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Ohio: Senate Bill to Strip Power from State Board of Education Is Unconstitutional

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2023 //
6

Bill Phillis, retired deputy state superintendent of education and tireless advocate for public schools, discovered that the latest Republican effort to gut the State Board of Education violates the State Constitution.

He writes:

Unbelievable—Senate Bill 1, the Bill to render ineffective the State Board of Education violates the 1953 constitutional amendment which established the Board.

The Department of Education in Ohio is comprised of the State Board of Education, the superintendent of Public Instruction and the staff. Prior to the 1953 amendment, the education department, including the Superintendent of Public Instruction and staff (state education agency), constituted an administrative arm of the Governor’s office. This arrangement had been in place since 1913 after the Delegates to the 1912 Constitutional Convention proposed to replace the State Commissioner of Common Schools with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, which proposal, the citizens of Ohio approved on a statewide ballot. In 1939 a constitutional amendment proposal to establish a State Board of Education failed by a near two to one margin. The Depression may have been a factor in the overwhelming defeat.

In 1953 Ohioans passed a constitutional amendment to establish a State board of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction to be selected by the Board. Prior to the 1953 amendment, the state education agency was completely under the control of the Governor. The State Board of Education, with the newly selected Superintendent of Public Instruction, began operation in January 1956; hence the state education agency operated as a 4th branch of government until the mid-1990’s when legislation was enacted to allow the appointment of eight members by the Governor.

Article VI, section 4 of the Ohio Constitution states that the respective powers and duties of the Board and Superintendent of Public Instruction shall be prescribed by law; however, this language does not authorize the legislature to transfer the core functions of the State Board to the Governor’s office. The 1953 amendment transferred the core functions from the Governor’s office to the State Board. That is why the amendment was passed.

The legislature should deal with this matter in a manner that respects the intent and language of the Constitution. This question should be submitted to the citizens of Ohio to determine if the 1953 amendment should be reversed.

Learn more about the EdChoice voucher litigation

https://vouchershurtohio.com/learn-about-vouchers-hurt-ohio/

https://vouchershurtohio.com/8-lies-about-private-school-vouchers/

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OhioEandA

VOUCHERS HURT OHIO

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540|ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://ohiocoalition.org

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Fake, Ohio, School Choice, Vouchers

Texas: How a Brazen Attempt to Sneak Vouchers into a School District Was Derailed

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2023 //
4

Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick are crazy for vouchers, even though they would underwrite the tuition of students already in private schools and defund public schools. Behind them, of course, are rightwing billionaires. Here is a story by Forrest Wilder in the Texas Monthly of one sneaky effort that failed:

In October, I wrote about a wild, under-the-radar scheme in the Hill Country town of Wimberley to route taxpayer money to private schools around the state. Unbeknownst to almost anyone in the community, all-Republican members of the Wimberley ISD school board had spent much of last spring and summer laying the groundwork for a plan to create Texas’s first school-voucher program, using a loophole in state law.

The plot had been cooked up by a consortium of right-wing activists and donors, a politically connected charter-school executive, and Texans for Education Rights, a new nonprofit founded by Monty Bennett, a wealthy Dallas hotelier, and Aaron Harris, a GOP consultant from North Texas. Under a novel proposal floated by Texans for Education Rights, students would enroll in Wimberley ISD but attend private schools of their choice across Texas “at no cost to their families.”

Read Next: 

Inside the Secret Plan to Bring Private School Vouchers to Texas

Public education advocates called the plan a “Trojan horse for vouchers” and “a money grab.” The plan’s main local ringleader, an activist named Joe Basel, described it as the opening salvo in a battle to get the Texas Legislature to bless school choice. Other proponents promoted it as a way to “save kids” in struggling schools. (When the proposal ultimately failed in Wimberley, Basel pledged to shop it around to other districts.) The saga also showed the lengths to which proponents of school vouchers would go to circumvent the Legislature, which has repeatedly declined to establish a system that allows public dollars to be spent in private schools. If this all sounds kinda out there, you’re not mistaken. For the full tick-tock, read my investigation.

After the local school board abruptly pulled the plug in early August, Wimberley officials would only offer vague explanations on the record for why they did so, and some of the documents provided to Texas Monthly through the state’s open records law were heavily redacted. But now, newly obtained documents shed light on internal deliberations. They show that the school district’s principals and administrators, only recently debriefed on the proposal, were alarmed and upset by a concept that they and their peers would see as anathema to public education. Their staffs had no idea it was being considered. As the Legislature considers various school-choice proposals in its current session, the strange saga in Wimberley may offer a preview of what’s to come. It also suggests that some degree of support for school choice may come from school boards that have tilted far to the right.

