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Mississippi: Parent Group Sues to Block Public Funds from Private Schools

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2024 //
7

In a court case in Mississippi, a parent group is seeking to prevent the state from disbursing public funds to private schools. The parents rely on a clause in the state constitution that explicitly bars public funding of private schools.

The story was reported by the Mississippi Free Press. SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM!

Schoolchildren could be heard playing less than a block away from the Mississippi Supreme Court building as attorneys argued over whether federal public funds should be awarded to the state’s private schools on Tuesday.

Rob McDuff, a Mississippi Center for Justice attorney representing the pro-public education nonprofit organization Parents For Public Schools, called a prohibition in the state’s constitution on funding for private schools “an ironclad principle” that “doesn’t have exceptions” during oral arguments.

Mississippi Supreme Court justices Leslie King, Robert Chamberlain and David Ishee also heard arguments from attorneys representing the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools and the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office defending the use of COVID-19 relief funds for private schools..

Parents for Public Schools filed the initial lawsuit in June 2022 after state lawmakers passed bills appropriating $10 million to help MAIS member schools pay for broadband, water and infrastructure projects. One bill Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law created the Independent Schools Infrastructure Grant Program. The other allocated American Rescue Plan funds for the program. The Legislature had set the grant to go into effect on July 1, 2022.

The pro-public education organization’s lawyers argued that awarding the funds to private schools violates Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution and would give private schools a competitive advantage. That section of the Constitution says that “no religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”

“This is a case about a lot more than 10 million dollars,” Will Bardwell, an attorney from Democracy Forward, who also argued on behalf of Parents for Public Schools, told media after the Feb. 6 hearing. “This is a case about part of the Mississippi Constitution that reserves all of the state’s education funding for public schools. If we’re going to make exceptions to that for a 10 million dollar appropriation, then we can make exceptions about that for a 100 million dollar appropriation or a 500 million dollar appropriation. This is a simple case and it’s about a lot more than 10 million dollars.”

Please open the link to finish the story.

Categories Education Industry, Funding, Justice, Mississippi, Parent Groups, Privatization, Separation of church and state

Ohio: Fund Public Schools, Not Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
5

Tanisha Pruitt, Ph.D., wrote the following statement on behalf of Policy Matters Ohio last June. She urged the legislature not to expand vouchers. Her plea was ignored. The legislature decided to raise the cap on vouchers to 450% of the federal poverty level. Given research that shows the failure of vouchers in Ohio and elsewhere, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Republican dominated legislature doesn’t care about the state’s children or their future.

Regardless of race, neighborhood, or how much money is in their parents’ bank account, every child should be able to attend an excellent school that has everything they need to learn and grow. Every dollar spent on vouchers makes this vision less achievable. Vouchers take public money and give it to private schools, with real consequences for the 90% of our kids who attend Ohio’s public schools.

With their recent budget proposal, Senate leadership has shown they are willing, even eager, to sacrifice Ohio’s kids to ram through a universal voucher scheme they’ve been planning for years. The Senate plan would make EdChoice vouchers — worth $8,407 a year for students in grades 9-12, and $6,165 a year for those in grades K-8 — available to households with incomes up to 450% of the federal poverty rate. (For a family of four, that’s about $135,000 a year.) And they wouldn’t stop there: Senate leadership would also allow households making more than that to get 10% of the value of EdChoice vouchers, subsidizing a discount on private school tuition for the children of the wealthiest Ohioans.

<<< And that’s just one of the ways the Senate proposal will disproportionately benefit the rich while hurting the rest of us.>>>

Kids bring their whole selves to the classroom. To succeed they need well-funded schools — and they need good food, health care, and quality child care to build a solid foundation. Senate leadership would make it very easy to qualify for vouchers, while Ohio already makes it very difficult to qualify for other, more fundamental public programs. Legislators impose tight caps on family income to participate in SNAP, Medicaid, publicly funded child care and free school meals. Compare those income limits to the proposal for limitless access to private school vouchers and you get a good sense of where the Senate majority’s priorities and loyalties lie.

Public schools in Ohio are responsible for educating 1.6 million students. The Senate proposal cuts their funding by $245.6 million in FY 2024 and by $295.8 million in FY 2025. At the same time, Senate leadership would increase funding for vouchers by $182 million in FY 2024 and $191 million in FY 2025 — pushing the total annual cost to more than a billion dollars by the end of this budget cycle. That’s $1 billion of Ohio taxpayers’ money being funneled to unaccountable private schools, many of which are operated by churches and other religious entities.

The budgetary choices that we see in the Senate proposal begs the question of where our legislators’ priorities lie when it comes to funding our education system. How we fund our schools now will impact education — and our workforce and economy — for years to come. Ohio is currently ranked near the bottom at 46th in the nation when it comes to equitable distribution of funding in schools. By proposing massive new spending on vouchers, Ohio legislators would only make things worse.

In the last budget, we won the Fair School Funding Plan, with the promise to fully and fairly fund schools so every child in Ohio gets what they need to set them on the path to a good life. Now we need legislators to live up to that promise and finish the job. State leaders have a constitutional duty to protect public schools. Ensuring a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” — as Ohio’s constitution requires — means correcting disparities created by bad policies of the past, which still harm kids today. We do that by prioritizing public schools, cutting spending on vouchers, and paying teachers what they’re worth, so every student in every district in every school can thrive.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Ohio: Charters and Vouchers Defund the Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
3

This report was written by Tanisha Pruitt, Ph.D., for Policy Matters Ohio in April 2023. It provides a comprehensive review of the funding of K-12 education in the state. The state has 1.6 million students. The state Constitution says (Article 6, section 2):

The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.

The legislature and governor of Ohio apparently believe that the state Constitution does not mean what it says. The Republican leadership has steadily increased the funding of charter schools (which are not “common schools,” but are privately managed schools, some for-profit) and vouchers, which go primarily up religious schools.

The report was written before the legislature lifted income caps on vouchers, agreeing to subsidize the tuition of all students regardless of family income.

Please open the link to see the graphs.

The Policy Matters Ohio report begins:

School is a place where childhood happens. Ohio’s public educators teach children of all races and backgrounds basic skills, but also challenge and inspire them to follow their dreams. For many students, school is a safe place to learn, develop and grow.

Ohio currently educates 1.6 million children attending school in our cities, suburbs and small towns. For years, almost no one was happy about how the state of Ohio funded public schools. The system pitted communities against each other and private and charter schools against public schools. We were living in the K-12 version of the “Hunger Games”: The wealthier your district, the stronger your chances of success.

