Archives for category: Betsy DeVos
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Jeff Bryant: What Betsy DeVos Did While You Were Distracted by Kavanaugh

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2018 //
21

You must always remember that Betsy DeVos is working every day to promote vouchers and charters, no matter what story is in the headlines.

While the nation was obsessed with the crucial battle for control of the Supreme Court for the next generation, DeVos was busy promoting her privatization agenda.

Jeff Bryant has the story here.

We know, for example, that she handed out $399 million to the overfunded charter industry, which is riddled with fraud, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and profiteering. These are matters of no concern to DeVos, who supports the expansion of online charters, which have proven to be frauds, and for-profit schools, which have enabled widespread fraud in Michigan.

Bryant writes:

USDoE recently awarded $399 million in federal grants to expand and support charter schools across the country.

The grants, made through the Charter Schools Program, which has enjoyed a $40 million boost under the Trump administration, went to individual charter school operators and various state education agencies and nonprofit groups that either help secure funding for charters, push for their expansions, or advocate for the charter cause.

Even a cursory scan of some of the recipients warrants deeper scrutiny.

For instance, among three Alabama charter schools that received $1 million each in grant money, two have already been the subjects of multiple lawsuits.

Birmingham charter Legacy Prep – which recently changed its name, postponed its opening date, and has yet to find a building – just settled a messy court case with its founder – a Baptist church pastor – over who had authority over the school’s operations and whether the school’s governing board was properly constituted.

The court settlement follows closely after the Alabama Public Charter School Commission won its effort to overturn the Birmingham district school board’s original denial of the charter’s application. The district board had ruled last year that the school’s application did not meet the requirements of the district’s request for charter proposals.

So now, thanks to DeVos and her department, federal funds are going to a charter school under suspect leadership, with no building, that the district doesn’t want.

Similarly, another Alabama charter with a million dollar grant, University Charter School in Livingston, had to hurdle a lawsuit to open its doors.

In May, the county board that oversees the district filed suit to prohibit the charter’s authorizer from operating the school in a former high school that the district sold to the authorizer with the specific condition not to open a charter school in the building.

Here again, federal dollars are funding a charter startup in a local community that does not want it. So much for DeVos’s promises to curb the “overreach” of the federal government in education.

Supporting Rightwing Cronies

Another charter school grant winner on the list that deserves a closer look is the American Heritage Academy in Idaho.

The school’s founder Frank Vandersloot is a conservative billionaire, with a net worth of $1.9 billion, who was a finance co-chair of Mitt Romney’s 2012 failed presidential campaign and has given money to Florida Republican US Senator Marco Rubio, former Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina, the Republican National Committee, and state Republican parties across the US, according to a report in Forbes.

Vandersloot made national headlines in 2015 when he sued Mother Jones magazine for defamation after the news outlet published an article detailing his efforts to oppose gay rights.

Vandersloot has hosted a closed door meeting with President Trump at the headquarters of his company, Melaleuca. The company – which sells diet, personal care, home cleaning, and cosmetic products – has been compared to Amway, the mega-company DeVos is heiress to, in that it employs a multi-level marketing strategy.

Vandersloot and DeVos are, in fact, connected through their participation in a multi-level marketing trade group that has been active in promoting legislation that attempts to limit the Federal Trade Commission’s ability to investigate and prosecute multi-level marketing scam operations.

All the Things We Don’t Know

None of this is to consider whether Vandersloot’s charter school, or any of the other charter school grantees, may or may not be worthy institutions, but shouldn’t taxpayers know more about why the school deserves our money?

Should we know, for instance, why grant money will go to a North Carolina charter, the Charlotte Lab School, that touts racial diversity in its mission, yet has a student population that is two-thirds white in a district where only 30 percent of the students are white?

Should we know more about why a federal grant is going to a Kansas City charter school, Scuola Vita Nuova Charter School, that is located at an Italian Cultural Center and had to pay $30,000 to former principal who filed lawsuit claiming the school’s founder made her fire her same-sex partner who also worked at the school?

Because of DeVos’s general lack of transparency, what we’re left with, instead of answers, are more questions and a well-founded suspicion that her purpose in office is to purloin as much public money as she can into the hands of private interests while justifying it as a much-needed reform.

