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Heather Cox Richardson: The Supreme Court Is Putting Our Democracy at Risk

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2023 //
87

This is one of the best letters that Heather Cox Richardson has written since I started reading her posts. It puts the current Supreme Court’s radical decisions into historical perspective. This Court, hand-picked by Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, is engaged in a shameless effort to move the clock back to the world as it existed before the New Deal. This Court threatens our democracy and our rights.

She writes:

Today the Supreme Court followed up on yesterday’s decision gutting affirmative action with three decisions that will continue to push the United States back to the era before the New Deal.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis the court said that the First Amendment protects website designer Lorie Smith from having to use words she doesn’t believe in support of gay marriage. To get there, the court focused on the marriage website designer’s contention that while she is willing to work with LGBTQ customers, she doesn’t want to use her own words on a personalized website to celebrate gay marriages. Because of that unwillingness, she said, she wants to post on her website that she will not make websites for same-sex weddings. She says she is afraid that in doing so, she will run afoul of Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, which prevent public businesses from discriminating against certain groups of people.

This whole scenario of being is prospective, by the way: her online business did not exist and no one had complained about it. Smith claims she wants to start the business because “God is calling her ‘to explain His true story about marriage.’” She alleges that in 2016, a gay man approached her to make a website for his upcoming wedding, but yesterday, Melissa Gira Grant of The New Republic reported that, while the man allegedly behind the email does exist, he is an established designer himself (so why would he hire someone who was not?), is not gay, and married his wife 15 years ago. He says he never wrote to Smith, and the stamp on court filings shows she received it the day after she filed the suit.

Despite this history, by a 6–3 vote, the court said that Smith was being hurt by the state law and thus had standing to sue. It decided that requiring the designer to use her own words to support gay marriage violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

Taken together with yesterday’s decision ruling that universities cannot consider race as a category in student admissions, the Supreme Court has highlighted a central contradiction in its interpretation of government power: if the Fourteenth Amendment limits the federal government to making sure that there is no discrimination in the United States on the basis of race—the so-called “colorblind” Constitution—as the right-wing justices argued yesterday, it is up to the states to make sure that state laws don’t discriminate against minorities. But that requires either protecting voting rights or accepting minority rule.

This problem has been with us since before the Civil War, when lawmakers in the southern states defended their enslavement of their Black (and Indigenous) neighbors by arguing that true democracy was up to the voters and that those voters had chosen to support enslavement. After the Civil War, most lawmakers didn’t worry too much about states reimposing discriminatory laws because they included Black men as voters first in 1867 with the Military Reconstruction Act and then in 1870 with the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and they believed such political power would enable Black men to shape the laws under which they lived.

But in 1875 the Supreme Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett that it was legal to cut citizens out of the vote so long as the criteria were not about race. States excluded women, who brought the case, and southern states promptly excluded Black men through literacy clauses, poll taxes, and so on. Northern states mirrored southern laws with their own, designed to keep immigrants from exercising a voice in state governments. At the same time, southern states protected white men from the effects of these exclusionary laws with so-called grandfather clauses, which said a man could vote so long as his grandfather had been eligible.

It turned out that limiting the Fourteenth Amendment to questions of race and letting states choose their voters cemented the power of a minority. The abandonment of federal protection for voting enabled white southerners to abandon democracy and set up a one-party state that kept Black and Brown Americans as well as white women subservient to white men. As in all one-party states, there was little oversight of corruption and no guarantee that laws would be enforced, leaving minorities and women at the mercy of a legal system that often looked the other way when white criminals committed rape and murder.

Many Americans tut-tutted about lynching and the cordons around Black life, but industrialists insisted on keeping the federal government small because they wanted to make sure it could not regulate their businesses or tax them. They liked keeping power at the state level; state governments were far easier to dominate. Southerners understood that overlap: when a group of southern lawmakers in 1890 wrote a defense of the South’s refusal to let Black men vote, they “respectfully dedicated” the book to “the business men of the North.”

In the 1930s the Democrats under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt undermined this coalition by using the federal government to regulate business and provide a social safety net. In the 1940s and 1950s, as racial and gender atrocities began to highlight in popular media just how discriminatory state laws really were, the Supreme Court went further, recognizing that the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that states could not deprive any person of the equal protection of the laws meant that the federal government must protect the rights of minorities when states would not. Those rules created modern America.

