Bill Phillis is a retired state education official who writes frequently about the Republican war against public schools and against the education provisions of the state constitution. He created the Ohio Coalion for Equity and Advocacy of School Funding to publicize his campaign for equitable funding and his opposition to privatization.
He writes:
SENATE PRESIDENT HUFFMAN: THE EDUCATION IN OHIO NEEDS TO BE STUDENT-OR USER-BASED, NOT INSTITUTION-BASED
The Senate President, in response to the Universal Voucher bill (HB 290), is quoted in the May 9 Gongwer, as saying:
“The education in Ohio needs to be student-or user-based, not institution-based.” The Ohio constitution (Article VI, section 2) requires the legislature to secure and fund a thorough and efficient system of common schools. The common school system is “institution-based” as required by the constitution.
It appears that the oath of office taken by all legislators means nothing to some of them. HB 290 is treachery; Betrayal of the Ohio constitution; Subversion.
The No Child Left Behind Act Has Put The Nation At Risk
Vouchers Hurt Ohio
Universal Voucher Bill Drops Amid K-12 Budget Debate
Placeholder legislation aimed at giving parents multiple options for using state primary and secondary education funding has spurred strong pushback despite a lack of firm details.
The bill (HB 290) as introduced by Rep. Marilyn John (R-Shelby) and Rep. Riordan McClain (R-Upper Sandusky), which currently consists of two sentences, calls for the creation of a funding formula that “allows families to choose the option for all computed funding amounts associated with students’ education to follow them to the schools they attend.”
Rep. John said in an interview Friday the legislation was inspired in part by the coronavirus pandemic, which led many parents to reevaluate their children’s educational options after schools shut their doors to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“The vision is really to provide greater choice for students and parents,” she said, “I think we have found during the pandemic that each child’s needs when it comes to education can be different. It is our goal to provide resources so that each child can receive a quality education in the way that they best learn.”
She said the measure could end up providing funding for students taught in private schools or at home, with the best interest of each child being the sponsors’ focus.
Rep. McClain said in an interview one potential model to follow is legislation recently signed by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice creating a system of educational savings accounts. The law gives families the ability to access to up to $4,600 per student in state funding to spend on private school tuition or other education-related expenses.
“Working that into our funding formula would be a path that I would like to pursue, but I’m certainly not entrenched in any one manner,” he said. “I just want to make sure that parents at the end of the day have access funds for the use of the education of their child and that they have greater flexibility in the education that they give their child.”
The bill’s introduction came after the House voted to pass a state operating budget (HB 110) that largely incorporates a school funding formula (HB 1) developed in part by Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima). Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) has said the upper chamber could keep some aspects of plan but is unlikely to pass a budget containing the entirety of the House’s proposal. (See Gongwer Ohio Report, April 21, 2021)
Rep. John called it a “great time” for lawmakers to expand the debate over the future of school funding in the state. She said she and Rep. McClain are “waiting to see what happens in the Senate” and having discussions on their bill as they work to craft a more-detailed version of the measure.
The introduction of HB290 drew immediate criticism from public school officials and advocates.
“Harmful universal vouchers are a reckless abrogation of the Ohio General Assembly’s responsibility to provide a high quality education to every child in this state,” Dan Heintz, a member of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District Board of Education, said in a statement. “Lawmakers don’t get it. Vouchers are like termites eating away at the very foundation of our communities,”
Bill Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, said in a statement that the proposal is an attempt to undermine traditional public schools.
“This is a direct assault on the Ohio Constitution,” he said. “We know vouchers are primarily a refund and a rebate program for parents who never intended to send their children to public schools. Vouchers disproportionately harm impoverished and minority students and reward the well-to-do.”
The coalition is behind a long-simmering legal effort over existing state voucher programs that help qualifying families pay private school tuition. (See Gongwer Ohio Report, December 18, 2020).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
At some point, these legislators are going to overplay their hand, right? Many people actually love their neighborhood schools. For now, they (the legislators) and the billionaire Ed Reform cabal continue to let no opportunity go to waste. Repulsive
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They haven’t overplayed it yet and voters continue to reward them. While many people love their neighborhood schools, they do not base their votes (or voting apathy) on this issue. Virtually all of the “who do not have children in public schools” could really care less. Sad but true.
