Jan Resseger describes the chaos and disruption caused by Ohio’s choice-made Legislature.
The Ohio House is trying to curb the overreach of the expanded voucher program, which unexpectedly swooped up some white, affluent schools. The hardline Senate, lobbied by generous campaign donor Betsy DeVos, will hang tough to give out as many vouchers as possible, even if it bankrupts entire school districts.
I wonder why no one has put a referendum on the state ballot about whether the public wants vouchers to pay the tuition of religious school students.
At the end of Jan’s excellent article, there is a nugget of good news.
The failed state takeovers are under fire:
On Wednesday, the Ohio House passed another very welcome emergency amendment to Senate Bill 89: to end Ohio’s state school district takeovers established without adequate public hearings in the summer of 2015. The House amendment would end the state takeovers and the top-down, appointed Academic Distress Commissions in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland. Elected representatives from Lorain and Youngstown spoke passionately for the need to restore local control and community engagement in their school districts, which were thrust into chaos in recent years by their Academic Distress Commissions and their appointed CEOs.
LOL. Be careful what you wish for!
Did you see this?
“President Donald Trump turned a Philadelphia fourth grader into a poster child for the school-choice movement Tuesday when he told the nation that thousands of students were “trapped in failing government schools” and announced that the girl was at last getting a scholarship to attend the school of her choice.
But Janiyah Davis already attends one of the city’s most sought-after charter schools, The Inquirer has learned. In September, months before she was an honored guest at Trump’s State of the Union address, she entered Math, Science and Technology Community Charter School III.”
Pure politics. They invented this story so they would have an excuse to bash “failing government schools”.
They really think we’re all idiots.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/donald-trump-school-choice-philadelphia-janiyah-davis-mast-charter-20200208.html
sadly, they knew that most people on either side of the political isle would not look deeper than the lie: little girl of color getting attention makes them all feel so proud of themselves
I have a question for the Ohio lawmakers who voted for the voucher bill- did you read it?
How did it happen that Ohio passed a law that negatively impacts half the public school students in the state and no one in Columbus noticed until public school superintendents pointed it out? Who wrote this bill? They drafted and passed an huge education bill with absolutely no input from the people and schools who serve 90% of children and families in the state?
This shouldn’t be an “emergency”. Is anyone down there paying any attention at all to the public schools in the state, or is Betsy DeVos now drafting all the state law?
I bet the Ohio voucher bill was drafted by either ALEC or the DC-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute or both.