This is what the radical right seeks to overturn. Yesterday the Supreme Court said that the Fourteenth Amendment could not address racial disparities, but today, like lawmakers in the 1870s, it signaled that it would not protect voting in the states either. It rejected a petition for a review of Mississippi’s strict provision for taking the vote away from felons. That law illustrates just how fully we’re reliving our history: it dates from the 1890 Mississippi constitution that cemented power in white hands. Black Mississippians are currently 2.7 times more likely than white Mississippians to lose the right to vote under the law.

The court went even further today than allowing states to choose their voters. It said that even if state voters do call for minority protections, as Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws do, states cannot protect minorities in the face of someone’s religious beliefs. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that for “the first time in its history,” the court has granted “a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

It is worth noting that segregation was defended as a deeply held religious belief.

Today, using a case concerning school loans, the Supreme Court also took aim at the power of the federal government to regulate business. In Biden v. Nebraska the court declared by a vote of 6 to 3 that President Biden’s loan forgiveness program, which offered to forgive up to $20,000 of federally held student debt, was unconstitutional. The right-wing majority of the court argued that Congress had not intended to give that much power to the executive branch, although the forgiveness plan was based on law that gave the secretary of education the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs…as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a…national emergency…to ensure” that “recipients of student financial assistance…are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to that financial assistance because of [the national emergency]”.

The right-wing majority based its decision on the so-called major questions doctrine, invented to claw back regulatory power from the federal government. By saying that Congress cannot delegate significant decisions to federal agencies, which are in the executive branch, the court takes on itself the power to decide what a “significant” decision is. The court established this new doctrine in the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agencycase, stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate certain kinds of air pollution.

“Let’s not beat around the bush,” constitutional analyst Ian Millhiser wrote today in Vox, today’s decision in Biden v. Nebraska “is complete and utter nonsense. It rewrites a federal law which explicitly authorizes the loan forgiveness program, and it relies on a fake legal doctrine known as ‘major questions’ which has no basis in any law or any provision of the Constitution.”

Today’s Supreme Court, packed as it has been by right-wing money behind the Federalist Society and that society’s leader, Leonard Leo, is taking upon itself power over the federal government and the state governments to recreate the world that existed before the New Deal.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called out the lurch toward turning the government over to the wealthy, supported as it is by religious footsoldiers like Lorie Smith: “Today, the court substituted itself for Congress,” Cardona told reporters. “It’s outrageous to me that Republicans in Congress and state offices fought so hard against a program that would have helped millions of their own constituents. They had no problem handing trillion-dollar tax cuts to big corporations and the super wealthy.”

Cardona made his point personal: “And many had no problems accepting millions of dollars in forgiven pandemic loans, like Senator Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma had more than $1.4 million in pandemic loans forgiven. He represents 489,000 eligible borrowers that were turned down today. Representative Brett Guthrie from Kentucky had more than $4.4 million forgiven. He represents more than 90,000 eligible borrowers who were turned down today. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia had more than $180,000 forgiven. She represents more than 91,800 eligible borrowers who were turned down today.”

In the majority opinion of Biden v. Nebraska, Chief Justice John Roberts lamented that those who dislike the court’s decisions have accused the court of “going beyond the proper role of the judiciary.” He defended the court’s decision and urged those who disagreed with it not to disparage the court because “such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.” But what is at stake is not simply these individual decisions, whether or not you agree with them; at stake is the way our democracy operates.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute didn’t offer much hope for Roberts’s plea. “It is not just the rulings the Roberts Court is making,” he tweeted. “They created out of [w]hole cloth a bogus, major questions doctrine. They made a mockery of standing. They rewrite laws to fit their radical ideological preferences. They have unilaterally blown up the legitimacy of the Court.”

In a shot across the bow of this radical court, in her dissent to Biden v. Nebraska, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “the Court, by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”

—

Categories Accountability, Biden, Bigotry, Billionaires, Cardona, Miguel, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Gender, Higher Education, History, Inequity, Injustice, Justice, Race, Racism, Religion, Shame, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Colorado Web Designer Who Won Supreme Court Victory Has Not Opened Her Business

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2023 //
46

The web designer who won her case today in the Supreme Court has not yet opened her business and has not been asked to design a wedding website for a gay couple. I’m not sure why she had standing to overturn the state’s anti-discrimination law when she has no business.