And as long as public school advocates continue to see having a public school appreciation day in Columbus as a big accomplishment, I don’t see much hope for a change in the status quo.
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do not base their votes
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Stark County’s Board of Elections is being sued over the proposed purchase of Dominion voting machines. The GOP Ohio Supreme Court appears to be dragging its feet on the case (TPM reporting).
A well-known Republican activist, Matt Braynard, is identified in the TPM article.
Btw- In his bio., Braynard is listed as a member of St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church in Silver Springs, Md.
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Linda I can’t believe you actually wrote this:
“Btw- In his bio., Braynard is listed as a member of St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church in Silver Springs, Md.”
What is YOUR last name . . . and what groups are YOU involved with that the ignorant among us can use to smear you with? Your smears and innuendo are WORSE than those on the right. Your MO and attitude are part of the problem we are in. CBK
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Geography can define a carpetbagger. The term should be expanded to include other defining characteristics like religion, specifically a church that seeks to gain power and wealth at the expense of its legitimate owners-the American people. School choice government programs enrich the traditional carpetbagging billionaire but, they also put tax money into the hands of private religious groups. If it walks like a duck…
I don’t belong to a group whose nationally prominent leaders of record politic in the public square for policies against women and the LGBTQ community e.g. the Manhattan Declaration and, who overtly discriminate within the organization against women. I would expect to be judged if I did.
Cowards refuse to fight an enemy. The enemy in the context of this discussion is pervasive in every state, sophisticated, well-funded and its plans documented in the public eye. Its successes are evident in the laws passed by legislatures, in the policies of executive branches of state government and when Trump was President , in the WH e.g. William Barr, and, in the judicial branches (Leonard Leo). A coward won’t engage in a fight against a powerful force taking away the rights of Americans. Those who aren’t cowards sound a rallying cry to “fight back” and, they are not deterred by those who criticize, waving false flags.
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Linda You haven’t heard a think I have said, and can you write a sentence that isn’t shot-through with innuendo? CBK
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So what?
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Republican politicians learned a long time ago they can get a lot of mileage and money by pandering to capitalists, corporatists, elitists, fascists, fundamentalists, witting or unwitting racists, and any other faction dedicated to the principle that funds invested in the public sphere are there for anyone to steal if they can buy the politician to let them get away with it. And that strategy is a hell of a lot easier than serving the real needs of their constituencies at large. So that is what they do.
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Many of these politicians were bought and paid for by Betsy DeVos long before she became Sec of Edu. After disrupting education in Michigan, she turned her sites of buying Ohio politicians to follow suit. She set up a PAC in another state to get millions donated to certain republicans who would act as lapdogs to the desires of far right groups. (This was prior to citizen’s united) Josh Mandel, BTW was a big recipient of her illegal funds. She was found guilty by Ohio legislature – a bi-partisan decision, but refuses to pay. But she got her anti public school candidates in with the enormous contributions she was able to illegally raise and the damage goes on. Here is an article that attempts to explain it. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/betsy-devos-paid-legal-fees-no-fine-ohio-234099
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Yes, the DeVos Klan has been at it for a very long time. And they never, ever let the law or being rebuffed by voters deter them one bit.
• The East India Company That Ate Public Education
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Universal vouchers will be the next ed reform bandwagon.They’ll all jump on it because there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the furthest Right ed reformers and the rest of the ed reform echo chamber, as a practical matter. The ideas are the same.
Of course they need vouchers. How else were they going to publicly fund the “education marketplaces” they all envision? We’ll be told it’s about “parent choice” and “equity” and we’ll end up with thousands of junk contractors selling individual educational services.
Pay close attention to the VALUE of the vouchers the ed reform echo chamber are marketing because that’s essential. The vouchers are low value when compared to a comprehensive public school. It’s a huge cut in education funding, disguised as “choice”.
“The law gives families the ability to access to up to $4,600 per student in state funding to spend on private school tuition or other education-related expenses.”
