Archives for the month of: May, 2023
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Indiana: Charters and Vouchers Score Big $$ in Legislative Session

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2023 //
5

Indiana blogger Steve Hinnefeld reports on the gains of the billionaire-funded school choice industry in the last session of the Indiana legislature. The Republican dominated state is all in for enriching both charters and vouchers, without any proof of success.

Hinnefeld writes:

Indiana’s private school voucher system was the big winner in the 2023 legislative session, but charter schools came in a close second. They secured sizeable increases in state funding to pay for facilities and transportation, along with – for the first time – a share of local property taxes.

As Amelia Pak-Harvey of Chalkbeat Indiana explains, the success followed an all-out lobbying and PR effort in which charter supporters teamed with voucher proponents. Advocates insist charter schools are public schools, and private schools certainly aren’t. But the joint effort was effective.

The Republican supermajority in the General Assembly rewarded charter schools with:

  • An increase to $1,400 from $1,250 per pupil in “charter and innovation network school grants,” intended to make up for the fact that charter schools haven’t been able to levy property taxes.
  • A new law that says school districts in four counties, Lake, Marion, St. Joseph and Vanderburgh, must share increases in their local property-tax revenue with charter schools.
  • A requirement that districts in the same four counties share with charter schools if their voters pass a referendum to raise property taxes to pay for operating expenses.
  • $25 million in fiscal year 2024 for facilities grants for charter schools. That’s in addition to the “charter and innovation school network grants” listed above.

All told, the budget and student funding formula will provide about $671 million in state funds over the next two years for brick-and-mortar charter schools and another $112 million for virtual charter schools. That doesn’t include the local property tax funding that charter schools in four counties will receive.

House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said at the start of the session that expanding school choice would be a priority. Growing the voucher program was on the table from the start, but it wasn’t until the last day of the session that charter school funding bills took their final shape.

As Chalkbeat reported, a $500,000 campaign by charter supporters, including catchy TV and Facebook ads attributed to the Indiana Student Funding Alliance, certainly helped. The Institute for Quality Education, an Indianapolis organization that promotes vouchers and charter schools, helped pay for the ads. Its political action committee, Hoosiers for Quality Education, gave over $1.3 million to Republican campaigns in 2020-22. Another pro-charter group, Hoosiers for Great Public Schools, gave over $1 million. Arguably no other special interest did more to keep the Statehouse in solid GOP control.

Both PACs are largely funded by out-of-state billionaires: the Walton family of Arkansas for Hoosiers for Quality Education and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings for Hoosiers for Great Public Schools.

The Student Funding Alliance campaign initially focused on getting a share of a planned property-tax operating referendum for Indianapolis Public Schools. IPS dropped plans for the referendum, and the call for “parity” in school funding shifted to the legislature, where it had a ready audience.

Charter schools get about the same per-pupil state funding as district schools. They get more federal money. But they haven’t been able to raise money with property taxes. That will now change for charter schools in the four designated counties, and that’s two-thirds of the charters in the state. By my count, 56 of Indiana’s nearly 100 brick-and-mortar charter schools are in Indianapolis (Marion County) and nine are in Lake County.

In almost every other instance, government entities that levy property taxes – school districts, cities, counties, townships, etc. – can be held accountable via elections. If you don’t like how the school district is spending your tax dollars, you can vote out the school board. That won’t be the case with charter schools, which are privately operated nonprofits with appointed boards.

Expanding school choice was a key part of GOP legislators’ education program, but it wasn’t the only part. The supermajority also passed what the ACLU referred to as a “slate of hate”: laws to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, set the stage for banning books and prosecuting school librarians, ban teaching about sex in early grades, and force schools to out trans kids to their parents.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Deregulation, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Gender, Indiana, Indianapolis, Privatization, Vouchers

NAACP and Others Issue Travel Advisory: Avoid Florida! Bigots Run the State!

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2023 //
19

NPR reported on a warning issued by the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP. Travelers should avoid Florida, where there is a pervasive air of bigotry and easy access to guns. The warning nearly coincided with Ron DeSantis’ declaration of his campaign, on a media platform with billionaire Elon Musk. DeSantis will tout his record of stern opposition to migrants, gays, drag queens, transgender people, Black history, and his unwavering support for censorship and guns.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The NAACP over the weekend issued a travel advisory for Florida, joining two other civil rights groups in warning potential tourists that recent laws and policies championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers are “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”

The NAACP, long an advocate for Black Americans, joined the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights organization, and Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, in issuing travel advisories for the Sunshine State, where tourism is one of the state’s largest job sectors.