Most state lawmakers signed off on a system that relied too heavily on local property taxes,[1] so communities where many residents have low incomes struggled to pay for the basics like updated resources and teaching materials. The state capped the funding it sent to some districts, often leaving those districts feeling cheated. In others, state funding failed to keep up with changing costs and student needs. Since 2005, lawmakers have been systematically sending more resources to the wealthiest Ohioans by cutting the state income tax, which accounts for nearly one-third of the state’s spending on schools. Meanwhile, lawmakers have diverted almost $1 billion a year from local levies to private and charter schools.[2]

These policy choices have taken a toll on Ohio’s educational outcomes. Education Week ranks Ohio 46th in the nation for equitable distribution of funding.[3] The performance metrics included: (1) state spending by examining per-pupil expenditures adjusted for regional cost differences, the percent of students in districts with per-pupil spending at or above the national average, spending index, and percent of total taxable resources spent on education and (2) Equity, by examining the degree to which education funding is equitably distributed across the districts within the state.[4]

The pandemic has contributed to a decline in test scores, which could have an impact on our overall ranking, if we do not get students caught up.[5] Over nearly two decades, we can draw a straight line between the racial and economic achievement gaps and the lack of funding to provide Black, brown, economically disadvantaged students[6] and students with disabilities what they need to succeed in school.

Ohio’s schools are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse; the Hispanic[7]population (a close proxy for Latinx) alone has more than doubled over the last 10 years.[8] Student poverty is also on the rise with 51% of students considered economically disadvantaged and the homeless student population doubling over the last decade.[9]

COVID-19 created unstable and even chaotic learning environments across Ohio. The elevated stress and social isolation caused by the move to virtual learning[10]exacerbated students’ need for mental health services.[11] The pandemic continues to take a toll on educators as well. COVID and other outbreaks are making educators sick. Moreover, increased stress and low pay cause many educators to leave the profession. Districts across the state have grappled with unprecedented staff shortages. For example, Columbus City Schools (CCS) had 800 employees absent every day during the height of the pandemic.[12] Hamilton City School officials were forced to cancel classes when 170 staff members were out due to illness.[13]

COVID has especially hammered school districts in communities that can’t raise enough money through local property taxes — especially in big cities, where Black, brown and economically disadvantaged students are more likely to live.[14] Schools in these communities often have fewer resources for COVID mitigation efforts like improving ventilation.[15]

Long before COVID, many policymakers neglected public schools, siphoning away their funding for tax giveaways[16] to corporations and undercutting them with schemes that send public money to charters and private schools. Combined with the effects of COVID, Ohio’s legacy of inadequate and inequitable funding has weakened the role school plays as a foundational public service for families and communities. For our state to be a vibrant place where people want to live, we need fully and fairly funded schools in all districts, no matter what students look like, or how much money their families have.

This report describes how the state funds public K-12 education and some key investments proposed in the 2024-25 Executive Budget, the legacy of unconstitutional funding, the role private school vouchers play in harming public schools, and how the Fair School Funding Plan — when fully funded and fully implemented, including weights and cost corrections — can provide districts with more resources to prepare Ohio’s children to succeed.

A brief history of Ohio school funding

The framers of Ohio’s constitution obligated the state to provide a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” for all students.[17] In 1991, the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, representing more than 500 school districts in Ohio, filed suit in the Perry County courts against the State of Ohio for failing to uphold this constitutional requirement.[18] In DeRolph vs. The State of Ohio — named for Perry County school district student Nathan DeRolph — plaintiffs argued the state was failing to live up to its obligation due to over-reliance on local property taxes for school funding: In wealthy communities, high property values generated revenues needed to provide students with more resources for cutting-edge technology, advanced classes, and extracurricular activities; the opposite was true in poor communities. This left schools in cities, rural areas and many low-income communities severely under-resourced, significantly harming outcomes for their students.

The litigation dragged on until 1994 when Perry County Court Judge Linton Lewis, Jr. ruled that “public education is a fundamental right in the state of Ohio” and that the state legislature must provide a better and more equitable means of financing education.

The DeRolph case was the start of a foundational shift in the school funding system in Ohio, but the fight for constitutional and equitable funding continued for decades following the ruling. By failing to keep up with inflation and by diverting public funds to charter schools[19] and vouchers (i.e., scholarships to private schools), lawmakers in fact cut state aid to traditional public schools over time.[20] As a result, public schools have increasingly relied even more on local resources, which exacerbates the problem of unequal funding and quality across districts,[21] a problem that persists today….

Public dollars, private benefits

Two smaller education systems run alongside Ohio’s traditional public schools: charters and private schools. When legislators redirect funding from traditional public schools to pay for charters and vouchers (which pass public dollars through parents and into private schools), the vast majority of Ohio students who attend traditional public schools have to make do with less.

In Ohio charter schools have been branded “community schools” and are considered “public” because they cannot charge tuition and they are supposed to accept all students. However, charter schools do not necessarily serve the public good. Charter school sponsors may contract with for-profit companies to operate the schools. In 2020, Ohio had 313 charter schools serving 102,645 students and 178 (57%) of them were operated by for-profit entities.[48]These “operators” have been the source of much scandal in Ohio. Simply put: The charter system in Ohio has lots of loopholes for private, profit-seeking companies to siphon off public dollars.

In FY 2022 the state sent $1.45 billion to charter schools — up from nearly $620 million in 2007.[49] During that time, Ohio’s legislators earned our state a reputation as “the wild west of charter schools” by failing to hold charters and their operators accountable.[50] Problems with Ohio’s charter school system came to a head with the ECOT scandal: A for-profit online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow squandered millions in public money by inflating enrollment numbers.[51] Other charter scandals have prompted rounds of legislative reform to reduce self-dealing, prevent the state from paying for students who were not actually attending school, and stop attempts at double-dipping by selling state-purchased materials back to the state for even more public dollars.[52]

The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, a joint effort of the Ohio Education Association (OEA) and Innovation Ohio, using data primarily from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), created a tool to help Ohioans know the state of publicly funded charters and private schools that accept public vouchers, and how they compare to traditional school districts. Analysis includes state report card rankings, classroom expenditures, and state aid deductions to charter schools. This system is intended to provide transparency so that parents, teachers, students and advocates can hold charter schools accountable.[53]

Based on the recent Annual Community Schools report conducted by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE),[54]community schools in Ohio are receiving more funding through the Quality Community School Support Grant (QCSS). Eligibility requirements for these grants are based on performance standards and overall academic achievement. In the current budget lawmakers increased funding to QCSS to $54 million for FY 2022, a $24 million increase from 2021. This increase includes a per-pupil increase of $1,750 for economically disadvantaged students and a $1,000 per-pupil increase for all other students.[55]

Vouchers eat up state funding for K-12 schools

As problematic as under-regulated charter schools can be, the proliferation of private school vouchers has had the most serious consequences for public schools and the vast majority of Ohio students who attend them. Since the Cleveland Voucher Program for low-income students in Cleveland City Schools launched in 1996, policymakers have expanded voucher programs across the state. Ohio currently has four main school voucher programs: the Educational Choice (EdChoice) Scholarship Program, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), the Autism Scholarship Program, and the Jon Peterson Special Needs (JPSN) Scholarship Program. The EdChoice program is split into two types: the Traditional EdChoice Scholarship, also known as performance-based EdChoice, and the EdChoice Expansion Scholarship, also known as income-based EdChoice.

