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Good News! Newly Elected Douglas County, Colorado, School Board Kills Voucher Program!

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2017 //
4

The Douglas County School Board voted unanimously to shut down its voucher program, the only one in the nation authorized by a school district. This was a big setback for the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, which lavished funding on the DougCo schools.

Douglas County is one of the wealthiest districts in the nation.

Anti-voucher parents and educators swept the rightwing school board out of Office in the November elections.

“The Douglas County school board Monday put to bed the district’s controversial Choice Scholarship program, ending a six-year battle to set up the nation’s only district-approved voucher program.

“The vote to end the voucher program, and the legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, was unanimous: six to nothing. One board member, Kevin Leung, did not participate in the deliberations or the vote, fulfilling a campaign pledge that he would sit out the vote because he is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the school district.

“Leung is one of four board members elected on a campaign pledge to end the voucher program. He initially asked to be excused from Monday’s meeting but was asked to be present as the board would also discuss its search for a permanent superintendent.

“The other three — Chris Ciancio-Schor, Anthony Graziano and new board Secretary Krista Holtzmann — all voted to end the program along with board President David Ray, Vice President Wendy Vogel and Board Treasurer Anne-Marie Lemieux.

“The Choice Scholarship was authorized in March 2011 by a conservative majority elected in 2009 and backed with tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from wealthy pro-voucher Republicans including Alex Cranberg of Aspect Energy and Ed McVaney, founder of software company JD Edwards.

“The program would have given a taxpayer-funded voucher, valued in 2015 at around $5,000, to up to 500 Douglas County students who lived in the district and attend Douglas County public schools for one year.

“The Choice Scholarship was the first in the nation to be authorized by a school district. Most voucher programs are created by state legislatures and are targeted to low income students in failing schools.

“Douglas County, the fifth wealthiest county in the nation, did not include an income qualifier for its voucher.

“Until recently, school board races have generally been low-key (and low-dollar) campaigns. But the big dollars spent in Douglas County and Denver on this year’s races signaled the beginning of radical change in those two school districts around the issue of school choice. In Douglas County, the hot button issue was the voucher program; in Denver, it was charter and “innovation schools.” The Denver school board hiked the number of charter schools from 17 to 60, beginning in 2010, and the number of innovation schools, similar to charters, from seven to 49.

“In June 2011, the parents group Taxpayers for Public Education filed for an injunction against the school district to block the program’s implementation. The case wound its way to the Colorado Supreme Court, which in 2015 ruled the program unconstitutional based on the state’s Blaine amendment, which bans the use of taxpayer dollars for religious purposes, including religious education.

“The district, the third largest in the state, with more than 60,000 students, received $1.8 million in donations for its legal expenses from the Daniels Fund and the Walton Family Foundation. The district appealed the Colorado high court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sent the case back to the Colorado Supreme Court last June.

“Prior to Monday’s board vote, which took place just after 7 p.m., the board listened to more than an hour of pleas from those who wanted to make sure the new board members held to their pledge, as well as from those who wanted the voucher program to have a chance to work.

“During the board’s public comment period, every speaker who addressed the voucher program asked the board to end it.”

Here is the report from Chalkbeat Colorado.

“Public funds should not be diverted to private schools, which are not accountable to the public,” said board member Krista Holtzmann.

“The state Supreme Court, which during the summer was directed by the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the case, will have the ultimate say in whether the legal challenge will end.

“However, the court usually does not consider moot cases, said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, a plaintiff in the case.

“The board’s action is a blow to conservative education reform advocates and voucher supporters in Colorado and across the country. Proponents of vouchers had hoped a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court would set a national precedent.

“The legal question at the center of the voucher debate is whether a local school district can send tax dollars to private-religious institutions. A majority of the schools that enrolled in the Douglas County voucher system, known as the Choice Scholarship Program, were religious.

“The state Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that the district could not because the Colorado Constitution forbids it. The U.S. Supreme Court gave voucher supporters renewed hope this year when, in a similar case, it issued a narrow ruling for a preschool run by a church.