The warning approved Saturday by the NAACP’s board of directors tells tourists that, before traveling to Florida, they should understand the state of Florida “devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

Critics say Florida aims to rewrite history by rejecting African American studies

An email was sent Sunday morning to DeSantis’ office seeking comment. The Republican governor is expected to announce a run for the GOP presidential nomination this week.

Florida is one of the most popular states in the U.S. for tourists, and tourism is one of its biggest industries. More than 137.5 million tourists visited Florida last year, marking a return to pre-pandemic levels, according to Visit Florida, the state’s tourism promotion agency. Tourism supports 1.6 million full-time and part-time jobs, and visitors spent $98.8 billion in Florida in 2019, the last year figures are available.

DeSantis’s efforts to exclude migrants may hurt Florida more than the boycott. Will the tourism industry have the staff it needs for hotels and restaurants? Will the agricultural industry have enough laborers to pick crops?

DeSantis’s war on teaching accurate, factual history about American history, his demands for book banning, and his support for vouchers for every student in the state, even those already in private schools, degrades education and intelligence in Florida.

DeSantis is running on a platform of hate, bigotry, and disunity. Let’s see how that plays.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, Curriculum, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Religion, Republicans, Vouchers

North Carolina: Governor Cooper Declares a “State of Emergency” for Public Schools Due to Passage of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2023 //
15

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency for the state’s public schools after the General Assembly passed a universal voucher bill.

Universal vouchers provide a public subsidy to every student in the state, no matter what their family income or where they go to school. In other states, most voucher recipients already are enrolled in private and religious schools. North Carolina adopted a plan that ensures public money for rich kids in private and religious schools.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper declared Monday that “public education in North Carolina is facing a state of emergency” in the face of “extreme legislation” being promoted by Republican state lawmakers.

In a video posted online Monday, Cooper said GOP lawmakers will “starve public education” and “drops an atomic bomb on public education” with plans to further cut taxes and increase funding for private school vouchers.

He said the public needs to speak out against the changes before they’re adopted in the state budget. “It’s clear that the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education,” Cooper said. “I am declaring this state of emergency because you need to know what’s happening.

“If you care about public schools in North Carolina, it’s time to take immediate action and tell them to stop the damage that will set back our schools for a generation.”

Cooper’s speech comes as Republican legislative leaders are negotiating a state budget deal for the next two years. The GOP has a legislative supermajority, so it can adopt a spending plan and other legislation without needing Cooper’s support.

The governor will hold public events across the state in the days ahead to call on parents, educators and business leaders to speak against the GOP proposals, the Associated Press reported.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article275659111.html#storylink=cpy

Here’s another version of the story that is not behind a paywall:

Cooper said extreme GOP legislation could cost the state’s public schools hundreds of millions of dollars, exacerbate a stubborn teacher shortage and bring political culture wars to classrooms.

He lashed out Senate Bill 406, a bill to expand the state’s school voucher program. Under the proposal, even the state’s wealthiest families would qualify for what are known as “opportunity scholarships” to help pay for private schools. The voucher program was created a decade ago to help low-income families escape low-performing districts and schools.

“Their private school voucher scheme will pour your tax money into private schools that are unaccountable to the public and can decide which students they won’t to keep out,” Cooper said. “They want to expand private school so that anyone, even a millionaire, can get taxpayer money for their children’s private academy tuition.”

Voucher critics complain that the private schools that receive taxpayer money engage in religious indoctrination and exclusion, discriminate against LGBTQ students and parents, and are not held accountable for academic outcomes the way charter schools and traditional public school are.

They also contend that vouchers divert money and other resources from already underfunded public schools. Under the proposed legislation, annual spending on private school vouchers would steadily increase until it reaches $500 million by the 2031-32 school year.

The voucher legislation was defended by turncoat legislator Tricia Cotham, who switched parties to give the hard-right Republicans a super-majority in both houses of the General Assembly:

Meanwhile, voucher supporters such as Rep. Tricia Cotham, a Republican from Mecklenburg County, contend that expanding the voucher program will help families that decide that public schools aren’t the best fit for their children. Cotham, a former Democrat who switched parties in March, co-sponsored a House bill with the same language.

