE Action Board.
Are you a School Board Member? It’s Time to Organize!
NPE Action is creating a nationwide Grassroots School Board Members Network. If you are a member of a board of education, please sign up to join.
https://npeaction.org/2017/03/03/7286/
This new grassroots group will provide a means by which you can share resolutions, actions, and communicate with like-minded board members who are intent on supporting and preserving public education.
We believe that School Boards are vital for democratically goverend public schools, and we want to fight with you to make sure that the public understands their importance. We will also provide resources and information.
There is no cost to you–our only motivation is to help you find like-minded board members with whom you can communicate in this important struggle to save our public schools from privatization.
If you would like to join, please fill out our short form that you can find here. If you are not a school board member, please share the form with a school board member.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I excerpted the paragraph on school board members, copied the link to the entire post, and sent it to my school district’s superintendent to encourage him to share it with the board members as well as his colleagues in other districts.
I hope everyone out there will consider doing the same and following up.
Unfortunately I won’t be in town for the next board meeting to make a personal plea, but will try to find someone to do so on my behalf.
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the action item from Carol Burris et al. is available to write to your representative: Do NOT cut MEDICAID services for children. These items are from the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children) with some details.
*The proposal in the House will undermine our ability in MA to provide adequate educational and developmental services for our students. A per capita allotment, even one based on different groups of beneficiaries, will disproportionally harm children’s access to care, including services received at school and in early childhood programs. Representatives in the House should vote “No” on any Medicaid refinancing proposal that undermines health care for children with disabilities.
*Medicaid eligible children with an IEP or even a Family Service Plan received health services that are reimbursed by Medicaid for providing Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment Benefits (EPSDT). We were able to bring doctors and nurse practitioners out from Boston Children’s Hospital to work with our Lawrence public school children using EPSDT funds and this became a national model for Medicaid reimbursements in schools .
*A recent survey of school districts (2017) reports that two-thirds of Medicaid dollars are used by schools receiving them to support the salaries of health professionals and other specialized instructional support personnel (e.g., speech-language pathologists, audiologist, occupational therapists, school psychologists, school social workers and school nurses) who provide comprehensive health and mental health services to students. Sixty-eight percent of districts use Medicaid funding to pay direct salaries for health professionals (school nurses, physical and occupational therapists, school psychologists, and many other critical school personnel).
*Districts also use MEDICAID funds to provide services to students in poverty, who are more likely to lack consistent access to health care professionals (something that was proven in the Lawrence EPSDT project). Further, some districts depend on Medicaid reimbursement to purchase and update specialized equipment (walkers, wheelchairs, equipment to assist with hearing and seeing) and assistive technology for students with disabilities so they can learn alongside their peers.
*School district programs would stand to lose much of their Medicaid funding under the current proposal being reviewed in the House. Schools receive roughly $4 billion in reimbursement for Medicaid annually and this is cost-effective delivery. If states are no longer able to consider school programs to be eligible Medicaid providers, that would mean that districts and programs would have the same obligation to provide services for children with disabilities under IDEA, but without the Medicaid dollars to provide medically necessary services.
*Reduced funding for Medicaid would result in decreased access to critical health care for many children and youth. Seven out of ten students receiving mental health services receive these services at school. Cuts to Medicaid would further marginalize these critical services and leave students without access to care.
*A block-grant in a state like MA would only provide required services to the “most vulnerable” and many children would be screened out which means that health care coverage for services would be denied to many children who need them as defined under rules and regs of IDEA (which was underfunded to begin with). Given the failure to commit federal resources to fully-funding IDEA, Medicaid reimbursement serves as a critical funding stream to ensure districts can provide the specialized instructional supports that students with disabilities need.
*Converting Medicaid to a block grant, or instituting per capita allotments threatens to significantly reduce access to comprehensive health and mental and behavioral health care for children with disabilities and those living in poverty. Representatives in the House should vote NO on the dismantling of MEDICAID.
reference is specific to MA and you may want to customize to your own state and region when writing the letter.