“A network of voucher supporters has argued that such constitutional prohibitions, known as Blaine Amendments, are rooted in Catholic bigotry and are outdated.

“Americans for Prosperity, a political nonprofit [the Billionaire Koch brothers] that advocates for free-market policies including private school vouchers, announced Friday it was spending “five figures” to warn Douglas County parents about the board’s decision to end the program.

“The new school board must put the needs of school children before any political belief,” Jesse Mallory, the group’s Colorado director, said in a statement. “Ending this program before it even has a chance to succeed and provide real change in our communities would be extremely shortsighted. If the board believes they should deny children more educational opportunities, AFP-Colorado will hold them accountable.”

“Opponents of vouchers, who showed up in force Monday night, presented a lengthy list of claims against private schools and vouchers. Some argued that private schools discriminate against students. Others suggested vouchers were part of a scheme to privatize education.

“What happens to the educational quality of children in the community school where there is less money to work with because of the voucher outflow?” said one speaker, Barbara Gomes Barlow, who has grandchildren in Douglas County schools. “It is diminished. It’s a fiction to believe that vouchers open up choice for all students. They do not.”

“Monday’s meeting comes nearly one month after four anti-voucher candidates — Holtzmann, Anthony Graziano, Chris Schor and Kevin Leung — resoundingly won seats on the board. Their opponents campaigned to keep the legal fight alive.”

Categories Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Koch Brothers, Privatization, Vouchers

Parents in Douglas County: “We Don’t Want to Be Betsy DeVos’ Poster Child for Vouchers”

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2017 //
3

Betsy DeVos visited Douglas County before the recent election. She came, as expected, to promote vouchers. She met with a couple who had taken their child out of public school and placed him in a school for autistic children, where he is happy.

DeVos saluted their courage in seeking a different placement for their child.

But the parents are not pleased to be used as Betsy DeVos’ poster family for vouchers.

As Chalkbeat reported, the parents said they did not get a voucher for their child. The voucher would not have been much help for them. The school he attends costs $70,000 a year. The voucher, if it existed, would be worth $5,000.

“DeVos’s public words were particularly hard to take, Jennifer and Joe said, because they had met with the education secretary privately at her request. They were flattered by her interest, but felt she didn’t understand why private school vouchers would never work for them — or many other families who have children with disabilities.

“First, the dollar amount of most voucher programs is paltry compared to what it costs to pay for specialized private schools like Firefly. Tuition there is more than $70,000 a year.

“Say, there was a voucher system in place and let’s pick $5,000.” Jennifer said. “That’s not enough for placement at Firefly. It doesn’t do anything.”

“Jennifer and Joe, who own a company that sells industrial equipment, pay around half of Firefly’s tuition and their health insurance pays the rest, they said.”

With the sweeping victory of an anti-voucher slate in Douglas County, there won’t be any vouchers for the foreseeable future.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/11/15/parents-of-colorado-student-to-betsy-devos-we-are-not-a-poster-child-for-your-school-choice-agenda/

Categories Betsy DeVos, Colorado, Education Reform, Vouchers

Voters in Douglas County, Colorado, Sent a Loud Message: No Vouchers!

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2017 //
8

Parents, teachers, and citizens of Douglas County, Colorado, one of the wealthiest districts in the nation, shocked voucher advocates by voting to oust their choice-loving school board.

Here are two different perspectives.

Writing in the conservative journal Education Next, Max Eden of the rightwing Manhattan Institute tries to find a silver lining in the defeat of vouchers and choice.

Eden takes comfort in the fact that the new board is not anti-charter.

He writes:

“Taken together, these races should scramble the conventional political narrative about charter schooling. That narrative says that charters are really supposed to be for failing urban districts, that suburban parents don’t want or need them, and rather than expand charters to the suburbs to bolster Republican support, advocates should rather work on their rhetoric. But choice creates constituents who will defend their interests, and who will have a far easier time doing so when their neighbors are ideologically sympathetic. If the Douglas County school board moves to harm charters, there will be a significant political cost.