Policymakers introduced the Traditional EdChoice scholarship program in 2005 and continue to expand it. The EdChoice Expansion program was introduced in 2014 and has also expanded in scope. The performance-based EdChoice program is available to students in underperforming school districts, while the income-based EdChoice program is available to low-income students. The Cleveland Scholarship is for all K-12 students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The other two scholarships, Autism and JPSN, are for autistic students and students with any disability, respectively.

What started as a program to provide alternative education options for students in what the state perceived to be underachieving schools has now expanded to include students from public schools with high achievement grades. According to a brief by the Northwest Local School District, 47.7% of the buildings on the current list of Ohio schools eligible for vouchers have overall grades of “A,” “B,” or “C” under the state’s report card system. The number of eligible schools has also grown rapidly. During the 2018-19 school year Ohio had fewer than 300 school buildings that were considered eligible; by 2020-21, 1,200 school buildings were eligible: a 300% increase in just two years.[56] Similarly, income-based vouchers are now being proposed for families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level. This expansion would be a costly and needless expansion, subsidizing private education for families that need no help. A family of four could earn up to $120,000 and be considered income eligible. This expansion will make vouchers nearly universal, by providing an additional handout to upper-middle-class families at the expense of public schools.

Vouchers in the state budget

After years of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations that have drained resources from public schools, and as COVID has created new pressures, the state further undercuts public schools by pumping hundreds of millions of public dollars into private schools.[57]

The 2022-23 biennial budget expanded funding of private schools, especially through EdChoice and other voucher programs. Traditional, performance-based EdChoice received $212.5 million, and the income-based EdChoice Expansion program received close to $103 million, a combined 61.4% of voucher payments statewide in FY 2022. The Autism and JPSN scholarships received $116.5 million and $76.6 million, respectively, making up 17% and 12.4% of distributed scholarship funds. The Cleveland Scholarship program received $46 million and only makes up 9.1% of distributed scholarship funds.[58]

Legislators have increased voucher payments from state funds since 2014, as illustrated in Figure 6.[59]

Figure 6
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7sKMh/2/

The FSFP funds vouchers directly instead of allowing them siphon away districts’ state funding. Lawmakers increased total voucher allocations from $395.4 million in FY 2020 to $635.1 million in FY 2022.[60]They also increased direct state aid to private schools, though not as dramatically. Policymakers increased funding for “auxiliary services” to private schools from $149.9 million in FY 2021 to $154.1 in FY 2022 and just under $156 million in FY 2023. Meanwhile, “nonpublic administrative cost reimbursement” aid — which reimburses charter schools for the cost of mandated administrative and clerical activities such as preparation, filing and records keeping[61] — increased from $68.9 in FY 2021 to $70.8 in FY 2022 and $71.6 in FY 2023.[62]

Lawmakers have increased spending on vouchers by increasing the amount families can receive. For income-based EdChoice Expansion vouchers for FY 2022-23 the state now awards qualifying K-8 students $5,500 per year and high school students $7,500 per year for tuition at non-public schools, up from previous award amounts in FY 2020-21 which provided $4,650 for K-8 students and $6,000 for students grades 9-12.[63]….

Voucher expansion threatens our public schools

Because of the General Assembly’s continued expansion of voucher programs, more Ohio families are enrolling in them — up from 52,000 in 2019 to 69,991 in 2021. Even accounting for this growth, most voucher students were already attending private school before receiving vouchers.[64] Further, the number of vouchers is a fraction of the number of students served in public schools. When students use state-funded vouchers to attend private schools, even if they were never enrolled in traditional school districts, it means less money in the state budget that could otherwise be spent creating great public schools, which must serve all students.

The Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, a coalition of over 100 school district and 20 education and community groups, took the state of Ohio to court, claiming that EdChoice Expansion violates the constitutional requirement that the state provide a “thorough and efficient system of common schools.” Coalition advocates believe that state lawmakers’ growing investment in vouchers could lead to a school funding system that privileges private education even more in years to come.[65]

Many proponents of voucher expansion have painted it as the state simply supporting parents’ right to choose where their child will be educated, but choice is not the problem, priorities are. The state has not fulfilled its constitutionally mandated responsibility to fairly fund public schools. Key components of the FSFP are still outstanding. Allocating close to $1 billion in public funds for students to take vouchers to private schools is a huge disservice to the 90% of students who attend our public schools.

Ultimately, the way the executive budget proposes to distribute foundation aid over FY 2024-25 will further erode the share going to traditional public schools by allocating a greater share to charters. The proposed budget would send 77.9% of foundation funds to traditional schools, compared to 79.1% in the last budget. Charters would take 10.8%, up from 9.9%. Voucher programs stay at 7.1%, and joint vocational school districts increase to 4.2% from 3.8%.

Recommendations & conclusion

Ohio has underfunded public schools and other essential public services for years.[66] Ohio lawmakers have cut state income taxes since 2005, reducing our ability to provide an equitable education system for all our students, and giving huge windfalls to the wealthiest Ohioans and little or no benefit to people with middle or low incomes.

Policymakers have a constitutional duty to protect public schools. Ensuring a thorough and efficient system of common schools means correcting disparities generated from over-reliance on property taxes by fully implementing the FSFP, with accurate estimates of how much it really costs to educate our kids.

Lawmakers in Ohio need to invest in developing an educator workforce of qualified teachers who are paid fairly for their essential work and strongly supported while doing it. Other pressing issues include a bussing crisis,[67] fewer 5-year-olds prepared for kindergarten,[68]lowered reading and math proficiency scores,[69] chronic absenteeism,[70] and a persistent digital divide.[71]

The state has sufficient revenue to meet these challenges, so long as legislators make public schools and kids a priority. Ohio has the money to fully commit to the FSFP in this budget. Instead of phasing in funding piece by piece, year after year, lawmakers should fully fund it right now. Ohioans must come together to demand lawmakers live up to the promise of the FSFP in the next biennium and beyond.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Ohio: After GOP Lifts Income Caps on Vouchers, Enrollments and Costs Soar

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
3

Republicans in the Ohio legislature love vouchers. They don’t love public schools. First, they created vouchers for Cleveland in 1995 as part of a budget bill. The ACLU challenged the program, and the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 decision called Zelman Vs. Simmons-Harris.

