Julian Vasquez Heilig dissects the claims about vouchers by posing eight questions about vouchers that Betsy DeVos cannot or will not ever answer.
First is, where did the idea come from? Well, there is that famous essay by libertarian economist Milton Friedman in 1955, but there is also the advocacy of Southern politicians following the Brown decision. Friedman had the idealistic belief that parents should spend their education voucher in any school. Southern politicians persistently and loudly called for “school choice” as a way to preserve racially segregated schools.
Julian also asks about the international repute of the free market and mentions Chile, which has seen the inevitable segregation that follows vouchers. He might have also mentioned Sweden, which took the same path, and found not only increased segregation but plummeting scores on international tests.
Voucher advocates have noticed that research does not support their claims about higher test scores or better education so they have resorted to advocating for choice for the sake of choice.
Today we have the unprecedented phenomenon of a U.S. Secretary of Education who advocates for a policy that will produce ever higher levels of segregation. This is wrong.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is another link to a helpful reference: On C-SPAN’s BookTV, Peter Moskowitz discusses his book “How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood” . . . “in which he discusses the future of American cities. In his book, Mr. Moskowitz looks at gentrification in Detroit, New Orleans, and New York and the impact on residents of these cities. He was interviewed by Ryan Sartor.”
In his talk he makes a direct connection between the rise of charter schools/voucher, and the racism embedded in gentrification movements in suburbia.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?424923-2/peter-moskowitz-discusses-kill-city
In many cities the gentrification of neighborhoods near the central business district is accompanied by charters. Selective charters spring up near the CBD for the white yuppie population. The cheap charters for poor, minority students are on the fringe of the city. We have seen trend this in several major cities. It is a form of social engineering for profit. Some of the violence in Chicago may be due to the dislocation of poor, minority families. http://www.progressillinois.com/posts/content/2014/05/20/report-school-closures-charter-expansion-causing-catastrophic-harm-us-minor
GREAT description: Social engineering for profit.
ciedie aech: Yes–the whole thing shifts to come under the organizing power of “market-only” dynamics.
I’m not anti-market. But I am anti-market-ONLY–because in the end it’s self-destructive. In a workable democracy, public institutions (like education) exist in tension with market-dynamics. But the present movement is to erase the PUBLIC part of the dynamic and replace it with the self-service of an oligarchic kleptocracy, to put it bluntly. The public, regardless of their situation, is not the end (as it is in rightly-formed democratic government) but is the means to the ends of whoever is in power.
Look around–we are being marketed to death with that overreach of single-frame ideology. They won’t leave a free space open. With charters etc., we don’t get to choose our children’s method of education. We get to choose which corporation will own our children’s education.
An even more telling description: With charters we only get to choose which corporation will own our children….
cross-posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Eight-Questions-Betsy-DeVo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Fraud_Money_Rights-170430-16.html
with this comment:
I saw Liz Warren last night on Bill Maher, and she ranted on about how before 1980, the middle class was healthy, and now almost all of the GNP goes to the top 10%.Actually, as this astonishing little video series of graphs show, it goes mostly to the 1/10th of 1%.If you have not seen this in a while, go — trust me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
Someone needs to call, write and tell Senator Warren that public schools are the ONLY ROAD FOR OUT CITIZENS, so with the destruction of the INSTITUTION of public education, so goes our middle class, NOT TO MENTION OUR DEMOCRACY since shared knowledge is the key http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
MOREOVER>>> if we let THESE GUYS https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum/ change history and science, our nation IS over.Trump and his crony DeVos will end this nation! it is not North Korea or China which will be our demise!
Warren was on C-span last night in a huge hall with lots of fans. She started off with a bang, reading from her new book and bringing almost everyone to the threshold of tears. The book is built around stories of individual lives and the policies that we need to be concerned about. She read about a meeting with Bill who knew he had Alzheimer’s and what that meant to her as a person, and as a scholar who believes in science, and as a senator. His story became an occasion to look at the difference between what is coming down the pike from Trump and Republicans and what is needed.
“We’re in a watershed moment for public education.”
Hell we’ve been in that moment since NCLB was promulgated into law at the turn of the century.