Peter Greene reports that a Republican legislative proposal would eliminate public schools, thus wiping out one of our nation’s most democratic institutions.
He begins:
State Senator Del Marsh proposed this week the “ultimate” school choice bill, the “Parents’ Choice Bill,” (SB140) a super-education savings account. But that’s not what it really is.
This is an ESA in its fully realized form— every Alabama family gets every cent the state would have spent on educating their child (about $6,300 last year) and they can use it to pay for educational whatever–public school, home school, private school, tutoring, online classes, whatever.
Marsh is a longtime champion of disinvestment in Alabama public ed, having pushed charters and charter expansion in previous years (he also co-sponsored a bill to make bribery of legislators by lobbyists legal).
This is a big deal, a bill that changes the rules for education in an entire state, but coverage so far has been light (the bill was supposedly going to be filed yesterday) and details.
One early complaint is that the bill would cost the state about $420 billion in education funds. Alabama Education Association executive director Army Marlowe also called out the bill for its lack of transparency and its generosity to private operators:Senator Marsh’s “Parent’s Choice Bill” should be called exactly what it is – “No Vendor Left Behind “ – a shell game of a voucher program to divert money from Alabama’s community schools. There is a complete lack of transparency regarding this egregious bill by rushing it through committee this week. Regardless of whether Senators have been given the opportunity to study the bill, by filing it this week and expecting it to not only be in committee, but to be voted out of a committee is mind blowing. A bill of this magnitude that would result in more than $420 million cut from the Education Trust Fund rushed through committee without the opportunity for at least a week of scrutiny by the public and the media makes you wonder why Sen. Marsh is in such a hurry to move this bill.Yes, this bill would eat a ton of taxpayer dollars, and yes it would gut the public education system in Alabama. There is one other huge effect that comes with voucher-style bills that seems to be rarely discussed–it ends the state’s involvement with and support of its children.
In an online interview, education lab reporter Trish Powell Crain points out that this is bigger than charters or vouchers. “It’s the ultimate ‘here, take the money and parents, you go decide how you want to spend this money to educate your child.'”
Yes. “We’ve given you a check, and we hereby wash our hands of the whole education thing.” The ultimate form of voucher is not about empowering parents. It’s not even about making vendors a bunch of money. It’s about getting the state out of the education business, about cutting parents and children loose. It’s about ending the collective commitment to and responsibility for educating the next generations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have lived in 3-4 different countries yet have never encountered so much anti social tendencies as in the US. Is being civilized and humane going out of style???
When Ron Paul was peddling his libertarian ideology, it was considered an impractical cult. Since the rise of the Tea Party and the so-called “Freedom Caucus,” the libertarians are mainstream. Sadly, they are winning elections in right wing areas. Their vision is far from civil. It is everyone for him or herself. The only governmental collectivism they support is the military, law and order and some version of justice. In my opinion libertarians support an eventual dystopia in which the rich rule and the poor and working class have no social safety nets.
and an additional point if we look at the current membership of the actual GOP: more everyone for HIMSELF over having many female voices in politics
I guess this would end compulsory education too, considering the number of underprivileged families in Alabama who struggle to receive any kind of government service and the cost required for such enforcement. Having worked in Alabama I can tell you that the state has been defunding public education Pre-k through College for well over a decade. At one point it had cut public school spending by 17% after the Great Recession which was the second most in the country at that time. The main purpose for public schools in Alabama is to develop football players. I don’t think they have thought about how much that might suffer with this effort.
My own prediction is that the bottom of society will increase in size and desperation and more crime will follow. Unskilled and uneducated people have to survive somehow. Too many politicians and citizens take public education for granted. Public education helped build this nation. It is key building block of the democratic republic. Despite its flaws and inequity, mostly from funding it through property taxes, public education is overall efficient, effective and worth every penny spent on it. It is tragic that some states consider it no more than a host to a bunch of unproven reckless parasitic ideas,
I have often said, you can’t expect a Mercedes Benz when you only ante up for a Pinto.
How low can they go? AL is already dead last among the states in NAEP scores.
