Peter Greene writes here about Ohio’s headlong expansion of vouchers for private and religious schools.
The enlarged voucher program will hurt the budgets of some of the state’s best school districts.
The only evaluation of Ohio’s voucher program, carried out at the behest of the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, determined that kids who took the vouchers actually lost ground academically as compared to their public school peers.
No matter.
Remember when voucher promoters claimed that they wanted to “save poor kids from failing schools”? No more. Now they want to give public money to kids who never attended a public school, ever.
Ohio has quietly been working to become the Florida of North when it comes to education, with an assortment of school choice programs that are like a cancerous growth gnawing away at the health of the public school system. But now, due to a collection of lawmaker choices, the privatized schools of Ohio have dramatically advanced their bid to consume public education. And somer lawmakers have noticed.
 |
| “Hey! I would like to speak to a manager!” |
Ohio has followed the basic template for implementing choice– get your choicey foot in the door with some modest programs that are strictly to “save” poor, underserved students from “failing” schools. Then slowly expand. Only, somehow, somebody screwed up the “slowly” part.
Next year, the number of “failing” districts in Ohio will jump from 500 to 1,200. The voucher bill for many districts will jump by millions of dollars. (If you like a good graphic, here’s a tweet that lays it out.) And the list of schools whose residents are eligible for the EdChoice program include districts that are some of the top-rated districts in the state.
It might not matter that top districts are now voucher-eligible– after all, parents can just say, “Why go to private school when my public school is great?”– except for one other wrinkle. Next year ends the requirement that voucher students be former public school students. In other words, next year parents who have never, ever sent their children to public schools will still get a few thousand dollars from the state. Districts will lose a truckload of money without losing a single student.
He writes that the only thing that worries Ohio legislators is that they acted too quickly and
may potentially alarm too many people to whom legislators might have to actually listen. Again, nothing about this expansion is out of line with a voucher rollout as a matter of substance or policy; the only problem is the speed with which it’s barreling into Certain Neighborhoods. Someone cranked up the heat on that pot of frogs a little too swiftly.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ohio is a theocracy. The Ohio Senate Chair is Catholic and, Matt Huffman, the politician who introduced the voucher expansion bill, is Catholic. Upwards of 80% of Ohio’s voucher money goes to Catholic schools.
The second, but not lesser, government in Ohio is Koch’s ALEC. Ohio is a pay to play state.
Profit takers or money grubbing churches win. Ohio is an example where Banana Republics and Fordham Institute go hand in hand. The losers are taxpayers, citizens, communities, students and, the state’s prosperity, democracy and the nation’s Constitution.
Is Ohio a “theocracy” when it comes to education, or do their ed policies just reflect the free-market conservatism of govt-appointed bureaucrats dictating ed policy in a state which, like NC, FL, & others, have hornswoggled voters into a top-down state ed system w/zero local checks & balances?
Ohio senate chair Peggy Lehner is, yes, Catholic. She could just as easily be Protestant or atheist, judging from her record. In her role as chairwoman of sen ed committee: she is noted for pushing audits such as that by Yost in 2015 which uncovered charter fraud in over-counting attendees to plump income. In 2017 she was critical of the income-based voucher program, stating the state shouldn’t pay for students w/a solid pubsch option to attend privates just because they’re poor, w/ no tracking of whether it’s helping. RE: the current reclassification of schools as failing & consequent doubling+ of district students qualified for vouchers, Lehner joined other board members who were unclear on which laws in particular are creating most of the controversy or how to resolve them. “I’m still trying to find out what we’re fixing,” Lehner said at that meeting.
Huffman, another Catholic who could be any religion or an atheist: his position on EdChoice is that vouchers costs the state 1/2 the price of a pubsch ed… https://dianeravitch.net/2019/12/17/jan-resseger-ohios-expansion-of-vouchers-for-religious-schools-will-burden-school-districts-across-the-state/#comments
Ohio religious demographics as of 2008 [wiki]: 76% Christian: 26% Evangelical Prot, 22% mainline Prot, 21% Catholic, [apparently, 8% other Christian]; 17% unaffiliated, 7% other incl Jewish, Jehovahs Witness, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormons et al.
No question, nearly ALL [97%] of Ohio’s voucher $ goes o religious schools. Pls provide the cite on 73% of Ohio voucher $ going to Catholic schools, so I can learn more.