Perhaps if there’s a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives after the upcoming midterm elections, there will be inquiries to reveal the inner machinations of DeVos’s department. But in the meantime, she and her associates toil away behind a shroud of scary headlines, and that’s just the way they want it.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: What Happens When Communities Lose Their Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2018 //
30

Jeff Bryant writes that Michigan is the “canary in the mine” for the end result of the Reform movement and its efforts to replace public schools with charter schools.

The rightwing whines about “charter school deserts” where there are no privately managed charters; the real danger to our democracy is the creation of “public school deserts,” where the rich and powerful play games with the lives of children and deny them the right to a public school in their community.

This is a frightening and prophetic report on the destruction wrought by Betsy DeVos, DFER, the neoliberal Center for American Progress, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, and the many other proponents of a “choice” approach to K-12 education:

In Michigan – home state to US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos whose political donations and advocacy for “school choice” and charter schools drastically altered the state’s public education system – some of the state’s largest school districts lose so many students to surrounding school districts and charter schools that the financial viability of the districts seems seriously in question.

According to a new report, more than half of Michigan school districts experienced a net loss in enrollment last year, and the percent of student attrition in many of the state’s large districts is shocking, upwards of 60 to 70 percent.

Can a school district experiencing such losses in student enrollment continue to keep the doors open?

That question should be relevant to education policy leaders beyond Michigan as more states have enacted market-based policies that allow charter schools to proliferate, students to travel outside home districts to other districts, and voucher programs that let parents transfer students to private schools at taxpayer expense (something not yet allowed in Michigan).

Indeed, Michigan may be the canary in the coalmine warning that not only does unrestrained choice and competition fail to improve academic results, it also may risk the financial feasibility of having functioning public schools in every community.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization

Politico: Betsy DeVos’s Security Will Cost Taxpayers $7.7 Million This Year

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2018 //
21

It is understandable that multibillionaire Betsy DeVos needs round-the-clock protection. She makes a lot of people angry.

But why does her security detail cost $7.7 million?

Her brother owns a private military. Maybe he could protect her.

Maybe she could use some of the money she saves not paying taxes by registering her ten yachts in the Cayman Islands to pay for her own security.

Maybe she should dip into her $5 billion fortune and pay for it herself.

Politico reports:

DEVOS’ SECURITY COSTS RUN HIGH: The tab for DeVos’ security detail is projected to cost up to $7.7 million in the 2019 budget year, which started Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service told POLITICO on Tuesday night.

— The Marshals Service said the final cost of protecting DeVos in fiscal 2018 was $6.8 million. That’s more than the $6.5 million officials estimated last year as the maximum for fiscal 2018, which the Education Department deemed a “high water mark” the agency didn’t plan to exceed. The department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

— DeVos’ round-the-clock detail is provided by the Marshals Service, which is highly unusual — the past four Education secretaries have been protected by the agency’s own small security force. Her security detail, ordered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, began in February 2017. The cost of DeVos’ protective detail between February 2017 and September 2017 was $5.3 million — about $2.5 million less than what was projected.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2018/10/03/special-education-case-pits-texas-against-trump-administration-360719

Categories Betsy DeVos

Charles Foster Johnson Barnstorms Across Tennessee to Rally Ministers Against Vouchers

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2018 //
26

Charles Foster Johnson, founder of Pastors for Texas Children, barnstormed across Tennessee, Meeting with like-minded ministers who believe in separation of church and state.

Rev. Johnson organized 2,000 ministers in Texas, and PTC played a significant role in forging an alliance between rural Republicans and urban Democrats to stop vouchers.

“Johnson’s mission is starkly different from church leaders who want public funding available for religious and private schools. He is a fierce advocate of separation of church and state, as well as local control of schools and education funding.

“We want full funding of our public schools, and we are against privatization that diverts God’s common good money to underwrite private schools,” he said. “The public should stay public, and the private should stay private.”

“His advocacy model is being replicated in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi, and now Tennessee, where Johnson is rallying local pastors this week during stops in Knoxville, Nashville, and Pleasant Hill. He’ll close out his tour on Friday at First Baptist Church of Memphis, the city where some Tennessee lawmakers sought last year to create a pilot voucher program. That effort failed, but groups on both sides expect some type of voucher legislation will be introduced next January, when a newly elected General Assembly convenes under a new administration replacing outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.”

Pastors for Tennessee Children will be ready to fight against vouchers.