REFERENCES: Richard Lavin and Jean Sanders. Final Report on Lawrence Children’s Health Project. ERIC ED 236 257 This final report on Lawrence Children’s Health Project established in Lawrence, Massachusets, to create a national demonstration project as a model for Medicaid funding in schools to support the Chapter 766 legislation (which eventually became IDEA PL..94-142)
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These same people, many of whom are pro-life, are the ones willing to take a wrecking ball to these essential, effective programs and supports. They are more pro-birth than they are pro-life.
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I have a seemingly minor critique about this. Many of you will think it is trivial. I have a problem with the sentence, “Do NOT cut MEDICAID services for children.” The period should come after “MEDICAID.” By adding “services for children”, it unnecessarily starts carving out parts of the issue, implying the other parts are less important.
The potential loss of services to children is an important example of why the entire Medicaid program must be saved. It is one important part and focusing on it opens up doors to divide. For example, a cynical politician who wants to kill Medicaid and all other federal heath programs loves this. He or she can respond, “Well, I agree with you about the children part and we can figure legislation to cover that specifically.”
In my years of working in advocacy, there is a tendency, sometimes purposely, at other times inadvertently, of creating silos that get in the way of building bigger coalitions. Language matters in politics and this is an example of how unintended consequences emerge.
We should be building large Medicaid, Medicare and health care coalitions and use our individual perspectives to build support for everyone.
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the words come from the Council for Exceptional Children. That is their number one priority. They are not an advocacy group for Medicare…. OF COURSE they mean — do not cut the funds that are essential for programs in human services; this letter happens to refer to the budget that goes into school districts from the Medicaid budget and it has specific “eligibility ” guidelines. If you want to know of the other letter writing that we are doing, we have about 40 different legislative items that we are responding to some in state and some in Washington. Carol Burris happened to have this one available and the CEC has a very strong reputation in the programs and services and many states have CEC chapters.
, it unnecessarily starts carving out parts of the issue, implying the other parts are less important.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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Jean, you miss my point completely. If you will look at my first comment above, I am completely in support of topic this post was about and even have actively spread the word.
Understand that Republicans want to kill this program and would like nothing more than to parcel certain parts out in order to claim that they “saved” certain provisions. This effort unconsciously supports that notion. I will, for example, predict that the people who send this message will get responses from Republicans who want to kill Medicaid that will say something to the effect of, “I too think these services for children are important and will work to preserve them. Your views will be very important to me should this issue be debated on the floor of the House (or Senate).”
There is one very simple fix to my criticism of the Medicaid issue and another that takes a little more effort and commitment. You actually finish the letter correctly, but you obscure it with the information preceding it and especially with your opening salvo, as I have already described. The simple fix is to put the last sentence first and then follow it with: “Please let me explain one aspect of the problem if the Medicaid program is eliminated.”
The harder part is reaching out to the other constituencies who support Medicaid, especially those who focus on other parts. NPE should join them in signing their letters, and more importantly, NPE should sign on to organizational letters to members of Congress. And they should sign on to letters organized by NPE. NPE should be an active member of a “Protect Medicare and Medicaid” coalition.
When you write that “the words come from the Council for Exceptional Children. That is their number one priority. They are not an advocacy group for Medicare (I think you mean Medicaid)”, you are, whether you see or admit it or not, creating a political silo. For argument’s sake, if Medicaid were gutted but the services for children were saved and rebranded as something else, as a stand-alone program, would you consider that a victory? I would not.
When Lyndon Johnson created Medicaid and Medicare, he intentionally made them cover a wide range of issues in order to force advocates to work together to help them survive and thrive. When the people affected by those programs take a “that is their number one priority” stance, they dishonor the legacy of the program’s creators. Building coalitions is hard work that has to be sustained with prolonged commitment.
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Perhaps you didn’t understand my intent. The group had been mention; so maybe I should not have put the comments there. I was trying to support the work of the group (I did not write their action item). I also noted that their action item was very short so I went to another place, the CEC to gather information that could go into a call to a rep or a letter or email. When they write these action items they think about their audience and use the language of the audience. They are not looking at an entire legislative package .