Correction: you said upwards of 80%
p,s, I don’t really care whether in fact the voucher $ is going mainly to Catholic, or other religious schools [tho I/m interested in the breakdown], just challenging the premise that Ohio politicos’ sch-choice policy is motivated by Catholic dominionism [where they happen to be Catholic], or is it about Christian schs in general [a la DeVos]– or is it just about defunding publics in favor of privatized/ non-union, I,e, libertarianism/ free-marketism/ anti-unionism, & Catholic schs are the no-fault beneficiary by virtue of having ample sch networks in place in poor urban areas.
Ohio is a theocracy because pastors get votes for Republicans.
States that contend with libertarians e.g. the Koch network only, would have an easier time defeating religious and free market legislation that takes rights from the middle class and poor. The marriage of God talk with free market makes a formidable enemy, cases in point, Brownback’s election, the school choice blog in Nebraska whose author works with students at Lincoln’s St. Mary’s for school choice and, the Nebraska Catholic conference that sponsors, along with AFP, the same school choice rallies, the Providence R.I. priest who tweets that “Catholic schools are a viable option”, public or billionaire funding makes them viable.
Lehner babbles about accountability while never holding herself accountable, as your example shows. If she was an atheist, it’s doubtful she would be elected. A judge has once again extended the discovery phase in the ECOT case. Justice delayed is justice denied, a point that Lehner is well aware of since, Ohio’s attorney general is Republican, as are most of the judges.
Fordham and Koch-linked organizations write articles of praise for Catholic schools. Fordham’s early donors in Ohio were devout Catholics. You can read about what the family of Iams pet food is doing with their philanthropy currently.
Bellwether, in a report this year, advised ed reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their goals. Bellwether’s clients include Catholic schools.
Ohio has few “Christian” schools in urban areas, which explains the dominance of voucher money and Catholic schools. The Dayton Daily News reporter, Jeremy Kelley, is one among others who has reported on voucher money and Catholic schools in Ohio.
Ohio’s heartbeat bill was sponsored by a “Christian” legislator and its support came from Catholic parishes.
interesting how so often “theocracy” and “opportunism” go hand in hand
Thanks for clarifying your position, & for pointing me to follow-up reading. “The marriage of God talk with free market”—good phrase—is detestable.
To clarify- the family of the founder of Iams. The company was sold to a conglomerate a few years ago.
The article of Dartmouth’s Udi Greenberg in the Journal of the History of Ideas (2018), ” “Catholics, Protestants, and the Tortured Path to Religious Liberty”, should be read by every American of voting age.
A piece written for a more advanced and knowledgeable audience that is worth reading is Sandy Levinson’s review of Ken Kersch book, “Why Ken Kersch’s book is an indispensable revelation about our constitutional situation” . Levinson is a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas. He wrote the review for the blog, Balkinization.
Thanks for these cites, Linda! Most of the way thro Balkanization [fascinating & hair-raising], & will be reading the other shortly. Readings like this help me answer the question I was left w/ after reading “The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow” [Donald McCrea] last yr: how can it be that the dominant cultural values of the early 1920’s are so prevalent today?
“In desperate times, people cling to their guns and religion”-
Barack Obama
Reading two or three links back from those posted at Greene’s blog, various Fordham pieces pop up. Boy are those guys bought & sold on this issue. They don’t even try to hide their school-choice boosterism. Their position is apparently, no matter how little sense these Ohio school-grading methods make, it’s all good, because it moves the needle steadily toward 100% publicly-supported private alternatives for 100% of the public. High-priced suburban schools suddenly re-classified as “low-performing”? No pr-o-o-blem, those parents won’t reject their public schools anyway!
Meanwhile the ballooning of “failing schools” in one year from 500 to 1200—now including 1/3 of all Ohio pubschs—is barely even called out in the press as the obvious charlatan & purely political, pro-privatization move it obviously is. They call it “complexity”—nice word for fraud—that the formula excludes school grades for 2015-16 & 2016-17 [“safe harbor” yrs], while reaching back to 2014-15 to fill out its 3-yr algorithm. So for example, for a school that’s gradually improves over the 5 yrs from F to C (say, F-F-D-D-C), the trajectory is irrelevant, improvement counts for nil. The stock market might say this school is on it’s way to B or A! But Ohio DOE says—FAIL: consigned to privatization.