“The headlines suggest that the election was all about vouchers. But the deeper story here is that Douglas County is a compelling case study in the collapse of the traditional education reform agenda. That agenda was a philosophically uneasy fusion of bureaucrat-driven reform and parent-driven choice. Bureaucrat-driven reform wasn’t truly designed for places like Douglas County, but advocates push it there (and everywhere else) anyway. Parent-driven choice could take root anywhere, but advocates tended to view it as not really for a place like Douglas County. While district reform collapsed, and claimed the court case on the never-implemented voucher program as collateral, charter parents will ensure that school choice carries on in this Colorado suburban county.”

Edwin Rios, writing in left-leaning Mother Jones, says that the sweep of every seat on the board sends a clear message to Betsy DeVos. Not that she will care or listen.

“On Tuesday night, the longstanding fight over a controversial voucher program in Douglas County, Colorado, appeared to have come to an end. In a local school board election that has found its way into the national debate over voucher programs, four anti-voucher candidates—Chris Schor, Kevin Leung, Anthony Graziano, and Krista Holtzmann—defeated reform-supporting candidates in a landslide.

“The election was the culmination of a battle that goes back to 2009, when a group of conservative reform-minded candidates took full control of the school board in Douglas County—one of the wealthiest counties in the country, with a school district made up of 67,000 students. As Politico has put it, the county “has gone further than any district in the nation to reshape public education into a competitive, free-market enterprise.” Since 2009, the board has successfully ended a collective bargaining agreement with the local teachers union and enacted a “pay for performance” salary system for teachers.

“Its most controversial move, though, came in 2011, when it approved a sweeping school voucher program that aimed to give up to 500 students publicly-funded scholarships to attend participating private schools. The county’s voucher program was the first district-created program in the country. Ninety-three percent of the pilot class of scholarship recipients enrolled in religious schools, according to court documents. It sparked outcry from those who argued that it was a diversion of public money away from public schools. Over the next few years, the suburban district in many ways become a model for conservatives looking to reform education nationwide and the group of reform-minded board members received support from national right-wing groups like the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity.

“This backing helped those board members secure all seven seats for six years. But in 2015, frustrated by the board’s direction, challengers running against the reforms of then-superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen convincingly defeated three incumbents, resulting in a 4-3 split on the board. While conservative members remained in charge, their power over the board was significantly weakened.”

Then on election night, the pro-public school slate captured four seats, adding to the three pro-public school incumbents, to make a clean sweep of all seven seats.

Categories Colorado, Education Reform, Koch Brothers

The Economist: Dark Money and Local School Board Races

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2017 //
16

The Economist magazine published an article about an alarming phenomenon: the large amounts of money entering local school board races, much of it from mysterious political action committees, often from out-of-District and out-of-State sources.

Races in Denver, Douglas County, and Aurora County in Colorado attracted at least $1.65 Million.

Last spring’s School Board Race in Los Angeles was the most expensive in U.S. history, at $15 Million. Billionaires like Reed Hastings and Eli Broad make clear that they will spend whatever it takes to install true believers in privatization. In most such races, you are likely to encounter the same names, whether it is Hastings, Broad, Bloomberg, or members of the Walton family. You are likely to see other names associated with hedge funds or other parts of the financial industry. They have two goals in common: they love charter schools and they don’t like unions.

The intrusion of this kind of money into school board races is a danger to democracy. School boards are supposed to reflect the wishes of the local communities, not the purposes of out-of-State billionaires in search of willing puppets.

How can a local citizen, a parent or community leader, have any chance of running for school board if their opponent has a kitty of $100,000-300,000 to millions of dollars? I recall visiting a city where I was told that, in the past, a candidate could run by raising $40,000. Those days are over. That’s not good for democracy.

