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Carl A. Cohn: How to End the Culture Wars in Our Schools

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2024 //
14

Carl Cohn is one of my personal heroes of American education. He served as superintendent in Long Beach and in San Diego, also as a member of the state board of education. Currently he is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. I first met him when I was researching my book The Death and life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. At the time, I was studying the San Diego schools as the site where corporate reform had its first try-out. Carl was brought in by the school board to put the district back together after nearly a decade of disruptive and punitive reforms. What I remember most from our candid, off-the-record conversation was his advice: the most important connection between the superintendent and teachers is trust. He subsequently published an essay about trust for “Education Week,” and I quoted him in my book.

Carl Cohn wrote this essay for School Administrator magazine.

Last summer, I attended a raucous school board meeting in Orange County, Calif., where a conservative school board majority had fired a popular superintendent, started remov-
ing books from libraries, banning
LGBTQ+ symbols and considering a new parental notification policy that would, in effect, restrict the protected rights of certain students under both state and federal law.

After sitting in a crowded room with adult culture warriors going back and forth for several hours with heated exchanges, I was struck by the bravery of a young transgender high school student who had the courage to go to the podium to address her elected school board with the following request: “I just want to feel safe at school. Please make that happen!”

Fast forward to the March 5 Super Tuesday primary elections here in California, one that was characterized by historically low turnout, which usually gives prominence to the voting habits of older, whiter and more conservative voters.

A new progressive coalition of parents, teachers, organized labor and community members successfully recalled two of the conservative members of the school board majority there and recently appointed progressive replacements for them. The other two members of the previous conservative majority are up for re-election on the November ballot.


A Hopeful trend


This outcome caught the political pundits and experts by surprise. The 25,000-student Orange Unified School District in Orange, Calif., sits in the heart of historic Ronald Reagan country, which is trending purple rather than solidly red in high-turnout elections. It was not seen as a likely place to launch the progressive pushback against the culture wars that have dominated public school debates at the local level, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.


Evidence of this hopeful new trend is emerg- ing in school district elections around the country, including the critical battleground states that are the key to the upcoming November presidential election outcome.


The emerging evidence from Bucks County and Reading in Pennsylvania, Clarksville in Ten- nessee, Lexington in Kentucky, Middletown in Ohio, Plattsmouth in Nebraska, suburban New Jersey and other parts of the country suggests that new coalitions of parents and allies are say- ing emphatically that the interests of all K-12 school children should be the main agenda rather than this recent proxy for the adult culture wars. The latter often creates real-time chaos and dis- ruption in public school districts.

Most of these conservative school board agen- das in the past four years generally have flown under the seemingly common-sense banner of something called “parental rights,” which suggests that a majority of parents absolutely know what is best when it comes to policymaking at their local public schools. Who could possibly disagree with such a valid notion?


I would argue that anyone who has studied the legitimate history of the United States would disagree vehemently because the sad truth is that parental rights often have been used in America to take away the rights of certain children under the guise that parents know best under all circumstances.


Did those Louisiana parents know best when they tried to deny an education to six-year-old Ruby Bridges back in 1960? The mob that yelled at that innocent young black girl was argu-
ing absurdly that parents know best under all circumstances.


Or in liberal-learning California and Mas- sachusetts in the late 1970s when school board members declared that parents in Boston and Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley should control who attends the public schools there?
Consider the fact the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education has logged a record number of complaints this past year, con- firming that the rights of vulnerable students are under systematic assault throughout our nation.

Communities push back


Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, reporter Courtney Martin describes the rust-belt community of Middletown, Ohio, made famous by Senator J.D. Vance’s 2016 best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” as an emerging success story in fighting back against the school culture wars that dominate so many communities in America.

The school district’s first Black superintendent, Marlon Styles, rather than getting defensive, decided to engage with the parents and commu- nity members who criticized his emphasis on cul- turally responsive approaches to school discipline, reducing inequality and full-on embrace of equity.


Styles sat down with the Middletown Area Ministerial Alliance and began a dialogue, listen- ing and learning tour that was critical to reas- suring the respected faith leaders that the school district he headed had not adopted policies inconsistent with the family values they all shared and supported.


Unlike Middletown’s rust-belt status, the Pennridge School District of Bucks County, Pa.,
is a suburban middle-class community just north of Philadelphia, where a progressive alliance suc- cessfully ousted a 5-4 Moms for Liberty school board majority last November 2023 that was determined to adopt a curriculum from conservative Hillsdale College along with banning policies on diversity, equity and inclusion, Pride flags and books with questionable content.


This is yet another example of a community of voters putting the brakes on efforts to adopt extremist policies at the local school board level. As in other communities, these progressive forces do not have the monetary resources that often give a huge advantage to their better-funded conservative opponents.


