A free press makes a difference. Here is proof.
On January 23, Leslie Postal and Annie Martin of the Orlando Sentinel wrote that nearly 160 religious schools receiving vouchers from the state of Florida openly discriminate against students, families, and staff who are gay. Voucher schools drain $1 billion away from public education every year in Florida, and state legislators want to expand vouchers until they are available to every student in the state.
The next day, opinion writer Scott Maxwell of the same newspaper wrote more about public-funded religious schools rejecting students and families. He wrote:
One school told a mother — a firefighter married to U.S. Air Force veteran — that her children were unfit to be educated there simply because the couple was two women.
The two women served their country and community. But the school — which received $371,000 in state scholarship money last year — told the family to get an education elsewhere.
On January 28, the Orlando Sentinel wrote an editorial criticizing the major corporations that declare their opposition to discrimination yet have poured millions into support of Florida’s discriminatory voucher program. Ouch! Profits or principles? The editorial writer reviewed the list of major corporations that support the voucher programs while declaring their opposition to bias.
The first corporation that announced it would no longer subsidize bigotry was Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank.
Then Wells Fargo dropped out.
Valerie Strauss wrote about the defections here.
Others have pulled out, including Wyndham Hotels, Allegiant Airlines and Rosen Hotels. Most corporations don’t stop and think and realize that every dollar that goes to an unregulated, unaccountable religious school is taken away from the state’s underfunded public schools.
There may be other defectors. The defections may only be temporary.
Vouchers open the way to a slippery slope.
The Supreme Court may decide, if asked, that a school may ban the child of gay parents if its religious beliefs dictate the child’s exclusion. After all, it previously decided, with its two Trump appointees, that a baker could refuse to sell his cake to a gay couple.
That’s what Betsy DeVos has spent her life advancing: a world in which one’s religious beliefs trump others’ civil rights.
Today the target is gays. Who will it be next time? African-Americans? Jews? Muslims?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s a site that pulls together what the democratic candidates are saying about education:
http://projects.chalkbeat.org/primary-2020/index.html#/candidates?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_ny
Thanks for the link. The quotes from the various candidates help in understanding the candidates and their platforms better.
In my opinion, the whole ed reform voucher pitch has become dishonest. They don’t even try to make it consistent or coherent. It’s about “access” and “equality” but it excludes whole groups of students? It’s about “low income escaping failing schools” but they’re subsidizing people who never sent their kids to public schools in households with 90k or 100k in income in very strong public school systems?
You can’t even call it a “Trojan Horse”. That implies something they have bothered to hide. The voucher programs themselves contradict what they say about the voucher programs, at the same time they’re selling them.
Incidentally, the whole voucher program also contradicts their entire “systems of great schools” to replace public schools. They don’t care at all if these are great schools. So much for that.
They are incoherent. The ONLY uniformity in ed reform is opposition to existing public schools and promoting and marketing charter and private schools. That’s the only coherent, consistent part of the whole “movement”. THAT they all agree on.
The Ohio voucher program includes a brand new subsidy to middle income people who never sent their children to public schools. It’s a flat out new subsidy. That funding will be pulled from public school students, because none of these people ever advocate on behalf of public school students. Public school students- the existing students who attend our schools- are completely ignored. Ohio ed reformers ran into a political buzzsaw with their voucher program because they neglected to consider PUBLIC school students. Whoops!
That’s quite the omission for people who supposedly make their living in “education”. How do you miss 90% of kids? If you exist in an echo chamber you do, and they do, and did.
I have a real question for ed reformers. If all advocacy for students in existing public schools is characterized by their “movement” as presumptively invalid and “protecting the status quo” then who will advocate on behalf of students in existing public schools?
It’s forbidden? We can have ed reformers- passionate advocates for charter and voucher students- but we cannot have advocates for public school students?
Why not? Ed reformers don’t do any advocacy on behalf of public school and their schools. They don’t lift a finger on behalf of any kid who attends a public school.
No one else should do it either? They just don’t get advocates? How is that fair to them, and how it is “student centered”? The only way these kids can get advocacy on their behalf is if they transfer to a charter or private school? Otherwise they’re taken for granted and dismissed as “the status quo”? I don’t accept that. They have set this up so no one works for kids in public schools.
Chiara, when are you going to read my book? There is no “movement.” Billionaires don’t start movements. Please!