Here is a summary at Case Western Reserve University’s website:

On June 27, 2002, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of vouchers, with Justices Sandra Day OConnor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas joining Chief Justice William Rehnquist in delivering the majority opinion. Rehnquist argued that the program is “entirely neutral with respect to religion.” He explained, “It permits genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious. The program is therefore a program of true private choice.” Justice David H. Souter offered a harsh dissent, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. Souter called the ruling “potentially tragic” as a “major devaluation of the establishment clause.”

Souter was right. Cleveland has had its voucher program in place since 1996. Almost 30 years later, it’s clear that it did not improve academic achievement. Cleveland has participated in the NAEP testing since 2003. It is one of the nation’s lowest scoring urban districts, outperforming only Detroit (a city with many charter schools). Vouchers didn’t make education better in Cleveland and may have made it worse by reducing civic investment in the public schools.

Lots of choices—public, charter, and vouchers—no improvements.

Despite the clear evidence of failure in Cleveland, the Ohio legislature created multiple statewide voucher programs. Initially, they were targeted towards specific high-needs groups, including low-income children.

Now, however, the legislature has raised the income cap again. Students are eligible if their family income is 450% of the federal poverty level.. Enrollment more than tripled, from 24,000 to 82,000, and costs are ballooning. But that won’t slow down the rush to universal vouchers, where the state gives a voucher to every student regardless of family income.

The only statewide evaluation of Ohio vouchers was released in 2016. It was sponsored by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a rightwing think tank that supports school choice The findings were negative. Vouchers depressed achievement. But no one cared.

Laura Hancock at Cleveland.com reported:

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The number of applications for Ohio-funded scholarships for private schools has more than tripled this school year over the last after the state legislature increased both the cash amount of the vouchers and family income eligibility, according to new figures.

So far, the state has paid out $166.9 million for private school tuition this year in one of the voucher programs that the legislature expanded.

But that amount will continue to rise. Most private schools collect tuition on a monthly basis, and not all applications to the program have been granted or even submitted. Parents have until the end of the June to submit voucher applications…

According to the latest figures from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, the state’s new K-12 agency:

– Thus far in the 2023-2024 school year, 82,610 students have been awarded scholarships to private schools in the one of the five voucher programs that the legislature expanded. In the 2022-2023 school year, families of 24,320 kids received vouchers.

-An additional 8,582 applications had been received as of Jan. 25 but were in need of a correction or were otherwise incomplete.

DEW has changed the way it’s reporting the dollar amount, as reporters have published dozens of stories about the controversial growth in private school vouchers this year. Previously, it reported how much money the state had committed to private school vouchers in the 2023-2024 school year, based on approved student applications.

For instance, in late October, it had committed $239.8 million for 41,120 students whose applications had been approved at the time. That figure raised eyebrows because it suggested the state could go well over the $397.8 million the General Assembly had budgeted for vouchers this school year.

Since then, the number of applications approved has more than doubled, but the state agency is reporting only how much it has paid out rather than its total commitments to date. Calculating that number is difficult without detailed data because the state awards scholarships based on a sliding income scale.

That means the state spend reported now is about $73 million lower than what the state said in October. However, by the end of June, the amount of state money spent is almost guaranteed to be higher.

In the two-year state budget bill passed over the summer, lawmakers expanded voucher eligibility to all families. Among the changes:

-The General Assembly raised the full voucher award from $5,500 to $6,165 this school year for students in K-8 and from $7,500 to $8,407 in 9-12.

-For the full voucher, lawmakers expanded family income eligibility to 450% of the federal poverty level, or $135,000 for a family of four, from the previous 250% of the federal poverty level, or $75,000 for a family of four.

-Lawmakers removed income caps for all families this year, meaning high-income families also can receive scholarships, but the award decreases the wealthier a family is. For instance, families at 451% to 500% of the poverty level are eligible for $5,200 for K-8 and $7,050 for 9-12.

The state has five private school voucher programs. Some are for children with special needs or for families who live in the boundaries of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The program with explosive growth this year is Education Choice, which is based on income eligibility. (That is different from an EdChoice program for families who live in the boundaries of low-performing public schools.)

So far this school year, 146,544 Ohio students are receiving a scholarship for one of the five voucher programs, costing the state $428.5 million to date.

A Wednesday report about Ohio’s private school vouchers by ProPublica found that parents with kids in private schools were being pressured to apply for vouchers, even if they were against it on principle. Schools pressured lower-income parents to obtain the scholarships first before asking for financial aid. Some schools appeared prepare to raise tuition, because the increase could be absorbed by parents, now that the state was paying a large chunk of their tuition, the reporting found.

What is more, Ohio’s voucher program enables the revival of discrimination that federal law forbids.

Journalist Marylou Johanek writes:

Public financing of parochial school prejudice is the law in Ohio. Take a minute to process, I’ll wait. The state has opened its coffers to Catholic schools that discriminate. The overwhelming amount of Ohio’s voucher money — free taxpayer money to offset private and religious school tuition — goes to Catholic schools.

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland receives a ton of voucher funding. It just announced a new anti-LGBTQ+ policy in its 84 private religious schools that is blatantly discriminatory. Your tax dollars at work. Against the LGBTQ+ community. Against highly vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth.

Turns out the Church’s “all are welcome” spin is a conditional precept based on strict adherence to unchristian bigotry. Church leaders in Cleveland put their flock on notice that the universal invitation of acceptance may be rescinded to those who “openly express disagreement with Church teaching on matters of sex, sexuality, and/or gender in an inappropriate or scandalous way.”

The way Jesus turned nonconformists away.

From here on out, Catholic policy in Cleveland elementary and high schools — that rake in millions in taxpayer-funded vouchers — states that every person is expected “to present and conduct themselves in a manner consistent with their God-given biological sex” or face disciplinary action. Apparently, inclusive, affirming, nonjudgmental love is overrated.

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland aligned itself with “culture war” extremists attacking people who can’t fight back. When an institution as influential as the Cleveland diocese rolled out sweeping prohibitions on LGBTQ+ expression and support in its diocesan-run and parish schools, it effectively blessed the record wave of hateful anti-LGBTQ+ bills being introduced by right-wing politicians in Ohio and Republican statehouses across the country (500 and counting).

Open the link and read it.

Categories Education Industry, Elections, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Yong Zhao: Why Doesn’t the U.S. Scrap PISA?

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
49

When I learned that the latest PISA (Program on International Student Assessment had been released, I attended a webinar, where I learned once again that the scores of U.S. 15-year-old students were somewhat below the international average. The PISA tests in math, reading, and science have been offered since 2000, sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

My takeaway from the webinar was that we should try to be more like Singapore and Macau.