One of the more interesting progressive groups fighting back against the conservative parental rights groups has emerged in suburban New Jer- sey. It calls itself SWEEP, or Suburban Women Engaged, Empowered and Pissed. Its members often work with Districts for Democracy, the New Jersey Public Education Coalition and Action Together New Jersey to push back against well- funded conservative alliances.


While open discrimination against LBGTQ+ students through forced outing policies is often the galvanizing force in many of the emerging
progressive pushback efforts, book banning is another significant issue drawing the ire of voters in some communities.


The Omaha World-Herald reported on the suc- cessful recall earlier this year of a newly elected school board member in the small community
of Plattsmouth, Neb., about 20 miles south of Omaha, who argued that about 50 books needed
to be immediately removed from school libraries based on her objections to their adult content.
In addition, the board member argued, “People that voted for me should have been very well
informed on who I was and what I was going to do.” Her book removal campaign led to a grass- roots coalition of parents, students and commu- nity members who came together to recall her from the school board after she served on the board for only a single year.


PEN America, a free speech organization, is tracking a record number of book bans in U.S. school districts, encompassing 23 states and more than 4,000 books removed in the first five months of 2024. It’s no surprise Florida leads the nation in book bans with 3,135 removed in 11 school districts during the fall 2023 semester.


On a personal note, I volunteered in the same 1st-grade classroom for 20-plus years at Colin Powell School in the Long Beach Unified School District, which I headed for 10 years as super- intendent. In spring 2023, at the start of the baseball season, I read my 1st graders a book that is banned in Duval County, Florida’s fourth largest school system. It’s a delightful children’s book by author Jonah Winter titled Roberto Clemente, Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It captures the iconic story of the great Puerto Rican baseball player and humanitarian who died when his plane crashed while transporting relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve in 1972. My 1st graders loved the story of this Caribbean island hero.


Before reading it to my students, I searched for what the objectionable content might be. The only thing I could find was a single sentence that referenced the fact “White sports writers called him lazy when he first came up to the Pirates from the minor leagues.” As most sports fans know, sports writers of all colors are sometimes wrong about future Hall of Famers.


Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, with 19,000 students about 40 miles north of Anchorage, is the center of the most recent book banning controversy to come under federal court scrutiny with a lawsuit brought by
the ACLU and the Northern Justice Project last
fall, according to Alaska Public Media.

The plaintiffs, representing students and par-
ents, are arguing that the school district’s removal of 50-plus books that citizens had complained about is unconstitutional and violates the free speech rights of students. A ruling from a U.S. District Court judge is expected later this year on the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction halting the school district’s removal of the books in question.


A policy under consideration in Wyoming’s largest school district, Laramie County School District 1, would ban any book containing “sexu- ally explicit content” in elementary schools and discourage their use in junior high and high schools, according to news coverage in the Cow- boy State Daily.


The battle there is joined by the Cheyenne chapter of Moms for Liberty on one side and the Wyoming Family Alliance for Freedom on the other. Both sides are gearing up for battle as the school board considers final adoption of this strict policy.


Students First


This past spring, I moderated a panel discussion in Sacramento, Calif., on the embattled political landscape of public schools in California. The
speakers included the dynamic executive direc- tor of our statewide administrators association, a heroic new member of our state legislature and a 17-year-old high school senior who was about to graduate from Chaparral High School in the Temecula Valley Unified School District. The latter is a district whose board, endorsed by an evangelical church, has embraced the notion that the public schools are “the devil’s playground.”

The brilliance of the public school student leader, about to go off to college, stole the show as she confidently articulated what she had learned from outstanding teachers who had exposed her to an honest history of our country and diverse literature that inspires. Proudly sitting in the front row of this large hotel ballroom and cheering her on was her mother, who pointed out that caring and dedicated teachers presenting the truth was what she wanted and demanded from her local public school district. This student and her parent are part of the progressive One Temecula Valley PAC that recently recalled the church-sponsored school board president there.

As we examine the extraordinary stakes in
this fall’s election, school leaders would do well to remember that satisfied students and parents are the best allies and advocates that we could possibly have in the fight to defeat extremists and their blatantly false narratives about America’s public schools.


CARL COHN, a retired superintendent, is professor emeritus and senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif.


Marlon Styles, former superintendent in Middletown, Ohio, convened members of the faith community to recon- cile differing points of view.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Read

North Carolina: Republicans Pass “Massive” Voucher Expansion

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2024 //
12

Public Schools First NC posted the following statement about the passage of additional funding for the state’s voucher program. The General Assembly has a veto-proof majority in both houses, thanks to the defection of one Tricia Cotham, who ran as a Democrat who opposed abortion and vouchers, then changed parties. The bill raises voucher spending to over $600 million this year and to nearly $1 billion annually in a decade.