On Monday, Cotham tweeted that Cooper is “advocating for systems rather than students themselves…”

Cooper also took aim at the Senate’s teacher pay raise proposal, which he said will only increase veteran teachers’ salaries $250 over two years. There are currently 5,000 teaching vacancies, he said.

“Two hundred and fifty bucks,” Cooper said. “That’s a slap in the face and it will make the teacher shortage worse.”

The Senate recently released a budget calling for a 4.5% average teacher pay raise over two years. The budget would bump starting teacher pay to $39,000 annually. First year teachers currently earn $37,000 a year.

Cooper’s budget includes an 18% teacher raise over the biennium. The budget approved by the House in April called for raises of 10.2% over the two-year budget cycle. Teachers would receive a 5.5% pay increase the first year, with the remainder coming in year two.

Cooper also said Republican lawmakers want to accelerate tax cuts that are projected to cut North Carolina’s state budget by almost 20%, which will hamstringing the state’s ability to pay for public education.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, North Carolina, Privatization, Vouchers

Texas: Bill to Require Ten Commandments in Classrooms Fails

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2023 //
48

The New York Times reported that the Texas legislature did not pass the bill to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. It had already passed in the State Senate, but was not taken to a vote in the House, which meant it died. Maybe the theocrats will bring it back next time.

A push to inject religion into public schools across Texas faltered on Tuesday after the State House failed to pass a contentious bill that would have required the Ten Commandments to be displayed prominently in every classroom.

The measure was part of an effort by conservative Republicans in the Legislature to expand the reach of religion into the daily life of public schools. In recent weeks, both chambers passed versions of a bill to allow school districts to hire religious chaplains in place of licensed counselors.

But the Ten Commandments legislation, which passed the State Senate last month, remained pending before the Texas House until Tuesday, the final day to approve bills before the session ends next Monday. Time expired before the legislation could receive a vote.

The bills appeared aimed at testing the openness of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to re-examining the legal boundaries of religion in public education. The court sided last year with a Washington State football coach, Joseph Kennedy, in a dispute over his prayers with players at the 50-yard line, saying he had a constitutional right to do so…

“Forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments is part of the Christian Nationalist crusade to compel all of us to live by their beliefs,” said Rachel Laser, the president and chief executive of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy group. She pointed to new laws in Idaho and Kentucky permitting public school employees to pray in front of students, and a bill in Missouri allowing elective classes on the Bible. “It’s not just in Texas,” she said.

Categories Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas

Texas: Legislature Votes Tonight Whether to Post Ten Commandments in Every Classroom in the State

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2023 //
114

People of deep faith don’t usually try to impose their beliefs on others. They don’t jump on platforms to salute their own piety. In Texas, some folks who have shown little or no compassion for the needy, who have scorned the tenets of their own religion, want to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom across the state. That way, no one will every break any of them, right? No one will covet what others have, no one will commit adultery, etc., etc.

Michelle Boorstein writes in the Washington Post about the growing demand in Texas to flaunt the symbols of religion. The legislature votes tonight on posting the Ten Commandments. This is the same legislature that allows anyone to carry a deadly weapon and refuses to protect the lives of innocents. Massacre after massacre in schools, bars, and residential neighborhoods, but nothing to protect people from killers. Hypocrites!

The legislature will vote in a few hours, or the proposal dies.

AUSTIN — Texas lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state, part of a newly energized national effort to insert religion into public life.

Supporters believe the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in favor of a high school football coach who prayed with players essentially removed any guardrails between religion and government.

The bill, which is scheduled Tuesday for the House floor, is one of about a half-dozen religion bills approved this session by the Texas Senate, including one that would allow uncertified chaplains to replace trained, professional counselors in K-12 schools.

Texas’ biennial legislative session is short, chaotic and packed, and it was not certain Monday whether the Ten Commandments bill would definitely get a vote Tuesday. If it doesn’t by midnight, it’s dead for the session. But groups that watch church-state issues say efforts nationwide to fund and empower religion — and, more specifically, a particular type of Christianity — are more plentiful and aggressive than they have been in years. Americans United for Separation of Church and State says it is watching 1,600 bills around the country in states such as Louisiana and Missouri. Earlier this year, Idaho and Kentucky signed into law measures that could allow teachers and public school employees to pray in front of and with students while on duty.

Many legislators cite the Supreme Court’s June ruling in favor of Coach Joe Kennedy of Bremerton, Wash., who prayed with his players on the 50-yard-line. They see the Supreme Court as righting the American ship after a half-century of wrongly separating church and state.