4600 is effectively a 50% cut in public education spending by the state. Of course it’s attractive to state lawmakers. If they can sell low value vouchers as a replacement for public schools they have halved public education spending.
Next they’ll demand public schools justify why public schools get 7200 in state funds per student when the voucher students get 4600.
None of this is questioned or analyzed at all in the ed reform echo chamber. It’s 100% cheerleading and rah rah for vouchers. There are ENDLESS discussions of the failings of public schools but they do NO substantive or critical analysis of their own privatization schemes.
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$4600 is a drop in the bucket of private education. The most it will finance is an unaccountable religious school. More likely the wealthy will benefit the most when they use the $4600 to supplement the private school tuition they would have paid for anyway. “Vouchers are like termites eating away at the very foundation of our communities,” An abundance of these vouchers can cause serious damage to the budgets of the public schools most students attend. This is a frivolous misuse of public funds in my opinion.
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and also frivolous because in every instance of manipulating public school funding, certain players benefit personally, one way or another
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Ohio is perfect example of how the ed reform echo chamber works. For the last 20 years this state’s policy has been wholly dominated by ed reformers. The state has rubberstamped each and every ed reform lobby demand, from charters to vouchers to state testing to what’s taught in public schools.
There’s no analysis- zero- of the effects of any of these ed reform “innovations”. The ONLY analysis is directed exclusively at district schools.
Ohio has had these “choice” programs for decades now. Why does no one in ed reform measure their effectiveness? Why aren’t Cleveland public schools thriving? They privatized half the schools in that city. According to the ed reform dogma we should be seeing “results”- instead all we get are ed reform demands for MORE privatization.
When does this theory actually start to work? When they shutter the last public school? Why is the one and only answer to any question always “privatize more!”?
The ed reform “movement” are now doubling down on vouchers. Why? We were all assured that when we replaced half the public schools with charters we would see “results”. Now they need universal vouchers? At what point are these people held accountable for this theory? Where are the benefits they promised?
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All you need to know about ed reform in Ohio is this: in the last ten years the state has accomplished absolutely nothing on behalf of students who attend public schools – they can’t even manage to pass a funding scheme- and in that same period the state has passed more than ten laws intended to benefit charter and private schools.
They simply do no productive work on the public schools. They are so completely captured by the ed reform echo chamber that every single legislative session is wholly devoted to promoting, marketing and funding charters and vouchers.
If you’re hiring or electing ed reformers know this- nothing they do will benefit any child in any public school. 90% of their “work” is completely irrelevant to public school students. Hiring them as “consultants” or “experts” on public schools is nuts- they don’t support your schools! The last thing we should be doing is paying them to run our schools.
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Ed reform has thousands of full time paid promoters and an absolute blizzard of editorial content presented as “science” or “analysis” but the bottom line is what the echo chamber passes as legislation in the states.
If you want to measure and rank ed reform’s work in Ohio you can easily do that. You’ll find measure after measure promoting and funding vouchers and promoting and funding charter schools. What you won’t find is anything that benefits any public school student anywhere in the state.
Go look at their work yourself. Try to find any positive or productive investment or support of existing public schools. They simply don’t serve public school students. If you’re electing or hiring an echo chamber member know that you’re paying people who return no value to public schools or public school students.
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Here’s the sum total of the ed reform echo chamber’s contribution to “public education” in this state:
“Fordham Institute OH
Praise for the federal Charter School Program, a profile of charter warrior Terry Ryan, Dayton’s outsourcing of transportation for resident students attending private and charter schools, and much more—all in the latest Ohio Charter News Weekly, out now.”
It’s all like this, across the echo chamber. No real analysis of their privatization efforts, endless paid cheerleading for their privatization projects (and no criticism permitted) and no mention or recognition that public school students even exist, let alone any productive or positive effort on their behalf.
Ohio public schools have been stagnant, treading water, for 2 decades now. That’s connected to the fact that this “movement” has utterly captured state government.