In a mid-July memo to the Wimberley school board, superintendent Greg Bonewald, who had been on the job for just six weeks, seemed to unburden himself. He complained that he was being intimidated into rushing through a poorly thought-out proposal with virtually no input from educators or the community. He argued that the district would see no significant financial benefits from the scheme and seemed at pains to explain to his bosses on the board how unpopular vouchers were in public education circles. Many educators view vouchers as a mortal threat to public schools, a mechanism for subsidizing the education of the children of affluent families while depleting the resources of schools used by the kids of working-class families.

But Bonewald told his bosses in the memo that he had learned from the Texas Education Agency that Wimberley couldn’t expect any “significant financial benefit” from the enhanced per-student funding. Instead, almost all of those dollars would flow to the proposed “partner organization,” presumably the Dallas nonprofit founded by Bennett and Harris, along with the private schools. “There is nothing to indicate that this program is a short or long-term answer to budget challenges,” Bonewald wrote. At the same time, Wimberley would be ultimately responsible for the students’ safety, feeding, state accountability testing, and special-ed services.

Here’s what Bonewald’s memo reveals:

—The middlemen and private schools would reap almost all the financial benefits. The Wimberley school board had embraced the proposal as a way to lighten the district’s financial burden in two ways. One, WISD could possibly tap into a rich vein of per-student funding offered to students enrolled in the voucher program. Each student would yield almost $6,900, about $700 more than the state’s basic per-pupil allotment of $6,160. Two, the district could reduce its so-called “Robin Hood” payments to the state—local tax revenue returned to the state by some property-rich districts—by adding new students to its rolls.

—Bonewald had been subject to a campaign of intimidation. “I have experienced overt and covert efforts to intimidate me as the new leader,” he wrote the board, “to push forward with a process that I, our team, and potentially our Trustees do not fully grasp.” The superintendent doesn’t name the source of intimidation, and didn’t respond to a request for an interview, but elsewhere in the memo he refers to “multiple conversations” with Joe Basel and Tracey Dean. Basel is a self-described “systemic disruption consultant” best known for leading an effort to secretly videotape lawmakers, lobbyists, and others at the state capitol in 2015. Dean is the founder of Wimberley Area Republicans (WAR), a far-right GOP club that helped elect several of the conservative WISD board members.

Please open the link and keep reading.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Texas, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: DeSantis Launches Attack on Studies of Gender, Race and Whatever Else He Dislikes

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2023 //
23

Mercedes Schneider writes here about Governor Ron DeSantis’s shameless moves to wipe out courses in K-12 and in higher education that he does not like. He is leading an audacious attack on academic freedom that has not been seen in this country since the early 1950s during the Joe McCarthy era. Then the enemy was Communism, now it is fear of those who want to investigate the roots and practices of social and political injustice.

Such people, to DeSantis, are enemies of the social order. They are WOKE, awake to inequity; they make students want to change the status quo. They cannot be tolerated. Their ideas must be eliminated. DeSantis is leading this purge, he says, to protect “freedom.” The language is Orwellian. He means to stamp out the freedom to teach and learn while boasting of his love of freedom.

In addition, he wants to transfer the power to hire new faculty from the faculty to college presidents, whom he appoints. The entire state university would become subservient to his authoritarian impulses.

Schneider describes what is happening, mostly under the radar, as DeSantis wages war on freedom of inquiry:

The current ultra-conservative education platform seeks to stifle all formal or informal discussion of diversity, equity, or inclusion in public K12 and postsecondary education, with Florida apparently leading such efforts.

Though as of yet not a formally-declared 2024 candidate, Florida governor, Ron DeSantis is in the GOP polls as an assumed and formidible GOP presidential primary candidate.

DeSantis, and the Florida legislature are working hard to exercise power over what courses or majors could exist in Florida universities, with legislative efforts to kill womens and gender studies and, as the Insider notes, “gut” a variety of majors. Meanwhile, the February 24, 2023, Tampa Bay Times reports that the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) “told school districts to produce detailed information about the programs and materials they use to address some of the state’s most hotly debated subjects.” Continuing:

In an email delivered late Tuesday, the department instructed superintendents to fill out a 34-question survey identifying titles of books and programs they have relating to sex education, social-emotional learning, culturally relevant teaching and diversity, and equity and inclusion, among other topics. It asked for specifics for student courses and employee training.

The department requested names and examples from district and charter schools.

FDOE wants the information by Monday, February 27, 2023, though it did not offer any reason.

The FDOE request came on the same day that Florida HB 999 was filed by Alex Andrade (R-Pensacola). The bill would remove faculty input from the hiring process; prohibit hiring based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); remove majors and minors related to Critical Race Theory, gender studies or intersectionailty.