All I did was put the two together the NP (I got a nice note back from Carol Burris thanking me for submitting a letter) ; and the CEC that had DETAILS that would appeal to an audience of parents, teachers who worked in special education etc. We have enough “fights” in our own state trying to address each of the separate bills and believe me there are many coming down the pike. When we talk with legislatures here (often those who agree with us) they ask us to concentrate on Betsy Devos and stop the in-fighting.
If you want to see the other action items I will send them in an email but believe me there are more than you might want to consider and at our location we are having volunteers who contribute on their own time and none are paid. That is the same strategy we had to develop to defeat No on #2… I cannot guarantee any of it will work with trump in the oval office but I do believe we are in a peck of a lot of trouble and I would not discourage any of our volunteers from trying to generate the encouragement and support needed to work on this fast paced agenda.
I don’t know where you work or the strategies that you have to put in place but your correcting me for the words written by NP and CEC doesn’t really help me at all. It’s kind of like “Johhny Most high above court side” saying “you guys on the ice fight it out.” Doesn’t really concern me ; I was trying to cobble together the suggestions from CEC into the action item that NP wrote (that was indeed short and perhaps not precise in language. So maybe address your comments to those groups? I think they are doing the very best they can with a horrid set of circumstances.
As another example, if I am writing to an AARP journal audience and devising a commercial to be aired on TV/cable (which is not my job thankfully) I would not fill up the “ad” with a lot of language about children because my audience is AARP and to focus on what they will lose in MEDICARE when there is an “Age Tax” is more appropriate.
If we are working on the same issues and have like-minded views and agree, I find it best not to criticize the volunteers who show up because at this point that is all we have — we don’t even have the rent to pay for an office. We get good advice from MTA/from AFT and in this case i thought the advice from CEC would inform people who would be able to respond to an action item. They are not going in to provide testimony to the legislature — that is a separate set of skills . Also, when the people in my district write to our rep (who happens to be Niki Tsongas) we actually know who she is and what her values and opinions are because we worked with her through two campaigns now for the senate. That is also different from the scenario that you presented if you are writing “cold” to a person who does not share your opinions and values. I am new at this campaign business but i do value the volunteers and the thousands of people across the country who are trying to build efforts and i don’t want to go “purist” on them with language. If you want to know my own views on the language we use (not CEC advice) I have requested all my friends to stop using Asperger’s but to use the high functioning autism or autism spectrum instead because the Dr. Asperger was a bureaucrat that signed death warrants for the children during the Nazi era and that is what I think we are dealing with when trump permits these bureaucrats to act out on their very worst impulses. But, that is a separate discussion that would have to entail my long experience with CEC or other “teacher”and professional groups.
There is one very simple fix to my criticism of the Medicaid issue and another that takes a little more effort and commitment. You actually finish the letter correctly, but you obscure it with the information preceding it and especially with your opening salvo, as I have already described. The simple fix is to put the last sentence first and then follow it with: “Please let me explain one aspect of the problem if the Medicaid program is eliminated.”
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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find action item here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-dont-you-dare-cut-funding-for-disabled-kids?source=direct_link&;
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One more retentive, well-intentioned critique on political language. There is no such entity as a “disabled kids or children.” There are children (and persons) with disabilities. “Disabled” implies no ability to do something. “A disability” implies many abilities that can be realized.
It takes more virtual and real ink to write “with disabilities” or “with a disability,” but it is more precise, accurate and human.
In a future rant I’ll explain why we shouldn’t use the definite article “the” when discussing people.
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Greg,
I wrote about that in “The Language Police” a decade ago.
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I bet I internalized that and forgot all about where I read it first. I’m not as brilliant as I thunk I wuz!
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Greg — we are trying to reach teachers, principals, parents in large groups. If you start in on every trivial point.. then you will just get people who “QUIT” because you make it such a difficult process to get exacting language ; do you realize how many of these action items are going out? Do you realize the numbers of people who are working on this on their own time (VOLUNTEERS) not just professional organizations.
