The Arkansas Legislature, controlled by Republicans, passed Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders “education” bill, dubbed LEARNS, which authorizes vouchers. The first two hearings were held during school hours. The bill sailed through the legislature. The third hearing, where students were able to attend, was limited to a six-page amendment.
Students found clever ways to work around her brusque treatment but their objections were ignored.
“I’m sorry, you just don’t get to talk on the bill,” English told the students. “If you want to talk on this amendment, specifically things that are in this amendment, you’re free to do that, but you cannot speak on the bill….”
“I’d like to speak on the amendments, and how they do not go far enough to tear down and decimate this bill,” said student Ethan Walker, over repeated interruptions by English. “These petty little wording rearrangements don’t do anything to address how bad this bill actually is….”
Another student, sophomore Rhone Kuta, worked around English’s objections by referencing a specific line on a specific page, as the Republican chair repeatedly interrupted him.
“Where it deletes ‘and’ and substitutes ‘or,’ the reasons I believe this amendment is bad is, this should actually say we are deleting the voucher program on section 63 because the voucher program absolutely reallocates resources from the working class Americans and Arkansans and reallocates it to the upper class,” Kuta said.
The students showed themselves to be far more intelligent than their elected officials. They were treated shamefully. The bill was a fair accompli.
If you do only one thing today at my request, please watch the video in the Alternet post, where you will see an adult bullying high school students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She’s like a bad sub, who can’t get kids to do the work left to them by their teacher, so she asserts authority that, in truth, she lacks.
Huckabee-Sanders and the GOP are on a roll in Arkansas for bad bills that treat young people with contempt. When it was discovered that migrant children as young as thirteen were cleaning up at a meat packing plant and handling bloody blades and caustic materials, instead of protecting the children, Arkansas changed the law so than teenagers can work in dangerous occupations such as factories and construction.https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-huckabee-sanders
What is Jane English so preternaturally terrified of that she has to repeatedly cut off these students from even taking a breath?! THE TRUTH. If English heard just 5 minutes of the truth, her head would probably explode and she would combust into a blazing inferno.
lol
Reiterating Diane’s request that you click on the link and watch the video. The students are great (and so is the state school board member).
It could have been a “teachable moment.” Instead, it showed students how autocracy works.
I hope they get determined, not discouraged, by her high-handed treatment.
It should be a teachable moment – shown in every high school current events lesson in Arkansas and elsewhere.
And in Missouri – competing to be in the top 3 with Texas and Florida – one of many “parents rights” House bills includes:
“No school or school employee shall compel a teacher or student to discuss public policy issues of the day”
Ah, a ban on current events and show-and-tell
So no more civics classes in Missouri! No more history either?
Bring back the history books of the 1950s, which taught only the “good” side of the past.
To be fair, the 1950s history books didn’t have to cover Viet Nam war, Watergate, W’s war for WMD.
One behavior of ignorant, theofascist loving MAGA RINO Republicans is their ability to complain every chance they get about alleged censorship of what they say or write, while really censoring everyone that doesn’t agree with what they want.
To them, censorship means just disagreeing with them. They want their voice to be the only voice that’s heard.
Hypocrisy and duplicity-
HB 1626 which mandated a course- an academic study of the Bible- if students requested it, was introduced in Arkansas in 2019.
In a public letter of opposition addressed to Jane English, research by Dr. Mark Chancey of SMU was cited. He found “most Bible courses advocate an ideological agenda that is hostile to religious freedom, science and public education itself.”
If Arkansas students want to advance theocracy, they are encouraged to speak but, not, otherwise.
The course SHOULD be “An academic study of the Bible and how it has been used to limit religious freedom, science, and public education.”
Agree, Mark
Treatment of children –
Recent hearings in Missouri House committees on “parents rights” – aka “don’t say gay” (language copied and pasted from Florida) have allowed student testimony. I give them credit for that allowing every student who attended to speak to completion – mostly students who are trans It has been compelling. Some stories of teachers who support, respect, and listen in schools that support, respect, and listen – and and stories of depression and suicide.
The Washington Post recently did a story on three religious leaders who have taken on the resistance testifying at hearings weekly. (Which prompted a fox news attack on one of them).