To change that, you’ll have to hire people from outside this cloistered, captured “club”. As long as we continue to hire and pay echo chamber members we’ll get the same policy. There ARE people who support public schools and public education. You just won’t find any of them in this “movement”.
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To add insult to injury, the same ed reformers who do nothing to assist, support or improve public schools insist on policing and directing what goes on in them.
Police your own schools! You’re pouring tens of millions of public dollars into private schools – police them. Check into the giant charter chains- what are they teaching? Why the focus on criticizing and micro-managing public schools? None of these people even use public schools and even fewer of them attended one.
We’re stuck with this untenable situation where a “movement” that is ideologically opposed to the existence of public schools and lobbies AGAINST public schools ALSO directs all policy in public schools.
Can we escape from this? Can we possibly find someone who isn’t on the Gates, Walton, Broad, Zuckerberg , Koch payroll to weigh in on national education policy, or are we stuck with this same agenda for another 20 years?
Ed reformers are advocates for charter and voucher students- exclusively. They do nothing for our students. Let’s fire the ed reform echo chamber and hire some new people who value public schools and public school students. Our students deserve real advocates and they absolutely deserve people who don’t march along in lockstep with every elite fad or dumb gimmick.
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Why?
The Catholic Church wants tax money (student education dollars). The Catholic Church wants its employees exempted from civil rights employment law (Biel v. St. James Catholic school) so that they have greater control.
Some religious influencers in Columbus hate gay people and hate the idea of equality for women, both of which they think public schools champion.
The goals of Fordham’s staff may not be limited to the realm of their paychecks.
Billionaires who fund Fordham want profits for the private sector.
The billionaires who fund the Ohio GOP want spending for education eliminated or reduced.
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Linda writes “Some religious influencers in Columbus hate gay people and hate the idea of equality for women, both of which they think public schools champion.”
And she means by that fine example of innuendo . . . . ?
Let it be known that SOME RELIGIOUS INFLUENCERS DON’T HATE GAY PEOPLE, THE EQUALITY OF WOMEN, ETC. And many know the difference between teaching the history of the Catholic Church or the United States without endorsing their flaws.
But in both cases, SO WHAT? You can say both those comments about ANY religious group? BK
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Is it just me? I find it hard to drum up sympathy for Ohioans & their Fordham-driven ed-poicies, or any Rust Belt staters’ ignorance re: how their elected reps are undermining pubschs via school choice measures. I’m done caring. They’re voting in Reps. Reps promise them lower school taxes in exchange for “school choice.” Surely the voters get that lower school taxes mean lower-quality schools on the average. But most get also that the victims will be ‘other people’ in Cleveland et al urbs, & won’t afffect them much, & if it does affect them a hair, they can ‘choose’ some cheap privatized alternative. Ohiio has been on a long economic decline, yet seems to have no interest in pulling together.
What stymies me is IN. Unlike other than Rust-Belt states, they’ve managed a mfg renaissance, and have drawn in labor from other states. They have the wherewithal to renovate their state pubschsys. Yet they seem to be the worst example of “school choice,” w/ zero concern for how their taxes are spent schoolwise,. Apparently their Rep reps have convinced them that “choice” [lotsa crappy little priv religious schhols] beats a strong equitable pubschsys.
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Indiana-
4,300 students, alumni and other community members of Notre Dame University (equates to about 1/2 of the school’s 2021 enrollment) signed a petition opposing Biden as a commencement speaker. The petition signers don’t like Biden’s opposition to their view of religious liberty. The signers’ distorted and self-serving view is that the Catholic church should get tax dollars. And, the signers’ “liberty” reflects an attempt to deny people the right to rank a sister, mother and daughter’s life as more valuable than a fertilized egg.
The view that a church deserves to be respected when it overtly discriminates against women shows that women are lower in the caste system than people of color. If a church overtly discriminated against black people, condemnation would follow.
Instead of condemnation for sex discrimination (including against the LGBTQ community) and the attempt to take public money to fund private unaccountable schools, the sophisticated and well -funded policy campaign is supposed to be ignored by the public out of a pathetic and erroneous interpretation that religion in the public square deserves respect. If the public ignores a church’s legitimate leaders and, individuals of the faith trying to implement the church’s anti-democracy agenda, it shows the public is too cowardly to fight for America.