Are Ohioans really that deluded? Or is it just that the voters are resigned to a state DofEd w/no checks & balances that runs roughshod over voter/ taxpayer druthers & just does their own thing?
This is an intended consequence of the policy work of the Fordham Institute, They are eager to send public money to private and religious schools, and in Ohio the chief beneficiaries are Catholic schools. Ohio has rigged the A-F school rating scheme to generate as many failing public schools as possible. Meanwhile we also have in Cincinnati a gift of corporate tax breaks that will take public money from our schools, roads, parks, libraries, and other public services. City Council approved Tax Incentive Financing (TIF) grants to sections of our city that are NOT in need of this perk for “development.” There was also a short period of time to organize protests against this gift of taxpayer money, a practice Peter also notes as way to voucherize up to a third of Ohio’s public schools and subsidize private schools.
Gov. Dewine is Catholic- 8 kids. Reportedly, he took his oath of office on 9 Bibles.
Think tanks have a hand in legitimizing most of what is wrong today.
It was a very clever move on the part of whoever thought up the strategy so many decades ago because it has been wildly successful in producing junk science on everything from climate change to education.
I can’t think of a single “think tank” that actually produces legitimate work. Even the supposedly “liberal ” ones are basically propaganda outlets writing ideologically based “white papers” on whatever their corporate pay masters deem important.
They are an embarrassment to real scholarship.
Even naming them “think tanks” was a very clever move, since the people who work for them are not actually paid to think, but to shill.
Rightfully, they should be called Shill Tanks
More on this: https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20191211/voucher-expansionrsquos-ldquounintended-consequencesrdquo-could-blow-holes-in-school-district-budgets
Fordham is manipulating public school system from “wealthier” systems to pit them against “poorer” districts. And they are doing so by bribing the “wealthier” district superintendents with promises of personal financial gain. This is graft 101.
systems
Fordham chimes in feebly [Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute]– as if this wasn’t their intended goal– “I get it that it’s gotten real, I guess, and that’s why folks are frustrated and they’re voicing their concerns,” Aldis said. “If you were looking at existing law, you already knew that the numbers of schools on the low-performing schools list, that determines EdChoice eligibility, was going to expand”… That was one of the reasons he said his organization pushed for a fully income-based voucher system.” Translation: Tsk tsk, voters should have been paying attention to the [obscure] legislative algorithm– should have known this meant we were coming for you , in your cushy well-performing district!
Why in h– is this think tank dictating ed legislation for Ohio??
Except, Greg, how are supts in wealthier reas able to personally profit from this policy?
And one more affluent Jesuit high school joins in on the plunder: https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20191221/walsh-jesuit-joins-expanding-list-of-private-schools-accepting-vouchers
“Ruegg said the school is aware of the impact vouchers will have on public schools, but added, “Our focus really has been on what we can do for our students who choose to come here.”
Annd here we go again, slicing & dicing the winners from losers. Walsh Jesuit charges $13k, voucher’s worth $6k, so that segment hat can afford $7k per kid gets added to enrollment– meanwhile, whee! folks previously paying $13k get a $6k/kid bonus! siphoned directly from pubsch budgets, whose unable-to-pay-$6k/kid families will just have to make do w/far less for needier kids. What ghoul dreamed up this legislation??
Affluent white people scheming to get money to pay for their kids’ private educations and hiding the plot with PR about “helping poor kids”…. America’s history is replete with injustice that sprang from sophomoric intrigue.
Same old, same old, after a period of dormancy, religious leaders pave the way for rule by wealthy colonialists. The nation’s founders anticipated religion’s role and tried to prevent it, hoping for a different kind of nation.
The KKK relied on religious imagery and Georgia Gov.Talmadge first suggested privatization. same old, same old.
Eugene Talmadge’s bio. at Wikipedia.
Paola DeMaria (Ohio State Superintendent), Fordham’s Petrilli and Pondiscio- are their shared demographics the reason for Ohio’s vouchers?
I am trying to find a way to opt out of paying to support private/religious schools with my tax money. Hoping to meet with some others of like mind. Is this an option in Ohio?
No. The Ohio legislature insists you give public money to pay for religious schools. Join a lawsuit to stop it.