Rightwing Republicans in New Hampshire are determined to give away public school dollars to religious schools, private schools, home schoolers, for-profit schools, and anyone who claims to be operating a “school.”
If you live in New Hampshire, you can join with others to stop this raid on public money.
“Reaching Higher New Hampshire” is forming a state network for those interested in public education, to serve as an information-sharing and networking hub. It’s first meeting is on March 10 at 3 p.m. They be covering vouchers, funding/state budget, the State Board and DOE, and a few other topics. If you’re interested in joining, please fill out this form or send an email to Christina Pretorius at christina@reachinghighernh.org
People united can defeat a raid on the people’s common good.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This, I think, is THE killer argument against vouchers, from Charles Siler, made last night in a wonderful conversation with Diane Ravitch and Jennifer Berkshire :
If you want a future in which you have to struggle to come up with the funds to pay for K-12 schooling for your kids as you now do to pay for their college educations, then vote in favor of vouchers. A vote for vouchers is a vote for privatizing education and killing our public schools.
Proponents claim that vouchers are about “choice” and about providing “better alternatives for black and brown and poor and challenged kids.” But vouchers are actually about privatizing a public good–our schools. The rich in the US HATE public goods. They want them all to become for-profit, money-making operations. THAT is what this is all about. The voucher thing is just part of an overall picture–the goal of erasing public goods altogether and replacing them with private businesses–privatized fire departments and police departments and schools and roads and defense and everything else.
Here’s the game plan of the rich people financing the voucher movement nationwide: Replace public school funding with vouchers for private schools. Kill public schools by that means. Then, cut back on the voucher dollars so that parents as individuals have to meet almost all the cost of their kids’ K-12 educations.
The result will be two privatized school systems–good but costly schools for the rich and mediocre or terrible schools for everyone else–ones run using that small “backpack” of voucher cash doled out to parents of poor and middle-class kids.
This, if it became a meme, could kill the voucher movement:
If you want a future in which you have to struggle to come up with the funds to pay for K-12 schooling for your kids as you now do to pay for their college educations, then vote in favor of vouchers.
It needs to be repeated again and again and again and again, across as many media and in as many forums as possible.
The right is really good at slogans and memes: “death panels,” “right-to-work,” “religious freedom.” It’s time those on the other side became just as good at this game. Simple message, “relatable,” as kids say today. The comparison to paying for college does this.
those unsaid words, yet always a promise: “then, cut back…”
One more consesquence to the lunacy of standardized testing this year. The push for vouchers. I can see it now…test the kids (not even standardized anymore, but oh, well), find the HUGE gaps, pivot, blame teachers, blame implementation, blame school closure, blame the unions for the school closure. And by the way, the private schools were open, here’s a voucher…
The hoax is that the vouchers are too small to pay a good school. The schools that want them do not have certified teachers, and are not as good as the local public school.
Vouchers make no reasonable sense. People that care about their communities must vote “no” to vouchers. Vouchers transfer public dollars out of the public schools most students attend. Public schools are public assets. Undermining public schools devalues a prime public asset that entices taxpayers to the local area. All vouchers do is transfer public funds to private schools of questionable value and little accountability while harming the local public schools at the same time. Vouchers are an reckless, short-sighted choice.