This rewrite of the previous bill seeks to remove any mention of “politics,” including striking through statements such as, “Motivate students throughout the Florida State University to become aware of the significance of government and civic engagement at all levels and politics in general”; “Provide students with an opportunity to be politically active and civically engaged”, and “Nurture a greater awareness of and passion for public service and politics.”

DeSantis does not want to encourage students to become engaged in civic action. He wants to nurture complacence and passivity “in this best of all possible worlds.

Please open her post to read the gory details of this audacious attempt to put the governor of the state in charge of whatever is taught in his state.

What DeSantis is doing is not conservative. It is radical. It is authoritarian. He shows no respect for critical thinking or debate. He is unwilling to allow students to learn anything he does not like. His desire for control of what can be taught or learned is dangerous to democracy. He is attempting to establish a dictatorship and has a super-majority of both houses in the legislature who will give him whatever he wants.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Higher Education, Ignorance, Inequity, Injustice, Racism

Houston Chronicle: All the Reasons Why Vouchers Don’t Work

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2023 //
11

Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick want vouchers in Texas, just like other red states. So they swallow a bunch of myths about the benefits of choice. They want a subsidy of $10,000 for every child who wants to attend a private or religious school, and they ignore research that tells them their assumptions about vouchers are wrong. For one thing, if every one of the 300,000 plus students asked for a voucher, it would immediately cost the state $3 billion! But they are indifferent to actual evidence. Is it wishful thinking or the desire to please their hard-right funders that drives them to overlook the needs of the more than 5 million students in public schools?

The editorial board of the Houston Chronicle, one of the state’s largest newspapers, dissected the shabbiness of their claims:

Here are the best arguments for vouchers — and why they’re wrong.  

Claim: Vouchers increase choice.

Who could be against choice? Not us. We’re just against a lack of accountability.

Texas is already awash in choice.

Take Houston ISD, with its mix of magnet schools, charter schools and traditional public schools. Texas also allows districts to participate in interdistrict open enrollment. And even if the districts don’t participate, students in certain low-performing schoolscan still request a transfer to another school in their district or even in another district.

If lawmakers want more choice, the state should be looking for ways to double down on what’s already working —and in some people’s eyes, that includes charters. Research is mixed there, too, on whether charter schools really perform any better than traditional public schools but at least there’s a thin layer of oversight. Over private schools, there could be none.

Claim: Vouchers increase choice for all students.

As more states adopt large-scale voucher systems, a clearer picture of who tends to benefit first is emerging: families already enrolled in private schools. “The only people it’s going to help are the kids who don’t need the help,” was how one rural Republican representative put it in November.

In Arizona, 80 percent of recipients were already enrolled in private schools. And when private school tuition at the top schools is tens of thousands of dollars, the benefit of a $10,000 subsidy might close the gap for a middle-income family, but is decidedly less able to do so for a low-income one. Those top tier private schools aren’t, by and large, the ones suddenly within reach. And they’re still able to reject students.

So what does that leave?

“The typical voucher school is what I call a sub-prime provider,” Joshua Cowen, a policy analyst and professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said. “They often pop up once a state passes a voucher program.”

Claim: Vouchers improve outcomes.

In the early days of smaller, more targeted voucher programs, the research seemed promising. But that promise has largely evaporated as programs have scaled up.

“I’ve been in both eras of this work,” Cowen explained. The early studies “are still the best evidence we have that vouchers work and they are 20 years old.” Instead he said more recent studies of Louisiana, Ohio and other large-scale voucher programs have shown “catastrophic, devastating outcomes” in student test scores, on par with the disruption caused by disasters including Hurricane Katrina.

Why? In part, lack of accountability.

“They don’t have to take STAAR, they don’t have to fall under A-F, they don’t have to accept all kids with a voucher,” said Bob Popinski, the senior director of policy at Raise Your Hand Texas, a public policy nonprofit that advocates for public education.

There are some programs that have added accountability guardrails with some positive effect, but without knowing what might take shape in Texas, a state that already struggles to regulate the proliferation of choice that exists today, we’re not hopeful.

Claim: Vouchers fight indoctrination.

In Texas, this latest fight for “school choice” has been tied just as often to supposed fights over curriculum and library books as it has been to improving learning.

It’s a dubious argument, alleging that public schools are indoctrinating children with what Abbott called “woke agendas.” Meanwhile, private schools that actually do follow a particular dogma of one stripe or another would actually stand to benefit the most through expanded voucher programs that suddenly mean public dollars can, in fact, support private religious schools free to teach whatever they believe.

That fight has been funded by conservative groups with deep pockets and focuses on buzz words and book titles – things that most parents aren’t really concerned about.