The case, though framed as a clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, notably conservative Christians, who celebrated the ruling on Friday as a victory for religious freedom.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling “profoundly wrong,” arguing that the Colorado anti-discrimination law “targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.”

The designer, Lorie Smith, said her Christian faith requires her to turn away customers seeking wedding-related services to celebrate same-sex unions. She added that she intends to post a message saying the company’s policy is a product of her religious convictions.

A Colorado law forbids discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public as well as statements announcing such discrimination. Ms. Smith, who has not begun the wedding business or posted the proposed statement for fear of running afoul of the law, sued to challenge it, saying it violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, 303 Creative L.L.C. v. Elenis, No. 21-476, it agreed to decide only one question: “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”

In a news conference Friday in Washington, Ms. Smith said she was grateful to the court, who “affirmed today that Colorado can’t force me or anyone to say something we don’t believe.”

Here’s what else to know:

  • Progressive interfaith groups and L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organizations around the country condemned the ruling. Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the ruling was “a deeply troubling crack in our progress and should be alarming to us all.”
  • Both sides have said that the consequences of the court’s ruling could be enormous, though for different reasons. Ms. Smith’s supporters said a decision for the state would allow the government to force all sorts of artists to state things at odds with their beliefs. Her opponents said a ruling in her favor would blow a hole through anti-discrimination laws and allow businesses engaged in expression to refuse service to, for example, Black people or Muslims based on odious but sincerely held convictions.
  • The decision appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people, including to same-sex marriage, are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious freedom. At the same time, the ruling limited the ability of the governments to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
  • Lower courts have generally sided with gay and lesbian couples who were refused service by bakeries, florists and others, ruling that potential customers are entitled to equal treatment, at least in parts of the country with laws forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation.

On her dissent, Justice Sotomayer wrote:

The unattractive lesson of the maiority opinion is this: What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours. The lesson of the history of public accommodations laws is altogether different. It is that in a free and democratic society, there can be no social castes. And for that to be true, it must be true in the public market. For the “promise of freedom” is an empty one if the Government is “powerless to assure that a dollar in the hands of lone person] will purchase the
same thing as a dollar in the hands of another].” Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409, 443 (1968). Because the Court today retreats from that promise, I dissent.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Colorado, Democracy, Education Reform, Gender

U.S. Supreme Court Trounces Gay Rights, Student Debtors

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2023 //
68

The United States Supreme Court has been on a rightwing roll, eliminating affirmative action yesterday, now upholding discrimination against gays, and striking down Biden’s attempt to provide relief to student debtors. The five conservative justices rewarded the faith that Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society placed in them. They were chosen based on their extreme ideology.

This morning, the Court ruled that a person who objects to gays need not do business with them. Colorado bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, but the Extreme Court struck down the state law. The justices in the majority based their decision of free speech rights, upholding the view that the web designer’s free speech was impaired if she had to do work for gay people.

The Boston Globe reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for gay rights, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled Friday that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples.

The court ruled 6-3 for designer Lorie Smith despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender and other characteristics. Smith had argued that the law violates her free speech rights.

Smith’s opponents warned that a win for her would allow a range of businesses to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants. But Smith and her supporters had said that a ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their beliefs.

“The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s six conservative justices.

The student debt decision was also 6-3, with the conservative justices knocking out Biden’s efforts to reduce the financial burden on millions of people.

The New York Times reported:

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority struck down President Biden’s proposal to cancel at least some student debt for tens of millions of borrowers, saying it overstepped the powers of the Education Department.

In a 6-to-3 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that a mass debt cancellation program of such significance required clear congressional authorization.

Citing the same authority the Trump and Biden administrations used to pause student loan payments during the pandemic, Mr. Biden promised in August to forgive $10,000 in debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year, or $250,000 per household, and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants for low-income families.

Nearly 26 million borrowers have applied to have some of their student loan debt erased, with 16 million applications approved. But no debts have been forgiven or additional applications accepted in light of the legal challenges.