I have studied the results of international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS for years. Eventually, I began to wonder what the connection was—if any—between the test scores of 15-year-old students and the economic productivity of their nation 10, 15, 20 years later. We’ve been bemoaning our scores since the first international tests were given in the 1960s, even as our economy soars way beyond the nations with higher scores on the tests.

I invited Yong Zhao to share his reaction to the latest PISA scores. His response was as brilliant as I anticipated.

Yong Zhao is one our most accomplished scholars of education. Born in China to an impoverished family, he pursued his dreams, migrated to the United States, and has made his mark as a creative and innovative thinker. He is currently a Foundation Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Kansas and holds an appointment as Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne. His list of honors and publications is too long for me to recite here. But you can find it online.

Yong Zhao wrote:

It doesn’t make sense: Why Is the US Still Taking the PISA?

I have always wondered what America has got from participating the PISA every three years. Since 2000, the U.S. has been taking part in this nonsensical global academic horse race. Every time it took the test, American students stood at about the middle of the global league table. Every time the results were released, American media would point out how American students are not the best, but East Asian education systems such as China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore are the best. And then U.S. authorities would invite PISA and other pundits to tell us how to improve American education.

The same story has been going on for more than two decades, but American education has not improved, at least according to the PISA scores. According to the most recent results (NCES, 2023), American students did much worse in math in 2022 than in 2003, with an 18-point decline from 483 to 465. Their reading and science scores, however, remained about the same without significant change over the past two decades. Although PISA experts largely blame the COVID pandemic as the reason for the decline in math, it does not make much sense because there is no decline in reading and science. Did COVID-19 only affect math, not science and reading? Of course, one can try to argue that reading and science are much less sensitive to COVID, but why? 

Basically, the international standing of the US and the test scores of its students have not changed much. Whatever the PISA data revealed and/or the lessons from other countries such as China, Japan, Singapore, or Finland have not helped improve America’s PISA scores. By the way, Finland, the country Americans view with the best education system because of its early stunning PISA performance, has seen a much more dramatic decline in its PISA scores: from 544 to 484—a 60-point decline in math, from 546 to 490—a 56-point decline in reading, and from 563 to 511—a 52-point decline over the past two decades. Not sure if America still views Finland as the best education country, but its scores have dropped to almost the same point as American students. 

In fact, other than Finland, the PISA league tables have not changed much either. East Asian education systems have consistently remained the top performers and the OECD countries’ average scores have been dropping. If PISA had any impact on the world’s education quality and equity, education should not be the same as 20 years ago.

PISA does not really have much to offer to anyone, except those who benefit from the test itself—the consultants, the test makers, the data processors, and possibly some education politicians.

In a review article (Zhao, 2020), I summarized the research about  PISA and found: 1) PISA markets itself as an assessment of abilities needed in the 21st Century, but it is the same as other international tests such as TIMSS, 2) PISA ignores the overall educational purposes of different countries by primarily assessing math, reading, and science, 3) PISA’s tests are not of high quality with numerous theoretical and technical problems, and 4) PISA’s sampling has been manipulated in different countries. My conclusion is that instead of bringing positive changes to the world, PISA wreaked havoc.

America has never excelled in international tests since the beginning of such assessment in the 1960s, but the low scores have not seemed to affect it much. In fact, a correlational analysis done in 2007 showed a negative correlation between international test scores and economic development (Baker, 2007). That is, countries with higher scores in the first international study did worse than countries with lower scores. If PISA or any other international tests truly measure what matters in education, America should no longer be a developed country. On the contrary, East Asian countries have always scored well in international assessments, but their economic development has been more related to economic, political, and international orders than their test scores.

What matters to economic development and prosperity is perhaps the non-cognitive factors that PISA does not typically emphasize. For example, in an analysis, I found that PISA scores are negatively correlated with entrepreneurship confidence across countries (Zhao, 2012b). American students, despite their lower scores, have always had more confidence than their peers in other countries. In fact, confidence has been found to have negative correlations with test scores (Zhao, 2012b, 2014, 2018b). High score education systems, except Finland, have always had a negative impact on students’ social and emotional wellbeing (Zhao, 2012a). Even PISA’s own data show that PISA scores are negatively correlated with life satisfaction of students (OECD, 2019).

Many education systems participate in PISA because they are fooled by its claim to measure global competitiveness. Somehow these educational systems are convinced that their PISA scores and rankings mean how competitive they are globally. But this is not true and cannot be true. In 2022, over 80 education systems took part in the PISA but these systems are hugely different. For example, the U.S. has three hundred million people and does not really have an education system (it has over 50 education systems based on the number of states and over 12,000 systems if we treat each school district as a system). How can it be compared with Macao, China, a tiny place with about 688,000 people and one education system? Likewise, how can the U.S., with a per capita GDP of over $70,000 be compared with Albania, whose per capita GDP is about $6,000.

Moreover, PISA has been operational for over 20 years. The first cohort of 15-year-old students took the test in 2000. If PISA truly has predictive power, it should have produced a longitudinal study to show how these students do in society. They are about 39 years old today. But we haven’t seen any such report except the wild guesses made by some scholars (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010).

If PISA offers nothing, why does the U.S. spend the money and effort to join the game? For monitoring of basic education conditions, it already has the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) or the national report card, which has been in existence since 1969. Why continue to participate in PISA?

Frankly, it’s inexplicable, for there is truly no reason the U.S. should continue to participate in PISA, let alone to pretend to learn from high performing countries. The lessons PISA offered have not been productive. For example, the lesson that high performing systems (e.g., Singapore, South Korea, and Finland) recruit high performing high school graduates to be teachers (Barber & Mourshed, 2007) is not based on real evidence and does not really produce better education outcomes (Gronqvist & Vlachos, 2008). The lesson that high performing systems have clear definitions of learning expectations, a good structure of different stages, and tough measures to ensure that students have met the expectations (Tucker, 2011) is intended largely to copy East Asian education systems; but, ironically, the East Asian countries have been working very hard to change these practices (Zhao, 2014). International learning may make sense sometimes, but there are great limitations (Zhao, 2018a). American education should focus on developing its own way to improve education instead of trying to catch up with others (Zhao, 2009). 

This is not to say that American education is perfect. Rather, it is to say the way forward is not to look at what others have been doing. The U.S. needs to solve its own problems and work on creating a better future. With the emergence of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, the world has changed again. If ChatGPT had taken the 2022 PISA, it is highly likely that it would outscore all the students in the world. It would be the best education system accordingly. Today, many students use AI tools to do their schoolwork, and teachers use AI in their teaching. PISA has become even more irrelevant.