Literacy. Math. Bullying. Responsiveness.

Those are the issues that Colleen Dippel, director of Families Powered, hears most often from the parents who rely on her service to help navigate the many school choices currently available. Her organization supports more choice, including in the form of an effective voucher program, but she stressed that she’s equally likely to steer a parent to a public school as she is a charter or private school.

“It’s not the job of the parents to fix the schools,” she said of helping parents find the best fit for their child. “We have to start listening to them.” We agree but we believe the solutions should and can happen within our public schools.

Claim: We can fund both vouchers and public schools.

“We can support school choice and, at the same time, create the best public education system in America,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wrote in support of vouchers back in 2022 when he was gearing up for this legislative session. “These issues are not in conflict with each other.”

In the State of the State, Abbott promised that public schools will remain fully funded if the state expanded its limited education savings accounts available to families with students with special education needs.

These statements are laugh-to-keep-from-crying wrong.

Despite Abbott’s repeated “all-time high” claims about school funding, Texas already fails to support schools adequately now, falling well below the national average in per pupil spending. Other states, meanwhile, are already showing just how costly voucher schemes are and how they can further drain public education in the long-term.

At first, school district funding looks stable, maybe even stronger thanks to occasional sweeteners such as a boost in the basic allotment or a one-time teacher pay increase, according to Cowen.

“Those are all short-term ways to make it harder to vote against,” he said. “But you can’t sustain that in the long-run.”

Within two or three budget cycles, he said, the state can’t keep up funding two parallel education systems. And eventually the state aid to school districts takes a hit. That’s what public school districts say happened in Ohio in a lawsuit that claims the state’s voucher system has siphoned “hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds into private (and mostly religious) institutions.”

Here in Texas, one-ranking official even confirmed as much in a secretly recorded conversation in which he said that public schools could lose out on funding if a student opted for a voucher: “maybe that’s one less fourth grade teacher,” the official explained.

In short: vouchers don’t make sense, or cents, for Texas. Lawmakers should reject them. Again.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Hoax, Vouchers

John Thompson: Republicans in Oklahoma Divided Over Plans to Privatize Education

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2023 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, provides up-to-date insight about the politics of education in his state. One remarkable development, which he describes, is the likely approval of a “religious charter school.”

Incidentally, the rightwing Manhattan Institute—where bigot Chris Rufo is a senior fellow—says the time has come to fund religious charter schools.

This week in Oklahoma, as expected, State Superintendent Ryan Walters, Governor Kevin Stitt, and other far rightwing extremists continued their divisive and cruel campaigns. Legal and legislative investigations of scandals involving Gov. Stitt’s staffers were also advanced. And, as was also expected, more Republicans pushed back against ideology-driven privatization schemes. Also, the effects of Gov. Stitt’s unprecedented takeover of five state agencies have continued to make headlines in the Oklahoman and the Tulsa World.

As the Tulsa World reported:

“Walters’ proposed new rules on parental rights [which] would require schools to allow parents to inspect sexual education classroom materials and to have schools honor their written objections “in whole or in part” to sex ed “or any other instruction questioning beliefs or practices in sex, morality, or religion…”

And, “Walters’ proposed new rules on school library materials [to] define ‘pornographic materials’” and “to submit to the state a complete list of all books and other materials available in their school libraries and have a written policy for reviewing the ‘educational suitability and age-appropriate nature.’”

Walters also removed photos of educators in the Education Department Hall of Fame, to prevent the highlighting of “Union leaders and association heads.”  Walters said the Education Department will not be showing “union bosses.”

Oklahoma also made national news for ignoring the law requiring charter schools to be “‘nonsectarian’ in their programs and operations and that no sponsor may ‘authorize a charter school or program that is affiliated with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution.’” A Catholic church applied for a virtual school charter. This religious charter school would be funded by “as much as $2.5 million in state money to serve a projected 500 students in its first year.” The school would hire “educators, administrators, and coaches committed to living and teaching Christ’s truth” as understood by the Catholic Church.

Education Week also explained that some “legal experts are horrified at the proposition.”  For instance, Derek Black says, “The explicit merger of public education with religious organizations to deliver a public education to students is something we haven’t seen or even contemplated happening in our lifetimes.”

Moreover, “MAGA” Republicans continue to attack parents of transgender children. For instance, Sen. Shane Jett “said kids are being told lies that they can transition from one gender to another.” He added, “There is no spectrum of choice, … You are a boy. You are a girl.” Jett says “people are cashing in on transgender care” and he claimed “it involves horrific surgeries with cascading consequences.”

