Apparently, the voucher schools were embarrassed by the Ohio study showing that kids who use vouchers lose ground academically.
There were two ways to respond to that finding: 1) improve instruction in the voucher schools by requiring them to hire certified teachers; 2) obscure the data.
The voucher lobby chose the second route.
The Republican-dominated legislature is now vastly expanding the state’s failing voucher program. But a few years ago, it decided that voucher schools would no longer be required to give the same exams that students in public schools are required to take. The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute worried about the change, because it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to draw comparisons between students in public schools and their peers in private and religious schools.
That’s the goal.
Many other states that offer vouchers allow those schools not to take the state exams. Some, like Florida, expect no accountability from voucher schools. Others ask those schools to administer an “equivalent” standardized test, which makes it impossible to compare voucher schools to public schools.
You’ll see more and more of this as they privatize more and more- the “accountability” and “equity” parts of ed reform will give way to the ideological mandate to privatize.
The only publicly funded schools who will be subject to ed reform monitoring, policing and mandates will be the public schools they oppose.
There’s no discussion at all of the inherent conflicts or contradictions in the privatized systems they’re engineering either- it’s just full speed ahead.
Ultimately they’ll all end up promoting 100% individual vouchers. They can’t end up anywhere else. They’ll equalize funding (at a much lower rate) because funding will be the only part of the privatized systems they can regulate. The “liberal” ed reformers will march along in lockstep, just as they have done at every step of this process, and the whole echo chamber will embrace a voucher payment to replace public education.
It’s already completely incoherent. In the same states where ed reformers are furiously lobbying to expand vouchers to pay private schools and educational products providers- completely deregulated- they are passing new mandates that apply only to PUBLIC schools.
This test and punish system is rigged against public schools along with the financial drain over which public schools have no say. There is little to no accountability once the public money goes behind the opaque wall of private ownership of charters and/or vouchers. It is a scam the the feds and states are enabling to persist. Privatization is not a right. It is a policy choice that occurs when the country is led by billionaire oligarchs.
Students should simply refuse to take the tests. They should only agree to take the tests only if all the charter and voucher schools have to take them as well.
exactly written: “the public schools they oppose”
If Fordham and legislators who advance the goals of the Ohio Conference of a specific religion wanted religious school students to meet the same standards as public school students, it would happen.
The goal is not a better prepared workforce nor a citizenry prepared for democracy.
Buying into the ruse of that rhetoric delayed the confrontation that could have altered the trajectory of the plot that dismantles the common good.
“Lawmakers in eight states have introduced legislation that may make it harder for teachers to talk about racism, sexism, and bias in the classroom.
Over the past few months, Republican legislators in Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia have drafted bills that would ban the teaching of what they deem “divisive” or “racist and sexist” concepts. The bills use similar language as an executive order former President Donald Trump put in place to ban diversity trainings for federal workers.”
Obviously these bans apply only to public schools.
So here’s the deal ed reformers are offering- they will not support public schools but they will REGULATE public schools, down to directing what any public school teacher can say- but they’ll exempt the private schools they’re publicly funding from all of these mandates.
The schools they prefer (private schools) get the public funding without the mandates and the schools they disfavor (public schools) get the public funding with the mandates.
It’s a horrifying bill. It would put a huge dent in my history curriculum and give the students a “powerful white men” vision of history. I can’t believe this is even a thing. Well, I CAN believe it, but it’s disgusting that this is even under consideration.
It’s interesting to watch the echo chamber in action with the massive increases in vouchers. Not a word of dissent from “liberal” ed reformers.
In order to stay in the echo chamber one must support each and every ed reform initiative- there’s no debate internally at all. The whole crew marches along towards more and more privatization and less and less support of public schools and not one of them breaks ranks.
In Ohio, probably the worst part of the ed reform lobby capturing state government has been the neglect of the PUBLIC schools in the state.
One can go to the record of the ed reform-dominated legislature and look for public schools. You won’t find anything other than measurement schemes. Session after session, year after year, the only thing lawmakers work on is endless mandates on public schools for testing and reporting data.
Our state government no longer contributes anything worthwhile or positive to the public schools in this state, and public schools educate the vast, vast majority of children.
The output of state government looks exactly like one would expect from an anti-public school lobby capture of state government- it is 100% about policing and monitoring public schools with no positive contributions at all.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in strong teachers’ union states like NY.
If vouchers and tax credits did not pass the State legislature before. They are far less likely today to get a hearing in a committee of the State Assembly or Senate today. The next hearing could be impeaching the main proponent of the credit .
I’m not so confident. Regardless of Gov. Cuomo’s future, there will always be a Republican running for governor and other state offices; the US Supreme Court has decided that compulsory union dues are unconstitutional, and when I started teaching 20+ years ago, there were only 3 charter schools in the state (if my memory is correct). The nibbling and the pressure progresses slowly, but it continues.