The support for vouchers comes from the American Federation for Children, an organization funded and founded by Betsy DeVos to promote vouchers. AFC spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in Tennessee at every election, to support voucher-friendly candidates.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Privatization, Tennessee, Vouchers

The Guardian Reports on the Showdown Between the Koch Brothers and the Parents/Teachers of Arizona

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
21

There will be many important elections this fall, with the future of our democracy in the balance.

One of the most notable elections will take place in Arizona, where parents and teachers–organized as SOS Arizona–are facing off against the Koch brothers and the DeVos combine.

The Guardian tells the story here.


Arizona has become the hotbed for an experiment rightwing activists hope will redefine America’s schools – an experiment that has pitched the conservative billionaires the Koch brothers and Donald Trump’s controversial education secretary, Betsy DeVos, against teachers’ unions, teachers and parents. Neither side is giving up without a fight.

With groups funded by the Koch brothers and DeVos nudging things along, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s broadest school vouchers law, state-funded vouchers that are supposed to give parents more school choice and can be spent on private or religiously affiliated schools. For opponents, the system is not about choice but about further weakening the public school system. A half-dozen women who had battled for months against the legislation were angry as hell.

Convinced that the law would drain money from Arizona’s underfunded public schools, these women complained that Arizona’s lawmakers had ignored the public will and instead heeded the wishes of billionaires seeking to build up private schools at the expense of public schools.

“We walked outside the Capitol Building, and we looked at each other, and said, ‘What now?” said one of the women, Dawn Penich-Thacker, a mother of two boys in public school and a former army public information officer. “We had been fighting this for four months. We realized that there’s something we can do about it. It’s called a citizens’ referendum. We said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Little did they know the challenges ahead. They would need 75,321 signatures to get their referendum on the ballot to overturn the law. They formed a group, Save Our Schools, and set out to collect the needed signatures. Opposing lobbyists sneered, saying no way could they do that.

The six women inspired a statewide movement and got hundreds of volunteers to brave Arizona’s torrid summer heat to collect signatures – in parks and parking lots, at baseball games and shopping malls. Their message was that billionaire outsiders were endangering public education by getting Arizona’s legislature – in part through campaign contributions – to create an expensive voucher program.

“We knew something was rotten in the state of Arizona,” said Beth Lewis, a fifth-grade teacher who is president of Save Our Schools. “We drew a line in the sand. We said, ‘We’re not going to let this happen.’” Lewis said Arizona’s schools are so underfunded that some classes have 40 students and her school needs to ask a private citizen to donate money when a teacher needs a set of books for her class.

One study found that Arizona, at $7,613, is the third-lowest state in public school spending per student, while another study found that from 2008 to 2015, school funding per pupil had plunged by 24% in Arizona, after adjusting for inflation – the second-biggest drop in the nation.

Upset that the vouchers law would funnel money toward private schools, Lewis said: “We can’t fund two different school systems. We can hardly afford one.”

Save our Schools submitted 111,540 signatures to the secretary of state in August 2017, but the Koch brothers’ political arm, Americans for Prosperity, sued to block the referendum. A judge dismissed the lawsuit and approved the referendum for 6 November – it’s called Proposition 305. The vote will be closely watched by people on both sides of the debate as the Kochs and DeVos hope to spread the voucher scheme and opponents look to Arizona for clues on how to stop them.

And that’s only the beginning of the story. Read it all. If you live in Arizona, please vote!

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Koch Brothers, Resistance, Vouchers

Michigan: Virtual Schools Grow Despite High Failure Rate

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2018 //
17

The virtual charter industry is booming in Michigan, despite its abysmal performance.

Michigan, DeVos’s home state, has outsourced its education system as much as possible to for-profit entrepreneurs. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters are operated by for-profit corporations.

http://www.wkar.org/post/study-virtual-schools-growing-mi-despite-poor-outcomes#stream/0

According to this report, one-quarter of the 101,000 students attending virtual charters did not pass a single class.

The graduation rate is far below that of public schools.

Michigan’s standing on NAEP has fallen to the bottom 10 since the widespread adoption of school choice.

Michigan is an exemplar of PROFITS MATTER, NOT EDUCATION.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Michigan, Scandals, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools

Arizona: Outgoing State Chief Wants to Adopt Far-Right Christian Standards to Replace State Standards

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
15

Hillsdale is one of the most conservative colleges in the United States. It is one of the very few in the nation that refuses to accept any federal funding, not even for student aid. Betsy DeVos’s brother Erik Prince went to Hillsdale College.