Here is the statement:

This week the House and Senate majority passed House Bill 10 “Require ICE Cooperation & Budget Adjustments” in a process that allowed no adjustments to any part of the bill. The new bill added a number of budget items to the previous bill, including massive increases in North Carolina’s voucher programs. 

The bill added millions in OS vouchers and ESA+ vouchers, bringing the total for 2024-25 to $616.1 million. The new appropriations were made to ensure that all voucher applicants this year received a voucher regardless of their income. As described in our September 7 newsletter, the majority of OS applicants on the waitlist have incomes too high to have been eligible for vouchers before the income cap was removed this year. 

In 2024-25, the OS vouchers pay up to $7,468 toward the private school tuition for each student. The voucher amount is tied to state per-pupil funding and increases each year. 

The wealthiest applicants—those making more than $260,000/year for a family of four—will receive $3,360 per child from the state. 

The bill does not increase teacher pay, so veteran teachers in their 15th through 24th years of teaching will receive a raise of only $820 in 2024-25.

The bill also sets out additional increases for both voucher programs through 2032-33 and establishes spending “for each fiscal year thereafter.” The result, as shown in the chart, is a whopping $937.6 million scheduled to be spent in 2033-34 alone. This is stunning and a total disregard for our underfunded public schools.

North Carolina will have spent a total of nearly $9 billion on private school vouchers by 2033-34. Those dollars would have fully funded the Comprehensive Remedial Plan (Leandro) to provide a sound basic education for all public school students—and much more. In November 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered the legislature to appropriate funds according to the Leandro plan, but legislative leaders are still fighting the ruling. 

Taxpayers may wonder whether the billions spent on private schools are helping students learn. We do know, based on national data, that private schools do not outperform public schools. Taxpayers won’t get answers—at least not yet – about NC students since private schools are not required to publicly report information on student achievement, unlike traditional public schools and charter schools.

Last year’s budget bill required private schools to administer the ACT to 11th grade students whose tuition was at least partially funded by vouchers starting this school year (public school 11th graders already take the ACT). It also required the Superintendent of Public Instruction to recommend a test to be administered in 3rd and 8th grade to both public school students and private school voucher students. There has been no word yet on what test Superintendent Truitt recommended and whether it will be administered this spring. 

Governor Cooper has signaled that he will veto House Bill 10 this week due to the massive voucher increases and other provisions in the bill that he has previously come out against such as the ICE requirement. 

It’s NOT TOO LATE to take action to STOP HB 10!

Legislators will be back in session on October 9. Governor Cooper is expected to veto the bill this week. Legislators will then be asked to vote to override his veto. What can you do to make sure the veto holds?

  • Contact legislators to urge them to reject this voucher expansion.
  • Contact all other elected officials and local business leaders to let them know how harmful the voucher expansion is to communities. They should contact legislators too. 
  • Encourage your local school board to submit a resolution rejecting vouchers (see examples here).
  • Support your local PTA as they advocate for public schools.
  • Sign our petition urging legislators to reject HB 10 and support the VETO.

PSFNC’s Statement on Voucher Expansion

Legislators, when sworn in, pledge to uphold the NC state constitution to provide a free public education. They should not be sending nearly a billion dollars of our tax money to private school vouchers while starving our public schools as they ignore the NC Supreme Court’s ruling to fully fund Leandro. By adding school voucher funding to clear the voucher waitlist of mostly wealthy families, this bill gives our hard earned tax dollars to wealthy families who can afford to pay their own tuition bills. In contrast, salary increases for teachers with 5 or more years of experience were less than $950, which amounts to pay cuts given cost of living increases. 

This bill prioritizes private schools over public schools, urban families over rural families, and wealthy families over our teachers and the nearly 1.4 million children who attend our public schools. Now, with no income limits to determine eligibility and no prior public school attendance required, it has become a handout to wealthy families to underwrite their private school tuition. This is the wrong path for our state. It undermines the social and economic fabric of our state–a state that used to be known nationwide for putting our public schools first- we need to do it again.

Categories Education Industry, Extremism, North Carolina, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

“All-Charter No More!”: New Orleans Opens Its First Traditional Public School in 20 Years

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2024 //
10

You remember, I hope, the saga of the New Orleans Public Schools District: Abandoned by white families, underfunded by a overwhelmingly white Legislature and Dtate School Board, the public schools were segregated and held in low regard. Then came Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which severely damaged most of the schools; the students scattered. The state stepped in and created the Recovery School District, whose job was to get the schools rebuilt and reopened under new management. To get rid of the union, the entire teaching staff (mostly Black) was fired, and teachers were allowed to reapply for their jobs.

When school opened again, most of them were privately managed charter schools, many of the newly hired teachers came from Teach for America, and the district for a time enjoyed a large infusion of funds from the federal government and large foundations, all committed to the success of the charter model.

