Last spring, when the pandemic began crippling the economy, Congress passed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act). It was a rare moment of bipartisan action. Included in the act was the Paycheck Protection Program, which offered $660 billion to help small businesses weather an economic catastrophe in which many would be forced to close their doors and lay off their employees. The PPP would enable these businesses to pay their employees and survive the pandemic.
However, in the inevitable lobbying, someone added nonprofits to the list of organizations eligible to receive government aid under the PPP.
The PPP grants are called loans, but they are forgivable if used for payroll, rent, heating, and other expenses. It’s unlikely that any will be repaid.
Public schools were not eligible to apply for PPP, because they received a fund of $13.2 billion, which they were required to share with charter schools. Charter schools, however, were eligible to apply for PPP as “nonprofits,” meaning they could double dip into both funds. Over 1,200 charter schools got very generous payouts, with some collecting more than $1 million. The average public school received $134,500 from the CARES Act.
Private and religious schools flocked to the PPP and collected far more than public schools. An organization called Good Jobs First created a website called Covid Stimulus Watch to see who got the money. They estimated that private, religious, and charter schools collected nearly $6 billion from PPP, about six times more per school than public schools.
While the federal PPP was scooped up by charter schools, private schools, and religious schools, more than 110,000 restaurants closed, ending the employment and income of many hundreds of thousands of employees, while wiping out the life savings of thousands of owners.
To understand how incredibly generous the Treasury Department was in handing out PPP money to private and religious schools, you should review the list of grants that are attached, representing awards in four states: New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. You will be stunned to see the amounts collected by religious schools and elite private schools. The data were collected by Mellissa Chang of Good Jobs First. If you are wondering about your own state, you can contact her at mellissa@goodjobsfirst.org.
You can get the pdf for the New York data here.
You can get the pdf for the Massachusetts data here.
You can get the pdf for the Ohio data here.
You can get the pdf for the Michigan data here.
No.
Something terribly wrong with the picture portrayed in the paragraph below. Am I missing something here when I ask: Where is the “lobby” voice of public education when these bills are being written? CBK
“Public schools were not eligible to apply for PPP, because they received a fund of $13.2 billion, which they were required to share with charter schools. Charter schools, however, were eligible to apply for PPP as ‘nonprofits,’ meaning they could double dip into both funds. Over 1,200 charter schools got very generous payouts, with some collecting more than $1 million. The average public school received $134,500 from the CARES Act.”
Where is the “lobby” voice of public education when these bills are being written? CBK
I agree. It seems public school students have very few advocates in government.
I think public school students and families are taken for granted by politicians. Our schools are dismissed as “traditional” and no one puts much effort into working on their behalf. The assumption is we’ll continue to elect these people because they all say they support “education” yet they offer no measurable benefit to public school students.
I suggest we start doing what charter and voucher advocates do- demand that politicians show us what, specifically, they have accomplished on behalf of public school students in any given year.
I was amused to see that Michelle Rhee’s former private school- one of the most expensive private schools in the state of Ohio- received 1.5 million in PPP funds.
So the public schools in Toledo got 130k each and the fanciest private school in the region got 1.5 million? Once again, public school students got ripped off by corrupt and captured lawmakers.
They’re lousy advocates for public school students. Utterly ineffective.
Chiara, same story everywhere. Private schools with high tuition collected millions, as did religious schools.
Is there a breakdown as to how much was shared by the public school districts to these schools? Did they have the capabilities of the public to handle the COVID situation.ie student computers, online classes, physical spacing? Just curious
April,
The charter schools got their share of the CARES money allotted to public schools. Public schools were not eligible to receive PPP funding. Over 1,200 charter schools applied for and received much larger sums from the PPP program than any public school got from the regular allocation for public schools. Charter schools are both public and non-public.
Reading comprehension, April. Quoting from post above: “Public schools were not eligible to apply for PPP…”
This is American. Capitalism trumps the public commons. Greed and stupidity triumph over intellectualism and education.
A well educated populace is a threat to the ruling class . . .
End of story.
“Capture.” Exactly.
I know federal lawmakers don’t much care about public school students, but even I was shocked by the complete lack of WORK they put in on schools during this crisis.
No one did anything, other than holding press conferences scolding public schools.
They’re still not doing anything, other than again scolding us on how we have to test all our kids. They offer absolutely nothing of practical or useful value to public school students other than criticism. We’re paying thousands of full time public school critics, apparently.
Chiara So I suppose the “we” of public education just float around in the background of our legislators’ minds, making nary a sound, and somewhere in the State foundational literature, written decades or centuries before, but without any formal or systematic representation? I really don’t know . . . .
HOWEVER, given the truth of that paragraph and overall note, we have to think EITHER there is no formal voice OR there is representation but they are not doing their job. Given that paragraph, is there another way to look at it? CBK
And BTW, BEFORE the rich got wind of private-public “partnerships” (aka: foxes in the chicken house) and charter “$$ opportunities$$” afforded by intruding on public education, I don’t remember that religious schools, protestant or Catholic, or schools like Montessori or some others, made it there job to attack public education; nor did they create the predatory financial problems that have come along with the emergence of charters or the “new” private schools . . . who scandalously go after public money but NO PUBLIC OVERSIGHT, who self-deal, hate real educators, serve two masters, and who come and go like the weather.