Diane Douglas, the far-right extremist who is currently state superintendent of schools in Arizona, wants to replace the state’s academic standards with a set of standards developed by Hillsdale College.

Douglas came in third in a five-way Republican primary for state superintendent just weeks ago. The winner of the Republican primary was Frank Riggs, who was a Congressman in California and a major supporter of charter schools. The Democratic nominee is Kathy Hoffman, a teacher in Arizona. She is a speech therapist, age 32, who has worked in Arizona public schools for five years. If Riggs is elected, Arizona can expect more charter schools with no accountability or transparency. If Hoffman is elected, it will be a new day for education in Arizona.

This is Diane Douglas’s last effort to inject her Christian worldview into the curriculum in Arizona:

Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas wants to replace Arizona’s academic standards with a set linked to a conservative college in Michigan with connections to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

Douglas is on her way out of office in January. She lost her bid for re-election in the Republican primary to Frank Riggs.

At Monday’s State Board of Education meeting, Douglas is scheduled to present a draft of standards developed by Hillsdale College’s charter school initiative. Hillsdale is a private, Christian college.

Standards are set by the state Board of Education, typically with input from local parents and educators, and guide what public district and charter school students are expected to learn at each grade level.

“(Douglas) believes they’re more robust than the ones that have been developed locally,” Michael Bradley, Douglas’ chief of staff, said.

Connections to Trump, Devos

The Hillsdale set, referred to as the “Barney Charter School Initiative’s Scope and Sequence,” would replace all Arizona academic standards. No other state appears to adhere to the Hillsdale standards. The Barney Charter School Initiative is a project out of Hillsdale that advances the founding of charter schools.

Hillsdale President Larry Arnn is a supporter of President Donald Trump, according to Politico. In 2013, Arnn drew criticism after, in comments to Michigan lawmakers, he said state officials visited Hillsdale’s campus to determine whether enough “dark ones” were enrolled.

Last year, U.S. Senate Democrats blocked a tax break they said was designed exclusively to benefit Hillsdale.

The DeVos family donates to Hillsdale, where the education secretary’s brother, Erik Prince, is an alumnus. Its student body has been designated the second-most conservative in the country, after the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas.

What are academic standards?

Academic standards are the state goals for what a child should know by the end of each grade level.

The state last changed its K-12 math and reading standards in 2016. It is currently revising its science, history and computer science standards.

The revision process is lengthy. The state board initiated the cumbersome process of revising its science and history standards nearly two years ago, according to Cassie O’Quin, an education department spokeswoman.

The Arizona Department of Education brought together experts, teachers, community members and parents to help develop the standards.

On Monday, the department will present the proposed standards. They are expected to be adopted by the state board in October, according to a state timeline.

Douglas’ move to throw out both the existing and the proposed new standards in lieu of an entirely new — and largely obscure — set of standards has puzzled some.

“I’m not sure why she’s doing this,” Carole Basile, dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, said. “It’s kind of like, why these as the standards and why now?”

The Hillsdale standards include numerous differences from those currently in place. They also provide teachers week-by-week lesson prescriptions.

For instance, one of the first references to slavery in the Hillsdale standards is under a second grade Civil War section in a bullet point that reads, “controversy over slavery.” Slavery is first mentioned in the Arizona history standards draft in the fourth grade section.

There are more references to Christianity in the Hillsdale standards than in Arizona’s draft standards. Judaism and Christianity in the sixth grade Hillsdale plan are framed as “lasting ideas from ancient civilization.” One of the bullet points implies an exploration of “the nature of God and humanity” and under Judaism, “the idea of a ‘covenant’ between God and man…”

Bradley said the superintendent looked at standards across the country before settling on the Hillsdale set. He denied the accusations that the Hillsdale set are a curriculum rather than standards…

The move by Douglas drew criticism from Democratic superintendent candidate Kathy Hoffman, who on Facebook encouraged supporters to attend the meeting and protest Douglas’ presentation.

The standards, if adopted, she wrote, “Would be devastating to our students as they represent minimal learning requirements, do not account for different learning styles and would require a new curriculum. Furthermore, it would undermine the countless hours of work put in by teachers and experts.”

The state is at the tail end of reviewing its science standards.