The Post story includes this:
“The Democrats had been welcoming, and more moderate Republicans had been willing to listen. But on previous trips, some lawmakers and staff members had asked the children about their genitals, unapologetically used the wrong pronouns and offered to help them if they ever felt they needed protection from their parents.”
Now OHIO! Ohio’s State Senate voted 3/10 to “ease”child labor laws & push back how late 14- & 15-year-olds can work to 9 pm from 7 pm during school year.
Federal regs bar 14- & 15-year-olds from working after 7 during school year. Fed regs should prevail over state regs. Ohio lawmakers think sacrificing Ohio children on the Altar Of Profit will appease the gods of Wall Street.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/03/10/bill-extending-child-work-hours-passes-ohio-senate/
The red states that have anti-abortionists as the majority in the legislatures are theocracies and they do what the Koch political machine wants.
The Charles Koch Foundation grant to Harvard which began in 2020 and continues into 2024 is posted on line. One item of interest is “up to $1,016,255″ of costs and expenses for the EdNext Journal.” One of the Harvard people who is an author at EdNext is M Danish Shakeel. He’s co-written with Patrick Wolfe -expected themes- positive about vouchers. He also co-wrote a book with Robert Marano, “Education Believers, Religion and School Choice.” The book description at Rutledge Taylor and Francis Group follows, “Religion is one of the most important aspects of human life, likely hard-wired in human beings and intimately intertwined with schooling.”
In a comment thread for a different post, I noted an example of the Koch network’s embrace, on U.S. shores, of the dominant religious sect (conservative) in the Middle East. Pair that with the well-known connections Charles Koch has to Catholic University and the right wing segment of Catholics and the outcome is clear.
The losers are democracy, the rights of women and LGBTQ and, there will be huge income disparity guaranteed by policy and law.
Harvard University’s reputation is toast unless you like colonialism.
It’s Maranto not Marano. I thought at first you might have been referring to R. Marzano, he of “intelligent” white board fame.
““Religion is one of the most important aspects of human life, likely hard-wired in human beings and intimately intertwined with schooling.””
No, it is not “hard-wired” but is beat into most, around 85% of the US populations’ heads starting at birth. Indoctrination thy name is religious faith beliefs.
Thanks for the correction. Maranto wrote in the WSJ (1-8-2015), “Letting Education and Religion Overlap…Why expanding vouchers to parochial schools is good.”
At Academic Quarterly in June 2019, he wrote, “Gay marriage as status symbol.”
Wikipedia reported that he taught at Villanova University prior to the University of Arkansas.
Linda,
I would love to see a referendum on abortion in every red state.
Agree.
Republican voters want to vote for people who are similar to them- people who share their prejudices, who look like them and sound like them. Legislation that would benefit the constituents, doesn’t factor in.
We’ve witnessed the outcome of voucher referendums. It would be the same with abortion referendums and a woman’s right to vote when it is threatened. Conservative men will commit, long term, to the side that they believe will keep them in superior positions. Organizations like Fordham and Turning Point USA have short shelf lives but, the USCCB has a very long shelf life.
Colonialism is steeped in right wing religion. As long as women support churches and mosques that discriminate against them, change is unlikely.
“The bill received support from the Ohio Restaurant Association and the National Federation of Independent Business’s Ohio chapter, something Schaffer took as a point of pride for the bill.”
Nuff said. Corporate interests will embrace fascism if it adds to their bottom line. These two are as sinister as the NRA.
As I have watched snippets from the congressional “hearings” the past couple of weeks, it is clear that Republicans believe the power of the dais gives them the right to yell and bully. They are so bad at making an argument that their only ploy is to sit behind a counter above those they are questioning and shout at them. There is nothing astute in their observations that are typically void of intellectual value. It is all grievance all the time. Jane English doesn’t seem to have a mastery of debate in English. Perhaps I’m biased, but when I watch AOC, Katie Porter, Jamie Raskin et al, at least they use reason in their argument. I learned very early in my teaching career that yelling at students is a very ineffective strategy to get them to cooperate. At what point will the American public tire of the performative hogwash of these people?