The Hechinger Report tells the story of a new school that opened this fall. For the first time in two decades, it is a district-run public school instead of a charter school.

Be skeptical of claims about dramatic improvements in student outcomes when comparing pre-Katrina to the present. The enrollment in 2004 was nearly 70,000, and is now about 40,000.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Louisiana, New Orleans, Parents, Privatization

South Carolina: State Supreme Court Overturns Vouchers

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2024 //
8

Republican-controlled states have been on a crusade to enact vouchers, with the alone stimulus of billionaire lobbying dollars. We know from Michigan State University scholar Josh Cowen that most students who use vouchers were already enrolled in private schools. Thus, vouchers are a subsidy for people who can afford private schools, not for low-income students. Cowen also has demonstrated that the academic outcomes of vouchers are disastrous for kids who transfer from public schools (the evidence is contained in Cowen’s excellent new book: The Privateers).

The South Carolina State Supreme Court just overturned the state’s voucher program. Three judges recognized that the program violated the state constitution. Courts in other Republican-controlled states have decoded that the state constitution does not mean what it says.

Peter Greene writes in Forbes:

In many states, the challenge of creating a school voucher program is a constitutional requirement that public tax dollar are designated only for public schools. South Carolina’s legislature thought they had found a workaround; today the State Supreme Court said no.

The 3-2 decision came as a surprise. But the basis for the “relief granted in part” was straightforward.

The petitioners in the case make the claim that the voucher program violates Article XI, Section 4 of the South Carolina Constitution:

“No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

The language is exceptionally direct and clear, but legislators thought they had created a workaround in the form of the Education Scholarship Trust Fund. The premise, seen in many taxpayer funded voucher programs in other states, is that once the money passes into the hands of a third party, it somehow sheds its public nature.

As the ruling puts it:

Respondents’ primary argument is that the funds start out as public funds but lose their public character once the Treasurer places the funds in the ESTF.

The court is unconvinced that the ESTF is a true trust. And the court points out that even if it is a trust, the nature of a trust is that the trustee holds legal title to the estate, and in this case, the trustee is the state. The court notes that “this is not the first time we have encountered an attempt to deploy a trust to avoid constitutional limits on the use of public funds” and cites O’Brien v. S. C. ORBIT.

The other argument by the state is that ESTF funds benefit the families, and do not provide “direct benefit” to the private schools. “[T]hey read our Constitution as allowing public funds to be directly paid to private schools as tuition as long as the funds are nudged along their path by the student.”

The state argues that this is not like the last time vouchers were struck down (Adams v. McMaster) because this time the vouchers can be used for private or public schools. Therefor the program does not provide direct benefits for private schools. However, responds the court, “just because the benefit is diffuse does not mean it is not direct.”

State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver responded to the ruling.

“Families cried tears of joy when the scholarship funds became available for their children, and today’s Supreme Court ruling brings those same families tears of devastation. The late timing of the initial filing and subsequent ruling on this case midway through the first quarter of the new school year wreaks havoc on the participating students and their families.”

The ruling is certainly inconveniently timed for those students who have already used the vouchers to start their new school year. It’s not clear what will happen to them.

Previously, Kentucky’s Supreme Court also struck down their state’s voucher program, arguing that the twists and turns built into the program did not conceal it’s fundamental nature—the use of public taxpayer dollars to fund private and religious schools in violation of the state constitution. In Kentucky, that has led to an attempt to rewrite the constitution. We’ll see what the South Carolina legislature tries next.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Religion, Republicans, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, South Carolina

North Carolina Alert! GOP Plans to Slip in $248 Million for Vouchers on Monday

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
6

Public Schools First, North Carolina’s premier parent-advocacy group, warns that the GOP-controlled legislature plans to expand the state’s voucher program on Monday. It asks parents and concerned citizens to sign a petition and get active to stop the ongoing campaign to defund public schools.

Public Schools First NC writes:

In a familiar move, voucher supporters in the legislature are adding a $248M voucher expansion to an existing bill instead of proposing a stand-alone bill that can be debated and voted on separately. 

House Bill 10 “Require Sheriffs to Cooperate with ICE” has been newly branded “Require ICE Cooperation & Budget Adjustments.” This is where they have included an additional $248 million for private school vouchers in 2024-25.

With the school year underway, parents have already had to make schooling decisions for their children. This means that the $248 million is primarily for private school tuition for students who are already enrolled in a private school this year. In other words, families that can already afford private school will simply receive a tax-funded tuition rebate. 

Left out of the ICE/Budget Adjustments bill are any additional funds for teacher pay, which leaves the average pay increase at 3% for teachers this year. Due to inflation increases, the 3% raise is effectively a pay cut unless local communities add salary supplements large enough to make up the difference. Even worse, teachers with more than 4 years of experience received increases of less than 2% this year.  