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Again, your defensiveness blinds you to an obvious point and a very simple fix. First, I do not “start in on every trivial point.” I focus on one important point. The difference between being called a disabled person and a person with a disability is not trivial. I’ve worked with disability rights constituencies. Although it is more than 20 years old, reading Joseph Shapiro’s “No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement” would be a good place to start to learn more. Communicating with state and national agencies and organizations that work with disability would be another good step. To latch on to the point I just made above, NPE should at least make the effort to connect with actual groups that have a strong record of fighting for disability rights. They would support your effort and give it more legitimacy. You would likely grow your coalition exponentially and have broader outreach and effectiveness.
Finally, language matters. If I asked you to sign on to or sign a letter that supported education programs for “the blacks” or “the Latinos” what would your response be? Would that be a trivial issue for those constituencies you claim to support?
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here’s another one; you could tell them how to perfect their job I guess of getting these out. It is fairly well organized as far as the technology; you can write your own letter (which is good)… Some times people need key points to know what to put in their letter. Actually emails and post cards are better than traditional letters because they are held and examined for toxic materials so the emails land faster. I am getting 20 or more a day. Also, there are another 30 or more petitions and surveys that have a donation page attached.
https://secure3.convio.net/ucs/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=00000000.app314a?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=5578&autologin=true&NONCE_TOKEN=8BE6A76606EB496C74FD090433E4C3C2
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I know that Greg does not like these terms… but they are often written into legislation. And this particular advocacy group uses the term. When we do general audience or communicate with local people we often have to use the language that they are familiar with . Save the rewrites for another day when policy is being formulated. I know in the 1960s when I did training in a state hospital for children we were still using the term “brain injured” .. that has gone by the way side now. “The legislation revealed by House Republicans … is a giant step backwards in the treatment and care of individuals with disabilities,” said Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network. “It caps Medicaid funding which means a sharp reduction in services and availability of this important health care lifeline for children and adults with disabilities. In short, this plan is terrible.”
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Jean, lastly, so you understand, I am 100% on your side and completely supportive of NPE’s mission. I hope my criticisms will help your efforts be more effective. My intent is not to snipe away at your heels or be argumentative for argument’s sake.
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my efforts are to find action items that are workable/ that function and get them to our Valley participants. This is an informal , loosely coupled group who are not “members” as much as they are interested in being more active and sign in with different sub-groups like “sanctuary cities” etc.. . We have a newsletter that goes out weekly and we have 8 or 10 people contributing to the newsletter. Perhaps you would like to see a sample? We also share our list with League of Women Voters in western MA near Springfield and with other more formal groups. If you want the newsletter I can send it if you request in email to jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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So did Democrats and ed reformers get played on the ESSA accountability rules?
They all backed “choice” based on their belief “choice” would be regulated.
Looks to me like Republicans in Congress never intended to follow thru on “accountability” but duped the Democrats into going along with “choice”
Not that it matters for public schools. Nothing changes for us. This is all about the “choice” agenda.
It is interesting though as far as ed reform going very far Right. A fight within the chamber fight. Democrats lost. This is a far Right “movement” now.
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THANK YOU!
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One organization that is working against school choice/vouchers is the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. See http://scottish-rite-mn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Scottish_Rite_History_MN.pdf page 4
The Scottish Rite has been historically opposed by the Roman Catholic Church. When the great immigration of Irish/Italians came to the USA, the public schools still had bible readings, and prayer. The King James Bible was used extensively for instruction. The Public Schools were used to “protestantize”, the new Catholic immigrant children.
When the Catholics started setting up their own schools, the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry pushed the states to set up amendments in their constitutions to prohibit tax money going to any sectarian schools. These amendments were aimed straight at the heart of the Catholic schools.
In the latter part of the 19th Century, the Freemasons had a lot of influence in state legislatures. Rep. James G. Blaine (1830-1893) of Maine, was a Freemason.
Before you dismiss these statements as some kind of conspiracy theory, just google “Parochiaid”, and read the documents for yourself.
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