The Orlando Sentinel spent months investigating voucher schools in the state of Florida, and the results were alarming.
Even though the state constitution forbids any public money going to any religious school, whether directly or indirectly, the state has created multiple voucher programs and ignored the state constitution.
Even though voters refused to repeal or revise the section of the state constitution prohibiting public money being spent on religious schools, whether directly or indirectly, the state now spends $1 billion each year paying for private school tuition, mostly spent to pay for religious schools.
The voucher schools are completely unregulated.
They teach whatever they want, including racism and scientific nonsense.
They discriminate against students who are not “their kind.”
They do not have to take state tests.
They do not have to meet any academic standards.
They are allowed to hire not only uncertified teachers, but “teachers” who never finished college.
This series is so powerful that I urge you to subscribe to the Orlando Sentinel to read it.
I did.
A sample:
Unlike public schools, private schools, including those that accept the state scholarships, operate free from most state rules. Private school teachers and principals, for example, are not required to have state certification or even college degrees.
One Orlando school, which received $500,000 from the public programs last year, has a 24-year-old principal still studying at a community college.
Nor do private schools need to follow the state’s academic standards. One curriculum, called Accelerated Christian Education or ACE, is popular in some private schools and requires students to sit at partitioned desks and fill out worksheets on their own for most of the day, with little instruction from teachers or interaction with classmates.
And nearly anything goes in terms of where private school classes meet. The Sentinel found scholarship students in the same office building as Whozz Next Bail Bonds on South Orange Blossom Trail, in a Colonial Drive day-care center that reeked of dirty diapers and in a school near Winter Park that was facing eviction and had wires dangling from a gap in the office ceiling and a library with no books, computers or furniture.
This is one of the schools visited by the Sentinel reporters:
“We are able to really change these students’ lives, and I believe that would really be the highest standard of accountability that a school can have,” said Bryan Gonzalez, the 24-year-old principal of TDR Learning Academy in Orlando who is a student at Valencia College.
The school, founded by a pastor and housed in a shopping center on Curry Ford Road, relied on scholarships for most of the nearly 100 students enrolled last year.
Like many of the Christian schools that take state scholarships, TDR uses one of a handful of popular curricula that, as one administrator explained, teach “traditional” math and reading but Bible-based history and science, including creationism.
TDR uses ACE, which includes workbooks for every subject. Students are to complete up to 70 a year. Gonzalez, the pastor’s son-in-law, said students benefit from doing ACE workbooks at their own pace.
Gonzalez also said parents don’t seem to mind his young age or that he and some TDR teachers lack college degrees. TDR’s enrollment has grown since it opened five years ago.
At Harvest Baptist Academy in Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood, parents choose the 20-year-old school for its academics, Bible-based lessons and no-nonsense discipline that includes spanking children, said Harry Amos, recently retired principal.
“The scholarships are fantastic,” Amos said.
All two dozen students at the school used them to pay tuition last year.
Parents “just want a different environment,” he said. “Our leader is the Lord Jesus.”
You know, after several years of reading about so called reformers trying to change the landscape of education, bla bla bla….been going on for several years now especially with the election and Betsy Devos and her vouchers, charters, etc.
In all my readings however, this post by Diane really takes the cake. When I read that the private school has a 24 year old principal who is still taking courses…and…in a community college no less….well that takes the cake as the loony boony gazoony award as the most outrageous crap reformers have done and they have done some loony things but this principal wins the award.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
“the 24-year-old principal of TDR Learning Academy in Orlando who is a student at Valencia College.” “Gonzalez, the pastor’s son-in-law”
Does anymore really need to be said
They’ll never be able to regulate all these private schools from the state level, even if they wanted to, which they don’t.
Ed reformers are terrible at governance. These privatized systems they create are an absolute mess.
Public schools were governed at the local level because that’s practical and workable- there are thousands of schools spread all over states. It doesn’t make sense to provide only state-level oversight. It will never work. They’d have to hire whole teams of auditors and inspectors and conduct the whole operation out of the state capital.
If you think it’s bad now wait until they eradicate ANY local governance or oversight of public schools, which is their goal.
There is going to be a tragedy. It’s an accident waiting to happen. I just can’t believe how reckless these state lawmakers are. They seem blissfully unaware of the risk they’re taking.
How do ed reformers justify testing kids in public schools and not testing kids in the publicly-funded private schools they promote and support?