Gov. DeSantis and many members of the state legislature are actively working to destroy or greatly undermine public education in the state. Last year the Family “Empowerment” Scholarships were expanded to include children whose families earn up to $72,250 per year. The program provides corporate tax credits for participation in the program. The donated money is then subtracted from the budgets of sending public schools. The state is happy with this scheme as it reduces the state’s fiscal responsibility to its students, and it is a windfall for their tax avoiding corporate friends. Frankly, young people are not a priority in Florida where many of the tax payers are retirees. It is a positive sign that some corporations are withdrawing support from a program that allows schools to discriminate against LBGT students and their families. These corporations with a conscience will reduce the amount of money available to these “scholarships.” but the whole scheme should be carefully watched.
Some of the vouchers are funded by tax credits. The Family Empowerment Scholarship, however, is funded directly from state coffers.
Payments are transferred directly from the state’s general revenue fund to the program.
In other words, the banks only pulled out because it was publicized and they realized it would affect their profits — not because it was the right thing to do.
Humiliation is a strong incentive.
Works on most people.
Not Trump.
He is incapable of shame.
I don’t think it is shame in this case
The banks just realized people would put their money elsewhere.
Economic incentives and disincentives are often (if not usually ) stronger than ethical ones.
The two major religions in the U.S., evangelical and Catholic, communicate with politicians and judges, delivering the same message. They represent 40% of Americans, about half each. They invoke Christ as their authority. Their document is the Manhattan Declaration which connects to their political drive to undermine public schools (both on the Espinosa side in the Supreme Court case). If congregants of the churches of either, disagreed with their leaders and thought Christ was not being represented accurately, the public would know. Polls that show otherwise are irrelevant in the absence of push back from church members against the political activity of religious conferences e.g. those of bishops and states.
Singling out the Christian Right ?
If you want an example of how much ed reformers take public school students and parents completely for granted, look at the most recent expansion of Florida’s huge voucher law.
Know what public school students got out of the deal? 300 dollars in additional annual funding, tacked on as afterthought and a bargaining chip to get the vouchers.
Public school students should have had an advocate at the table. They didn’t.
Ohio ed reformers did Florida’s one better- they secured NOTHING for public school students. A huge windfall for private schools, nothing for public schools. In fact, our kids effectively got a huge cut to their schools.
They’re lousy advocates for our children. They provide absolutely no benefit to any public school student or family in the country.
??? hmmmm “Against African Americans”
Social Darwinists’ praise for religious schools that are primarily led by those who are statistically, likely Trump Republicans, and white … a religious school chain tailored for geographically poor neighborhoods that requires students to work 1 week a month for private companies and to return their pay to the tax-funded schools of the religious chain,… a school prototype that has 60 students, automated instruction, and canned curriculum designed for a religious school chain that has its main locations in poor, urban neighborhoods …?
“Who will it be next time?”
If Trump had his way, it would be every one that voted against him. He’d strip us of our citizenship, take away our right to vote, own property, and double our taxes to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthiest, power elites.
Then Trump would have us deported to one of the countries he calls “shit holes” (because they won’t do business or launder money with him) once we lost our citizenship.
The definition of a shithole country: No Trump Hotel, yet.
I thought the definition was the opposite.
Where is Disney in all this. I cannot think of a bigger player than Disney in all this. My cousin was once turned down for employment at Disney World (this would have been about 1970 oe so?) because she had a natural silver streak in her hair. I have heard Disney is fairly accepting of diversity in modern times.
The Orlando Sentinel did a year long investigative series on the voucher scam as it operates in Florida. Florida’s GOP majority legislature expanded vouchers. Look up “Orlando Sentinel Schools Without Rules.”
Days after these big banks and major companies publicly announced their exodus (temporary or not) from the program, the Florida Legislature announced it wants to hand over MORE funding to vouchers (from 18,000 “scholarships” to 28,000), not in tax credits, but directly funded out of the state coffers, AND they propose even LESS accountability from Step Up For Students – to be audited not once a year, but once every three years. It will be approved.
Essentially a billion dollar corporation will be able to do anything they want with public money.
Florida’s voucher schools may hire high-school dropouts as “teachers.” Those are the “schools” that parents and DeVos think are right for their children.
This is how the Florida DOE pays its respects to our public school system on its website.
“The Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) Program is one of Florida’s greatest victories for low-income and working-class families, and it is the first of its kind to extend support to middle-income families. Following the 2019 Legislative Session, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 7070, which creates the FES Program and provides 18,000 students life-changing education opportunities for academic and career success.
The FES Program will provide an educational lifeline to students waiting for an opportunity to find the school that will best work for them and puts more parents in the driver’s seat to determine the best educational environments for their children.”