Stephen Dyer is a former legislator in Ohio and a staunch advocate for public schools. He has punched holes in the claims of school choice advocates for years. Do you think someday the Ohio legislature might pay attention to the success of the 90% of kids in Ohio’s public schools and the expensive failure of charters and vouchers?
In this post, he takes issue with the Fordham Institute, which took issue with his critique of their proposal for another $150 million for vouchers. It is odd that Fordham would advocate for more money for vouchers, since they earlier funded a study showing that kids who took vouchers fell behind their peers in public schools.
Dyer writes:
After my several part series last week addressing the Fordham Institute’s unwarranted demand that taxpayers fork over another $150 million to fund school choice options that perform worse, lead to increased racial segregation and cost state taxpayers far more than public schools, Fordham went after just one portion of that critique — my suggestions for developing a voucher program that actually met their stated goal of “rescuing” kids from “failing” schools.
Notice they didn’t dispute my critiques, or my analysis of the amount of money their demands would cost. It was that I suggested that students taking vouchers should attend public schools for 180 days before taking one. Because a school can’t “fail” a kid unless they actually try to educate a kid, right?
Not according to Fordham. In fact, that suggestion was me “saying the quiet part out loud”, according to the article’s title.
However, I stole that suggestion from (drumroll please) … the original EdChoice voucher program. Here’s how the Ohio Legislative Service Commission described the then-new program in its analysis of House Bill 66 — the 2005 state budget bill in which EdChoice was created (my emphasis added):
The enacted budget establishes the new Educational Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, slated to begin in FY 2007. The program will provide scholarships to students who attend a school that has been in academic emergency for three or more consecutive years, including community school students who otherwise would attend school in those buildings. Students in grades K-8 who were enrolled in an eligible school the previous year may apply for an initial scholarship to attend a chartered nonpublic school.
So my suggestion, far from being the “the height of arrogance” Fordham claims, was actually the law until recently…
Finally, I have to address this new canard perpetrated by school choice advocates. The idea that public education advocates want to fund “systems” and choice advocates want to fund “students” — an argument I was making that truly “offended” her, apparently. Even though I never made that argument. I said throughout my critique that I wanted the money to go to kids in public schools, just as I did in this post.
But whatever. Let’s talk about “systems”, shall we?
Fundamentally, it’s neither I nor my colleagues who call on the Ohio General Assembly to fund a system of public schools; it’s the Ohio Constitution, Article VI, Section 2.
“The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state.”
Want more? Ok. Article VI, Section 3 is actually titled “Public school system, boards of education.”
So it is the Ohio General Assembly’s constitutional duty to provide money for a public education system. If Fordham wants to change the Constitution, then they can have at it. But until they do, the only thing the Ohio Constitution requires the legislature to do is fund a public education system.
But Fordham knows this.
Open the link and read a brilliant takedown.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Taxpayers in Ohio should be outraged by the misuse of public dollars that have been wasted on so-called choice initiatives. So many tax dollars are spent on unaccountable charter and voucher schools.
“Never mind that the state hasn’t funded schools properly for 30 years, in large part because it was so busy shoveling $18 billion to privately run charter schools and private school tuition subsidies during that time.”
Despite having wasted more than $117 million dollars on ECOT fraud and failure, state representatives continue to pressure for more unaccountable tax dollars to get thrown into the failed black hole of privatization. People in Ohio need to vote against those that seek to recklessly waste more money on privatization. They need to use tax dollars to bolster and improve existing public education, which is a Constitutional responsibility, and the most efficient and effective use of tax dollars for the education of young people in the state.
Taxpayers in Ohio seem not to give a damn about educational shenanigans. As much as education malfeasance has been reported here, not a single person has ever been held accountable and the people responsible for it keep getting elected to statewide positions. And based on what I see with my local system, NO ONE in Ohio cares about this. Stephen Dyer, as correct and illuminating as he is, is not being listened to or taken seriously by any policymakers. They know they’ll never be held accountable and continue to be reelected. And so far, nothing has happened to make them think otherwise. I Louisiana, corruption is king, in Ohio it’s apathy and aggrieved white folks that call the shots.