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Linda Apparently, from your note (in case you didn’t see it), “about half” of the student body DIDN’T sign the petition to not invite Biden to talk. Biden is Catholic but not right-wing Catholic. So what else is new?
Also, your equation of the abortion issue with racism against black people is . . . uh . . . a bit oversimplified, not to mention wrong? I guess you are not aware, so let me inform you, that it gets a bit more complicated than your “take” when these three questions come into play: (1) when does human life start? (2) when does political existence come into play? and (3) when there is a choice, who has the authority to makes it?
Whew, . . . so glad neither you nor the pervasive RIGHT WING in this country have the authority force passenger planes to land because there is some bogyman on the plane whose political opinions differ from your own. CBK
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CBK: stop taking the bait.
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I take it that Notre Dame University is involved in lively debate. What a shame. CBK
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Bethree5-
Correcting a misunderstanding about states like Ohio and Indiana where most voucher money goes to Catholic schools, not to “lotsa little prv religious schools”.
As example of size of Catholic high schools in the Cincinnati area,
All boys schools, Elder-868 students, Moeller- 861, St. X.-1,596, LaSalle-638.
All girls schools, McAuley-495, Seton-503, Purcell Marion-376, Ursuline- 662, St. Ursula- 661, Mt. Notre Dame- 700.
Co-ed schools, Fenwick-554, Roger Bacon-470, Summit Country Day-400, Stephen Badin-602, McNicholas-617, Cristo Rey-323.
In light of the Biel decision, I don’t want my tax dollars to fund schools that can discriminate in hiring, particularly schools that have a long tradition of unapologetic discrimination against women. St. X’s website was interesting, there’s a section on diversity but no mention of women.
However, I understand that white men who are heterosexual and of the Christian faith would not be concerned because they would be privileged in the hiring process.
And, NO, Diane, this comment is not bait for anyone.
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Demographics of the first city that was maneuvered into a position of entirely private schools – New Orleans- total area population -1.2 million, Catholic population- 518,000. The area’s Catholic schools enroll an average 455 students each.
“lotsa little crappy private religious schools” is media’s myth that damns evangelicals and masks the power of the nation’s 2nd and more politically successful, conservative religion.
In terms of judging “crappiness”, I defer to the opinion of the more knowledgeable, frequent blog commenter, Greg.
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“little private religious schools”
Diane posts on occasion about Providence, R.I. (area code 401). Demographics follow, the Providence Warwick metro area’s population is 47.5% Catholic.
The size of the Catholic high schools in the 401 area code,
St. Raphael-509 students, Mt. St. Charles- 505, LaSalle-1,540, Bishop Hendrickson-732, Prout School-400, Portsmouth App-360, St. Mary’s Academy-432, St. Andrews 228, St. Patrick 102.
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Portsmouth Abbey
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Yes I see your point on that for Ohio, Linda, correction noted. I was running some numbers on IN schools, which as of 2019 had 4% charters included in pubsch enrollment, plus 3.5% vouchers. In that state 44% of voucher $ goes to Catholic schools (out of 99% religious voucher schools) so, presumably many ‘crappy little ones’ there. However we’re counting angels on pinhead, since evangelists don’t score much better on the misogyny scale. Note in Indiana: the voucher # grew from 0 to 3.5% in just a decade– and now (April) they’ve doubled the income ceiling so could grow to 7% by 2031.
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Bethee-
Catholic media reported that the Indiana Catholic Conference Director took credit for school choice legislation in the state. Nation wide the Catholic campaign for school choice appears to have ramped up.
It’s been explained to me that, in general terms, public school teachers are church goers. They want prayer in schools. Given that situation, they are incapable of accepting that public education is under threat from the campaign of allied evangelical and Catholic leaders. It enables public school supporters to isolate billionaires as the only enemy.
You could possibly shed light on why the half of the alliance that is evangelical is tarred but not, the more politically powerful and overtly discriminatory Catholic component. Given the leadership of record and their right to spend the church’s resources, “big tent’ fails as an explanation.
