The Georgia branch of Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children made a mass mailing to voters in Republican districts urging them to fight against the “radical left” agenda of President Biden, Kamala Harris, and Stacey Abrams, which denies school choice.
A national advocacy group promoting school vouchers bombarded conservative Georgia voters with glossy mailers tying Republican state legislators from their districts to Stacey Abrams and other “radical left” figures. It backfired in spectacular fashion.
Just days after the American Federation for Children financed the mailers in at least 16 Republican-controlled legislative districts, House Speaker David Ralston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the voucher proposal the group sought to pass is dead for the year.
“I am livid. I’ve been around politics for a long time, but this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my career, and one of the most deceitful,” Ralston said. “These are people we have tried to help over the years, and they turned to attack us very viciously.”
Ralston added: “That voucher legislation will not move at all in the Georgia House of Representatives this year, period.”
The mailers were sent by the Washington-based group to back proposals that would give public school students what it calls “Promise Scholarships,” a state subsidy of about $6,000 a year to help cover private school tuition.
The measures had gained early traction in House committees…
The aggressive strategy was meant to pressure legislators to end a yearslong feud over public funding of private education in Georgia. Instead, the Capitol’s halls buzzed Tuesday with incredulous GOP lawmakers infuriated by the group’s approach.
“It’s very disappointing that this group is targeting lawmakers in the middle of the deliberative process,” said state Rep.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a strange satisfaction when one witnesses them eating their own.
Let us hope this also backfires or burns down into ash. Same dirty money paid these legislators to get busy doing evil “transparency” deeds.
Lawmakers in at least 17 state capitols and Congress are pushing legislation that would require schools to post all instructional materials online. Their goal, at least in part, is to enable parents who distrust their children’s schools to carefully examine teaching materials — enabling protests or, in some cases, giving people fodder to opt their children out. That includes materials on race and racial equity but also any other topic that might spark disagreement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/02/transparency-curriculum-teachers-parents-rights/
The only reason there is a “concern” about what is being taught in public schools is due to right wing propaganda that has made these baseless claims. These wealthy right wing radicals will stoop to anything to undermine and hobble public education and teachers. Like endless data collection and meetings, posting curricula online is an attempt to tie teachers up with nonsense. I would hope that unions would step up to push against this attempt at micro-management. If teachers are expected to post daily or even weekly plans, it can be argued that it is a substantial change in working conditions.
Teachers will be safe posting instructional materials because many of the parents will never open the email or packet, those who open it won’t know what it says, and others will applaud.
It may keep teachers relatively safe, but it still requires a lot of busywork as if teachers don’t have enough to do already. Technology has only increased the workload of teachers as everybody has gotten excited by all the things it can do. Somehow the time commitment has been ignored. I think it has turned once reasonable parents into micromanagers commonly know as helicopter parents and supervisory personnel can be as bad with their ten page checklists.
Sorry, I found an avenue to go almost totally off topic.
I agree. It is a non-issue for most parents. It is a politically driven way to further disrupt public education.
yes, exact goal: enabling. Enabling a huge noise and chaos which they hope affects the fall elections.
There is an old saying about war that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That held true even in WWII, but it doesn’t hold true today for one group of autocrats.
In the toxic world of DeVos, Putin, and Trump, they have revised that old saying to say, “Anyone that doesn’t do EXACTLY what I want is my enemy, even when they are the enemy of my enemies.”
Seems like the big ed reform push to privatize K-12 education has petered out for this year.
Still nothing productive or positive offered for public schools or public school students though. Maybe they’ll carve out a month or two in between anti-public school political campaigns and actually accomplish something.
And we know that a house divided will not stand
WDRB, Kentucky (12-30-2021), extensively quotes Andrew Vandiver about HB 563 (an ed choice bill).
Andrew Vandiver is VP of Ed Choice Ky. and he is the associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.
WPTV, Florida (5-11-2021), “Speaking at St. John the Apostle Catholic school, the Governor signed HB 7045 (expands vouchers).