In May, a draft of those proposed standards was circulated that had removed evolution wording.

The American Institute of Biological Scientists, a D.C.-based non-profit dedicated to the biological research advancement, published a letter Sept. 20 asking the State Board of Education to reject the proposed science standards.

Douglas tapped creationist Joseph Kezele, president of Arizona Origin Science Association, to assist in changing Arizona’s science standards in August, as first reported by the Phoenix New Times. The move ushered in a deluge of national criticism.

The Arizona Science Teachers Association, comprised of 1,200 members, criticized the draft science standards in a letter to the state board dated Sept. 20.

The changes in May include removing the word “evolution” in some areas and describing it as a “theory” in others.

In an email to The Republic in May, Douglas wrote, “Evolution is still a standard that will be taught under the Arizona Science Standards.”

A rally against those changes is planned outside the Arizona Department of Education building near the State Capitol before Monday’s board meeting. The Secular Coalition of Arizona is organizing the rally, along with other education advocates.

“It’s almost like a circus, what’s happening now,” Tory Roberg, director of government affairs for the Secular Coalition, said. “These are our children.”

Branch said the decision of an internal review board to revise references to the origin of species through natural selection seemed especially “deliberate” and “problematic” to scientists.

“The whole idea of how a new species can originate was lost in that revision,” he said. “That wasn’t careless. What (creationists) don’t like is the origin of a new species, because it implies that human beings share a common ancestry with other living things.”

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, History, Science

Peter Greene: DeVos Speaks Out Against Trump..and Herself

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2018 //
13

Peter Greene writes here about a speech that Betsy DeVos gave at the National Constitution Center, defending free speech and truth.

“The final stretch of her speech is remarkably like the home stretch of a sermon. Get out from behind your twitter id and recognize you are talking to real, live human beings. We aren’t all saints. DeVos actually admits to having had some bad ideas. She (or someone in her office) turns some nice phrases, like a call for meeting with “open words and open dialogue, not with closed fists or closed minds.” And she calls to embrace a “Golden rule of free speech: seeking to understand as to be understood.”

“There is so much cognitive dissonance to process here. DeVos works for a man who exemplifies the opposite of everything she is saying. And there is very little one can point to in her own conduct, her own filling of the USED office, to show her stated beliefs in action. What exactly has DeVos done to understand the public education system and the people who are committed to what she once called a “dead end.” What has she done to understand the teachers who work in public schools? What has she done to understand any of her critics since she took office? Or, after all these years, is she comfortable in the belief that she knows everything she needs to know about all those things.”

Categories Academic Freedom, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Fake News, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press

Sue Legg: Behind the Scenes in the Battle for Public Schools in Florida

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2018 //
5

Sue Legg is a retired assessment and evaluation expert who worked for three decades at the Florida Department of Education; she is past president of the Alachua County (Florida) League of Women Voters.

She writes:

>Amendment 8 Behind the Scenes: Political ideology, religion, dark money, billionaires, and of course, the money trail

Florida’s 652 charters run the gamut from small ‘mom and pop’ charters to large chains organized by for-profit management companies. Some serve children and districts well. Many others tell different stories. They involve not only political ideology but also religion, dark money networks, billionaires, and of course, self-interest.

The Erika Donalds version of the charter story starts simply. A small group of members seceded from the Florida School Boards Association (FSBA) in 2015 to form the Florida Coalition of School Board Members (FCSBM). Erika Donalds, a member of the Collier County school board and wife of Florida Representative Byron Donalds, fronts this coalition, but the political network behind it is extensive. It goes all the way to our nation’s capital.

About 14 of the 50 alternative school board association members have been publicly identified, including:

Rebecca Negron, who has just been defeated for a seat on the Martin County school board even though her supporters raised over $250,000 to unsuccessfully attack her opponent. She is the wife of Senate President Joe Negron. Senator Negron wrote the initial legislation for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program to give corporate taxes to private schools.

Some FCSBM members also have strong dark money ties to national conservative political advocacy groups.

Erika Donalds openly displays the Americans for Prosperity logo on her Collier 912 Freedom Council website. This is a tea party group supported by the Koch brothers and others.

In the March 29, 2018, article in the Tampa Bay Times, Speaker of the Florida House Richard Corcoran’s wife Ann, who operates her own charter school, is identified.

Shawn Frost, who is Chair of the Indian River school board, is part of this coalition.