Why aren’t legislators spending the $248 million boosting teacher salaries so they’re not getting a pay cut?

Put into specific dollar amounts, the proposed voucher expansion would give $4,480 to families (of 4) making up to $259,740 per year and $3,360 to millionaires, while teachers with 10 years of experience make just $49,350 per year and are stuck with a skimpy $920 salary increase. Is this fair? Is this how we strengthen and support our public schools?

Also missing are dollars to support early childhood education or fund North Carolina Pre-K. Currently just 53% of eligible children are enrolled in NC Pre-K, leaving nearly 24,000 low-income children without an adequate pre-k option. 

Instead of clearing the private school voucher waitlist to fund wealthy families, perhaps the legislature should spend the $248 million to clear the NC Pre-K waitlist and support low-income families.

There are many, many more important issues the legislature should be addressing during their time in Raleigh than adding dollars to a program that harms public schools and sends dollars to private schools that are completely unaccountable to the public.

It is critical that you act now! The NC Senate will open their session at noon. Join us if you can.

Please sign our petition to let legislators know you want them to OPPOSE THIS THREAT TO OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS – TELL THEM VOTE NO TO ANY PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHER EXPANSION!Sign the Petition

Need help explaining this to your neighbors and friends? Public Schools First NC just released a short video explaining vouchers in NC. Please share it widely!

video

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Extremism, North Carolina, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: The Great Arizona Dune Buggy Fiasco

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
6

Readers know that the State Board of education in Arizona actually turned down a parent’s request to use voucher money to buy three dune buggies. Amazing!

Mercedes Schneider digs deeper. In this post, she transcribes the discussion about the vote at the State Board meeting. She includes a list of eight dune buggies at different price points, from about $600 to $$18,000 each. Which did the parent choose?

And she closes with this pertinent question:

If the state of Arizona approves an educational program that involves riding a dune buggy purchased with state money, does the state then open itself up to liability if something happens to the child while operating that state-purchased dune buggy?

Categories Arizona, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding, Vouchers

Arizona: Should Taxpayers Pay for Trampolines, LEGO Sets, and Dune Buggies?

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
0

Laurie Roberts, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, asks a sensible question that has probably occurred to most voters in Arizona, but not to Republican legislators. What expenditures should be disallowed with state voucher money? Until recently, the sky was the limit. But then the state board turned down a parent who paid for three dune buggies (each of which costs thousands of dollars).

Under former Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, the legislature kept expanding the state’s voucher program. Parents and educators organized a state referendum on voucher expansion in 2018, and the voters overwhelmingly opposed it. But the Republicans pushed forward and made vouchers universal, available to every student in the state. And of course, the state board was extremely lax in allowing dubious expenditures.

Roberts wrote:

Good news for taxpayers, especially the ones who think public money ought to go to public schools.

The state is drawing the line at paying for dune buggies.

Kayaks, apparently, still are allowed as an acceptable educational expense under the state’s universal school voucher program, as are $900 Lego sets, trampoline sessions, Broadway tickets and espresso machines.

But isn’t it nice to know we absolutely are digging in our heels at the ridiculous notion of taxpayers shelling out for dune buggies?

So far, anyway.

Dune buggies fail the ‘reasonableness’ test

The Arizona State Board of Education on Monday rejected a parent’s appeal to use her kids’ state school Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to buy three dune buggies.

“At some point, I think the question of reasonableness comes to mind,” Board President Daniel Corr said, in voting to order the woman to pay for her own darn dune buggies.

If you’re inclined to reply, “duh,” know that Monday’s vote overturns the ruling of an appeal hearing officer who recommended that we foot the bill for the buggies.

And the Department of Education, which at first denied the expense then approved it — “mistakenly,” it claims.

DOE in March suspended the family’s school voucher accounts and requested reimbursement for the dune buggies, prompting the mother to appeal and decry “crass incompetence.”

“Telling us months later that we have to pay back something that was approved by the department has to be illegal in 50 states and a few territories,” she wrote in the appeal.

Yeah, and trying to sucker the state into paying for dune buggies ought to be galling in 50 states and more than a few territories.

In this case, the system worked … so far. Though I’ve got to wonder how a dune buggy ever got approved in the first place.

And how the state plans to recover our money.

According to The Arizona Republic’s Nick Sullivan, the parent got an occupational therapist to testify that her kids learn better after a trek through the desert, allowing them “to engage in movement before returning to more traditional learning environments.”

So, buy kids some bikes. With your own funds, not ours.

Or take them to the park.

Save Our Schools Arizona has been sounding the alarm about the state’s runaway ESA program all year, pointing to more than $100 million in non-educational spending approved without any academic justification.