I’m only dealing with my memory here and was unaware as ALEC-like infiltration and corrosive events in education were unfolding over the past 50 years or so; and so would appreciate being corrected if I am wrong in my singular analysis.
But before charters, I remember a live-and-let-live attitude about private and religious schooling. There were problems as always with any large institutions; but in my experience, the fundamental aim was providing a good education to students under their purview. CBK
CBK,
Your memory is correct.
Diane FYI, as a relevant aside, and this came in my box just this morning, . . . below is a link to the National Coalition for Literacy blog where posted is: “the memo submitted in December by the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) and Open Door Collective (ODC) to the Biden-Harris Transition Team, ‘Access and Inclusion: Adult Education and Literacy Priorities for 2021 and Beyond’. . . .
. . . and, below that, a cross-post of a note where they speak of having met with the “Biden team.”
https://national-coalition-literacy.org/2021/01/access-and-inclusion-adult-education-and-literacy-priorities-for-2021-and-beyond/
CROSS-POSTED: “All, as an FYI, NCL and ODC submitted this memo after meeting with the transition’s review team on the Education Department. Subsequently we also had the opportunity to participate in a meeting with transition team members and members of the Task Force on New Americans, and we shared the memo there as well.
“As David observes, a pivotal part of NCL’s work continues to be advocacy on behalf of adult basic skills — both for those who provide such programs and those who can and do benefit from them. We welcome input and observations from the field on both policy priorities and advocacy resources.”
Deborah Kennedy
Executive Director
National Coalition for Literacy
Catherine
I can’t say that you are correct or incorrect in your analysis; what I can say is that my memory agrees with yours. Your analysis is how I remember schools years ago. While private, parochial and public schools differed, their one goal was to provide the best education they could, and in that they generally succeeded. Of course, there were and still are some students who may have “fallen through the cracks”, but what we now have is worse by far
Susan and Diane If there was an air of competitiveness, I have no memory of it, either when my son was going to both kinds of school at different times (public and Catholic in the 70’s/80’s) or when I was subbing in K-12, and then while college teaching. CBK
My memories are crystal clear of the schools in Houston.
The public schools enrolled almost all children.
The very rich kids went to private schools.
Some Catholic children went to religious schools.
There were no other religious schools, other than Sunday schools.
Diane I won’t defend the Catholic School leadership who have gotten on the bandwagon of the charter movement, and so forfeited whatever principles they followed before that movement came on the scene. And I don’t know what Montessori or other private schools are doing. However, I do think it important to understand the history of it. Neo-liberalist has been a quiet but long-term cancer that is finally breaking out on our cultural skin.
Also, what’s going on with Jewish schools? CBK
As far as I can tell, CBK, the Jewish schools that collected PPP are Orthodox schools. They are always on the lookout for government money. In New York, they wield great political power, and all the elected officials cower before them because they vote as a unified bloc. In NY, which is an overwhelmingly blue state, the Orthodox Jewish groups voted for Trump. To them, anyone who is not one of them is an outcast, including someone like me, who had Jewish parents and grandparents. In their eyes, I am not one of them so I am no one. Their schools have their hand out for whatever state and federal money they can get, and they get many millions.
Diane Thanks for the update. . . . proving that it’s not about a particular religion, or even about atheists, but about psychological and group dynamics.
As an aside, I don’t know about the rest of the country, but New York apparently got Donald Trump right–it amazes me that a Jewish block supports him, as with many of my own Catholic compatriots . . . where the same group dynamics apply. CBK
CBK,
My partner, who is Catholic, is fascinated with all religions. She can’t understand why I disrespect (to put it mildly) the orthodox of every religion, including my own.
Diane Your attitude reflects this on orthodoxy from a philosopher-theologian I study:
The person “of commonsense, without any aspiration to science or scholarship or philosophy, is spontaneously existential and practical for the simple reason that he (or she) has no notion and much less any attainment of the scientific, the scholarly, or the philosophical differentiations of human consciousness. But at the same time note that while undifferentiated consciousness does not need to be told to prefer orthopraxis to orthodoxy, it is prone to underestimate orthodoxy, while a just balance is to be had only by a consciousness that is multiply differentiated, that has a proper appreciate of orthodoxy, and that learns to rank orthopraxis higher still.” (Bernard Lonergan, “Philosophy and the Religious Phenomenon,” in Collection 17/Philosophical and Theological Papers/1965-1980,” 2004/p. 398. CBK
It is not only the lack of regulation that is the problem. A big problem is that the federal government has created laws that entice wealthy individuals and corporations to attack public schools in cities through the tax credits and write-offs they get for doing so. Laws like “Opportunity Zones” were mentioned in previous posts on this blog. There is also the potential for investors to grab lucrative public assets in the form of public school buildings as part of the scheme. This has already been part of the plan in cities like Miami, Philly and others where real estate is very pricey.