I hope that all 26 million indebted people vote for Biden. He tried.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Education Industry, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2023 //
4

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Education Industry, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Pennsylvania: State Senate Passes Voucher Bill, with Help from Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2023 //
3

Peter Greene writes here about the latest news from Pennsylvania, where he lives. The Republican-dominated state senate passed a voucher bill. Newly elected Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has said he supports vouchers. He’s getting lots of kudos from Rightwingers. Is this why we was elected? It’s now up to House Democrats, who have a sliver majority, to stop this giveaway to private and religious schools.

Peter Greene writes:

Choicers in Pennsylvania are so close they can taste it, and everyone has come off the bench to help push this newest bill past a governor who has said he likes vouchers just fine—under certain condition. This is from my piece from Forbes.com this morning.

Democrat Josh Shapiro made no secret of his support for school vouchers when he was campaigning for the Pennsylvania governor’s seat. Now conservatives are pushing him to put that support to work.

The Senate passed the newest school voucher bill Thursday night; House Democrats say that it will not advance. Supporters are still hoping that it can be saved in the budget process.

The Lifeline Scholarship Program has been kicking around Harrisburg in a variety of bills that presented a variety of school voucher formats as voucher supporters looked for a version that would garner enough support to pass. The current iteration is a traditional school voucher, essentially a taxpayer funded tuition subsidy for students attending private schools.

Under this bill, students in the lowest 15% of schools in the commonwealth (as determined by standardized test scores) would be eligible.

The vouchers, named a top priority by Pennsylvania’s GOP, have become a key part of the current budget negotiations in the state that is already under a court order to fix its funding system for public schools.

The voucher system would be a chance for school voucher proponents to get their foot in the door, an especially tasty victory in a state with a Democratic governor. To add to the pressure to pass, a coalition of right wing voucher fans has sent Shapiro a letter arguing for the voucher program.

Open the link to the article to find the link to the entire article in Forbes.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Michigan Passes Historic Increases for Education

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2023 //
2

Michigan is in track to make record investments in the quality of life for children and schools.

My friend Mitchell Robinson, a member of the State board of education, shared the following good news:

The State of Michigan passed a third consecutive historic education budget last night—and did so with bipartisan support, meaning the changes included in this budget can go into effect immediately.

It’s amazing to see what a state education budget can look like when you have pro-education legislators in charge–and teachers chairing the House and Senate Education Committees and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12.

The budget includes:

•universal school meals

•foundation allowance increase of 5% — the largest in state history

•fully funded special education programs

•expanded Pre-K programs

•student teacher stipends for K-12

The budget also appropriates $11 million to a K-5 Music Education Pilot Program that provides funding to school districts that currently do not have elementary music instruction to hire certified music teachers.

Budgets are about more than dollars—they are moral documents; and in Michigan we are showing that we value our children, our families, and our future by directing funding to programs and initiatives that strengthen our schools and communities.

edbudget2023.jpeg
Categories Courage, Creativity, Democracy, Early Childhood Education, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Michigan, Supporting public schools

John Thompson: The Misinterpretation of NAEP Data

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2023 //
69

John Thompson writes here about the negative consequences of shallow reporting on NAEP data. Reporters are sensitive to whether scores are up or down, but tend to ignore contextual factors that may play a role in student performance.

He writes:

Despite the problems with education metrics, the decline in the nation’s 2022 math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test is worrisome – if we look at the big picture. 

As Diane Ravitch explained, the decline in scores during the pandemic was a “duh” moment. Rather than publishing panicky headlines, these predictable drops in scores should be seen in the broader context of the decade of declines which followed the implementation of rushed and simplistic corporate school reforms. And, as we should have done previously, we must acknowledge what reformers should have previously understood – meaningful increases in learning require inter-connected, holistic team efforts, as opposed to metric-driven instructional shortcuts.    

And we should also listen to Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers the tests. “The new data, she said, ‘reinforces the fact that recovery is going to take some time.” Carr and other experts also warn that the “academic decline is part of a broader picture that includes worsening school climate and student mental health.”

For example, “Oklahoma NAEP results reflect pandemic-fueled decline in math and reading scores.” Eighth grade reading in Oklahoma (which reopened schools more quickly than most states) declined by 7 points, compared to a three-point average national decline. Our Eighth grade math scores declined by 12 points, compared to a nationwide decline of eight points. And the state’s and the nation’s “plunge” in history scores has been worse.

