Jen Gibson, who lives in Charleston, writes about how school choice will drain resources from underfunded public schools while not providing access to better schools or better education:
Normally this time of year, my son and I are on the hunt for new shoes and the perfect pencil pouch. This year, we are struggling with masks and stocking up on hand sanitizer.
Like most parents, our family is wrestling with decisions about our work schedules, our vulnerable parents, and our child’s academic and social needs. All of our energy is focused on supporting students, teachers and our community during this unprecedented crisis.
That is why I was shocked and saddened when U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, Gov. Henry McMaster and S.C. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island, took advantage of this crisis to declare war on our public schools with their coordinated effort to move tax dollars allocated for public schools into private schools.
Under the guise of giving parents a choice, deceitful Republicans are trying to divert millions of our tax dollars to subsidize elite private schools. They argue that low-income students and parents deserve the choice to opt out of their poorly-performing public school. I have bad news for them. Research proves that vouchers for private schools will not improve educational outcomes for students.
Forget the fact that vouchers won’t even pay for the basic tuition at a local private school. Let’s talk about book fees, uniform costs, fieldtrip fees, transportation costs and the loss of income for the parent who no longer has access to before- and after-school childcare. Most students will stay in their neighborhood public school because a private school education is still out of reach.
Those who can scrape together the additional money to add to the government assistance will have to navigate the complicated world of evaluating private schools. These schools do not have to meet the same education standards as our public schools and are not legally required to provide accommodations to students with special needs.
In South Carolina, the money to pay for the tax credit comes directly from the budget of the public school the student would have attended. Tax money collected for public schools which are supposed to benefit the entire community will instead benefit individual students and private businesses. This weakens our public schools, and it does not guarantee individual students will have access to a better education.
Since 2008, South Carolina House members have not fully funded the Base Student Cost. They use a loophole in the law to avoid appropriating the actual cost of providing every student with even a minimally-adequate education. If the voucher/choice legislation that has been proposed passes, the state legislature will take even more money away from our cash-strapped public schools and jeopardize the education system responsible for over 90 percent of our students.
Do you know what would make education choices easier for parents? Public schools that deliver more than a minimally-adequate education for every student.
Let’s try that first
School choice has always been about the wishes of few being given priority over the needs of many. It has also always been about endless profiteering and monetizing mostly black and brown students. So-called choice puts the schools in the driver’s seat, not the parents. The result is often a worse, more segregated education for these vulnerable students. The profiteers always look to expand their market without any regard for the impact on public school students that are placed in large classes with fewer resources. It is time for our leadership to invest public schools that serve all students.
If you read Steve Suitts book, undermining brown , you will learn that school choice was created to preserve racial segregation.
Let’s be clear- the ed reform echo chamber not only “used this crisis” (as she says) to push vouchers, they also did absolutely nothing for public school students and families.
There’s two sides to the echo chamber focus on private school vouchers- they market and promote private schools while refusing to do any practical work at all on behalf of public school students and families.
If you’re a public school student, family or supporter there is absolutely no reason to hire and pay these folks in government. They don’t serve you. They return no value at all to 90% of students and families.
The BEST public school students and families can hope for out of ed reform is neglect. The worst is outright opposition to our schools and students. There’s no upside for 90% of students and families, yet they absolutely dominate elite education policy circles, to the exclusion of anyone who IS interested in serving public school students.
Public school students have been harmed by this and they’ll continue to be harmed by it until we start hiring people who value public school students and their schools.
Hello all, this is an off topic share that I thought was important to get out to us all. It’s from one of those brilliant math people who blogs as Mathbabe and regularly writes for Bloomberg. It describes how the attempts at reopening in person learning are not honest in their intent. No surprise, but a good read. https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-08-18/school-reopening-is-a-disaster-in-the-making?sref=gegkIDBl&__twitter_impression=true
Anyone can look and see this for themselves. Go to any of the tens of ed reform orgs and forums and “think pieces”. Heck, go the US Department of Education, which is utterly captured by this “movement”.
Try to find something positive they contribute that is relevant to any public school student, anywhere. They offer absolutely nothing other than testing and budget cuts. In a country where 90% of students and families attend public schools we somehow ended up with a huge, entrenched policy and political apparatus that is irrelevant at best and harmful at worst to public school students.
They seem to see themselves as promoters of charters and vouchers and professional, full time critics of public schools. That this approach means public school students are either denigrated or ignored never seems to occur to them, and why would it? They’re completely surrounded by other echo chamber members who all do the same thing.
that crucial part of the pro-charter, pro-voucher fan club: having zero interest in the fact that their actions denigrate not just public schools but the kids who attend them
We just saw the ed reform priorities in action. They lobbied for PPP funding which went to charter and private schools, yet neglected to do any advocacy at all to get pandemic funding to public schools.
It’s ludicrous. Our government ignored the 90% of students in public schools – other than the obligatory made-for-tv scolding that is only delivered to the unfashionable public schools but never to charters or private schools- and bent over backward to bail out the 10% who attend the schools ed reformers prefer.
Public school students and families were the dead-last priority. Again.
“Parents across America are facing the pandemic school year feeling overwhelmed, anxious and abandoned. With few good options for support, the vast majority have resigned themselves to going it alone, a new survey for The New York Times has found.
Just one in seven parents said their children would be returning to school full time this fall, and for most children, remote school requires hands-on help from an adult at home. Yet four in five parents said they would have no in-person help educating and caring for them, whether from relatives, neighbors, nannies or tutors, according to the survey, administered by Morning Consult. And more than half of parents will be taking on this second, unpaid job at the same time they’re holding down paid work.”
You’d think people who work full time on “education” would be concerned about that and focus full time on assisting the public schools, who, after all, serve 90% of children.
Nope. They spent the last 6 months promoting private school vouchers.
It may not matter. I don’t think anyone who uses a public school expects support or assistance anymore- it’s been two decades since anyone has paid any attention to our students and schools. We’ve been “going it alone” a long time. A public school student now could have had their entire K-12 career in a national environment led by people who don’t support public schools or public school students. They’re used to it.
As I watched Dr. Jill Biden last night, I couldn’t help but wonder what she is thinking about education. Ironically, she graduated from the same school district in Pennsylvania that was my first teaching job. Dr. Biden chose to make her speech in a public school classroom. I don’t know if she was sending a message, but I hope she was. I wonder if some of what she thinks about education has rubbed off on Joe.
From the Diocese of Charleston site
“Public Policy Voice for the Church…Education Reform”
Promo for Father Stravinskas’ speech at the Capital City Club, Columbia, S.C., “advances the cause of parental freedom of choice in education”. In other words, Catholics forcing citizens to pay for their religious schools. The collateral damage is Gates’, “brands on a large scale” for workers’ kids- the Zuck/Gates investment in schools-in-a-box.
Gates’ funded Bellwether advised ed reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their
goals. The report was directed at the U.S. south.