Since 2000, our scores on PISA have barely changed. While there’s much chatter about learning from other systems, it has not happened. There is no reason that the U.S. should continue its participation in PISA.

References:

Baker, K. (2007). Are International Tests Worth Anything? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 101-104. 

Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007). How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come out on Top. Retrieved from New York: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/social-sector/our-insights/how-the-worlds-best-performing-school-systems-come-out-on-top

Gronqvist, E., & Vlachos, J. (2008). One size fits all? The effects of teacher cognitive and non-cognitive abilities on student achievement. Retrieved from Stockholm, Sweden: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1311222

Hanushek, E. A., & Woessmann, L. (2010). The High Cost of Low Educational Performance: The Long-run Economic Impact of Improving PISA Outcomes. Retrieved from Paris: http://books.google.com/books?id=k7AGPo0NvfYC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=hanushek+pisa+gdp&source=bl&ots=2gCfzF-f1_&sig=wwe0XLL5EblVWK9e7RJfb5MyhIU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MLPCUqaOD8-JogS6v4C4Bw&ved=0CGcQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=hanushek%20pisa%20gdp&f=false

NCES. (2023). Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/index.asp

OECD. (2019). PISA 2018 Results (Volume III): What School Life Means for Students’ Lives. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/acd78851-en.

Tucker, M. (Ed.) (2011). Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems. Boston: Harvard Education Press.

Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Zhao, Y. (2012a, December 11). Numbers Can Lie: What TIMSS and PISA Truly Tell Us, if Anything?  Retrieved from http://zhaolearning.com/2012/12/11/numbers-can-lie-what-timss-and-pisa-truly-tell-us-if-anything/

Zhao, Y. (2012b). World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Zhao, Y. (2014). Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Zhao, Y. (2018a). Shifting the Education Paradigm: Why International Borrowing Is No Longer Sufficient for Improving Education in China. ECNU Review of Education, 1(1), 76-106. 

Zhao, Y. (2018b). What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Zhao, Y. (2020). Two decades of havoc: A synthesis of criticism against PISA. Journal of Educational Change, 1-22. doi:10.1007/s10833-019-09367-x

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, International, Standardized Testing

New Hampshire: Republican Legislators Want to Lift Income Caps for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2024 //
3

Garry Rayno has been covering New Hampshire politics for decades. He writes in InDepthNH with a sense of astonishment about the Legislature’s eagerness to remove the income limits on the state’s recently enacted vouchers, noting that vouchers (called “Education Freedom Accounts”) are claimed mostly by families whose kids never attended public schools and that vouchers are likely to bust the state’s budget. The state’s education commissioner Frank Edelblut homeschooled his children, and he seems to view public schools with contempt. He was appointed by Governor Chris Sununu.

He writes:

…Two of the three bills would either remove any income cap or have a list of situations that automatically would qualify a student for the program, making both bills about universal vouchers with no limits on parents’ income.

The first year of New Hampshire’s EFA program, the income limit was 300 percent of federal poverty, and that was increased last session to 350 percent.

House Bill 1665 would increase the income cap to 500 percent of poverty or over $150,000 for a family of four, which is just over the state’s median income, which means slightly more than half the families in the state would qualify.

And yes the greatest use of the EFA program money continues to be for tuition at private and religious schools and homeschool programs for kids who were not in public schools when the EFA program began in 2021.

House Bill 1634 would remove any income cap from the program and House Bill 1561 has nine categories with automatic eligibility, which together, provide parents with an opportunity to successfully find a reason to have their student or students qualify.

Reaching Higher NH estimates if all the students in private or religious schools or homeschools qualify for an EFA, it would cost the state about $105 million, which is a far cry from the $300,000 Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut claimed would be the first year cost of the program.

But his estimate was much less than the real cost — $8 million — the first year, and $15 million the second year and as estimated $25 million this school year.

That is money that comes from the Education Trust Fund which is used for the adequacy grants to all school districts and charter schools, special education costs, building aid and transportation.

The fund currently has a $200 million surplus but that won’t last long if the program balloons to over $100 million a year…

To date about half the states have a voucher program of some kind, most not universal or as expansive as New Hampshire’s. A handful of states have universal programs.

If you wonder what can happen with these programs when they become universal, look at Arizona.

The state’s first school voucher plan using money that would have gone to public schools — like New Hampshire’s does — began in 2011.

A proposition for a universal plan was defeated by voters in 2018, but the Republican controlled Legislature approved a universal plan in 2022 and it was signed by then outgoing Gov. Doug Doucey.

Newly elected Democratic Gov. and former Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, tried to do away with the universal plan her first year in office, but was blocked by the Republican legislature. This year she wants some guardrails and transparency for the program, but the legislature is not likely to agree.

The Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program costs the state $1 billion annually and is the biggest driver in the state’s growing budget deficit of $400 million.

Criticism of the program includes using the state money for ski passes, piano purchases and other “luxuries.”

When the program expanded, about 75 percent of the new students were never public school students, much like New Hampshire’s experience.

Another universal program is in Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through expanding their voucher program to universal last year as he prepared to run for the GOP nomination for president.

Among the complaints after the universal program began, ironically, was state money was used for tickets to Disney World.

Idaho and Utah also have universal programs and Indiana’s covers 97 percent of the state’s students.

Most states limit eligibility for the program to less than 300 percent so currently New Hampshire is more generous than any state that does not have universal voucher programs.

For example, Maryland limits participants to185 percent, North Carolina 133 percent, Ohio 200 percent, and South Carolina to Medicaid recipients.

There are several other bills dealing with the EFA program that will come before the Legislature this year including two that would allow any student turned down for a hardship placement in another school district would automatically qualify for the EFA program the next year.

Another bill takes aim at the organization that administers the EFA program. It would require the Children’s Scholarship Fund to establish an affiliate in New Hampshire as it has in every other state where it runs their voucher programs.

This push to move money out of public education and into private entities is not unique to New Hampshire.

The last several years, many states have had bills similar to the one that made it through New Hampshire in the 2021-2022 biennial budget, as it had trouble standing on its own.

There is a great deal of dark money behind this push coming from familiar places like the Devos and the Koch Foundation and it is not all about the quality of education as they would like you to believe.

One of the last healthy bastions of unionized labor is teacher unions and many involved in the push for school choice want to see that change.

There is one bill in the Senate and one in the House that would establish the position of part-time teacher, someone who works less than 30 hours a week and does not need Department of Education credentials.

