Our reasonable and sensible friend Jan Resseger writes here about the efforts by the Heritage Foundatuon and its allies to saddle Ohio with vouchers. This is especially bizarre because researchers have consistently found that kids in public schools learn more than those in religious schools. Their goal: diminish or eliminate public schools.
She writes:
When you notice a particular educational trend moving across state legislatures, it is useful to investigate who’s behind the policy and who is making it so difficult to mount effective opposition. On Tuesday, this blog covered some of the far-right advocacy groups pressuring Ohio’s supermajority Republican legislature to pass House Bill 290, the Backpack Bill, which would bring a universal Education Savings Account (ESA) school voucher program to the state. Kathryn Joyce’s research for SALON demonstrates that the effort to pass a wave of universal ESA voucher bills is much broader than the particular groups working in Ohio.
Profiling a strategic effort by the Heritage Foundation to drive ESA vouchers through a number of state legislatures, Joyce describes the Heritage Foundation’s new Education Freedom Report Cardwhich rates the states in four categories: “In the category of education choice, Heritage’s primary focus is on education savings accounts (ESAs), a form of school voucher that allows parents to opt out of public schools and use a set amount of state funding (sometimes delivered via debit card) on almost any educational expenses they see fit. ESAs can be used towards charter schools, private schools, parochial schools and low-cost (and typically low-quality) ‘voucher schools,’ as well as online schools, homeschooling expenses, unregulated ‘microschools’ (where a group of parents pool resources to hire a private teacher) or tutoring.”
“In terms of regulatory freedom, Heritage weighs whether states enforce ‘overburdensome’ regulations… The chief concern here appears to be (weakening) teacher certification credentials…. In the third category, transparency, the report rewards states that have ‘strong anti-critical race theory’ laws, high rates of engagement by groups like Parents Defending Education… and laws requiring school districts to provide exhaustive public access to any student curricula or educational materials… Lastly, in terms of spending, the report compares per-pupil (public school) spending not just to learning outcomes but also to matters like the future tax burden created by teacher pensions.”
In states whose legislatures are considering universal Education Savings Account bills like Ohio’s HB 290 Backpack Bill, legislators are receiving lots of help from far-right organizations pumping out “model legislation” that can be adapted to the needs of any state legislature. Joyce points out that the Heritage Foundation’s new report includes “a section containing model legislation written by the Goldwater Institute, the libertarian law firm, Institute for Justice, and (from) the Heritage Foundation itself, covering more ‘anti-CRT’ proposals, more requirements for schools to publicize their training materials for students and staff, and more or bigger ESA voucher programs.” You will remember that Tuesday’s blog post on Ohio quoted the Ohio Capital Journal’s Zurie Pope reporting that Ohio legislators sponsoring the Ohio House Bill 290, have received guidance from the Ohio Center for Christian Virtue, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), EdChoice (the former Friedman Foundation for EdChoice), and Heritage Action.
The top scorers on the Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card are Florida with the top ranking and Arizona coming in second. Kathryn Joyce publishes comments from public education supporters in both states. In Florida, Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association notes that Florida ranks 45th in the United states in average per-student public school funding. He comments: “In their report, it seems like the states that fund their (public school) students at a higher level have a worse ranking than those who invest less in their children… the Heritage Foundation celebrating the rankings of how well you underfund public schools, how well you dismantle public schools.”
In Arizona, Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, “which is currently leading a citizen ballot referendum against the state’s new universal ESA Law,” said “The fact that the Heritage Foundation ranks Arizona second in the country, when our (public) schools are funded nearly last in the nation, only underscores the depraved lens with which they view the world… Heritage boasting about realizing Milton Friedman’s dream reveals the agenda—to abolish public schools and put every child on a voucher….”
Ohio is not the only state where politicians are currently being pressed by far right advocates to adopt one of the model ESA bills that are available to anyone who wants one.
States whose legislatures have enacted Education Savings Account vouchers to date include Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Indiana, and Missouri. ESA programs were passed but later found unconstitutional in Nevadaand Kentucky under the provisions of their state constitutions.