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Dark Money, Democracy, Denver

Douglas County, Colorado: Share the Joy as Public Schools Slate Whips Voucher Advocates!

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2017 //
4

Brian Malone, videographer, produced a film called “Education, Inc.” in which he portrayed the intrusion of Dark Money into School Board Elections, with the goal of privatization and destruction of public schools. He focused on Dougco in Colorado, where Voucher forces used big money to take control of the local school board.

On Tuesday night, organized parents and teachers elected their slate of public school supporters.

Brian Malone was there to film it, and he says he will change the ending of “Education, Inc.”

Share the joy by watching a few minutes.

For now, public education is back in Douglas County!

Categories Colorado, Dark Money, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Douglas County, Colorado: Anti-Voucher Slate Sweeps to Victory!

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2017 //
0

Douglas County, Colorado, has been a testing ground for vouchers. A rightwing group gained control of the board and approved vouchers. The case is now being litigated. The vouchers were ruled unconstitutional by the highest state court, then appealed to the Supreme Court, which sent it back for reconsideration in light of the Trinity Lutheran case, which allowed a Christian School in Missouri to get state funds to pave its playground, but did not rule on tuition.

Last night, a pro-public School, anti-voucher slate won control of the school board, ending its support for vouchers and defeating the Moch brothers’ Americans For Prosperity Group. The winning slate received nearly 60% of the vote. The AFT contributed to the winning slate. It remains to be seen how this election will affect the court case, since the new district board no longer supports vouchers.

“A slate of anti-school voucher candidates won a contentious race Tuesday night for the Douglas County School Board, effectively killing the district’s controversial voucher program and entirely remaking the seven-member board.

“The race, because it revolved around school vouchers, drew plenty of media attention…

“But members of the winning CommUnity Matters slate said they wanted to concentrate on bringing unity to the district and calming down a school board often roiled by controversy.

“It is time to return our attention locally — to the students, teachers and community of all Douglas County public schools — while restoring our attention locally,” said Anthony Graziano. “I look forward to working with my fellow board members in a collaborative and transparent manner…”

“Graziano was a member of the CommUnity Matters slate that included Chris Schor, Kevin Leung and Krista Holtzmann. They see vouchers as an attack on public schools and claim that siphoning off tax dollars from schools hurts more children while benefiting only a few.”

“Graziano said the voucher program has been a “distraction to the district.”

This adds one more to the unbroken string of electoral defeats for vouchers.

Categories Colorado, Education Reform, Vouchers

A Mother in Douglas County, CO: The Damage Done by “Reformers” to Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2017 //
15

The following comment was posted on the blog in response to this post about the coming school board elections in Douglas County, Colorado. There, in the most affluent county in the state, corporate reformers swamped the previous school board elections with money and propaganda and elected a majority committed to privatization. Many of the district’s best teachers left. The future of the district lies in the hands of its parents. If they want public schools, they will have to fight for them, go door-to-door to explain the issues, and mobilize other parents and civic-minded members of the public to vote in the school board election. Only they can save their schools.

The reader from Douglas County wrote:

“Thank you for shining light on our CO school district. I’m a mom, and local resident, with kids in our public schools. We had amazing schools and outstanding teachers in this district, as our student and school performances (in the past) showed. Over the last 7 years, outside interests and forces (which most residents and/or parents haven’t really understood), have been decimating our schools, and causing the loss of our best teachers. I never realized that high functioning, successful public school districts in wealthy suburban areas were such attractive targets for private “for-profit” national education corporations. I’m realizing that our local tax dollars, collected for “public” purposes, are the focus of BIG corporate cash-grabs. Vouchers and charters are strangling our once thriving schools. Please help us shed light on this destructive trend, and help us stand up to it, as a community. Our own elected school board members (the “reformers”) have been selling out our district, and hiring their own friends and colleagues, spending obscene amounts of money, with little accountability, or transparency. I wish we could personally sue each one of them for negligence, collusion, and damages to the community, and our kids.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Colorado, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Colorado: “The Most Important School Board Race” in the Nation

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
3

Douglas County, Colorado, will have a crucial election this fall between its current board majority and challengers. Some say it is the most important school board race in the nation.