The war on public institutions is not always what it appears to be, but you can be assured at the heart of it is big money, taxes and small government.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Funding, New Hampshire, Vouchers

Unity Group of Chattanooga Protests Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2024 //
4

The supermajority of Republicans in the Tennessee legislature are driving fast and hard to enact universal vouchers, which means the state will subsidize the tuition of students in private and religious schools, regardless of family income. In every other state that has adopted universal vouchers, most of the students who sought them had never attended public schools. The voucher was used by families who could afford to pay tuition. The voucher was a nice plum for families that didn’t need it. And many of the voucher/receiving schools were openly discriminatory—against students not of their own religion, against LGBT students, against students with disabilities.

The Unity Group is a coalition of African American community leaders in Chattanooga.

It released the following statement:


February 6, 2024

Cc: Unity Group of Chattanooga Opposition to Universal School Voucher Program

This week, the Tennessee General Assembly is expected to begin the process of crafting legislation that would permanently affix universal school vouchers throughout the State.

On the surface, this would appear to be a worthwhile and noble goal. We hear numerous romanticized soliloquies to describe why this is justified, such as providing expanded access, flexibility, choice, and opportunity. The glossy and rosy pictures they paint would have one to believe that universal vouchers were the best thing for schools and students since assorted Crayola boxes, number two pencils, and Mr. Rodgers and Sesame Street starting on PBS.

Yet, the research and data paint a starkly different picture. In fact, at a budget hearing held in November 2023, the State’s own Department of Education had to concede that 63 of the 75 schools that received funding from the State’s budget program, well over 80%, were “private “religious “schools in nature. Even more shocking is that last week, a report from the Education Trust concluded that 39% of TN school districts receive less in per-student funding than students that used private school vouchers.

Also last week, a draft plan of the proposed legislation was leaked that illustrated that the expanded voucher program would have no accountability measures, no anti-discrimination provisions, and no safeguards for students with disabilities. It is no wonder that there was consideration to forgo federal education funding because not only does this proposal not pass the smell test, but it very well could be in violation of federal law under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

As a matter of record, there have already been multiple lawsuits launched that have challenged the constitutionality of the State’s voucher program, and in fact in January the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that Davidson and Shelby County families could go forward with a potential suit.

From a fiscal management sense, the projected amount universal vouchers will cost Tennessee taxpayers is murky at best. If the budget shortfalls we have seen occur in other States are any indicator, then we can expect major cost overruns that will go down the well so deep it will eventually run dry.

A 2023 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center provides a good analysis on this. In The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers, it was found that between 2008-2019, voucher disbursements in at least 7 states doubled in contrast to initial budgetary projections.

In Arizona alone, voucher spending for the current academic year is more than 300 million over initial estimates; it is expected that the State may spend close to 1 billion dollars for their voucher program. In North Carolina, there were reports where some schools received more vouchers than they had students. There are also numerous reports that voucher recipients from states across the country have made highly questionable purchases like theme park tickets, kayaks, trampolines and yes, in one instance a chicken coop.

It does beg the question, will one able to use universal voucher funds to build a chicken coop in Tennessee as we have witnessed in other states.

Perhaps most profoundly, the process in which the universal voucher program is being crafted is both procedurally and fundamentally flawed. While there has been a basic framework “leaked” to the public, there remains critical questions about transparency, accountability, and oversight. The general publichas received little to no official details on this plan, only that the voucher program is being filed as a caption bill which, if we can borrow from a metaphor taught to our youngest students, lacks the “who, what, when, where, why, and how.”

In a perfect world, legislation of such consequence would merit a public hearing where experts on all sides would gather to provide analysis, evaluation, insights, and recommendations. The directly impacted people such as your local school boards and local education agencies would be invited to detail if the proposed legislation would have a positive or negative effect on them. The people of Tennessee, the taxpayers who would ultimately have to foot the bill, would be allowed to give sworn testimonies like they do in their city councils, county commissions and school boards.

Without such a process along these lines, can the legislators in Nashville really be able to measure the temperature across the State? Will they truly be able to establish public faith, confidence or trust if a potentially harmful program is simply ramrodded down the taxpayer’s proverbial throats?

The Economic Policy Institute released a rather frank and somber assessment on the growing school voucher moment in 2023 entitled, “State and local experience proves school vouchers are a failed policy that must be opposed.” They noted that at least 23 voucher bills were introduced in state houses last year, with universal bills passing. They noted that there is, “growing evidence that voucher programs do not serve students and may deepen educational and economic inequality.”

Further assessments found within the report are: (1) Evidence and research suggests vouchers do not improve academic achievement or education outcomes; (2) Vouchers represented a redistribution of school funding; (3) Vouchers benefited more wealthy and affluent areas over low income and rural. Amongst other major points of contention, one of the more profound conclusions of this analysis is that universal vouchers are, “Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable.”

A decision that will affect schools and districts throughout the State, rural and urban, merits greater public discourse, fiscal analysis, and research-based evidence. The lack of this type of transparency will truly make the universal voucher program, “Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable.” For these reasons, the Unity Group of Chattanooga must be adamantly opposed because this program will not solely be about autonomy, school choice or expanded options, rather, it will be ushering in a new era of Separate but Equal; and for the sake of our children, we must be better than that.

 

Yours in Abundance,

Unity Group of Chattanooga

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Hoax, Justice, Privatization, Religion, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Separation of church and state, Tennessee, Vouchers

North Carolina: State Orders Charter School to Repay $162,597

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
2

Several weeks ago, the Charlotte News-Observer in North Carolina, reported that a charter school —Children’s Village Academy—was under investigation because a member of its board was paid more than $140,000 in interest on a loan to the school of $180,000. The member in question is a high-level federal official, Dr. Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a federal agency that oversees data collection, issues reports, and supervises the NAEP assessment program.

The state ordered the school to repay money it is accused of spending inappropriately. The charter itself is under review as to whether it will lose its charter. As a side note, NCES tweeted a congratulatory note about School Choice Week, an unusual move for a statistical agency.

The latest update:

A North Carolina charter school tied to a high-ranking federal official has been ordered by the state to repay $162,597 it’s accused of inappropriately spending.

The state Department of Public Instruction presented reports in December alleging conflict of interest violations and misspending of state and federal dollars at Children’s Village Academy in Kinston. On Monday, DPI sent the school a letter ordering it to repay $162,597 in “unallowable costs” in the next 10 days.

The letter comes as the state Office of Charter Schools has recommended that both Children’s Village Academy and Ridgeview Charter School in Gastonia lose their charters when they expire in June. The Charter Schools Review Board will vote in March whether to renew the schools.

On Monday, Children’s Village leaders told the Review Board that it’s addressing the concerns, including investigating questioned financial transactions and improving its internal control policies….

Many of the questions have revolved around the school’s dealings with Peggy Carr, the vice chair of Children’s Village’s board of directors…

Carr is commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education. The center oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly called NAEP, which is a series of national tests given to assess the state of education.

