Nebraska was one of the few states that managed to resist privatization. But it is a well-known fact that the privatization industry cannot tolerate any state that devotes its resources to public schools open to all students. Nebraska had no charter schools, no vouchers, no Common Core, and no grounds for dissatisfaction: its scores on NAEP are strong.
But Nebraska is a red state, and the billionaires could not leave it be.The legislature passed a voucher bill, and Nebraska’s Stand for Children will fight to get it on a state referendum, as they are confident that Nebraskans will reject vouchers. That’s a good bet, as vouchers have never won a state referendum.
We have some very bad news to share with you, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it: Our legislature has passed Nebraska’s first school privatization bill.
Just a while ago, 33 senators voted to pass LB 753. But we aren’t deterred; we’re determined. Over 300,000 students attend a public school in Nebraska. And there are hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans who, like us, support public schools and will stand up for what’s right.
If you’re one of those Nebraskans (and we think you are), please support our work today for Give To Lincoln Day. A gift of $20 or more will send the school privatizers a strong message: NOT IN NEBRASKA.
Right now, somewhere not in Nebraska, DeVos and other billionaires who backed this bill are undoubtedly celebrating. Our state was one of the last to fall for their privatization schemes.
And fall we will, if Governor Pillen signs LB 753 into law. The conventional notion that public dollars should be invested in the common good and in common schools will, at that point, only be true in North Dakota, where the governor recently vetoed an eerily similar piece of legislation.
While the mega-donors like DeVos break open their champagne, our team at Stand For Schools is still hard at work – fighting to advance public education in Nebraska for ALL and getting fired up for the Support Our Schools Nebraska effort.
Please support our work today with a gift of $20 or more for Give To Lincoln Day. We can honestly say we’ve never needed your help more than we do today. Our team is ready to win this fight – whether it’s in a courtroom or at the ballot box – but we can’t do it without you.
Copyright © 2023 Stand For Schools, All Rights Reserved
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 95166
Lincoln, NE 68509
Here is Stand for Schools statement, released today:
Today’s passage of LB 753 marks a dark new era for schooling in Nebraska.
The Legislature’s Education Committee considered proposals this year to make school lunches free, broadly prohibit discrimination, include student voices in curriculum decisions, and increase the poverty allowance in TEEOSA. But instead of improving the schools that serve 9 out of 10 children in our state, instead of addressing the needs of over300,000 students attending Nebraska public schools, 33 senators chose todayto prioritize giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations by sending tax dollars to unaccountable private schools.
They did so despite overwhelming and constantly mounting evidence that the implementation of tax-credit voucher schemes does not improve access to private schools or academic outcomes but rather marks the beginning of a devastating dismantling and defunding of public education, as it has in dozens of other states.
Policymakers who voted to pass LB 753 made the wrong choice. Statewide polling consistently shows a strong majority of Nebraskans firmly oppose school privatization measures. From Omaha to Ogallala, and Spencer to Sidney, Nebraskans take pride in our public schools because we know they are the head and heart of our urban and rural communities.
Like our fellow Nebraskans, Stand For Schools remains committed to a vision of public education that is welcoming to all students regardless of their race, religion, gender, or ability. Realizing that vision is neither easy nor politically expedient. It is, for instance, far easier to lean on out-of-state bill mills and think tanks than it is to grow our own nonpartisan solutions to nonpartisan Nebraska problems. It is far easier to demonize the education professionals who work hard in our public schools every day than it is to address crisis-level staff shortages by recruiting and retaining the qualified teachers and school psychologists our students need. It is far easier to restrict the ability of school districts to raise revenue than to finally, fully fund our K-12 public education system. And it is far easier to offload the duties of educating the next generation of Nebraskans to unaccountable private schools than to do the hard work of providing a free, fair, equitable, and excellent public school system that works for all.
Today, 33 senators chose what was easy over what was right. The consequences of their decision will be far-reaching and long-lasting. The hours the Legislature spent debating LB 735 will not compare to the years it will take to undo the damage done to public schools and the harm caused to students, their families, and their communities.
Thankfully, there are hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans who aren’t afraid of hard work, who are undeterred by today’s decision and determined to make it right. Stand For Schools is proud to join them. Together with the Support Our Schools Nebraska coalition, we will work to put LB 753 on the 2024 ballot and ensure voters’ voices are heard: Not in Nebraska.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder how much $ has been and will be donated to the 33 senators.
exactly
I don’t know about the campaign money but, I know the Nebraska Catholic Conference is all in for school choice. IMO, the goal of school choice is to diminish the career that has lifted the most women into financial independence. Taking away women’s agency by eliminating teachers unions and their retirement, fits with both libertarians and the wealthy right wingers in the politicized Catholic Church.