“There is absolutely no separation of God and government, and that’s what these bills are about. That has been confused; it’s not real,” said Texas state Sen. Mayes Middleton (R), who co-sponsored or authored three of the religion bills. “When prayer was taken out of schools, things went downhill — discipline, mental health. It’s something I heard a lot on porches when I was campaigning. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time.”

Those who object to the bills say they reflect a country that is tipping into a new, dangerous phase in its church-state balance, with people in power who want to assert a version of Christian dominance.

If the Founding Fathers wanted the new nation to be a Christian nation, the Constitution they drafted would say so. But it specifically says that there must be freedom of religion, the freedom to practice any religion or no religion. And the Constitution says there shall be no “establishment” of religion. That clearly means that the state shall not sponsor or favor any religion.

Texas is at war with the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.

Categories Education Reform, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas

Montana: MAGA Governor Signs Two Charter Schools Laws, Public School Groups Fight Back

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2023 //
11

Governor Greg Gianforte of Montana—a hard-right Republican best known for punching out a journalist during his campaign—signed two charter school laws. Public education groups, including representatives of rural schools, are furious.

Retired teacher and librarian Dana Carmichael, who lives in Whitefish, Montana, explains “the real agenda” behind the charter legislation:

Critics of Montana public schools, are recycling student achievement boogeymen and offering charter schools as the solution. In cities where charter school enrollment is the highest, based on percentage of total school populations, there is no significant change in reading or math scores. In fact, Montana scores statewide are higher than these charters in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Antonio, Detroit, and D.C. If these charters are the benchmark, our public education exceeds it.

The largest communities in Montana already have alternative high schools and private schools. Public schools of all sizes also have access to Montana Digital Academy and other online course offerings. Scholarships are more prevalent than ever with legislative rules changes for private and corporate tax incentives for donations up to two million dollars….

Another article by “Rural Ed Voices” thinks charter schools can positively impact rural areas, and holds up Idaho charter schools as examples. They highlight a school created to teach native language as a shining star for the Shosone-Bannock tribe. But Montana tribes already have native language programs in public school classrooms. A STEM school is believed to be successful because they cut transportation and food service costs by attending four days per week. Sound familiar?

Many of our rural schools currently have four-day weeks. So why the big push for charter schools? The real agenda is to undermine the tenure protections and teachers’ retirement system, as charter schools would not participate in either of these systems. Our private schools already eschew these protections, which is why salaries lag behind their public employee counterparts.

Fewer rules and regulations might be what charter proponents want you to buy, but HB-562 wants to create a new government entity called the Community Choice School Commission, (p. 1, line 24). All seats would be appointed one for one by the governor, house majority and minority speakers, senate majority and minority speakers, and the state superintendent of schools. Notice how the majority of these appointees would be beholden to officials elected by individual voting districts?

And what of the existing Office of Public Instruction and the Board of Public Education? If state tax dollars are being used for charter schools capable of contracting with for-profit “entrepreneurial education” shouldn’t these schools be responsible to the current oversight structure of our public schools? Even our registered homeschools report to county superintendents.

If this rule is adopted by the Senate, I believe charter schools will become exclusive entities within our communities. But exclusivity does not mean better, as the charter experiment bears out in 44 other states. We know how to improve schools. Our local school boards have the power to create smaller class sizes at all grade levels and help raise standards of excellence for students and teachers. Private citizens can run for these boards or volunteer with early grades to help close gaps in reading and math skills. Let’s strengthen our communities to strengthen our schools.

Looking for a silver bullet to “fix” schools ignores the interconnectedness of communities. Schools mirror where they exist. The real solutions are to help families with jobs/wages that root them to the community and combat the poverty cycle too often to blame for trouble in the schools.

Investing in education is a good thing. Creating country club schools is not.

Despite her good advice and common sense, the legislature passed the two bills into law and the governor signed them.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Montana, Privatization

Mississippi: Transgender Girl Missed Her Graduation Ceremony Rather Than Be Humiliated

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2023 //
46

After a federal judge told a transgender girl that she had to dress as a boy for her graduation ceremony, the senior skipped the event.

L.B., as she was known in court, had been dressing as a girl for the four years of high school. The school told her she would not be allowed to participate unless she dressed as a boy. The ACLU of Mississippi went to court on her behalf. Her request was rejected by the judge, a Trump appointee.

Categories Bigotry, Freedom, Gender, Mississippi

UFT: Hold Charter Schools Accountable!