Curiously, those fiscal hawks over at the Legislature had no concerns.

Vouchers shouldn’t leave taxpayers high and dry

Fortunately, Attorney General Kris Mayes does.

In July, she opened an investigation into the ESA program. Specifically, into Superintendent Tom Horne’s well-used rubber stamp — the one his department employs to approve “supplemental” educational expenses like $900 Lego sets and ninja training and ski passes.

Jenny Clark, an ESA parent who runs an organization to help parents get vouchers and was appointed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey to the state Board of Education, cast the only vote Monday to approve the dune buggy boondoggle. She noted that it’s the first time since she joined the board in 2022 that it has rejected a hearing officer’s recommendation in a voucher appeal.

Corr, meanwhile, indicated the parent could appeal the board’s decision.

If ever there was a case that illustrates the need for better oversight of ESAs — something the Republican-run Legislature refuses to consider — surely, this is it.

It shouldn’t have taken a trip all the way to the state Board of Education to declare that you don’t need a recreational vehicle to chase down a good education.

Categories Arizona, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding, Vouchers

Arizona: Surprise! State Board Says Parent May Not Use Voucher $$ to Buy Dune Buggies

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2024 //
3

Arizona is truly the Wild West of privatization. Its voucher program started small and grew fast. Parents and teachers organized a state referendum on vouchers in 2018, and the voters overwhelmingly rejected their expansion, by 65-35%.

But the Republican legislature ignored the public smack down and opened the nation’s first universal voucher program. Anyone can get a voucher, even if they are rich, even if they have never attended a public school.

The state’s voucher money could be used for a vast variety of products and services. But a few days ago, the State Board of Education drew a line: voucher money could not be used to buy dune buggies.

ArizonaCentral.com reported:

The Arizona State Board of Education on Monday struck down a parent’s appeal to use state school voucher money to finance three dune buggy purchases.

The parent sought reimbursement for the recreational vehicles through the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, citing her children’s need for interactive learning. Since 2022, the school voucher program has allowed any child in Arizona to receive public money to pay for education expenses such as private school tuition, supplies, tutoring and supplemental materials.

The board’s near-unanimous decision broke from an appeal hearing officer’s recommendation this spring that the family should be reimbursed. Several board members suggested the purchases were needlessly extravagant, even under the broad statute governing the ESA voucher program.

Board member Jennifer Clark, who cast the sole dissenting vote, said the board had voted in line with the hearing officer’s recommendation in every voucher appeal case since she joined in 2022. She said the board should defer to the officer.

The family can appeal the board’s decision, said Board President Daniel Corr.

“Regardless of your feelings on ESA — and I think they range along a spectrum — at some point, I think the question of reasonableness comes to mind,” Corr said. “And this particular purchase, purchases, exceeds my definition of reasonableness.”

The Arizona Department of Education first denied the parent’s request for reimbursement in December. The parent appealed, according to board meeting agenda materials, and then the department “mistakenly approved” her reimbursement request in January. 

The department suspended the family’s school voucher accounts in March and requested repayment for the dune buggies. The parent appealed again to the Education Board and described the department’s handling of her case as “crass incompetence.” 

“Telling us months later that we have to pay back something that was approved by the department has to be illegal in 50 states and a few territories,” she wrote in the appeal.

The department testified during the May hearing that the dune buggies “are not primarily education items, are disallowed by the ESA Parent Handbook, and are not items funded in a public-school setting,” according to the board agenda materials. Textbooks and supplemental materials, such as dune buggies, must be tied to a curriculum for a purchase to be justified under the voucher program, according to the department. 

This interpretation was affirmed by the Attorney General’s Office in a July 1 letter alleging the department had allowed expenditures not supported by curriculum and directing the department to stop approving those expenses. 

The parent later provided a curriculum plan that was “narrowly tailored” with help from an occupational therapist, according to agenda materials. The therapist testified during the hearing that the students engaged more effectively with learning materials that involved physical interaction, such as dune buggies, which allowed them “to engage in movement before returning to more traditional learning environments.”

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Industry, Funding, Vouchers

Pierre Tristam: The Great Florida Voucher Swindle! Welfare for the Rich!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2024 //
7

Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive in Flagler County, Florida. In this brilliant article, he describes vouchers as welfare for the rich, a new kind of state socialism. He points out that vouchers are destroying public schools.

I want to acknowledge that I cribbed the article from the blog of the Network for Public Education, which you should subscribe to. It’s free, and it’s curated by the great Peter Greene. If you have a passion for public schools, sign up.

Tristam writes:

It would be absurd, I think we can all agree, if Paul Renner, our esteemed Speaker of the House and Flagler’s chief pork slabber, were to champion a bill entitling every citizen to take out $2,000 from their local policing budgets so they can have their own private security and call it “Police Choice.” After all, don’t we all pay taxes? Shouldn’t we have a choice how that money is spent? Don’t we free Floridians know best? Sheriff Rick Staly would be the first to tell Renner he’s out of his mind. 