On the other hand, House Speaker McCall who previously opposed vouchers and who will probably be running for governor, advanced HB 2775 and HB 1935 which pushed back against Walters, Stitt, and other rightwingers.  I’ve long respected the legislative leaders who stood in support of McCall’s bills, but I don’t know how to respond to that compromise. On one hand, I’d offer a concurring opinion in regard to Rep. Rhonda Baker, who said, “We figured out the solution without selling out to special interest groups that were putting pressure on us,” and I’d push back in terms of what happened when the House members were “very diligent about being careful to protect our constituencies.” But clearly, McCall’s constituencies were rewarded.

Yes, these House members proposed a $150 million pay raise, while protecting teachers from another doomed-to-fail merit pay gamble, but they offered a mere $2,500 raise, which is 1/2 of the Senate’s proposed raise. McCall protected rural and affluent schools but the funding formula capped payments at $2 million per district, meaning that urban districts that disproportionately serve poor children and children of color would be discriminated against. (An insider estimates that the largest districts will only receive a $250 per pupil increase, which is ½ of what smaller districts will receive. Another insider reports that the bill, as it reads today, would mean the high-poverty Oklahoma City Public Schools System would receive less than 1/10th of what a smaller district could receive.) Fortunately, former Speaker of the House Steve Lewis predicts that such a formula would be overturned in court. 

Yes, McCall shifted $300 million in education funds away from vouchers to districts. But they then shifted $300 million in tax revenues to tax credits, which Nondoc correctly described as “slightly different than the education savings accounts — or school vouchers.” So, in describing their tax incentives for the rich without using the word voucher, the Speaker could benefit politically, while actually providing a system worse than some other voucher bills.

Steve Lewis explains why that is the case. He lists the tuition of top private schools: “Casady, $24,850; Bishop McGuinness $15,005 plus $1,195 in fees; Bishop Kelly, $9,845; Cascia Hall, $16,800; and Holland Hall, $21,449.” So, “one could argue that the $5,000 credit is not going to help many new students go to one of these schools. The credit is most likely a gift to people already sending their children to private schools.”  

The compromise bill also offers a political bailout to Stitt and Walters, which is understandable for Republicans serving their most powerful constituencies. Both bills reward the affluent, but won’t help poor families that will be losing Covid-era health and food services.

Not being a Republican insider, I’m not qualified to judge the education policy concessions that were made by pro-education Republicans. Given my bias towards optimism, I would note that those trade-offs enable push-back against Stitt’s unprecedented takeover of state agencies.  The World’s Carmen Forman reports, “Republican lawmakers want to reduce the number of appointments Stitt gets to the State Board of Education, Veterans Commission and the Turnpike Authority board — all governing bodies currently stacked with the governor’s appointees.” 

In order to defend public schools, the complete control of the Board of Education by non-educators and privatizers must be reversed. So, Reps. Baker, and Rep. McBride “would dilute the governor’s near-total control of the Oklahoma State Board of Education. It [their bill] cleared the House Common Education Committee, which Baker chairs, on a unanimous 9-0 vote with no discussion or debate.”

By the way, McBride said, “I hope the governor does not take this as a personal attack.” But he was more explicit in his effort to block Ryan Walter’s rule-making. As Foreman reports, “McBride said he doesn’t want Walters making administrative rules for the State Department of Education as a ‘knee-jerk reaction.’” And he’s challenging the Board’s power to downgrade a school system’s accreditation because Walters criticized their books.  

When McBride’s bill passed by a 10 to 1 votes, he spoke his mind: “we currently have a legitimate problem. I want to put this gentleman [Walters] in a box… focus on public education and not his crazy destruction of public education.” McBride also said explicitly, “Its fear mongering, I think …And teachers, librarians, superintendents, principals are in fear of what he might do.”

Moreover, regarding the other four state agency battles, “Rep. Danny Sterling cited recent drama related to some of the governor’s appointments to the Veterans Commission as a prime example of why changes are needed. And the attorney general recently said Stitt did not follow state law when appointing three members of the commission.” And recently, a district judge ruledthat Stitt’s Turnpike Authority did not follow the Open Meetings law when funding a $5 billion project. 

Also, Stitt’s other two longstanding scandals are still unfolding. Newly-elected Attorney General Gentner Drummond is taking over the investigation of the Tourism Department and the “Swadley’s deal that spurred a criminal probe, an audit, a state lawsuit and numerous questions about why the business appeared to be overpaid for its work.” 

The most recent, ongoing scandal was that, “Matt Stacy, who served as Gov. Kevin Stitt’s hospital surge plan adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic, was charged with 13 felony counts.” The World explained, “He was accused of paying residents to be ‘ghost owners’ of grow operations for Chinese organized crime operations and other out-of-state clients.”  This also should be another reminder of the death toll that resulted from the confusion prompted by Stitt moving the Health Center’s testing lab as Covid was surging.

