On Wednesday night, there will be a debate about school choice at the Notre Dame Law School. South Bend, Indiana.
Robin Potter, a lawyer,will support the importance of public schools.
John Schoenig of Notre Dame will defend school choice.
Wednesday night March 22 at 5:30 pm.
If you can attend, contact Robin Potter to get on the list for admission.
Robin@potterlaw.org
This should be interesting in light of recent research showing that kids in voucher schools are actually harmed and lose grounds compared to kids who stay in public schools. Indiana is one of the voucher states where kids are set back and have lower test scores in voucher schools.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
With the mention of Notre Dame, I’m reminded of this wonderful article by a current Notre Dame students. School choice advocates could learn a lot from it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sophia-kiernan/the-failing-high-school_b_8906202.html
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This is from Education Post, which is a “mainstream” school choice website. It’s funded by Gates and run by a former Obama Administration official.
Here’s how public schools are portrayed:
“Many of the students who leave traditional public schools for alternatives do so because they are bullied, marginalized or feel unsafe at school.
Research confirms that transgender and non-gender conforming persons attempt suicide at rates higher than in the general population, and that LGBTQ youth broadly are at high risk. We also know these groups are disproportionately stigmatized and bullied, and therefore can benefit the most from school choice.
THE LIFE-SAVING POWER OF SCHOOL OPTIONS IS ON FULL DISPLAY
The life-saving power of school options is on full display at one charter school in my community, Arts and College Preparatory Academy (ACPA). ACPA is a high-performing, arts-focused college preparatory high school whose very mission is to provide “an environment that is safe, inclusive, and progressive.” The school is a paragon of tolerance, inclusion and safety for teens, many of whom felt victimized in their previous schools.”
Public schools are hellholes- dangerous places where students are bullied and forced to conform- while charter schools are models of diversity and tolerance!
It’s all like this. It’s propaganda. Public schools are always, always portrayed negatively and private and charter schools are always portrayed positively.
These folks run policy. If you’re a public school parent and you’re wondering why your child’s school seems to be under attack by a group of lobbyists and politicians, start reading ed reformers. Public schools are under attack and it’s this “movement” that attacks them. Read any of them, on any day. Ed reform is anti-public school. They’re not at all subtle about it.
It’s really misleading to the public to continue to claim that the ed reform “movement” supports public schools. They don’t. It’s particularly unfair to public school parents because they don’t know how hostile this “movement” is to the schools their children attend.
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Chiara,
Once again you point out how TWISTED the thinking is re: the DEFORMS.
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If school choice advocates are not anti-public schools surely some of them are lobbying against the Trump/DeVos cuts to public schools, right?
Surely I could find ONE ed reform group advocating on behalf of the unfashionable public schools that 90% of kids attend?
No? Why not? They claim to be “public education advocates”. Why are public schools excluded from their advocacy?
If I understand this “movement” correctly public school supporters are supposed to push for “school choice” but there is no such duty imposed on private and charter school supporters. I’m wondering why this is.
What we have here are a huge group of people who advocate on behalf of vouchers and charters, a huge group of politicians they have captured who do the same, and NO ONE advocates for public schools.
Public school kids lose in that scenario. They ARE losing. Public education was cut every year Obama was in office and this continues under Trump, except it’s worse.
They’re either lousy advocates or they aren’t working on behalf of public schools. Pick one.
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The Catholic Church pays no taxes on its billions of dollars in real estate holdings, which already effectively siphons millions of dollars from public schools funded by property taxes.
With all it’s billions, why does the Catholic Church need to take even more money from public schools?
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To pay for civil litigation costs!
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I have been wondering how the Catholic Church can refuse to look at the effect charters and vouchers have on public schools. They seem to be saying,”vouchers are good for me and to hell with you”. Don’t they, as religious people, gave an obligation to do what Is best for everyone, not just Catholics?
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The Catholic University of America took at least $3 mil. from the Koch’s. In contrast, the Marianist University of Dayton (Catholic) , apparently, wanting to set an example of living its social justice values, reportedly, was the first university in the country, to say “no” to Koch money.
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That is impressive, Linda. Good for the Marianists!
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Good on the U of Dayton.
Whether or not the other Marianist universities have also done so I don’t know. The Marianist order is devoted to teaching having many high schools and universities around the world.
From my experience of a Marianist high school education and daily interactions working at the brothers residence as a receptionist answering phones and taking messages I can say that the “social justice values” were practiced by about half of the Marianist priests and brothers. The other half were fairly hard core conservative right wing Catholic types. The schooling ended up being a decent balance between the two camps with the students being able to see the differing points of view which in the late 60s early 70s was an important thing to have experienced. As with any human endeavor there were many good decent men and a very few that were less than honorable.
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A question not often discussed is the effect of vouchers on Catholic schools and parishes. I recommend this recent study.