Mark
While it is likely that a Republican can win the Governorship and it is even likely the State Senate . It is highly unlikely they would win Assembly in the near future . If you only started teaching 20 years ago it is likely you were not born before or your parents even dating when compulsory dues were outlawed for the private sector . At the same time states were given the right to ban even fair share fees in 1947, Right to Work . . Janus like Right to Work was a step further ruling that mandatory fair share representation fees enforced by states were unconstitutional. In the States that optionally chose to allow ‘public ‘workers to collectively bargain.
And in 2019 facing election Cuomo caved on charter expansion. .
“Janus like Right to Work was a step further ruling that mandatory fair share representation fees enforced by states were unconstitutional.”
Exactly my point: the nibbling and the pressure on public schools progresses slowly, but it continues, whether from a governor, a state legislature, a president, congress or the Supreme Court. Do you really think the enemies of public education decided to give up because their chances are slim in the NY Senate and Cuomo caved?
Incidently, I am over 70 and my parents met during WW2.
And check out the lead article at realclearpolitics.com:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-pandemic-didnt-create-inequality-it-revealed-how-broken-public-education-is-opinion/ar-BB1fHgEO?ocid=uxbndlbing
Let no crisis go wasted.
RealClearPolitics.com – more right wing trash masquerading as reporting
“Voucher schools”
Ohio (and Indiana) are north central states. To understand the education situation in central states and to reckon with the GOP’s desired impact on state ed policy, a comparison of the number of students in charter schools vs. the number in religious schools in each of the north central states would sharpen this discussion. A color-coded map (1993-94) from the National Center for Education Statistics provides a starting point for U.S. regional comparisons. Charter schools post date the map however, the map is important as a baseline of conservatism.
The alternative is to continue to rely on a strategy that rests on the assumption that north central states have the same structural influencing factors as those of the northeastern, west coast and southern states.
Good news from New Mexico, progressives are implementing policy in the state and that includes a plank more positive for public schools.
The voucher students may not be able to attend college, or they may thrive. There is no telling. Ohio politics has gone crazy. This is but one example.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is not conservative. It is overtly hostility to public schools. In Ohio, the Institute’s favorite politicians were put in charge of education, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who hired Lisa Gray to work on that and especially by ginning up phony surveys with an aura of “there is public support” in any answer given. The false narrative was promoted by Philanthropy, Ohio. I have email exchanges from September 2016, with that group trying to explain Lisa Gray and the co-opting of KnowledgeWorks, and also United Way.
Seven years ago, Chester Finn posted at the Fordham Institute site recommendations for religious schools, “Find ways of engaging more successfully with public policy that benefits (religious) schools and students. Sure, that includes vouchers and such, but there are many other possibilities, such as amending state charter laws to allow existing private schools to convert and even making room for religious charter schools.”
Which does Ohio have more of- religious school students or charter school students?
Shannon Jones, a former Oho state legislator is Executive Director of the organization, Groundwork Ohio. A few years ago, media reported about the similarity in a bill introduced by Jones and an anti-union bill drafted by ALEC.
Presumably organizations like Groundwork Ohio select their own advisory committee members or, the members self select for inclusion. The approx. 40 person advisory committee includes Lisa Gray. It includes a representative from just one religion. Among Groundwork’s funders, foundations are listed. And, there is also a funding organization from the same religion as the one represented on the advisory committee.
“Philanthropists” for capitalism, influencers linked to the Koch’s ALEC and representatives of a single religion …what could possibly go wrong for public policy?
Creation of profit opportunity for a self-selecting donor class may be less of a goal for legislators and for staffers at billionaire-funded, public policy-influencing institutions than we imagine.
The posted position papers of some ed reform staffers and grant recipients, advance outcomes unrelated to profit. The assumption that the label grifter, libertarian or opportunist applies to the staffers or their billionaire funders may be inadequate. Some who work for ed reform organizations or in ed reform departments at universities (rather they are centrist Democrats or conservative right wingers) are succeeding if the objectives are (1) financial dependence and diminished roles for women (2) continued economic privilege for the current “have’s” (3) perpetuation of racial segregation (4) labor movement losses and (5) bolstered political and religious authoritarianism (and economic oligarchy).
A class system predicated on the superiority of a brand of Christianity may figure prominently in the objectives of some or many ed reformers (which would explain how quickly the conservative religious hierarchy glommed onto and promoted the billionaires’ ed reform).
The most recognizable flags at the Capitol riots were the Confederate flag, Trump flags and a Christian flag. A star of Mel Gibson’s film, the Passion of Christ, was in the news this week. He spoke at an event along with prominent figures linked to the conservative religious Council on National Policy. The actor believes in QAnon, similar to more than 1 in 6 of the conservative religious. Specifically, the actor believes that liberals torture children in order to harvest their adrenaline.
The danger to students, communities and society may be less from profiteers and more from a well-funded, politically active segment with conservative religious leanings.
great blue slot game
Ohio: Voucher Students Are Not Required to Take State Exams | Diane Ravitch's blog
I struggle to find the logic and am saddened by the apparent double standard. State money = same state standards for all.