He announced in the Indian River Guardian that he expects to be appointed to the Florida State Board of Education. Frost reported campaign contributions from Betsy DeVos, the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Education. In 2014, Frost received $20,000 in campaign contributions from the American Federation of Children run by Betsy DeVos. Frost lives in Vero Beach, but maintains a room in his father’s house in Indian River to meet the residence requirements for being on the school board. He is also the head of MVP Strategy and Policy which specializes in consulting for school board races.

A Duval School Board member Scott Shine has reportedly joined the FCSBM. He withdrew from his 2018 reelection campaign due to ‘personal attacks’.

Sarasota school board members Erik Robinson, a former Republican Party Chairman and Bridgit Ziegler are listed members. Ziegler’s campaign reported $45,000 in donations from the out of state Phoenix Media LLC. According to the Herald Tribune, the money was funneled through a PAC run by fellow board member Erik Robinson, who is often called ‘The Prince of Dark Money’.

Some FCSBM members are collaborating to build a Florida chain of Classical Academy Charters. This isn’t just any group of charter schools. They are sponsored by the Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative. The College, located in Michigan, has a long religious/conservative/libertarian agenda. The DeVos immediate family and close business associates have several Hillsdale graduates. \The Barney (SmithBarney) and Stanton Foundations fund the initiative. There are 17 of these charters nationwide. In Florida, there are four: Mason in Naples, Pineapple Cove in Palm Bay, St. Johns in Fleming Island, and the newly formed Pineapple Cove in West Melbourne. Donalds and her husband have been active with the Mason Classical Academy in Collier County. Donalds is currently seeking to add a Classical Academy in Martin County where Rebecca Negron was running for school board.

Erika Donalds has more than running a charter school on her mind. She was appointed by the governor to the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission (CRC) which is convened every twenty years to consider proposals to amend the constitution. Donalds is a strategist to divide the Florida public schools into two separate systems, one for ‘independent schools’ and one for public schools established by locally elected school boards. Essentially, it would allow one system for charters and private schools receiving tax credit scholarships and one for traditional public schools.

This year the CRC was plagued with ‘log rolling’. It is a technique to bundle dissimilar proposals into one law. There is a spate of these ‘logs’ projected to be on the November ballot. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against them, and the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the League of Women Voters was correct in its opposition to at least one. This proposed Amendment 8 to the Florida constitution must be withdrawn from the November ballot. How this amendment came to be is a story in itself.

Amendment 8 combines three separate proposals: school board term limits, civics literacy and a clause stating that school boards are only responsible for schools they create. This third proposal is the heart of the amendment. The title for the amendment, however, is: “School Board Term Limits and Duties; Public Schools”. Voters might be in favor of one part of the combined proposals but opposed to another. It was a ‘take it or leave it’ strategy. The wording, even the title was intended to confuse voters.

Term limits and civics education may seem innocuous, but they are not.

Erika Donalds is also the Florida sponsor for the US Term Limits organization. This group has a well-documented conservative political agenda that targets school boards to create more opportunities to influence policy. The Koch brothers founded the US Term Limits group. The civics course requirement proposed by CRC member Gaetz, the former President of the Florida Senate, made no sense. Civics was already required by the Florida Department of Education. Former Governor Bob Graham, long a champion of civics education, stated that not only is Amendment 8 a hodge podge, it is not even good for civics education. The CATO Institute has a major focus on civics education and provides free civics material to k12 schools. Its message is clear. According to the Huffington Post, the CATO group states: “The minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth. Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper. Government assistance harms the poor. Government, in short, is the enemy of liberty.”

The third component of Amendment 8 was to remove local school board control over the authorization of new charter schools. This too represented the national move to privatize our schools by creating charters and funding vouchers to private schools. In the proposed Amendment 8, however, the schools were called ‘independent’, not charter schools. Florida Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart stated that removing local school board control over the establishment of charter schools goes too far. CRC member Patricia Levesque, CEO of Jeb Bush’s education foundation however, supported the amendment as did Marva Johnson, the President of the State Board of Education.