Carr’s family founded Children’s Village Academy in Lenoir County in 1997. In 2008, Carr gave the school a loan of $188,000 to help it get through a financial crisis.

DPI questioned the documentation of the loan and how Carr has received more than $140,000 in interest payments so far.

“Although the reports do not say so expressly, they implicitly allege that the board should not have taken out the loan, or that it paid too much interest,” Matthew Tilley, Carr’s lawyer, wrote in a letter to the Review Board.

“Those allegations, however, are unfounded and would require DPI or the CSRB to second-guess the board’s business judgment.”

Tilley said that the amount repaid in interest was reasonable for a 15-year loan. But Tilley said that both his client and the school agree that the loan could have been “better documented.”

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article285086937.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, North Carolina

Arkansas: State Awards $1 Million to Politically Connected Firm to Adminster Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
5

The Arkansas Times, one of those super-valuable local news sites, reported on a plush political deal. The state awarded a no-bid contract to a business called ClassWallet to administer voucher funds. Parents submit bills, and ClassWallet pays them. Surprisingly (or not), ClassWallet employs the same lobbyist who represents former Governor Mike Huckabee, father of current Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What a coincidence!

ClassWallet — the vendor given a lucrative contract to manage the banking side of Arkansas LEARNS school vouchers — employs a lobbyist who also represents a political action committee for former Gov. Mike Huckabee, the father of current Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

The Arkansas Department of Education did not seek competitive bids last year before awarding the contract to manage the inaugural phase of the state’s “Education Freedom Accounts” to Kleo Inc. of Florida, a company that does business under the name ClassWallet. That contract is expected to earn ClassWallet more than $1 million in its first year.

A quick look at the Arkansas secretary of state’s website shows that ClassWallet is represented by the lobbying firm Legacy Consulting, who also lobbies for Huck PAC Inc., former Gov. Huckabee’spolitical vehicle.

Additionally, Legacy Consulting was founded by Chad Gallagher, Mike Huckabee’s former political advisor.

The contract to administer school voucher finances for LEARNS’ second year recently went out for a bid, garnering five out-of-state contenders, including ClassWallet. The winning vendor stands to earn about $2.4 million in service fees during the 2024-25 school year alone…

ClassWallet currently manages voucher programs in five states: Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire and North Carolina. The company is considered a leader in its field, but it is not without its controversies.

The state of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit against ClassWallet on Jan. 29 of this year for failing to prevent education funds from being misspent. According to a Jan. 31 article from The Oklahoman, this is the second time ClassWallet has been sued by the state.

In the first lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma in 2022, federal and state audits found $1,500 grants meant to be used for educational expenses were instead spent on kitchen appliances, power tools, video game consoles and other non-educational items. The lawsuit claimed that about $1.7 million was misused.

In response, ClassWallet denied any wrongdoing. Federal and state auditors said government officials, not ClassWallet, were at fault for failing to put proper guardrails in place. Oklahoma’s attorney general dropped the initial lawsuit, but Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced last month that he’s refiling the complaint.

Open the link and read the story, written by Arkansas Times reporter Jeannie Roberts.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Privatization, Scandal, Vouchers

North Carolina: More $$$ for Voucher Schools, More Tests for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
3

It is a strange irony that Red State legislators believe passionately in testing and accountability for public schools, yet excuse voucher schools from those same measures. If public school students must be tested, why not students who receive vouchers to attend private and religious schools on the taxpayers’ dime? Why not use the same measuring stick for all students so the voucher schools can be held accountable?

Here is a report from Public Schools First NC:

North Carolina’s voucher program has been widely criticized for its lack of accountability. The Opportunity Scholarship and ESA+ programs come with little financial oversight, no curriculum or content standards requirements, no educational or credential requirements for teachers, and no publicly available student performance testing data.

Since 1992, NC students in grade 3-8 public schools take the North Carolina End-of-Grade (EOG) Tests designed to measure student performance on the goals, objectives, and grade-level competencies specified in the NC Standard Course of Study. Standards in NC are used at the state level to ensure all students will be taught the content deemed essential and necessary by the state to allow teachers and parents to assess student progress and readiness for the next grade level.

The 2023 Appropriations Act takes a small step toward addressing the gap between the abundant regulation and accountability measures in place for traditional public schools and the state’s laissez faire approach to private schools. After spending half a billion dollars since 2014 and adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the voucher program’s annual budget this year, legislators added a small testing provision that may enable taxpayers to get a glimpse into the academic performance of voucher recipients. Starting in 2024-25, public school students and voucher recipients in grades 3, 8, and 11 will be administered the same standardized test.

But instead of requiring the estimated 4,000 grade 3 and 8 voucher-receiving private school students to take NC’s EOG tests, the approximately 220,000 public school students in grades 3 and 8 will have to take a nationally standardized test that was not developed to measure NC Standard Course of Study in addition to taking the EOG.

The common test in 11th grade will be the ACT, which is already administered to public school students statewide. Currently, voucher-receiving private schools are required to take a test (selected by the school administrator) in 11th grade. Many private schools already administer an assessment of their choice, so there will be little change other than NOW the state is picking up the tab for the new tests.

The common test for grades 3 and 8 will be recommended by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. But the 2023 Appropriations Act (p. 193) specifies that it must be a nationally standardized test, which disqualifies the NC End-of-Grade (EOG) and End-of-Course (EOC) tests. Although they are standardized tests, the EOGs and EOCs are specifically designed to assess goals and objectives of the NC Standard Course of Study, not a broad swath of national standards. Because they are only administered to students in North Carolina, they aren’t “nationally” standardized.

The national tests, often called “off the shelf” tests, are designed to appeal to as many states and districts as possible, so they measure standards common across states rather than one specific state. As a result, they may not align well with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

The EOG and EOC test administrations are required by federal and state law, so there is no option to replace them with a test that doesn’t specifically measure the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. However, as a condition of receiving voucher funds, the General Assembly could require the 4,000 or so voucher-receiving students in grades 3 and 8 to take the EOG tests instead of adding another test for the 220,000 public school students in grades 3 and 8.

In addition to affecting the testing burden of far fewer students, administering the EOG to private school students would be much cheaper than purchasing an “off the shelf” national test for hundreds of thousands of public school students.

Should public school students have to take another standardized test to assure lawmakers that private school students are learning? Should taxpayers have to foot the bill for hundreds of thousands of new tests instead of paying next to nothing for a few thousand EOG tests that are already developed and administered in North Carolina?

The legislative short session starts in April. This testing provision may be changed if enough people encourage their legislators to address it. Contact your legislators.

Read our fact sheet for more information on student testing in North Carolina.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, North Carolina, Republicans, Standardized Testing, Vouchers
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