It will take a while to get a full picture of how public education was affected by the election, but Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, sums up some of the highlights (and lowlights) here. we will keep reporting as we gather more information.
Carol writes:
The two foremost issues on voters’ minds this election were the economy and reproductive choice. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’s “parent power” push poll earlier this year and Jeanne Allen’s (Center for Education Reform) claim that privatized school choice was responsible for some candidates’ victories are two thinly veiled attempts to ingratiate their organizations with those elected.
Nevertheless, who won and who lost will influence education policy. Below are some notable outcomes as well as what we are watching that is still underdetermined.
State Legislatures
When it comes to charters and vouchers, the state level is most important. Resistance to both consistently comes from Democrats, at times, with rural Republican support. For example, the wild expansion of vouchers coincided with former Republican sweeps in state legislatures in 2020. There was no red wave through most state houses, which is good news.
Although we still await vote counts in some states, Republicans have not flipped any state legislatures their way so far, and there have been some realized and still possible victories for Democrats that can bode well for public education.
Michigan:
Michigan is the brightest spot of all. Democrats now have control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature in a state where they have not controlled either chamber since 1984. This provides a long-awaited opportunity to pass laws to make that state’s low-quality charter schools, run predominantly by for-profit operators, more transparent and accountable.
NPE Board member Cassandra Ulbrich retired from the Michigan State Board of Education. However, a great long-time friend of NPE, Mitchell Robinson, was elected, which is wonderful news.
And what about that voucher bill that Betsy De Vos attempted to push through a super-majority? Unless the Secretary of State goes through all of those signatures by the end of the year, it will go to the next legislature, which will not push it through. It will then go on the ballot where just as before, it will fail.
Pennsylvania:
Although Josh Shapiro voiced some support for private-school vouchers on the campaign trail, it is doubtful he will follow through, especially since the House will flip to the Democrats when all the votes are counted. In any case, the super-majority that held school funding increases hostage when the former Governor attempted modest charter reforms is now gone. School board members, teachers, and superintendents who have long fought for reforms to the charter funding system will now have a fighting chance.
And the state’s newest Senator, John Fetterman, is not only opposed to vouchers, he strongly supports Governor Wolf’s charter reforms.
Arizona
While the House will likely remain under Republican control, there is an outside chance that the Senate will split and the Governor will be Democrat Katie Hobbs. If that were to happen, there might be a respite from dismantling the public school system in that state by Republicans.
Federal
The House of Representatives:
Rosa De Lauro is one of the strongest friends of public education in the House of Representatives. She has kept the federal Charter Schools Program in check during her tenure as the leader of the House Appropriations Committee. While Rosa easily won re-election, if control shifts again to the Republicans, education budget priorities will likely change. There will be an attempt to overturn the Charter School Program reform regulations of the Education Department.
Senate:
Continued control of the Senate by Democrats means that even if the House flips, there will be some check on Republican attempts. And if Bernie Sanders assumes control of the HELP committee, that will mean good news for public schools.
But if the Republicans prevail, there is a strong possibility that Rand Paul will lead HELP. Libertarian Paul makes his disdain for public education apparent, and his leadership would lead to constant battles over the education budget and the Department of Education itself, which he would like to abolish.
Propositions
Finally, in some states, voters passed propositions for which we should cheer.
For example, California’s Proposition 28 passed with overwhelming support. The state will now put in about one billion dollars a year to support education in music and the arts, ensuring that arts education will not be dependent on where a child lives. And in Colorado, with the passage of Proposition FF,all children will now receive free lunch in schools even as they did during the Pandemic.
If you have more information about your district and state, please send it to me or to Carol, or both.
Parents in South Los Angeles are angry that their schools have been forced to share their space with a charter school. This practice, called co-location, creates tension and rivalry. Robin Urevich of Capital & Main tells the story:
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, some 50 public schools share their campuses with charter schools. It is often a contentious relationship. But now parents and teachers at Baldwin Hills and Trinity elementary schools in South Los Angeles, asserting that such arrangements jeopardize their children’s education, are demanding the Los Angeles Unified School District board end them for the 2022-23 school year. Baldwin Hills Elementary shares its campus with New Los Angeles Charter Elementary School, while Gabriella Charter School 2 is located at Trinity Elementary.