It would be absurd, I think we can all agree, if Renner, claiming that taxpayers shouldn’t have their park choices limited to Holland and Ralph Carter Park, were to champion a bill entitling every household to take out $1,000 from the parks and rec budget so they could help subsidize their Disney and Universal experiences and call it “Park Choice.” Even Renner’s chamber of commerce courtesans would tell him he’s out of his mind. 

But not too many people told Renner he was out of his mind when he did exactly that to public schools: he championed a bill entitling every child in Florida to $8,000 a year to spend on private education, at the public school system’s expense, and called it “school choice.” The few who did were themselves told they’re out of their mind. 

“School choice” is an orchestrated demolition of public schools and the social contract. The focus-group euphemism masks the thieving of tax dollars to subsidize private schools, transforming what was once an aspiration of  fringe Christian and anti-government militants into state doctrine. “I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have public schools,” the televangelist and founder of the Moral Majority Jerry Falwell said in a 1979 sermon. “The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.” Falwell lived long enough to see Jeb Bush’s Florida reopen that door. Renner swung the wrecking ball. 

Flagler County schools are losing close to $11 million this year to “choice,” siphoned out so 1,250 students can get their $8,000 either for private school or home school. True, not every one of these students was attending Flagler schools before, so it’s not a net loss of 1,250 students. But very few of these students were either qualifying or getting taxpayer subsidies before. Exactly 136 did in Flagler just four years ago, costing the district less than $1 million. Now anyone qualifies, including millionaire families, and every dollar going to them is a dollar diverted from public education. 

That figure of 1,250 students is for the first full year of this “choice” being in effect. Coming years will only accelerate the drain on public schools, because if you have children you’d be out of your mind not to take the $8,000-per-child handout, especially since most of you aren’t paying anywhere near $8,000 in school taxes each year. The rest of us, and even more so businesses and renters, are subsidizing the swindle. 

Advocates of the swindle have come up with a couple of defenses: first, that they’re taxpayers who should choose where their money is spent–the untenable argument that would then support “police choice” and “park choice,” and if you push that logic far enough, “war choice,” as in: you may spend my money on the Ukraine war but not the genocide of Palestinians. But in our social contract how our taxes are spent is not an a-la-carte option, though Boomer narcissists who can’t see past the hedge of their gated community think it should be.

Second, the advocates claim the dollars “follow the child,” as if public money going to private subsidies were new money that doesn’t affect public school budgets. It’s excellent propaganda. But it’s a double-barreled lie–double-barreled, because not only is every student lost to the public schools a loss of $8,000, but every student who was never enrolled in  public school but is now getting the $8,000 compounds that loss, since these are public dollars that would have otherwise been allocated to public schools. 

Incidentally, we don’t say that people receiving food stamps are on “food choice.” We don’t say that people getting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are on “poverty choice.” When people get free money from the government, we call it welfare. Ditching the ordurous school-choice euphemism and applying the language’s proper definition–school welfare–exposes the state’s fabrications.

Facts do the rest. The welfare kings and queens this time are much richer than those on food stamps. As the Miami Herald reported Sunday, “Last school year, the average income of families who provided income data and received scholarships for a family of four was $86,000.” (To be eligible for food choice this year a family of four can’t have a household income above $62,400.) 

According to Step Up for Students, the state’s arm administering school welfare, 82 percent of handouts went to students attending religious schools–madrassas–like one in Palm Coast that boasts of “raising champions for Christ” and still sports a crusader for a mascot, which is no less offensive to a few hundred million people than if it flew the Confederate or Nazi flags. Our tax dollars are subsidizing that kind of bigotry. 

More perniciously: When Bush started the welfare-to-school wagon he limited it to the disabled and the needy. Minorities benefited disproportionately. It was a form of segregation in reverse, like affirmative action. Renner’s scheme, like so much under Gov. Ron DeSantis, revives pre-Brown v. Board of Education segregation. By eliminating eligibility barriers, wealthier families use the subsidy as a bridge to very expensive public schools whose tuition keeps the riff raff out, even with $8,000 subsidies. A family might’ve afforded a $9,000 school but couldn’t afford a $15,000 school. So clever schools adjust their tuition just so as a barrier to undesirables and to make extra profit, thus cashing in twice over: in dollars and in whitening their own “choice” of who gets in. Et voilà. Jerry Falwell’s jolly jowly ideal realized. 