So, there are serious problems with even the best House bill, but maybe resistance to it will press legislators to support Republican Sen. Adam Pugh’s excellent bill. It would cost less by investing in schools, while not giving into pressure to help the affluent, and not discriminating against the poor.

Moreover, the pro-education Republicans understand that school improvement is impossible without building trusting relationships. And that is impossible until Stitt and Walters stop spreading hate and falsehoods. I also expect they understand that our democracy is in danger, and we must fight back against rightwing lies. 

And, maybe more of the rest of their party will join them.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state

Peter Goodman: Should NYC’s Charter Schools Be Reabsorbed into the City Public School System?

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2023 //
19

Peter Goodman is a long-time commentator on education issues in New York City and New York State. In this post, he raises important questions: Have charter schools met the goals set when they were authorized? Should they have the right to exclude students they don’t want? Why should the city fund two competing school systems?

As you can see by the response of an editor at the pro-charter New York Post, part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, charter supporters oppose this idea and find it outrageous. What do you think?

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, New York City

Indiana: New Budget Offers Vouchers for the Affluent

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2023 //
7

Blogger Steve Hinnefeld posts about the new state budget proposals in Indiana, which increases spending on education. Unfortunately, a disproportionate share of the increase is allocated to expanding vouchers. A family with two children and an income of $222,000 will qualify for vouchers to a private or religious school. This does not “save poor kids trapped in failing schools.” It is a subsidy for the affluent.

He writes:

Indiana House Republicans are bragging that their proposed state budget will make record investments in education, including an 8.5% increase in K-12 funding next year. That’s not false, but it’s misleading.

A huge chunk of that increase would go to private schools under a vastly expanded voucher program, not to the public schools that most Hoosier students attend.

The budget would boost state funding for K-12 schools by $697 million next year, an 8.5% increase from what the state is spending this year. But it’s estimated that about $260 million of next year’s increase would go to growing the voucher program, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

In other words, 37% of the new money for education would go to vouchers that pay tuition for private schools, which enroll just over 7% of Indiana K-12 students. That’s hardly equitable.

The budget appropriation for base school funding, which accounts for 80% of state funding for public schools, would increase by only 4% next year and 0.7% the following year, House Republicans admit. That’s nowhere close to the current or expected rate of inflation….

The budget legislation would expand the voucher program to include families that make up to 7.4 times the federal poverty level: $222,000 next year for a family of four. Overall, the state would spend $1.1 billion on vouchers over two years, double the current spending rate.

It would also eliminate the “pathways” that students must follow to qualify for vouchers, such as having attended a public school, being eligible for special education or being the sibling of a voucher student. In practice, any student can qualify for vouchers by receiving tuition funding from a “scholarship granting organization.” But eliminating the pathways will make it simpler to get a voucher.

I’ve written about the many reasons vouchers are a bad idea: for example, voucher schools aren’t accountable or subject to public oversight; they discriminate against students, families and employees; they cause students to fall behind academically; and more. But what’s truly confounding about this voucher expansion is that it would benefit only people who don’t need it.

Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the objective is to increase “options.” “We want those parents to have the best choice they can have with regard to where their children should go, and all parents should have that,” he told reporters.

But a couple with two kids and an income of $222,0000 already has “options.” They can pay private school tuition without state assistance. In fact, it’s likely that most students who join the voucher program are already attending private schools. This is a handout for affluent families.

Please open the link and read the post in full.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Education Industry, Hoax, Hypocrisy, Indiana, Privatization, Vouchers

NYC: Big Charter Chains Lose Enrollment

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2023 //
10

Governor Kathy Hochul wants to lift the cap on charter schools in New York City, but, Chalkbeat reports, the big charter chains are losing enrollment.

When Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled a proposal to abolish the cap on the number of charter schools that can open in New York City, she said the policy is a matter of common sense, noting that children of color have experienced waitlists to enroll.

“I don’t think we should be telling them they don’t have a choice,” Hochul said in an interview on NY1 earlier this month.

The city’s charter sector has long been defined by its explosive growth and lengthy waitlists while enrollment has sagged among the city’s district schools. But preliminary state enrollment data suggests that demand for charter schools may be cooling — including among the city’s largest networks — complicating arguments for lifting the charter cap.

The city’s charter sector grew slightly this school year, by 0.42%, compared with a 2% decline among traditional public schools. But that masks important variations among charters: About 45% of them enrolled fewer students this year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state data. (The official statistics sometimes group multiple campuses under the same charter school.) About 60% of traditional public schools enrolled fewer students.