Erika Donalds formed a Political Action Committee called ‘8 is Great’ to sway voters to support Amendment 8. According to the Vero Communique, Howard Rich, a wealthy New York real estate investor, invested $100,000 in the ‘8 is Great’ PAC. Rich serves on the Board of the CATO institute which was founded by the Koch brothers. David Koch ran for Vice President of the U.S. in 1980 on a platform opposing social security, the FBI, the CIA and pubic schools. The billionaire Koch brothers have a long and intensive interest in promoting school choice through their Americans for Prosperity organization. They are concentrating on Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Their presence takes many forms. Watch for everything from donations to school board races, charter and voucher expansion efforts and state election campaigns. John Kirtley, the founder of Step Up for Children was a major donor. Step Up is the agency that administers a billion dollars for the Florida Corporate Tax Credit Scholarships for private schools. Indian River School Board member Shawn Frost and Duval School Board member Scott Shine have joined the PAC according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Recognizing that term limits and civics education are popular among many voters, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Wells submitted a brief to the Florida League of Women Voters in which he stated: “This change from local county school board control…is hidden by packaging the change with what are thought to be attractive proposals for term limits and civics education.” These schools were planned to be charter schools but the word ‘independent’ was substituted for the word ‘charter’.

There is a watchdog coalition of about 20 public interest groups, headed by the League, to follow and evaluate CRC proposed amendments. Amendment 8 was identified early by the coalition as part of a package of amendments intended to seize local control from city and county governments. The League of Women Voters and the Southern Poverty Law Center joined forces to file a lawsuit against Amendment 8 asking that Amendment 8 be removed from the November ballot. The suit claimed that the amendment was deliberately vague and intended to confuse the public. The circuit court in Tallahassee agreed. The State filed an appeal.

The Appellate Court immediately referred the case to the Florida Supreme Court saying, “The case involves a question of great public importance and requires immediate resolution by the Supreme Court.” The vagueness of the amendment language and its misleading title: “School Board Term Limits and Duties; Public Schools” was the basis for the justices’ 4 to 3 ruling against Amendment 8. The decision puts a roadblock in the effort to create an alternative charter school system. Some legislators will no doubt continue to push proposals to remove any local school board control of charter schools. In reality, local public schools have very limited responsibility to oversee charters, but they and the local press can shine a spotlight on what is at stake.

After sixteen years of choice, it is clear that choice divides communities, segregates children, and dissipates funding without making any appreciable improvement in student achievement. The Supreme Court has another case before it now, ‘Citizens for Strong Schools vs. Florida State Board of Education’ that has been working its way through the courts since 2009. The plaintiffs contend that Florida’s choice policy has failed to adequately fund schools and does not provide the quality education for all children that the Florida constitution requires. Of particular interest is whether there should be justiciable standards to define a ‘quality education’. The hearing is set for November 8. The future of our public school system will depend upon the ruling from the bench. The future of our public school system will depend on the ruling from the bench.

In the lawsuit that Sue Legg refers to in the last paragraph, a group called “Citizens for Strong Schools” argues that the state “is funding two separate systems of public education through its use of privately-run yet publicly funded charter schools, and vouchers that allow kids to attend private schools for varying reasons. Opponents say such programs take money away from traditional public schools.” Florida courts have rejected that argument in the past.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Koch Brothers, Privatization, Resistance, School Choice

Politico: Voucher Forces Conceding Defeat in Arizona Voucher Referendum Before the Vote

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2018 //
9

According to Politico Morning Education, the pro-voucher forces are throwing in the towel before the November referendum on Prop 305.

Prop 305 would overturn a law passed last year to offer unlimited vouchers.

Parents and educators gathered over 100,000 signatures to get it on the ballot. The Koch brothers sent in their legal team to try to knock it off the ballot but failed.

The voucher forces anticipate defeat so they are quitting ahead of the vote. They surely have polled and the numbers look bad for vouchers.

Vouchers have been overwhelmingly defeated in every state referendum.

Politico writes:

SCHOOL CHOICE GROUP TAKES SURPRISE STANCE IN ARIZONA: The prominent school choice group once chaired by DeVos is on the same side as public school advocates on a key ballot question in the state this fall.

— The American Federation for Children has decided it supports a “no” vote on a ballot question that lets voters decide if they want to keep a law passed last year that expands eligibility for a school choice-friendly program in the state.

— The decision places AFC in the unusual position of being aligned with public school supporters who had opposed the law. Previously, AFC was among the school choice-friendly groups that pushed for its passage.

— The AFC’s reasoning is complicated, but ultimately it argues that more children could be eligible for the program moving forward if an older law remains on the books.

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform
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