Beyond the Classroom: The Implications of School Vouchers for Church Finances, Daniel M. Hungerman, Kevin J. Rinz, Jay Frymark NBER Working Paper No. 23159
Issued in February 2017
Abstract
Governments have used vouchers to spend billions of dollars on private education; much of this spending has gone to religiously-affiliated schools. We explore the possibility that vouchers could create a financial windfall for religious organizations operating private schools and in doing so impact the spiritual, moral, and social fabric of communities. We use a dataset of Catholic-parish finances from Milwaukee that includes information on both Catholic schools and the parishes that run them.
We show that vouchers are now a dominant source of funding for many churches; parishes in our sample running voucher-accepting schools get more revenue from vouchers than from worshipers. We also find that voucher expansion prevents church closures and mergers.
Despite these results, we fail to find evidence that vouchers promote religious behavior: voucher expansion causes significant declines in church donations and church spending on non-educational religious purposes.
The meteoric growth of vouchers appears to offer financial stability for congregations while at the same time diminishing their religious activities. Specifically, The typical parish accepting vouchers received more money through that avenue than from offertory donations. The researchers found no evidence that vouchers subsidized parish religious activity beyond the operation of the affiliated schools.
You might want to know that one of the authors, Daniel Hungerman, is an Associate Professor of Public Economics at Notre Dame. Kevin J. Rinz completed his doctoral degree at Notre Dame in 2016 and now works at the U.S. Census Bureau. Jay Frymark worked as the business manager at St. Joseph Parish in Grafton Wisconsin. You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.
Home schoolers also have some reasons to think twice about the proposed federal program of vouchers for their work. Here are some the reasons homeschoolers are not eager for vouchers. This is the most recent discussion, but others go back to 2002 with many of the same points. This is also a good website to find out more homeschooling in specific states and how “instruction” is managed. https://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2017/201702140.asp
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Samuel Ronan, Mayor of South Bend Indiana, was, recently, a contender for Democratic Party Chair. The litmus test for politicians, who claim to serve the 90% and, the future of the nation, is public school support. In other words, they must oppose the Walton/Gates plot (charter schools, “human capital pipeline” school design, vouchers and, for-profit, schools-in-a-box).
Where does Ronan stand?
It’s estimated that 25%-30% of voters left the Democratic Party, after the 2016 presidential election. One hopes that Ronan, Perez and Ellison have a plan to get voters back and, to add some. A good starting point is to call out, by name, the richest 0.1%, who claw to make money off of kids and communities, to destroy the middle class and, to eliminate the path that afforded the most women financial independence. A second step is to rid the party of the influence of the Walton/Gates-funded Center for American Progress, including its choice for keynote speaker of the “Progress Party” -hedge fund-loving and school privatizing Sen. Cory Booker. Add to the expulsion list, R.I. Gov. Gina Raimondo.
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I don’t think Democrats care.
It was obvious to anyone that Democrats were losing more and more voters in the upper midwest and Great Lakes states. They lost just about every governors and state legislative race during Obama’s terms.
They changed absolutely nothing. They say the exact same things now as they did in ’08, ’10, ’12, ’14 and ’16, they’re still wholly enamored with Ivy League technocratic “solutions” that mean absolutely nothing to most people and they still have all the same consultants and big shots.
They’re smart people. “Smart” isn’t the problem. The problem is they stand for nothing so no one bothers to stand with them.
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My hopes are rallied by Diane’s inclusion on the shadow cabinet.
However, I’m eager to jump, from the Repub. lite, Democratic ship, if there isn’t change within the Party, ASAP.
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The Democrats try to stay out of the education debate because the neoliberal arm of the party including Wall St. and Silicon Valley are big donors. They have walked this cowardly line for far too long. If they refuse to support the middle class, it may be time to consider a third party. Many European countries have three or more parties. We may have to consider this, if the democrats so easily sell out the middle class and support policies that contribute to income inequality. We cannot function as a democracy with such a wide income gap. As we can see the wealthy are dictating policies that benefit them.
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I think you are right.
They figure public schools are far down on the list of what most people care about so the figure it is best just to say nothing when saying something might affect campaign contributions from Wall Street.
That’s why neither Sanders nor Clinton said much of anything about the Obama onslaught on public schools.
The battle for public schools needs to be framed as a battle for our democracy, which is what it really is.
Perhaps then the “Democrats” will come on board.
Or perhaps not.
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It’s refreshing that it’s a voucher advocate vs a public school advocate.
Good for them for not pretending to be “agnostics”. Now if the rest of the voucher advocates would also admit to working exclusively to promote vouchers we could have a real debate.
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I don’t have any problem with elite universities but I do wonder why all of the public policy discussions take place at them.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have these discussions at the public colleges the vast majority of lower and middle students attend? If you’re interested in lower income students you would find them at either community colleges in Ohio or less selective public colleges.
This is a working class area and we have maybe two graduates a year who go to elite colleges. Our kids don’t even apply because the tuition is 3 times what their parents make every year. These colleges are almost irrelevant to us.
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Universities that use legacy as an admission criteria should not receive federal funding.
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I would like to see this debate. If it posted on YouTube, please post the link. Thanks.
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