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2023 //
5

Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers released a statement calling for charter school accountability. Charter schools have a well-funded lobbying operation in New York. Their lobby has won significant victories, like forcing the City of New York to pay for private rentals for charters, even when the charter corporation owns the building! You can be sure the lobbyists will be working overtime to kill every accountability measure proposed here.

A sponsored message from the United Federation of Teachers

It’s time to hold charter schools accountable

By Michael Mulgrew

Now that the overdue state budget has been resolved, it’s time for the Legislature to turn its attention to a major issue in state education policy — the lack of accountability and transparency in the state’s charter schools.

Charter schools in New York State received more than $3 billion a year in taxpayer dollars without any real accountability about how they spend the public money or repercussions when many act like private schools and exclude the state’s most vulnerable students.

It’s time for Albany to pass a legislative package to bring real oversight to the charter sector.

The Accountability and Transparency bill, sponsored by Sen. Brad Holman-Sigal and Assembly Member Michael Benedetto, would require charters to demonstrate actual financial need in order to get free public space or rental subsidies.

Charters would have to disclose their assets, and any school with $1 million or more would be ineligible for such assistance. The bill would also cap the salaries of charter officials.

In addition, the measure would ensure that charter schools enroll and retain the same percentage of the most vulnerable children — English language learners and special education students, among others — as the public school district where they are located.

The bill would withhold funding from charters that fail to enroll appropriate numbers of these students, and meeting these targets would become a key component of any charter renewal decisions. Repeated failure to meet reporting requirements would be grounds for termination of a charter.

The Grade Expansion bill, sponsored by Sen. Shelley Mayer and Assembly Member Benedetto, would prevent charters from expanding their grade levels without any substantial review of their operations.

Under current law, charters originally authorized to offer kindergarten to fifth grade can add middle school grades, and even eventually high school levels, by simply applying for a revision of their current authorization. Under this bill, each expansion would require the same level of scrutiny as a new authorization.

The Charter Authorizer bill, sponsored by Sen. John Liu and Assembly Member Benedetto, would address the current imbalance between charter school authorizers that allows some schools to evade strict licensing standards.

Under current law, the state’s Board of Regents, local school districts, and the State University of New York (SUNY) can all authorize the creation of a charter school, but only the Regents can actually issue a charter.

When the Regents review a charter request, they can order changes in the charter’s operating plan to ensure that the school meets the needs of its students and complies with state law. In most circumstances, no charter will actually be issued until the charter’s sponsors meet the Regents’ requirements.

But the SUNY Trustees are in effect permitted to disregard the Regents’ demands and have allowed the renewal of charters with high numbers of uncertified teachers or low numbers of students with disabilities or English language learners.

The charter school movement began with bold promises of remaking the educational landscape. The reality is that charters’ “success” has mostly come at the expense of public school children and families.

Some charter chains have built up huge reserves from private donations, pay inappropriate salaries to their executives, and yet still demand public space and resources. These demands are particularly infuriating from charters that manage to evade requirements to enroll the neediest students even as they divert huge resources from public institutions.

Charter schools claim to be public schools and suck up huge sums of public money. But real public schools serve all students, and meet stringent requirements of law and regulation. It’s time to start holding charter schools to the same standards.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Equity, Harlem Success Academy, New York, New York City

Mississippi: Federal Judge Orders Trans Girl to Wear Boys’ Clothing at Graduation

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2023 //
10

School officials in a Mississippi high school told a graduating senior that she must wear boys’ clothing at her high school graduation; if she didn’t, she would not be permitted to participate in the ceremony. The girl is transgender and has worn girls’ clothing for the four years of high school. The mother sued with the legal help of the Mississippi ACLU. The Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the trans girl to wear boys’ clothing.

The Mississippi Free Press reported:

A federal judge ruled late Friday evening that the Harrison County School District can prohibit a 17-year-old transgender girl from attending her graduation Saturday unless she dresses in attire designated for boys, the Sun Herald’s Margaret Baker reported.

U.S. District Court Judge Taylor McNeel issued the ruling after hours of testimony from the Harrison Central High School senior and school district officials. Former President Donald Trump appointed the conservative judge to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2020.