In some states, the Catholic Conferences co-host school choice rallies with the Koch’s AFP.
U.S. Sen. Ricketts is on the Lumen Christi board, a Catholic organization at free market, University of Chicago.
In Ohio, the overwhelming amount of voucher money goes to Catholic schools.
Taxpayers have been forced by politicians to create the 3rd largest U.S. employer- Catholic organizations. The right wing Catholic judges on SCOTUS decided to exempt religious schools from civil rights employment law. And, the other organizations will be next. We all know that women are prohibited from the leadership positions in the Church hierarchy.
Leonard Leo, Catholic, is credited with the appointments of the right wing judges through his leadership of the Federalist Society.
The content of Mary Jo McConahay’s new book, “Playing God…” will deliver a shock to many readers.
The Executive Director of the Colorado Catholic Conference was formerly with EdChoice and the Koch network.
The Deformers never run out of money to throw at their zombie initiatives, alas. Fail, fail, fail, and fail again.
More legislation should be done by referenda.
I don’t think legislation should be done by referenda, but I do think referenda are very valuable in stopping laws that lack public support. Like the Kansas referendum on abortion, which protected the state constitution and a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.
Arizona had a referendum on voucher legislation, which showed overwhelming opposition to vouchers.
The legislature ignored the referendum and passed a new voucher law.
But referenda would not have stopped those laws if those laws weren’t proposed in referenda.
FLERP, I don’t understand what you are saying. In Arizona, the lege passed a voucher law. Parents and teachers got enough signatures to put it on the ballot and the law was overturned, by 65-35%. The Koch-funded lege passed a new voucher law. The opponents didn’t have the money to fight it again at the ballot box. They would have won again.
I’m saying referenda are good.
Diane I am all the way over here in California, so I know little or nothing about Nebraska politics. But I had to wonder on reading this note about how concerted the movement seems, sort of like it is moving through legislatures in all states from a single source or coalition of like-minded sources . . . does it sound to you like an organization like ALEC would write and pass out like directions to Republican legislators? “Legislative Exchange Council”?
I sound to myself like a conspiracy theorist, but I did wonder about it. CBK
This sounds like ALEC, or some other Koch-DeVos group. Note the people in Alaska pointed to an eerily similar bill in another state.
Diane I think more and more people are “getting” it . . . that there is input of huge amounts of anti-public money from various oligarchs like Koch, Devos, Musk, and different groups into advertising and campaigns buying Republican bagmen and puppets, and who have those private meetings we often hear about, as if expensive cars, jets, and pricey hotels can somehow make their utter depravity go away.
But the smell of multi-state orchestration and timing of “introduced” legislation sounds like a new level of planning to me. It feels like the opposition is finally waking up (no pun intended) but is only reacting to it in a whack-a-mole sort of way.
As a relevant aside, I watched a long biographical interview with Richard Branson on BBC the other day; and the interviewer asked him about how he feels about paying more taxes or “his share.” Branson rattled off a few large dollar amounts saying how much he has paid and, at first, I thought, gee that does sounds like a lot of money.
Then I realized (again) that the issue in the smaller picture IS dollars; however, the issue in the larger picture of how the rich turn their money into political power, and how political power turns into keeping the status quo in place; or worse, it becomes cancerous to them and a drug for those whom they bribe or purchase so that
(1) the money keeps flowing more and more in their direction SYSTEMATICALLY NOW;
(2) the rich make a tribe of themselves shutting out others even from being human. It’s about struggling just to live decently, but it’s like slave owners in the South who kept slaves ignorant and then say: “Look, they are too ignorant to vote.”
(3) they use whatever taxes and gifts they do make to cover CYA their moral depravity and assuage their conscience; and
(4) whatever we have left to call “culture” becomes so saturated with the love of money that we’ve forgotten the larger context of what culture is all about; and what we used to assume about the good has lost its power to move people and is, at best, a cliche from days gone by.
I do believe the core is still there; but it’s so beat-up and tired from trying to claw our way back from the downward spiral that we can hardly recognize it anymore. CBK
Scary, CBK
Definitely, let’s put these guys in charge in America:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/disaster-desantis-musk-twitter-announcement-repeatedly-crashes-shuts-down-before-it-even-starts/ar-AA1bEamA?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=aca238ca2b2144d5b0018d76825d3cc0&ei=49
Karma
Poor Ronnie. If Elon Musk cannot get good service, who can?
EPPC, 3-17-2022
“Poll Finds Soaring Support for School Choice”
EPPC and ALEC, are they different?
Staff at EPPC are credited with the roll-out of the anti-woke campaign across states.