But the story behind those numbers is complicated. So, before we can understand the mixed messages of short- and long-term NAEP findings, we how they have often been misrepresented by the non-education press.

Chalkbeat properly quoted Peggy Carr, “There is nothing in this data that tells us there is a measurable difference between states and districts based solely on how long schools were closed.” And Education Week appropriately explained that all but the top-performing students saw declines, but the biggest drops were for the lowest-performing students, who were more likely to have parents who were “essential workers” who were disproportionately exposed to Covid, who were more likely to live in multi-generational households, and had the least access to medical care. Moreover, it further explained, “Reading scores for students in cities (where schools tended to be slower to reopen) stayed constant, as did reading scores for students in the West of the country.”

Yes, Covid closures led to an unprecedented decline in test scores, but many commentators should look more deeply at public relations spin dating back to the Reagan administration that inappropriately used NAEP test scores when arguing that public schools are broken. They stressed low levels of “proficiency” claiming that it correlated with grade level. And Jan Resseger explained:

A common error among journalists, critics, and pundits who misunderstand the achievement levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). “Proficient” on NAEP is not grade level. “Proficient” on NAEP represents A level work, at worst an A-. Would you be upset to learn that “only” 40% of 8th graders are at A level in math and “only” 1/3 scored an A in reading?

On the other hand, the admittedly unprecedented (but expected) fall in NAEP scores during Covid followed a decade of stagnating or declining NAEP scores. Moreover, the recent release of falling history scores should lead to an open discussion about why the U.S. History scores have declined by 9% since 2014.

And Chalkbeat stresses the need for conversations about the last two years, when “nearly every state has considered a bill that would limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in their classrooms, and 18 states have bans or other restrictions in place, according to a tracker compiled by Education Week.”  For reasons I explain later, I’m especially impressed with its recommendation regarding the need for “weaving the (historical) material into other places in their (classrooms’) schedule.”

I began teaching History at John Marshall H.S. in the early 1990s during the crack and gangs crisis and after the standardized testing of the 1980s peaked. For the next 1-1/2 decades, outcomes improved at Marshall and in the nation as a whole. Marshall had serious problems, but I couldn’t believe how many great teachers it had. We had the autonomy necessary to teach in a holistic inter-connected, cross-disciplinary manner. When I saw students carrying copies of Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, I had the freedom to deviate from the curriculum schedule, and teach about Ellison’s childhood in Oklahoma City, and how it informed his novel. We took fieldtrips to the Capitol, and had regular classroom visits by legislators and local leaders. And we watched excellent programs on OETA (which our Gov. Kevin Stitt recently tried to defund.).

Rather than teach to the test, I’d post the day’s State Standards, and History in the News topic. Students would drop by before class to peek at the day’s History in the News question. They quickly learned how to “weave” historical narratives into contemporary issues. 

Marshall improved more than any other OKCPS neighborhood high school until the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’s and Race to the Top’s test-driven mandates became dominant. By the time I retired in 2010, my students who came from the poorest neighborhoods complained that they had been robbed of an education. When guest teaching up to 2020, I saw young teachers who wanted to offer culturally meaningful instruction but it was hard for educators and students to do something that they rarely saw in a 21st century classroom.

Getting back to the type of solutions discussed in Chalkbeat and Education Week, Education Watch’s Jennifer Palmer wrote a hopeful piece about a pilot program at F.D. Moon Middle School. It uses “a social studies curriculum built on encouraging students to engage in civil discourse and celebrate American ideals while also examining darker chapters of history.” The program was created by iCivics, founded by retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Its U.S. History curriculum is “based on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a joint project with iCivics, Harvard, Tufts and Arizona State universities.”

Palmer witnessed the energy displayed by Beatrice Mitchell’s 8th grade social studies class. All of them “passed the U.S. naturalization test, a new graduation requirement starting this school year.” This stands in contrast to a recent survey which “found just 1 in 3 adults can pass the exam … Oklahoma’s passing rate was even lower at 1 in 4 adults.”