The charter proponents use political double talk to justify the purpose of school as “raking a few geniuses from the rubbish” (Thomas Jefferson).
The purpose of school may no longer be to win a race. Take that away and make school about developing a students pathway to success, and charters have no leg to stand on. They will crumble.
It would be a refreshing change if the meretricious accountability mavens at Fordham were themselves at all accountable for the utter failure of ALL of their proposals for education–merit pay, vouchers, virtual schools VAM. 3rd-grade retention, the puerile and, in ELA, almost completely content-free skills list called CC$$, the invalid state testing, blah, blah, blah. But I guess there are various ways of measuring failure. Sure, none of the policies worked, but the checks still come in from oligarchs. That is the measure that matters I suppose.
Thanks to the 5 or 6 libertarian-theofascist controlled justices on the US Supreme Court and their ruling for Citizens United, et al. elections are being funded by dark money flowing from extremist billiaonres, and studies show that the majority of elections are won by the candidates that spend the most money.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-spending
This will not change as long as the Democratic Party doesn’t have enough votes in Congress to pass legislation that stops unlimited dark money being used to influence elections.
“The worst was Citizens United v. FEC, which launched unlimited money into our elections and opened the gateway to unlimited dark money. Special interests with unlimited money to spend took no time at all figuring out how to spend it anonymously, hence the dark money ‘tsunami of slime’ sloshing through our politics.” Jan 12, 2021
Should we fund individual drivers instead of “systems” of highways?
clarification?
Stephen Dyer’s post was not just a brilliantly airtight rebuke of privatization; it was a downright fun read, like a roast without the subject getting miffed and running for president for revenge.
Sorry, off topic, but this is important: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-09-07/seattle-teachers-on-strike-over-pay-and-staffing-issues
Go Seattle teachers! We’re with you! Wear comfortable shoes.
How long does the pretense continue that the issue is about education’s efficacy despite all of the evidence to the contrary?
The accurate lens to view the subject of school choice in Ohio is through conservative religion (Catholic) and libertarian social Darwinism (Koch). In the U.S., the two are a force that is the same politically and philosophically. Tim Burch wrote at Napa Institute, “The remarkable similarities between Catholicism and Charles Koch’s recent book.”
The Catholic Church of Leonard Leo (Federalist Society) and Trump’s Steve Bannon and Pat Buchanan are seizing every opportunity for theocracy, forcing the taxpayers to support of conservative Christian religion.
The article, “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs,” explains. The article’s content is much broader in scope than the title indicates. It includes a discussion of the U.S.
The conservative goal is White over Black, man over woman, conservative Christian over all others, straight over gay. And, to save all of the groups of people adversely affected and, all of us robbed of our right to be free from religion, the right wing religious must be thwarted.
Thanks for consistently and stridently pointing out the absurdities of and the destructive actions on our country of the regressive xtian fundies (which includes many in the Catholic church.) Please keep at it.
Thank you, Duane. It means a lot to me to read your comment.
I regularly contact those in media (many are university religious faculty writing for publications) who are providing cover for the Catholic Church’s political apparatus which is far more powerful than the Johny-come-lately attempts of the protestant Christian nationalists. Whether I am having success….?
Fordham should take a look at KIPP DC and assess if they are top heavy in administrators per student. Some of the KIPP departments are Recruitment, External Affairs, Finance, Accounting and Real Estate, and Legal and Accountability. Evidently, none of the administrators caught a $2.2 mil. loss until it had, allegedly, already been spent on expensive cars, etc.
At one time, the reformers made an argument against public schools based on excess administrative costs. But, as we’ve all learned, self-appointed improvers aren’t interested in education efficacy nor costs, they want religious schools, hoping to prime the GOP voter pump. Well, that’s when they aren’t just privatizing in fulfillment of libertarian goals connected to profit taking.