Meanwhile, the city’s most established networks enrolled fewer students this year than they did last year, including Success Academy (down 7.7%), Uncommon Schools (6.5%), KIPP (5%), and Achievement First (3.9%).

The governor’s proposal would abolish the local cap on the number of charter schools and release so-called “zombie” charters — essentially making New York City operators eligible for just over 100 new charter schools, which are privately managed and publicly funded.

But experts said there are trade offs of opening new schools in an environment where school leaders are struggling to fill all their seats. Since public dollars follow students, more schools vying for the same or shrinking pool of children would lead to smaller budgets or could even prompt closures, possibly affecting existing charters and district schools alike.

“The charter sector has grown substantially over time,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “But opening new schools at a time when you’re seeing these signs of contraction strikes me as something that requires a fair amount of thought.”

Pallas pointed to evidence that competition from nearby charter schools boosts student learning among district schools, an argument in favor of lifting the cap. But he also worries that the new charters, which educate over 14% of the city’s public school students, may not be viable long term or could threaten other schools by drawing funding away from them. “I don’t think it’s good for kids for there to be that kind of instability,” he said.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Harlem Success Academy, KIPP Charter Schools, New York, New York City

Kansas Public School Teacher: The Benefits of Privatization

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2023 //
22

Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in Kansas. She usually testifies against vouchers and other forms of privatization, but she suddenly realized what she could do if the Kansas legislature passes a voucher bill. She would open a completely unregulated school to do what the rightwingers fear most!

She wrote in The Kansas Reflector:

      

Liz Meitl

Liz Meitl testifies Feb. 6, 2023, before the House K-12 Education Budget Committee regarding legislation that would create vouchers for unregulated, unaccreddited private schools. GOP education proposals could allow for schools to turn into indoctrination mills, Meitl writes. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Kansas Legislature YouTube channel)

Two years ago I wrote an opinion piece for the Kansas Reflector in which I argued that the Legislature should be celebrating Kansas public schools, rather than trying to tear them apart through voucher plans.

In the two years since, the fight has been ongoing, with no break in the Legislature’s efforts to destroy public education. This year’s session has brought us a tidal wave of proposed legislation that would divert hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools to private schools.

The legislation has shifted, though. Now it’s not just for low-income students, or for already established private schools.

The new legislation allows any kid to access the funds, and it allows anybody to set up a school. And so I have had an entirely serious change of heart. I am in no way taking a ridiculous idea to its logical extreme, so just put that out of your mind right now.

Let me explain.

Bills in the House and Senate that would allow families to use state money to send their kids to private schools — specifically House Bill 2218 — represent an enormous opportunity for Kansas educators. This legislation will allow Kansas to be a beacon to the rest of the country. Just as the world watched on Aug. 2nd as Kansans defeated the anti-choice agenda, the world can now watch as our liberal, woke educators are freed from the bonds of bureaucratic oversight and local, state and federal regulations.

Other educators, like me, will jump at the chance to open our own micro-schools and enact our own curricular agendas. We will be able to recruit the students we want to teach. We will no longer be asked to serve all students equitably, but instead we can create small, insular communities of learners, focused on the topics we feel are most valuable.

This is an enormous opportunity for all Kansas teachers who are tired of being subject to democratically elected school boards’ rules and out-of-touch federal lawmakers’ regulations.

When I think about opening my own school, I can’t help but be thrilled at the potential freedom. I will have the opportunity to teach English classes rooted in critical race theory. I know many legislators think we teach CRT now, but really there is so much oversight and collaboration that I am hamstrung and forced to teach lessons based on “pedagogical research” and “student data.”

This legislation will allow me to teach what many of the conservatives assumed I most want to teach: a leftist agenda focused on my Marxist, atheist ideology.

I can create a social studies class anchored in the history of white people as oppressors and colonizers. I can develop a rich, interdisciplinary course of study in which we study the benefits of recreational marijuana and psilocybin, and we can take scientific field trips to grow houses and dispensaries. My math classes will focus on the benefits of a socialist economy, and I will do my best to cultivate highly educated, intrinsically motivated radicals.

Further, work with my students will be based on a feelings-first curriculum. Their social and emotional well-being will drive instruction. I recognize legislators’ intent, that parents need to choose educational environments, so I will invite parents to provide tokens of comfort from home and I will use them to decorate our classroom.

Without the burden of state-mandated assessments weighing me down, and free from any governmental oversight, I will have the bandwidth to focus on supporting students’ identities. That will be especially rewarding for me and my LGBTQIA students.

In addition to the curricular and practical freedoms offered, this legislation creates an enormous financial opportunity. I know, without a doubt, that I can recruit 21 students to attend my little school. I have a big basement, and the materials will come from my own head (and heart), so I will have almost no overhead.