It is unclear whether this nonpartisan program will clash with the Oklahoma Board of Education’s special report on “diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the request of State Superintendent Ryan Walters.” As Palmer noted, “Walters, a former history teacher, claimed such programs are ‘Marxist at its core.’” At any rate, it’s not just history that must be woven into other subjects. If we hope to teach critical thinking and 21st century skills, schools must abandon their test-driven silos, and teach students to be independent thinkers who listen, and learn how to learn. And, holistic instruction must be restored, as one part of serving each whole child. A first step, however, should be the non-education press shifting from alarmist headlines to meaningful solutions reported in the education press.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, History, Media, NAEP, Oklahoma, Standardized Testing

Philadelphia: How a School Board Keeps Out the Public

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2023 //
13

Lisa Haver is a retired teacher in Philadelphia and a tireless advocate for the kids and teachers of that city. She writes here about the undemocratic methods of tha Philadelphia school board, which prefers to operate without transparency.

She wrote the following report with Lynda Rubin on behalf of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.

The board’s speaker suppression policies are now doing double duty: not just to keep members of the community from speaking but to keep them out of the room altogether. A guard at the door to the auditorium told Lynda Rubin she could go in because she was on the speaker list but barred Lisa Haver because she wasn’t. Haver had tried to sign up but was told by the board that she would not be one of the 30 chosen speakers. She told the guard he could arrest her but that she was going in. Last month some APPS members were detained downstairs because they were not on the list…

Board Denies Charter Reapplication
In the end, the board voted 7-2 to deny the re-application submitted by Global Leadership Academy to operate a high school in the Logan section of North Philadelphia. But that was after a lengthy deliberation session in which some board members, bordering on groveling, expressed their regret at having to deny GLA. BM Sarah Ashley Andrews declared her allegiance to GLA CEO Naomi Booker, who makes approximately $450,000 annually to oversee one school, advising her, “Don’t be defeated.” BM Lam, on the other hand, challenged the statements of praise for GLA’s program. She cited the 1% Math achievement rate and poor attendance at the GLA schools. Most board comments centered around the contents of the application, not the increased stranded costs to the district or how another charter school in Logan would affect the neighborhood’s public schools. The entire process, from Charter Schools Office Director Peng Chao’s presentation and subsequent Q & A session, to the board’s final vote on Item 78, took almost an hour.

Not What Democracy Looks Like
President Streater began the voting session, at 10:37 pm, by quickly rattling off the numbers of the items remaining on the agenda after the vote on Item 78 and the withdrawal of six other items. He instructed the board that all 71 items would be included in one roll call vote. As the individual board members began to enumerate their No votes and abstentions before the vote, Lisa Haver stood up to object. After the vote concluded, and General Counsel Lynn Rauch read the tally, Streater allowed her to come to the mic. Haver objected to the board’s voting on 71 items, for contracts totalling almost half a billion dollars, in one roll call vote, calling the process “shameful”. She also reminded the board that members who abstain from a vote because of a potential conflict must clearly identify the conflict. Streater did not respond. BM Cecelia Thompson, a longtime community advocate herself, said later, “I agree with Ms. Haver.” Thompson said that taxpayers do have a right to know how their money is being spent. Hopefully Thompson will refuse to participate at the next meeting and demand that each item be deliberated and voted on separately.

This is not just a procedural question. We tallied 29 items on the agenda that do not include a provision for any bidding process. The board is passing items for no-bid contracts after barring the public from speaking on most of them, attempting to keep people out of the room, conducting little to no public deliberation on them, and voting on all of them in one vote.

We wrote to the board after the April incident, pointing out that they had only set up 82 chairs in an auditorium that seats 240 people. Thus, the same people who were denied the right to speak now no longer have the right to be present. Did the board not want APPS to witness its voting to spend over $500 million in taxpayer money on 78 official items? Or voting on a charter application that would cost the district hundreds of millions over the next five years? A governmental body not accountable to the public can become tyrannical and dictatorial. We need an elected school board.

In response to APPS’ letter to the board after the April action meeting, Streater defended the practice by citing the board’s need for “efficiency”. Neither the City’s Home Rule Charter nor the board’s own mission statement mandates efficiency. The board promises community engagement and transparency, then conducts its business in a hurried and secretive manner.

Among the contracts passed with little to no deliberation:
Items 73 and 74: $40 million for new Reading and Math curricula, which, according to teachers familiar with the programs, replaces book-centered programs with online programs for every student in every grade from pre-K through 12th. Why does the board and the Watlington administration want to do this? Do children need more on-screen time? Many parents are limiting screen time for health issues and because of the built-in tracking system.

