On January 23, the Orlando Sentinel published an investigative report that nearly 160 religious schools receiving public money for vouchers openly discriminated against LGBT students, families, and staff.
The Florida House just rejected a bill to make such discrimination in publicly funded schools illegal. To make it plain, the Florida House sent a message to religious schools that it is just fine to discriminate against gay students, families, and staff.
Leslie Postal and Annie Martin wrote:
The Florida House voted down a proposal to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ students in the state’s school voucher programs Friday as it moved to expand the number of state-financed scholarships available to send youngsters to private schools.
Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, urged his colleagues to “tackle the issue of LGBTQ discrimination,” with him and some other Democrats arguing private schools that take Florida scholarships shouldn’t be able to ban gay students any more than they could ban students based on their race.
But the measure was defeated in the Republican-controlled House, and Smith said he doubted he had any other legislative avenues to pursue the issue this year.
This will not disturb Secretary of Educatuon DeVos. Her family foundation has given large donations to anti-gay groups for years (e.g., the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have little doubt that Republicans in Ohio will formalize the same opportunity to discriminate with EdChoice vouchers. They will do so with the DeVos slogan of “educational freedom” meaning freedom to exclude students for any reason. I have not checked recently, but I would not be surprised if this move follows model legislation from ALEC, in addition to the hard bigotry offered up by the likes of the Family Research Council.
But this is entirely the point of pushing vouchers, isn’t it? To make the country safe for bigotry of all kinds.
You are spot on, Bob.
“TALLAHASSEE — The Florida House passed a bill Monday that would dramatically increase the number of private school vouchers and grow eligibility to more middle-income families for the program created last year.
The Family Empowerment Scholarship allows lower-income families to attend private schools using public funding. It was created with 18,000 vouchers.
The bill quadruples the rate at which the number of vouchers would grow each year, starting with 28,000 more scholarships in the first year.”
Nothing accomplished for public school students. Public school students are the dead-last priority in states dominated by ed reformers. They simply perform no useful work of any kind on behalf of the students in the unfashionable “government schools”.
They’re picking winners and losers- HAVE picked- public school students are always the losers in ed reform schemes. They promote and support the schools they prefer and neglect or actively damage the public schools they don’t prefer. There is no consideration given at all to the students in the public schools- our kids are rarely mentioned in the ed reform echo chamber, unless it’s to smear them, test them or cut their funding.
At some point the public will notice this “movement” has thrown 90% of US students under the bus in order to promote their ideological goals.
There are only two ways forward, with neither particularly easy. Start petitions and protests to get the issue on the ballot, and get the federal government to make LGBTQ a protected class. If this country were led by open minded people instead of hypocritical moralists, it would already be a law.
I’d like to see an analysis of the time spent and work performed in state legislatures dominated by ed reformers on private school vouchers compared to public schools.
Have they gotten anything at all accomplished for the public school students in that state? How did it happen that 90% of students and families became expendable?
Ideological and lobbyist capture. They no longer serve the vast, vast majority of students in any useful or practical sense. In the case of the furthest Right ed reformers, they’re actively sacrificing public schools in order to promote privatization.
And we pay them for this! They’re all public employees!
Inside the ed reform echo chamber they justify the fact that they return no value to public school students and families by pointing to competition- the ideological theory is they INDIRECTLY benefit the 90% of students in public schools they disfavor because our schools will benefit from the competition:
https://www.the74million.org/article/new-florida-study-suggests-public-school-students-see-some-benefits-from-expansion-of-private-school-vouchers/
This is the actual operating theory- they don’t HAVE to provide any value to 90% of students because by supporting the private schools they prefer our kids will benefit from some “trickle down” effect.
For this we’re supposed to employ and pay thousands of them- for a possible “trickle down”. That’s the absolute BEST the movement can do for public school families and students. You’re paying thousands of these folks at the federal and state level and they perform no work at all on your behalf.
The competition claim was made by Fordham to media when it announced Figlio’s Ohio voucher study. And, in the paper’s foreword, Fordham described the competition thing as a finding of the study.
The study was absent competition research.
Folks on the right frequently moved the goalposts to declare victory. The goal used to be higher test scores. Now it’s parent satisfaction.
Well, just when I didn’t think that I could think less of the Florida Legislature and Gun Club, this.
Which of you other readers of Diane’s blog came up with this, my new favorite name for our governing body here in Floruhduh?
“U.S. Department of Education
Some simple steps that can help decrease the spread of the #coronavirus at school. ”
It took an epidemic but someone in the Trump Administration remembered public school students and families exist-
Sadly the only actual work they performed is having an intern issue a Tweet.
I think they’re busy launching another national tour to promote private schools and bash public schools and public school students. Once again, our kids are the dead last priority.
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At Wikipedia, in the section, “Regenerus Study”, which is part of the Witherspoon Institute entry, there is interesting info. related generally to the post.
Directors of state Catholic Conferences praise the Manhattan Declaration and, appear to believe research posted at the Witherspoon Institute. The politically influential, Princeton professor, Robert P George, is founder of Witherspoon and author of the Manhattan Declaration.
Prof.. Mark Regenerus’ research in relation to political influence is discussed in the Mark Regenerus Wikipedia entry.