This means that I will make somewhere around $100,000 annually, based on current base state aid per student. This is substantially more than I earn now, and I will be responsible for many fewer students. It is clearly a financial windfall for any motivated adult.

In conclusion, these bills are a giant win for Kansas educators and youths. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

The total lack of oversight and regulation, combined with the financial incentives, create an almost irresistible opportunity for those of us with an agenda for our state’s future. Teachers’ dedication to Kansas’s public schools and serving every student will certainly mean almost nothing when we consider the possibilities offered via this legislation.

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Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in USD 500, and her two children attend Kansas public schools. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Creativity, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Freedom, Funding, Kansas, Privatization, Race, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Arkansas: “The Rich Want Vouchers,” and There’s No Stopping Them

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2023 //
7

Austin Bailey writes in The Arkansas Times about a disappearing kind of Republican: the old-timers who supported their community public schools. As they die out, they are replaced by the newcomers in the mold of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who abhor anything provided by government, no matter what the consequences.

Sanders has proposed a sweeping voucher bill that will send hundreds of millions of dollars to students already enrolled in private and religious schools. A while back, there were Republicans who would have fought her. Their numbers are dwindling.

Bailey writes:

It’s a different era at the Arkansas Capitol these days, with emboldened and Trumpy Republicans unafraid to mislead, obfuscate and say the quiet parts out loud.

Innocent and harmless trans kids get crammed into metaphorical lockers over there all the time now, a convenient scapegoat for white evangelical bullies virtue signalling their Aryan heteronormativity. Poor people who need housing and food are also sitting ducks, powerless to punch back at upper-middle-class legislators chastising them to get a job already.

But the most deafening quiet part blaring in our ears this week was the message that providing a solid education to all children in Arkansas is kind of a drag, so the state should give up on that idea altogether and let the free market handle it. Sure, we will be leaving families who lack the cash, resources or elitism required to bail on democracy’s greatest invention to languish in public schools whose funding bases shrink as taxpayer money goes to private schools. But for those who stay put in those starving public schools — either because they love them, or because there are no other options close by, or because a $7,000 voucher covers only part of the tuition and other expenses required for a private education — well, that’s their “choice.”BRIAN CHILSONRep. Bruce Cozart is plumb worn out.

Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs), former chair of the House Education Committee and a 10-year Capitol veteran, all but admitted this week that the fight for equity in education is lost. Cozart met with a cluster of public school teachers who came to Little Rock from across the state to try to figure out what the hell is going on. Gov. Sarah Sanders continues to dangle foreboding sound bytes about “bold, conservative reform,” “education freedom accounts” and merit pay, but there’s nothing yet on paper and teachers are understandably desperate for details.

A veteran in the fight against school vouchers, Cozart is laying down his sword.

“I know you are disappointed in me, but I have been fighting vouchers for eight years and I am just tired. There is nothing I can do,” he told teachers Wednesday.

Did he really say this stuff? Yes! Reached by phone Friday morning, Cozart gave some lip service to what he said were the good intentions of his Republican colleagues, but confirmed the conversations.

There are other Republican advocates of public schools in the Arkansas Legislature, but they’re seemingly a dying breed. Sen. James Sturch, an educator and reliable public school champion, got primaried and lost his seat in 2022 to pro-voucher candidate John Payton. Republican Rep. Jim Wooten of Beebe is still hard at work trying to push bills to keep vouchers from widening the gap between “haves and have-nots.” A couple of Republicans recently went along with Wooten’s bill to require private schools that accept public money in the form of vouchers to issue standardized tests and admit all comers, but most Republicans in the House Education hearing did not. The bill died in committee.

Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS is expected to drop any day now, and it’s going to whip the rug out from under all the educators, families and students who believe in the ideals of community and collective opportunity our public schools still embody.

It’s absolutely true that many Arkansas public school students struggle in the classroom. That’s because they struggle outside the classroom, too. Arkansas kids face more than their share of poverty, food insecurity and trauma, and without fixing those external factors, these students won’t have the energy and focus they need to excel in the three Rs.

But ending hunger and poverty is hard; shitting on public schools is easy. The governor and her compliant stairwell full of cheering white conservatives know it’s much easier to blame poor showings on national standardized test dashboards on bleeding heart teachers and their crumbly old schools.

Arkansas LEARNS, this looming assault on the children who need help the most, will literally send hundreds of millions of public dollars to families already paying private school tuitions without taxpayers’ help, and we need to talk about it.

“The rich want vouchers. That’s who this legislation is for. The rich. They want it and they are going to get it. I am sorry but that’s just the truth,” Cozart said. Sometimes saying the quiet part out loud isn’t a bad thing

Categories Arkansas, Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Trump, Vouchers
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