When will democracy come to the city that is the cradle of democracy?

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Parent Groups, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Peter Greene: What Vouchers Will Do to West Virginia

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2023 //
4

Peter Greene looks into the Koch-funded voucher lobby in West Virginia and finds a fairly accurate portrayal of the dystopian future that lies ahead.

First, he details the background of the leaders of the voucher lobby. All have long-time connections to rightwing causes. Most were hired to push West Virginia’s expansive voucher plan, which passed in 2021.

If ever there was a state that needs a strong public school system, it’s West Virginia. But with big Koch money, the Koch puppets will make that impossible.

Instead of good public schools, West Virginians will have the “freedom” to find a good education on their own!

After identifying the staff and board, Greene writes:

So we’ve got the picture now– Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy (which belongs to the State Policy Network) is a Koch organization.

Cardinal Institute is all for the usual Koch version of liberty. They are pushing a West Virginia Miracle, and the four pillars are “Economic Freedom, Labor Freedom, Education Freedom, and Montani Semper Liberi – a culture of freedom.” They would like to promote “limited government, economic freedom, and personal responsibility.” They’ve got a podcast– “Forgotten America.” And they promise a “new paradigm”–

An “island” of poverty in the wealthiest country the world, West Virginia’s brighter future depends on a new paradigm – a new way of looking at the world with new ideas and a philosophy built on innovation, human flourishing, and a recognition that freedom is the greatest alleviator of poverty the world has ever seen. Ours is a philosophy built on the entrepreneur, the tinkerer in the garage, and the idea that small government means more room for people to create and build their own futures.

It’s a curious pitch in a state that is not exactly known for government overreach. West Virginia is a state with a history of labor struggles and a history of state government that exerts its power mostly to aid guys like Charles Koch. Regular people have always had plenty of room in this state that is renowned for its poverty— worst health, worst education levels, worst employment, and geography that makes it hard for basic infrastructure like roads and water and electricity and internet to reach some citizens. (And at least one community gutted by the departure of its WVU college campus–but hey, they’re free now.) It’s hard to imagine that any of these problems would be solved by less government, but libertarians gotta libertarian.

So what does Ballangee say about Mount Everest?

In his Education Next piece, Ballangee comes close to honesty about the larger goals of his particular arm of the school voucher movement. 

There is a common misconception among education reform advocates that passing universal choice legislation is akin to summiting Mount Everest. Upon universal choice’s enactment into law, it is done. Time to exhale and pop the champagne, for the mountain has been scaled.

In other words, voucher laws are not the end game. Simply making a voucher program available is not enough.

Next, the program has to be pushed and promoted. There will be a urge, then a steady growth “as families become aware of the program and hear from neighbors, fellow church attendees, and other connections about their new options” (just in case you had doubts about voucher ties to religion). Nut awareness must be built and PR must be provided to popularize the program.

Failure for an education choice program does not often come in the form of mistakes, fraud, or incompetence. More frequently, the problems are apathy and ignorance.

I don’t know. There’s an awful lot of fraud and incompetence in the school choice world. Nor am I sure how the lack of interest in a choice program is not the same thing as a lack of market demand. But of course modern marketing means creating a demand for your product. So, Ballangee asserts, somebody will need to work on that.

Someone will also need to build/attract a supply of educational “providers.” “Help private schools sign up,” he says, skipping over the question of why a successful private school would want to sign up. Somebody has to reach out to edupreneurs and get them signed up, too. Basically, be an education broker.

Now that choicers need to spend less time lobbying legislators, “the nexus of a successful program [he means a privatizing program, not an educational program] will shift somewhat from legislative considerations, lobbying, and bill design towards family outreach and relationship cultivation, specific government agency relationships, and broad marketing campaigns.”

Also, you’ll have to prepare for those “legions of entities” looking to “besmirch” the program (public education establishment, unions, union-friendly media). 

And this–

You have to figure out how – not if – to help the families about to embark on this journey for the first time…

You must figure out how to manage each “case” not only for the sake of the family and child but also for the overall health of the program.

There will be grandparents who have never used a computer now asked to upload a birth certificate on their grandchild’s behalf. There will be parents with limited education who know only one thing when it comes to navigating this fresh bureaucratic concoction: “my child needs something different.” Be sympathetic, but, more importantly, develop competence.