Finally, to make sure the dagger cuts deeply and fatally, the state makes it mandatory for school districts to advertise school welfare on their websites. Districts like Flagler must make it as easy as possible for parents to apply for the money and get out of the district, while the state provides a detailed list of private schools to choose from, including, of course, every madrassa under the sky. State and districts could not be shouting louder: Public schools suck. Here’s $8,000. $16,000. $24,000. Now leave.

As students continue to be bribed out, public schools will be left with less money, all the responsibilities for higher standards, more challenging students, crumbling buildings and, revoltingly, school board members and superintendents in full Stockholm Syndrome mode. You hear them in board meetings not only talking about school welfare but praising it, pandering to it, the way the condemned suck up to their executioner. 

There are exceptions. Our own Colleen Conklin for years has been sounding the alerts about the swindle, starting with the charter schemes. She thankfully kept a few of those out of the district, back when local school boards had a say. They no longer do. And Conklin is leaving in November. Our remaining board members love the school welfare swindle and are probably trying to figure out how to cash in with their own kids without looking like public school traitors. 

But as Jerry Falwell implied, it’s a matter of time before those school board members are surplus property, like public school buildings, like buses, for that matter like teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals, bus drivers and administrators, all of whom are already treated like disposable obstructions in the way of school welfare and the cult known as “parental rights.”

Categories DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, For-Profit, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization, Vouchers

U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Latest Biden Plan to Forgive Student Debt

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2024 //
31

Most people are aware that the cost of higher education has dramatically escalated in recent years, for a variety of reasons. Some students do not enroll in college because they can’t afford it. Others graduate with crushing debt, based on student loans. It’s hard to believe that some European nations have made college either free or affordable.

President Biden has tried repeatedly to find ways to help students pay off their college debt. His most ambitious plan was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2023.

Biden devised a new plan, and yesterday the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that one today.

Adam Lipton and Abby VanSickle of The New York Times told the story:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily blocked a new effort by President Biden to wipe out tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt.

The plan was part of the president’s piecemeal approach to forgiving debt after the Supreme Court rejected a more ambitious proposal last year that would have canceled more than $400 billion in loans. Mr. Biden has instead pursued more limited measures directed at certain types of borrowers, including people on disability and public service workers, and refined existing programs.

The decision leaves in limbo millions of borrowers enrolled in a new plan, called Saving on a Valuable Education, which ties monthly payments to household size and earnings.

The emergency application was one of two related to the program that the justices decided on Wednesday. The brief order did not give reasons, which is typical, and no public dissents were noted.

Republican-led states had filed a number of challenges to the plan, including a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, which earlier this summer issued a broad hold on the loan plan while it considers the merits of the case.

That case could soon make its way back to the justices, who indicated that they expected the lower court to act swiftly on the matter.

The Biden administration had argued the new program was authorized by a 1993 law that allowed the secretary of education to fashion “income contingent repayment” plans. The law authorizes the secretary to determine repayment schedules based on “the appropriate portion of the annual income of the borrower.”

Over the years, the secretary has invoked that law several times to relax repayment requirements. The latest plan, the subject of the Supreme Court’s order, was the most generous one.

It reduced the required payments for undergraduate loans to 5 percent from 10 percent of the borrower’s discretionary income, and it redefined discretionary income to be above 225 percent of the poverty line. People making less than that pay nothing. Loans of $12,000 or less are canceled after 10 years — down from 20 or 25 years — so long as the borrower made payments if required to do so.

The SAVE program, issued in June 2023, was challenged nine months later by the attorneys general of 11 Republican-led states, who said it was flawed in ways similar to the one the justices rejected last year. The 1993 law, they said, contemplates repayment rather than actual or effective forgiveness.

In the administration’s Supreme Court brief in response to one of the challenges, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote that the new plan “relies on a different statute with different language to provide a different set of borrowers with different assistance from the one-time loan forgiveness the court held invalid.”

The old plan invoked the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, often called the HEROES Act. That law, initially enacted after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, gave the secretary of education the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” to protect borrowers affected by “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

In its decision last year, the Supreme Court ruled by a 6-to-3 vote that the 2003 law did not authorize forgiving the loans at issue there. That same day, President Biden vowed to find other ways to provide debt relief.

“Today’s decision has closed one path,” Mr. Biden said. “Now we’re going to pursue another.”

The new program was based on a federal law that contemplated reduced payments based on income.

In the Eighth Circuit lawsuit, filed in Missouri, the appeals court temporarily blocked the entire SAVE plan. The Biden administration had asked the justices earlier this month to clear the way for the plan to take effect.

The administration initially estimated that the SAVE plan would cost $156 billion over 10 years, but that amount assumed that the Supreme Court would uphold the earlier plan. The real cost of the new plan, the states challenging it said, is $475 billion over 10 years. The administration says the real number is smaller, particularly as parts of the SAVE plan have not been blocked.

Categories Biden, Education Industry, Funding, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt
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