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The ed reform “analysis” of vouchers is literally titled “Hooray for Florida’s new School Choice legislation”
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/resources/education-gadfly-show-770-hooray-floridas-new-school-choice-legislation
As you can tell they’re doing a very scientific, rigorous and unbiased review of K-12 privatization. They’ve preemptively announced, en masse, that vouchers improved public education. All “studies” will now be directed at “proving” that political/ideological agenda.
There are no dissenters. No questions. No examination or doubt at all- just lockstep cheerleading.
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Here’s Jeb Bush’s “analysis” of vouchers. It’s identical to Fordhams.
Vouchers are a huge, unqualified success:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-year-of-school-choice/
There is no dissent or pushback to this cheerleading in any of the hundreds of ed reform echo chamber groups.
You’re probably wondering how they determined this given that they just finished lobbying for and passing the voucher proposals in a lot of these states. How do they know vouchers “improve” public education? The huge voucher expansion has barely gone in.
Because the echo chamber dogma says they do. There will be no further study. Not permitted.
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Chiara, surely you have figured out by now that an essential part of the “ed reform” is to declare success before their innovations are put into place. Bloomberg did that with regularity in NYC; grand new ideas were announced, applauded, then disappeared. The overwhelming majority of voucher studies show that they are unsuccessful. Kids fall behind their peers in public school, and the attrition rate is very high.
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All: There is no end to what is distorted about Linda’s above note: Here’s another gross distortion:
” . . . the sophisticated and well-funded policy campaign is supposed to be ignored by the public out of a pathetic and erroneous interpretation that religion in the public square deserves respect. . . .”
Religion in the public square DOESN’T deserve respect, Linda interprets? But the First Amendment/U.S. Constitution says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Again, Linda has some truth, but it is so distorted by a lack of context, and by contempt-filled and bad interpretations as the above, so that she negates what is true about her own arguments by the flood of bias that accompanies her notes. She would be better to try to enlist, rather than to broad-brush, the thoughtful, center, and left wing of every religious denomination lurks behind these readings and contributions. CBK
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Diane It is pointless, isn’t it if “points” were actually listened to. Things get so distorted when whatever truth someone has consistently lacks its proper context. I’m merely adding the context.
And Linda sees the religion and the Catholic Church as “the enemy.” Good grief . . . it never ends and keeps getting worse. And so I have to ask: How much religious hate and particularly for the Catholic Church, are you willing to tolerate on your site without having someone at least put her cherry-picking in its proper context? CBK
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When I was in graduate school many years ago, a professor said that anti-Catholicism was the only bias considered tolerable.
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Good luck to you, Diane. CBK
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Diane
I appreciate that you allow me to post documentation at the blog that is relevant to the minefield political arena in which public schools must navigate.
Recently, “ageism”, was the target (and, research substantiated it), in your remembered quote about bias. Evidently, bias against evangelicals wasn’t on the researcher’s radar. The next pundit may alter the target to, “atheists or agnostics”. To my thinking, for it to be an equivalent, the atheists,… would have to exercise political clout making Americans behave in accordance with the atheists’ Bible equivalent, ignoring civil rights protections.
We can agree to disagree about the pertinence of the following.
*The directors of two state Catholic Conferences publicly took credit for the passage of their states’ school choice legislation.
*Paul Weyrich (funded by Koch) was the first to describe parallel schools as a means to destroy public schools. His training manual is posted at Theocracy Watch.
*The Espinosa and Biel decisions in 2020 were from a religious conservative SCOTUS majority. (Off topic, they will decide the right to abortion, a right that has been severely eroded since the rise of Weyrich’s religious right. Rhetorically, if the fertilized egg was in a man like Ted Cruz’s body, do you think he’d say, no matter what, my life is less important than a fertilized egg’s, no matter if the sex act was yesterday, 3 mos.,.. etc.? I speculate that Cruz would not want to nurture the baby/child of his rapist Mother or sister.
Referring to prior comment threads, there’s insight to be gained from an internet search about the personality of those who always have to have the last word.
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