The objective is to entice the wealthy to ‘revitalize’ our cities, and private charter schools are part of the plan. Unlike public schools that unite diverse students, charter schools deliberately separate them. Gentrification is a profitable way to encourage young white families to move back into cities. With private companies in charge of schools, they can send poor black and Latino students in one direction and affluent mostly white students to selective charter schools. This scheme is a tool to move those with money back into the cities, but the public schools are sacrificed in the process. The federal government is clearly supporting undermining public education and contributing to segregation. Follow the money!
The gentrification plan enables upper middle class parents to move into the city and know that their child will be “safe” from “those kids,” surrounded by kids who look just like her.
A charter leader from Minnesota recently wrote here that charters exist to provide “culturally affirming” schools.
White schools for white kids; black schools for black kids; Spanish-speaking kids for Latino kids; Haitian Creole schools for Haitian kids; etc.
It is a way to further erode the common good by inviting the wealthy in to divide and conquer, not empower. It is dangerous way to move forward in a country that is as fragmented and vast as ours. One of the most amazing aspects of working in public schools was to see different types of students forming positive relationships and learning together. These students would never have interacted without the public school as the social hub of the community. This is what our country is supposed to represent. It is sad that the so-called liberals are just as guilty as conservatives in promoting this devious, anti-democratic scheme.
retired “These students would never have interacted without the public school as the social hub of the community.” Exactly that . . . and a racist or “elitist” would use that same point to argue why NOT send their children to public schools.
The “elitist” thing, or class distinction, at least according to economics, is where that same neo-liberal privatization movement is partly if not wholly responsible for the deepest divisions between the haves and the have-nots. Divisions in neighborhoods are linked to the same neo-liberal policies. The only thing that “trickle’s down” is a paper thin slice of culture and even that is riddled with propaganda aimed at honoring the rich and their biases. We don’t need to be “socialist” to point to injustice and to expect its opposite from our government. CBK
By offering incentives to attack public education, the federal government either knowingly or thoughtlessly, is promoting social engineering that divides people and contributes to segregation.
Re: “disrespect…orthodox,” I think one spelling for a synonym of iconoclast is R-a-v-i-t-c-h. That would explain it.
I started to use the word “despise,” but didn’t want the Lubavitcher, the Hasidim, and the Satmar to come for me.
Perhaps the Department of Education is where the voice should be . . . since it’s for PUBLIC EDUCATION . . . are we back to Betsy? CBK
We will soon enough find out whether Joe Biden and Miguel Cardona stand up for public schools or cave in to charter and religious schools.
How can a “nonprofit” qualify as a “business”?
There lies the crux of the matter.
Also important: The charter use taxpayer $$ to pay the lobbyists. Public schools can’t–and wouldn’t–use $$ meant to educate children.
Thanks to Mellissa Chang of Good Jobs First for making this information available in a very useful format.
I went to the website of Cleta Mitchell’s law firm and.eft a comment asking how they could allow a member of their firm to encourage seditious behavior and election fraud.
Mitchell should pay a price for her part in trying to destroy democracy and for making the U.S. a banana republic.
Thanks for telling her law firm.
I just saw a news flash that she is leaving her law firm. Guessing they threw her out. I think my note must have been one among many about her lack of fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.
Can’t wait until Trump’s rogues’ gallery of lawyers face disciplinary sanctions from their bar associations for filing absurd and frivolous lawsuits.
She paid a price:
Cleta Mitchell, who advised Trump on Saturday phone call, resigns from law firm
Mitchell’s resignation came after the law firm on Monday issued a statement saying it was “concerned by” her role in the call.
By Michael Kranish
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitchell-trump-resigns-firm/2021/01/05/ea5364b4-4f9e-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html
Concerned by?
Is that the harshest terminology they could muster?
What concerns them most?
What she did it that she and Trump got caught?
Won’t the religious folks who believe in Hell go there for cheating the truly needy out of money?
SDP,
We can only pray that they go to hell for snatching money intended for the needy.
Let us pray
Let us pray
They go to Hell
And that they pay
In jail, as well
Let us pray
They pay a price
Jailed they stay
For dipping twice
Being religious doesn’t indicate anything about the presence of a conscience in the person. Some studies show greater humanity among the segment that doesn’t identify as religious.
I’d say most religious people do have a conscience.
If they didn’t have a conscience, they would not be concerned with such matters as “sin” and particularly “forgiveness”.
And the fact that they have a conscience means they have no excuse.
It’s fun to imagine if rather than saying “God forgives your sins” , Jesus had said “God has no tolerance for sinners”.
How many followers do you suppose Jesus would have gotten?
I suspect zero. Who wants a God that doesn’t allow them to sin and then say they are sorry to get out of it?
It’s actually humorous that televangelists’ entire money making scam is based on the “God will forgive you ” idea
…ibut only if you send in a check.