For example, for the Wisconsin Examiner, Ruth Conniff reports that education policy has become a huge issue of contention between “Republican candidate Tim Michels, Donald Trump’s choice for governor of Wisconsin, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, the former state schools superintendent, this fall.” Evers has managed to hold off the school privatizers in both houses of Wisconsin’s Republican-dominated state legislature for the past four years. Last week, Conniff explained: “A group of heavy hitters in Wisconsin politics announced Thursday that they are forming a coalition to push for universal school choice and ‘parents’ rights.’ The group, which calls itself the Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom, includes Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, the American Federation for Children, School Choice Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty… Michels and Evers are far apart on a lot of issues, from abortion to immigration to how the state runs elections, but one of the most profound impacts of the Wisconsin governor’s race will be the way it shapes the future of education. Michels’ education blueprint calls for an immediate, statewide expansion of Wisconsin’s school choice program… Michels said, ‘I will introduce universal school choice in my first budget in 2023… Among the other goals of the Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom is a ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’ which would encourage lawsuits against school districts that don’t take direction from parents on these issues.”
Conniff concludes: “But beyond these flashy culture-war issues is a steady march toward a privatized education system that is on its way to bankrupting Wisconsin’s once-great public schools.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From what I’ve read over the years, this march toward privatizing everything without any government oversight has been driven mostly by ALEC’s wild- west-minded members without any laws or police, unless the laws are corporate rules and the police are corporate police. Anyone that can’t afford to pay corporations for protection is left out in the wild west environment libertarians love to watch from inside their fortified and heavily guarded estates.
How many marshals, paid for by the public, guarded Betsy DeVos when she was Traitor Trump’s Secretary of Education?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/u-s-marshals-service-spending-millions-devos-security-unusual-arrangement-n909001
That is ALEC driven libertarianism being injected in an empty and fragile egg shell.
Libertarians are such a duplicitous hoot. They claim to be for liberty and freedom; sure, freedom from rules and sensible laws that create a civilized framework to protect us from the libertarian predatory capitalists and their greed on steroids. They don’t even want to be taxed to pay for public schools. Their attitude is that it’s a parent’s responsibility to educate their own child either at home or at a private school. Why should a hard working libertarian have to pay for someone else’s kid’s education. Libertarianism is really a sort of knuckle-headed type of economic narcissism.
Economic narcissism is what the libertarians call individualism which another way to describe being selfish.
Promoting conservative religion is a major part of the Koch-style libertarianism. The agenda includes the GOP’s efforts to defeat female, Democratic candidates who include, among others, the following women running in current races, Sen. Maggie Hansen (N.H.), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Oh.) and Hillary Scholten.
After they rout the Democratic women from statehouses and US Senate and House of Reps., the Koch camp will push out the Republican women politicians.
I appreciate all the regional coverage here, you know. It’s part of what makes the blog.
LCT, I read newspapers in many cities, and many readers send links.
Ohio would be a happier place if it replaced drives for vouchers with vouchers for drive-ins.
In Other News, Being a Notice unto Ye Sinners
Samuel “Justice is Mine” Alito is out and about, delivering his “Homily on Obedience.” As might be expected, the somewhat more subtle beast of the field of jurisnonprudence, John Roberts, has a slightly different take, having slid out his own “Homily on GRATEFUL and RESIGNED Obedience.”
If he had any respect for the Court and the Constitution, he would be resigned , but in a quite different sense. He would have tendered his resignation, allowing Biden to pick a successor who actually respects the law and Constitution.
Only an idiot would believe he can act as a moderating influence on the current Majority and Roberts is no idiot. That leaves just one possibility: he is complicit and actually supports the profoundly UN- constitutional and anti-democratic path that the Court has chosen.
Roberts is naked under the robes.
Meanwhile: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congress-blows-its-shot-to-stop-trump-s-deep-state-revenge/ar-AA11YPDm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=973222d506be4c2b9a93d57fb76fe6e5
Suggests that the congress will be unable to restrict future presidents from en masse firing of federal employees, sending us back to Andrew Jackson’s spoils system that lasted until the Assassination of Garfield.
The election of a loose cannon to the presidency should not be a threat to liberty our system of government, but congress seems unwilling to legislate to protect itself. Maybe there is a deep state.
!!!!!!!!!
Whether there is a deep state is subject to debate.
But there is definitely a sleep state and Congress is it
“efforts by the Heritage Foundatuon and its allies to saddle Ohio with vouchers. This is especially bizarre because researchers have consistently found that kids in public schools learn more than those in religious schools. Their goal: diminish or eliminate public schools”
But if their goal is the latter, supporting vouchers is not bizarre at all, but perfectly logical.