If Del Marsh is any indication, there would appear to be no lower bound.
Marsh is what happens when you stop funding education.
If this bad idea is adopted in Alabama, the affluent will likely be the biggest beneficiary at the expense of public education. Affluent families will use the money to supplement tuition payments they already pay for. Some families will send children to voucher schools of questionable value, and the public schools, already underfunded, will suffer even more.
For the majority of Alabama students, $6800.00 won’t pay for much of a school. The current reality proves that.
Another libertarian GOP jerk trying to Ayn Randize public education and the real public schools in favor of libertarian/limited government/free market toxic sludge pseudo-solutions. Libertarian solutions are a mixture of lye (also lie) and sulfuric acid, what could possibly go wrong.
This is their attempt to make the 2nd Amendment the 1st after the 1st is removed from the Bill of Rights. And, ironically, three of the most critical driving forces of these fools’ ancestors included keeping church out of government, free speech and press, and no taxation without representation.
Where will all the once bona fide republican go when they realize their values, conservative principles, integrity, and souls have been tossed out of their grand old party.
The GOP should be renamed the new “Know Nothing Party.”
The KNew Nothing Party?
The KKKnow Nothing Party
The I Don’t want to Know Party…
Now, of course, everyone can see the wisdom and foreknowledge that led Enlightened Master Bob to relocate to Alabama his K-6 AYAHUASCA SCHOOL FOR LITTLE COSMIC VOYAGERS.
Some highlights:
At Enlightened Master Bob’s, your child will learn how he or she can skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner and draw nourishment directly from Father Sun in our Solar Temple.
We offer complete holistic health training, using our proprietary textbooks on the Ethereal Body to teach our little scholar/novitiates how to uncap and align their Chakras so they can download DIRECTLY from the invisible Mother Ship of the Galactic Rebe Forces the Cosmic Light necessary for Transformation from Earth-bound Homo sapiens into Interdimensional Beings.
In our history classes, students will learn all about Atlantis, Lemuria, Camelot and Glastonbury, the Black Rock Desert, Noccalula Falls Park, and other Places of Power throughout the Ages.
Students will also learn how to protect themselves against the forces of the Evil Galactic Emperor Xenu and his band of sometimes invisible, shape-shifting reptilian aliens from Alpha Draconis.
But don’t delay! Soon, as our galaxy moves into proximity to the Pleiades, the vibrational tone of the entire planet will rise to such a pitch that we will either undergo Ascension or be sucked into The Quantum Vortex, and everything—the FATE OF THE PLANET– depends on how many young Lightworkers we can bring into Alignment and Cosmic Consciousness before then!
All classes at Enlightened Master Bob’s AYAHUASCA SCHOOL FOR LITTLE COSMIC VOYAGERS are taught by the Spiritual Wives of Enlightened Master Bob himself!
And best of all–all this–yes, all this!!!–is ABSOLUTELY FREE because you can use your Alabama Education Savings Account to pay for it!!!!
Enlightened Master Bob, aka Rael Elohim, is, of course, the reincarnation of Lao Tze, Lucian of Samosata, Meister Eckhart, Gerrard Winstanley, John Harvey Kellogg, and Steve Jobs and thus the Seventh and Final Enlightened Master.
This proposed legislation is a little preview of something that will become national if the current Fascist Republican party wins both houses in the Midterms and sustains those wins and adds to it the presidency in 2024. I don’t think that I’m exaggerating. Public schools will go the way of the backpack one-quarter full of cash, and we’ll see a new Nationalist Curriculum.
The fascists in the Republican party that control the most Trumpist Red states are moving to insure MAGA fascism survives.
For sure, the traitor is doing all he can to pressure them to get it done ASAP.
A very similar proposal is being pushed in California.
Shocked simply shocked. Well not really. This is the result of not dealing with insurrectionists the last time. I mean seriously how long has the South been attacking Public Schools. Linda likes to attack the American Taliban, if there were no religion they would have invented one. Perhaps they did.
https://virginiahistory.org/learn/historical-book/chapter/closing-prince-edward-countys-schools