Learn the law and accompanying statutes backwards and forwards or find someone who does. You must have a path or contact for families to use. “I don’t know the answer, but I know someone who might” will become one of the most useful phrases in your reform handbook.

In short, Ballengee is outlining all the new business opportunities available on the mountaintop voucher peak. The only one he left out was the booming business in K-12 education loans for all those parents for whom state’s voucher won’t cover the cost of their education provider. Not only will government stop providing public education, but there are many opportunities to make a buck or ten in the newly free and unregulated marketplace of education stuff.

The Koch mountaintop

Because here’s what “freedom” means on Koch mountain– you are free to try to get to the top if you can, and I am free to ignore any of your problems (unless you pay me to help you), because the dream remains a world in which I have no responsibility to my fellow travelers on the earth (and certainly don’t have to pay taxes to provide services for Those People). 

Ballangee isn’t going to have any discussion of how well vouchers work as far as education goes (hint: not very well). But that’s okay, because, as he says, “education choice is good and a moral necessity.” I’m of the opinion that guaranteeing each child a decent education is the moral necessity, and, as always, I question the assumption that “education choice” must somehow involve the free market, one of the great unexamined assumptions of the modern choicer movement. Are choice and freedom important values in life? Damn right they are–which is why we as a society bear a responsibility for getting every child an education that will help them freely access more choices.

In the end, Ballengee’s mountain is one that Ayn Rand would probably approve of.

Though the last few steps up the mountain are the steepest and most difficult, they are also closest to what we are looking for when we embark on our journey: helping children find their own path to their own personal summit.

In other words, I’ve got my summit, Jack. Go find your own. 

“Helping” I suppose could mean choice advocates just helping out of the goodness of their hearts (though their hearts, bless them, don’t know much about actual education). But I suspect that help will be provided, for a price (or a cut of your voucher), to those who can find it and access it while navigating a sprawling unregulated complicated marketplace. It’s funny, because another thing we could do is collect all the experts in delivering education under one roof, where they’d be easy to find. And we could pay them with public tax dollars, and recruit and hire them with the understanding that they are there to help students climb their own personal mountain. But then some of us would have to pay taxes to fund it, and they might not be willing to make it all about christianist ideas. 

So instead, Koch-trained folks imagine a mountain, an Everest. By the way, do you know what Everest looks like these days? It’s a crowded mess of wealthy, resource-rich tourists who are hiring someone else to guide them. Well, that’s Everest.

The peak of the school voucher mountain looks a lot like wealthy, well-resourced folks looking down at the folks struggling on the slopes of other mountains and saying, “Well, don’t they look free. I wonder if they’ll make it.”

Categories Billionaires, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Poverty, Privatization, Propaganda, West Virginia

Paul Bonner: The Democratic Party Should Defend Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2023 //
62

Paul Bonner is a retired public school leader.

He has an idea for the Democratic Party that would resonate with the 90% of Americans who went to public schools and whose children attend public schools.

Here’s an ad I would run if I were a PAC supporting the Democratic Party:

Narrator: (As numerous images of schools, students, and teachers engaged in learning are shown across the screen)

“In the early twentieth century the United States of America reinforced a universal commitment to Public Schools. This resulted in an economic powerhouse that generated more wealth than at any time in the history of the world. The alumni of these schools led Democratic governments in the defeat of tyranny in World War II and resulted in the establishment of universities that are the envy of the world. Industry and finance thrived. Yes, the public schools did this.”

(Pan to politicians advocating privatization and attacking teachers)

“Today, there are those who would like to pretend that the public schools have been a failure. That government efforts to educate our children could never produce the work force that would result from subsidies for private efforts. They are wrong!”

(Show closed charter buildings and parents seeking help for their children)

“Any implementation of vouchers has resulted in subsidies for those who already attend private schools, charters have not outperformed public schools academically, and closing public schools with unfulfilled promises of better results has resulted in decimated communities.”


(Pan to schools and parents who are engaged with their public schools in the myriad of ways this happens every day).

The only way to improve educational opportunity in America is to vigorously fund our Public Schools. To support teachers through greater resources, district support, and higher pay. To provide facilities that are equally great in all communities. America has thrived through our support of public schools. We as citizens, need to recommit to Public Schools with our purse and our fervor.”

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Funding, Supporting public schools
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