More absolute incoherence.
It’s bad enough we’re stuck with their gimmicky, expensive and ever-changing testing schemes in public schools- they don’t even apply their own dogma to the private schools they prefer?
If you want to know what an ed reform policy is based on don’t look to “data”- look to whether the policy applies to the public schools they oppose or the private schools they promote. Our kids and schools get the stick- charters and private schools get the carrots.
Since they don’t add any value to our schools the very least they could do is stay out of them and instead apply their experiments to the schools they prefer. Just leave public schools out of it.
Great line:
Public schools get the stick, private schools get the carrot
The private schools in Florida participating in scholarship programs are required to provide students a national norm-referenced tests. Results are reported to state researchers and published annually.
The voucher schools don’t take the same state tests as public schools and charter schools. Their scores cannot be compared. Isn’t that the point of testing? If every district gives its own tests, there is no comparability
‘Schools without Rules’ is an apt way to describe what is happening. It is shocking that over a billion dollars is spent on schools that the state throw money to and then ignores. The state even ignore the problems. Children sometimes attend school in substandard buildings with unsafe electrical wiring, environmental hazards, lack of egress windows and pedagogy from the dinosaur era taught by almost anybody.
Florida’s four year old preschool programs operate the same way. Public money goes to an array of private contractors throughout the state, and many of these are operated by religious institutions as well. Some independent evaluators should visit these programs as well as I doubt the state makes much effort to oversee or regulate them.
The US Department of Education took the opportunity of “Constitution Day” to deliver yet another “public schools suck” speech and marketing campaign.
https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/remarks-secretary-devos-national-constitution-centers-annual-constitution-day-celebration
If Secretary DeVos can’t see her way clear to offer anything of positive value to students in public schools, perhaps she could refrain from using our kids and schools as a political punching bag to promote her ideological agenda.
Just leave us out of it. Our students are not props to be pulled out when it benefits ed reformers politically.
Her opinions are irrelevant to public school families. She offers nothing of value to our kids or our schools.
Devos is really sticking to her gut eh? I mean this woman does not give up and continues on this destructive path which will only end up on the wrong side.
Word was that Trump was over heard saying that Devos is a complete nim wit… I am not making this up it was reported that Trump said that as he was over heard. Hey, finally Trump is right about something
Trump is right Devos SHOULD stick to it . . . because everything she thinks is God-inspired. Wouldn’t you? CBK
I offer a suggested revision:
Not “God-inspired” but “god-inspired”. When writing about a fake god, never capitalize the G.
Lloyd Lofthouse I Stand Corrected. CBK
Well, Lloyd, that would be a small g every time, then!
Diane Last year I wrote here that a local “strip” shopping center was offering space for a day school. Well, they placed a sign out on the road again in August: “Day School–first month’s rent free.”
This, coupled with home “schooling,” is going to create a new generation of . . . what? CBK
Just think parents can shop while their kids are in school so this is a great idea to have a school in a shopping mall
shop till you drop Hmmmm. . . .I hadn’t thought of that . . . but it’ so true. . . .especially if you are a valley girl and you find your highest horizon in your closet or, better yet, under your bed. CBK
SICKENING. That is NOT an environment I think kids should be in. Do we put babies in a hot car? NOPE. Do we put dogs in a hot car? NOPE. And now putting kids in a MALL to learn? HOW RIDICULOUS. Kinda like putting toddlers on a highway to play. Good GRIEF.
Has this country lost its mind?
Kudos to Orlando Sentinel.
“Escaping high-stakes testing is such a scholarship selling point that one private school administrator refers to students as ‘testing refugees.'”
& there it is, the 3-prong Jeb! program: raise stds, hold teachers & schools accountable, & expand school choice [stds/ accountability N/A to private-run alternatives]. Working as intended — & not just in FL, cuz Jeb!’s been Rep & Dem pols’ go-to guy for ed-reform plans since early 2000’s.
Where is the local responsibility on the bldg/ fire safety permits? Is it left to the state DofEd to learn belatedly (or never discover) forged/ missing permits? In my town, restaurants (for example) are inspected regularly, & violations of the type mentioned here get them temporarily closed to public until brought up to snuff. Are central Florida counties so short of funds they can’t keep up w/public safety inspections? Remind me never to eat there.
Pure, rot Puke! I have nothing else to say about Florida and its totally corrupt elected government.