Mercedes Schneider is a careful analyst of tax filings. Although Trump doesn’t have to make his tax returns public, thus revealing any potential conflicts of interest, the law requires charitable organizations to release their financial filings (called their 990 form) with the Internal Revenue Service.
In this post, Schneider reviews the finances of Step Up for Students, which receives donations from corporations to provide vouchers for Students. The corporations, in turn, get a tax credit for their donations. This is Florida’s way of circumventing a provision in the state constitution that forbids spending public money on religious schools. By giving gifts to Step Up, the business supplies the money for the voucher to a third party, not a religious school. Step Up uses the money mostly for religious schools. Many D.C. Insiders think this is the plan that DeVos and Trump will use as a national template because it bypasses thorny Constitutional issues. It is called a “tax credit” program, but it is in reality a way to finance vouchers.
Florida Voucher Nonprofit, Step Up for Students: A Tale of 15 Tax Forms
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In ALL my years as an educator, and I am 71, I have NEVER EVER seen so much GRAFT and dishonesty re: our schools. I BLAME THIS ON THE “CHARTERIZATION” of our nation’s schools. This “charterization” is just a SCOOP for profits off the backs of our young and our teachers.
Who in their right mind would allow an uncertified mechanic to work on their car(s), while at the same time allow their children to be taught by UNCERTIFIED teachers?
NUTS!
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“Increasingly, Tennessee lawmakers say it’s common sense: When students leave public schools, taxpayer money for educating them should follow those students to pay for private educational services.”
Weird that these “agnostics” never do anything for public schools. Nothing. No positive contributions or benefits to kids in public schools.
Voucher mania has hit ed reform! It replaces the charter mania that went on for the 8 years of Obama.
They show up in public schools only when they’re pushing a new test or selling ed tech garbage.
If there isn’t any interest in public schools in this “movement” why not just drop us completely? Focus on charters and vouchers full time. Stop pretending this has anything to do with “improving public schools”. It doesn’t.
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2017/03/14/lawmakers-puzzle-over-how-to-expand-vouchers-for-students-with-disabilities-without-hurting-local-schools/
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“Step Up for Students” is an elaborate scheme designed to send public money to private pockets and students to schools of questionable value with “teachers” of questionable training. While the state is giving wealthy donors “tax breaks” for their donations, the rest of the taxpayers pay more to underwrite the “redirection of tax dollars” for the lost revenue. I wonder if anyone has kept statistics on how many of these scholarship winners have attended college. “USA Today” has an article about the low college attendance rates of charter school graduates, mostly in California. If the goal of charters is to make students “college and career ready,” they can chalk up another failure on that front.http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/14/charter-schools-college-degrees/99125468/
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Reviewing the 990 forms of the usual suspects in education reform is well..educational. A look at Idaho’s Albertson Foundation 990’s for 2015 reveals a generous $1 million donation to Teach for America. In addition there is support for Bellwether Education partners and Building Hope. While this non-profit promotes itself as helping education, it is really helping the corporate cronies help themselves to public $$. EIN is 82-6012000 if anyone is interested.
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Bellwether Education Partners is Andrew Rotherham, who sits on many of the corporate reform boards.
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I’m not sure this is a ‘bypass’. The money that isn’t taxed is public money. It depends upon a Court to see that as a legit argument.
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The money that supports the tax credit program is money that was supposed to go into the public treasury to support public programs.
It doesn’t belong to the corporations and individuals. It was diverted from the public treasury for a private purpose.
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