“The court’s decision to uphold the school district’s explicit discrimination of our client is deeply disappointing and concerning,” the ACLU of Mississippi responded in a Twitter thread this morning. “Our client should be focused on celebrating this life milestone alongside her friends and loved ones. Instead, this ruling casts shame and humiliation on a day that should be focused on joy and pride. All Mississippi students should have the right and autonomy to be who they are—not who judges and school officials think they should be…”

“On May 9, 2023—less than two weeks before graduation day, Defendants informed Plaintiff L.B. that she could not attend or participate in her high school graduation ceremony while wearing a dress and heeled shoes,” says a complaint the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on Thursday.

“Defendants based this instruction on the HCHS gender-based dress code policy for graduation, which provides that girls must wear a white dress and dress shoes and that boys must wear a white button-down shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a tie or bowtie,” the complaint continues.

“Defendants instructed that L.B. must dress in accordance with her sex assigned at birth—in other words, that L.B. must dress in accordance with the stereotypical male standards, even though she entered high school as a girl and has lived every aspect of her high school career as a girl.

L.B. would be humiliated in the company of her classmates if compelled to dress as a boy after living as a girl for four years. Why should it matter to school officials if she chooses to dress as a girl and her parent(s) permits it. Does her mother have no parental rights?

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Bigotry, Cruelty, Gender, Mississippi

Hanushek Backs Down: Spending on Schools DOES Make a Difference

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2023 //
46

For many years, economist Eric Hanushek has been the most outspoken critic of spending more for schools. He has written books and articles, given lectures, acted as a paid witness at trials in support of that position. His view is that HOW money is spent matters more than adding new money. Conservative politicians love his work because it gives them cover for their policy of underfunding schools.

Matt Barnum wrote an excellent, in-depth article about Hanushek’s long career as a proponent of the view that “money doesn’t matter,” what matters is how it’s spent. Barnum digs deep into Hanushek’s work and the decades-long debate. The upshot based on new research: Money does matter. Every teacher and principal know that; now most economists agree.

Barnum begins:

Eric Hanushek, a leading education researcher, has spent his career arguing that spending more money on schools probably won’t make them better.

His latest research, though, suggests the opposite.

The paper, set to be published later this year, is a new review of dozens of studies. It finds that when schools get more money, students tend to score better on tests and stay in school longer, at least according to the majority of rigorous studies on the topic.

“They found pretty consistent positive effects of school funding,” said Adam Tyner, national research director at the Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. “The fact that Hanushek has found so many positive effects is especially significant because he’s associated with the idea that money doesn’t matter all that much to school performance.”

The findings seem like a remarkable turnabout compared to prior research from Hanushek, who had for four decades concluded in academic work that most studies show no clear relationship between spending and school performance. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and pushed a generation of federal policymakers and advocates looking to fix America’s schools to focus not on money but ideas like teacher evaluation and school choice.

Despite his new findings, Hanushek’s own views have not changed. “Just putting more money into schools is unlikely to give us very good results,” he said in a recent interview. The focus, he insists, should be on spending money effectively, not necessarily spending more of it. Money might help, but it’s no guarantee.

Hanushek’s view matters because he remains influential, playing a dual role as a leading scholar and advocate — he continues to testify in court cases about school funding and to shape how many lawmakers think about improving schools…

Hanushek hammered home this point with the message discipline of a politician and the data chops of an economist. He wrote updated versions of the same academic paper again in 1986 and then in 1989, 1997, and 2003. He also made the case in numerous reports and articles, as well as in testimony in increasingly prevalent school funding lawsuits. In 2000, he became a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank, where he remains based today.

Hanushek’s basic claim was that most studies of school “inputs” — like per-pupil spending, teacher salaries, and smaller class sizes — did not show a clear link between those resources and student outcomes. His 2003 paper showed that only 27% of the findings on spending were positively and significantly related to student performance. “One is left with the clear picture that input policies of the type typically pursued have little chance of being effective,” Hanushek wrote.

But new research has upended the debate.

Money does matter for Hanushek. His testimony does not come cheap:

The new research has not stopped Hanushek’s advocacy work outside of academia. He is still testifying on behalf of states in court cases about whether schools should get more money, including in ongoing lawsuits in Arizona and Maryland. (Recently, he’s been paid $450 an hour for his time in these cases. Jackson was paid $300 an hour as an expert on the other side of the Maryland case.) “More often than not the academic research indicates no significant improvements in student outcomes despite increased funding,” Hanushek wrote last year in an expert report for the Maryland case.

Please open the link and read the article.

It’s refreshing to see this in-depth, informed reporting of an important issue.

Categories Accountability, Economics, Education Reform, Funding
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