For Immediate Release: For more information, contact: Carol Burris, NPE Executive Director, 718-577-3276, cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org
PRO-VOUCHER SPECIAL INTERESTS WORK TO FUNNEL PUBLIC FUNDS INTO UNACCOUNTABLE AND EXTREMIST NETWORKS
The Network for Public Education (NPE) calls for the immediate cessation of ESA voucher payments to homeschoolers and all other non-school-based “individualized” instruction programs based on the discovery of an online homeschooling network whose primary purpose is to teach young children to be Nazis. According to the report in the Huffington Post, its numbers thus far are in the thousands, but the greater threat is how its existence exposes the dangers of publicly-subsidized vouchers designed to fund extremist beliefs. Such programs, including so-called micro-schools, operate with almost no curricular supervision or public fiscal oversight, allowing them to legally indoctrinate children with a distorted hate-filled curriculum directly supported by public funds.
NPE President Diane Ravitch stated, “Our nation fought a World War to defeat Nazism. Public funds should not be used to propagate hatred of our fellow citizens. Public education exists to foster mutual respect among all citizens. Our public dollars should be used to teach the shared values of democracy, especially the rule of law, the equality of every person, the importance of free and fair elections, and the value of education in pursuing a life of dignity and purpose.”
Seven states now fund programs solely supervised by families with no control over whether a sound academic curriculum is taught. Eight states have introduced legislation that would either start or expand such programs.
“These ESA voucher programs, which are mislabeled as scholarships and saving accounts, have been subject to fraud and abuse,” said Dr. Carol Burris, NPE executive director. “NPE has long held concerns that funded at-home programs might teach children misinformation or a radical curriculum of hate. This Neo-Nazi homeschool network now confirms our deepest fears.”
Many ESA voucher laws do not require the parent to present evidence that the student has learned anything to receive thousands of dollars in public funds.
In states that have adopted voucher plans, the academic results for students who left public schools are “disastrous,” says Josh Cowen, a professor at Michigan State University and a veteran voucher researcher. In addition, 75-80% of voucher funding goes to students already enrolled in private or religious schools.
NPE also calls on every state to carefully review its homeschool laws. Eleven states do not require homeschoolers to report that their child is homeschooled, making a mockery of state compulsory education laws. No states have laws that would prevent the teaching of hate curricula.
“As more states adopt laws that fund unregulated radical schooling arrangements, we must ensure that children’s emotional and physical well-being are guarded. While we cannot protect children from those parents who would fill their minds and hearts with hate, we can at least ensure that our tax dollars are not supporting such instruction,” Burris concluded.
The use of public funds to support extremist and anti-social agendas, unfortunately, has a long track record for the privatization community, especially as today’s unpopular modern school vouchers being pushed in legislatures across the country have evolved from the segregationist reaction to the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court ruling.
The Network for Public Education (NPE) was founded in 2013 by Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody. Its mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students. We share information and research on vital issues that concern the future of public education. For more information, please visit: networkforpubliceducation.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Read this to learn if you live in a state that is using public money to support private schools teaching children to grow up and become Nazis or other far-right extremists.
I was just leafing through my copy of Reign of Error and realized, as destructive as the subject matter is, it is literally impossible, I think, to imagine a sentence like this being in it: “Our nation fought a World War to defeat Nazism. Public funds should not be used to propagate hatred of our fellow citizens.” If one ever needed evidence of how quickly fascism can change things, here’s one. And the pace and scope increases every time they are not beaten back in the opinions of voters. Think about it, as bad as some things were a decade ago, when having a Black president sent millions into a tailspin of mental illness-based bigotry, we could not have imagined being where we are today.
Agreed. We have gone from fatuous billionaires imposing bad ideas to homeschoolers training their children to be Nazis.
And, as usual, it is succinct and to the most important point.
Fatuous billionaires includes Charles Koch, whose father had meetings with none other than Hitler himself. This is no accident.
Another example of, “we could not have imagined”-
MSNBC’s 1-29-2023 article, “The radical Christian group that is still getting a pass on Jan. 6,” tells the story of the Jericho March. The March was founded by two activists who were on the payroll of the U.S. Health and Human Services Dept. One was an evangelical, Robert Weaver, who his colleague, Arina Grossu, described in an interview with the Jan. 6 committee as having been in contact with Stewart Rhodes (Oathkeepers) and other far right figures. In the same interview, Grossu, a conservative Catholic described herself as working to get Catholic speakers for the event. Btw, Michael Flynn, conservative Catholic, was present at the March.
The article describes Trump’s Health and Human Services Dept. as a hotbed of activity to restrict reproductive and LGBTQ rights.
Grusso has written for Tim Busch’s National Catholic Register, a conservative Catholic publication. Her writing can be found on-line. One of the descriptors associated with her is, “true feminism.”
The author of MSNBC’s article speculates in her piece about why the religious get a pass and provides illustration.
Thank you. I wonder if Utah would have passed the voucher bill if they hadn’t been in such a dang rush and this had come out. Probably yes, but man, I wish I had been able to stick this article in the legislators’ faces
If teachers can’t teach kids to be gay, then they can’t teach them to be Nazis.
Where are teachers teaching students to be gay?
Name a school and name the teachers.
The purpose of the network described is to teach Nazism and admiration for Hitler.
Kids can learn to be Nazis if that’s all they are exposed to.
In my day that’s exactly what we did, to learn to be happy! Blissfully, even!
The “don’t worry” part didn’t happen until I was in college.
We have fought wars against people like Chuck Jordan.
Of course teachers are not teaching kids to be gay. That is why education must be free and transparent. I don’t believe there are schools where teachers are teaching kids to be Nazis. Parents maybe.
Funny how traitorous fascist Nazis now depend on vacuuming up public dollars to promulgate their vile white Christian Nationalism. They would be apoplectic thinking that their tax money was being used to educate jihadists or – perish the thought – agnostics and atheists. When does the Russia RepubliQan Time Machine return us to the 1790s to pass the “Fugitive Trans Act”?
We can agree that ESAs are literally public mad money, and a very bad, horrible idea. Sending unaccountable public dollars to some parents under the pretense of “education” makes little sense. This process is guaranteed to be rife with waste and fraud, with or without Nazi propaganda.
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/01/politicians-education-officials-condemn-ohio-couple-who-run-neo-nazi-home-school-group-on-telegram.html