Douglas County is the most affluent school district in the state. Yet wealthy Coloradans have showered money on pro-privatization school board members and candidates. On the other side is a pro-public education slate.

The rightwing majority consists of four members on a board of seven. The majority created a voucher program. Its anti-teachers policies have led to a high rate of exodus by experienced teachers.

The Douglas County voucher program is currently under appeal in federal courts.

Two slates are competing in the race for school board.

The differences between them are stark if you read this perceptive article. One is tied to corporate reform/Republican circles, the other is actually pro-public school.

Categories Colorado, Education Industry, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Koch Brothers Target Colorado for ESA Vouchers

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2017 //
20

Wherever there is a bipartisan consensus for charter schools, the Koch brothers see the state as ripe for expanding vouchers. Now they are targeting Colorado, where they have developed a strategic plan for the state.

Leading Democrats, such as wealthy Congressman Jared Polis and former State Senator Michael Johnston, have led the charge for charters and schiool choice (both have announced they are running for the Democratic nomination for governor.) Polis has opened two charter schools and fiercely supports them as a member of the House Education Committee. Johnston, former TFA, introduced legislation in 2011 to make student test scores count for 50% of teachers’ evaluation. The law has been an abject failure, although Johnston claimed it would guarantee that Colorado had great teachers, great principals, great schools.

DFER and Stand for Children have been active in Colorado, laying the groundwork for the Koch brothers.

And now they arrive with a plan to defund public schools and call it “opportunity.”

“COLORADO SPRINGS — In a nondescript office building on the north side of this conservative enclave, more than a dozen volunteers spent hours making calls to educate voters about a new initiative that will allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send children to private schools.

“At the same time, just miles down the road, the political network behind the effort gathered hundreds of its wealthiest donors at a posh mountainside resort to raise money to support the campaign to remake the education system.

“The confluence of policy and politics epitomized how the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch flex their organization’s muscle and spread an ideological agenda in states across the nation.

“The value of this network cannot be overstated,” said Stacy Hock, a Koch donor and conservative education advocate in Texas. “The ability to stand on the shoulders of the giant that is this network to make yourself more impactful and strategic changes the game.”

The Koch brothers plot a conservative resistance movement in Colorado Springs strategy session
Koch network to Trump administration: “You are never going to win the war on drugs. Drugs won.”
The phone calls to middle-of-the-road voters and presentation to donors in Colorado last week were part of the Koch network’s six-figure campaign to promote school choice and education savings accounts, or ESAs.

“The effort in Colorado involves the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Libre Initiative, a group focused on Hispanic community outreach. Together the organizations are making calls and sending flyers to voters this summer, two of which promote ESAs as a way to “give families the freedom to select schools, classes and services that fit the unique needs of their kids….

“The Koch network considers Colorado an attractive state for its message because public charter schools are a bipartisan cause. In the 2017 session, lawmakers equalized funding for charter schools with district schools.

“EdChoice, a conservative education advocacy organization aligned with the Kochs, commissioned a survey in 2015 to introduce Colorado to the ESA issue, finding strong support when cast in favorable terms.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Vouchers

Gary Rubinstein: The Oops Factor at Bill Gates’ Favorite School in Colorado

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2017 //
16

The trouble with hailing a school as a model is that you can’t predict what might happen next year.

This has never stopped Bill Gates!

In 2012, he visited the Eagle Valley High School in Colorado. In 2013, he celebrated the school in his annual letter as one that was successfully adopting his ideas.

But…Gary Rubinstein reviewed Eagle Valley High School’s latest state report, and it is no longer a model school. Gary doesn’t know why. Maybe it is just a regular school. No miracles here. Or maybe it is the Kiss of Gates.

Update On Colorado District That Gates Praised in 2013

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Testing
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