Students at Baldwin Hills take violin lessons on the playground during recess because there is no other space, said Jacquelyn Walker, Baldwin Hills’ community school coordinator. A program that offers fresh produce and clothing to kids and families who need them was forced to move to a nearby school for the same reason, Walker said. Private rooms are sometimes unavailable for counseling kids and families in crisis.
“We lost our computer lab,” said the Rev. AmberMarie Irving, DD, whose son is a second grader at the school. “If that happened at a majority Caucasian school, all hell would break loose,” Irving said.
“We’ve worked tirelessly to find a permanent home that is not on an LAUSD campus,” said Brooke Rios, executive director of New LA Charter School, which has about 198 students on Baldwin’s campus, according to Rios. “We’re aware of the tension,” she said.
Designated a 2020 California Distinguished School, Baldwin Hills is one of just three elementary schools in the district with a majority African American student body that includes a magnet school for gifted students. The school emphasizes science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. It boasts robotics, engineering, yoga and chess classes, and higher than average test scores. But teacher Marie Germaine said the district has undermined the school’s efforts with the space sharing arrangement. “They want us to accept our own suffering and our own demise. We refuse to accept it.”
Germaine, Walker and Irving were among parents and educators from Baldwin and Trinity who demanded the district get charter schools off their campuses when they addressed the school board on Nov. 1, the deadline for charter schools to request space on district campuses for the upcoming school year. Baldwin and Trinity are both among some 34 LAUSD community schools that are designed to be neighborhood hubs, offering services to children and families after traditional school hours. United Teachers Los Angeles treasurer Alex Orozco said that in 2019, the district agreed to avoid co-locating charter schools on such campuses, but hasn’t done so.
Trinity Elementary is at the other end of the achievement spectrum; it is struggling as one of 100 schools that LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has targeted for improvement, said teacher Tanya Flores. However, Flores said it is hard to improve when kids do not have adequate space for learning. A fifth grade class meets in the auditorium and a section of the school library serves as a makeshift second grade classroom, she said.
Parent Yuvicela Ruiz said when her fifth grade son’s special education class was moved to another school because of lack of space at Trinity, “it hurt him academically and emotionally. It showed that my son’s education is not valued by the district,” she said.
* * *
Relationships between charters and the traditional schools with which they share space have long been fractious. Sharon Delugach, chief of staff to school board member Jackie Goldberg, said sharing campuses can be “like having a really horrible roommate.” Delugach said few co-locations are successful. “There are places where they’ve managed to have a civil relationship, but there’s rarely a positive one.”
Republican Ellen Weaver, one of the state’s foremost champions of private school choice, has been elected South Carolina’s next superintendent of education.
A non-educator who has spent her career working in Republican politics and leading a conservative think tank, Weaver defeated Democrat Lisa Ellis, a veteran teacher and founder of grassroots teachers group SC for Ed, by nearly 13 points, according to unofficial election results.
South Carolina voters seem determined to undermine their low-performing public schools and allow students to go to any religious or private school that will take them, at public expense.
Voucher researcher Josh Cowen of Michigan State University says, after 20 years of studying them, that they set children back academically and that learning loss for vulnerable children at voucher schools is greater than the loss caused by the pandemic.
Oklahoma voters re-elected Governor Stitt and elected Ryan Walters as Superintendent of Education. Both support school choice and have attacked public schools for “indoctrinating students” with left wing ideas and teaching about race and gender. Stitt defeated former State Superintendent of Education Joy Hofheimer, who briefly led in the polls. Walters’s opponent Jena Nelson is a strong advocate for public schools.
The evidence about vouchers after three decades is that they subsidize children in private schools, and they inflict enormous learning loss on low-income children. Oklahoma’s leaders and voters want to educate their children for the 19th century.
Walters received 57.29 percent of votes cast, and Nelson obtained 42.71 percent with 1,887 out of 1,984 precincts reporting, according to unofficial results. Walters defeated April Grace for the Republican candidacy in the August runoff elections.
“What you’re gonna see is a commitment to ensure that every child is empowered through parents’ options,” Walters said. “You’re gonna see a push for more transparency and accountability and you’re never again going to see a superintendent that doesn’t bring transparency to you, the taxpayers. Folks, thank you so much. We will continue to make Oklahoma great.”
Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Walters to secretaryof eduction in 2020. He was endorsed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Frank Keating, chairman for the OU Board of Regents and former Oklahoma governor. Walters’ campaign focused on banning certain race and gender conversations from public school classrooms and supporting school vouchers. Walters also previously expressed he would reject federal funding for Oklahoma public schools, if elected.
“Public education saves lives,” Nelson said during her concession speech. “While I may not be your superintendent, I will continue to be an advocate for all of Oklahoma.”
Vouchers were originally sold as a way to “save” poor children of color from failing schools. We now know that this claim is not true. Poor kids who use vouchers typically fall behind their peers in public school. In state after state, vouchers are subsidizing students who are already enrolled in private schools and never attended public schools. The funding of vouchers takes money away from the public schools attended by most students, meaning larger classes, fewer resources.
Nearly Half of Universal Voucher Applicants are from Wealthier Communities
Total State Private School Subsidies Reach $600M
Dave Wells, Research Director
Curt Cardine, Research Fellow
Distribution of Universal ESAs vs. Distribution of Students
Key Findings:
45% of universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) applicants come from the wealthiest quarter of students in the state. Their families live in zip codes where the median household income is $80,000 or more, more than 30% greater than the state’s median income.
32% of universal ESA applicants are from families with a median income less than $60,000, which comprise just over half the students in the state.
80% of universal ESA applicants are not in public school, meaning these students are already attending private schools, being home schooled, or just entering schooling. At a cost of about $7,000 per voucher this equates to potential new cost to the state of $177 million.
Arizona will spend more than $600 million on private school subsidies—universal ESAs and Student Tuition Organization Scholarships—in the 2022-23 school year.
Only 3.5% of all applicants came from zip codes that had a district high school or 2 K-8 district schools with a D or F grade. No zip codes with a median income above $80,000 had a district high school or 2 K-8 district schools receiving a D or F grade.
There will be an increased risk of fraud with lax oversight to ensure that families don’t double dip by using both ESA and STO scholarship funds.
Now that the October 15, 2022 deadline to apply has passed, the Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) has analyzed the zip code distribution of applications for the new universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) voucher program that Gov. Ducey signed into law in July. GCI’s analysis finds that the program’s primary beneficiaries are students from wealthier families, similar to its previous analysis before the deadline, and that 92.5% of those students have access to well-performing schools.
Zip codes were provided by the Arizona Dept. of Education for universal voucher applicants. The total number of universal voucher applicants numbered 31,750. From that number GCI deducted 69 that were either out of state or had left the zip code blank. This report updates an earlier GCI analysis published on October 6. In September, GCI evaluated details of the program, including the inability to measure academic impacts of the program due to the absence of accountability measures in the legislation. Academic impacts were also part of a 2018 GCI report regarding Arizona’s private school subsidy programs.
GCI compared the distribution of applications to both the median household income as well as the distribution of K-12 students in the zip codes of applicants using data from the 2020 American Community Survey by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
As noted in the graphs below, about 45% of all applications come from parents or guardians residing in zip codes that have a median household income of $80,000 or more, more than 30% greater than the state’s median household income.($61,529) These represent the wealthiest quarter of students in the state (gold and silver parts of the graphs). This is similar to GCI’s October analysis.
By contrast, parents or guardians in zip codes with a median household income less than $60,000 which comprise just over half the students in the state, represent not quite one-third of all applications (blue section). This is also similar to GCI’s October analysis.
Gov. Ducey in his press release after signing the universal voucher expansion noted, “This is a monumental moment for all of Arizona’s students. Our kids will no longer be locked in under-performing schools.” GCI examined this claim by identifying zip codes that either contained a district high school with a D or F grade OR had at least two K-8 district schools with a D or F grade. One school with a D or F grade hardly speaks poorly for a zip code. For instance, one Kyrene District elementary school in 85284 (South Tempe) received a “D,” but that is not indicative of the very highly rated schools in that relatively affluent zip code. Zip codes typically have many schools, so even in the D or F zip codes, most schools (district or charter) did not receive a D or F. Consequently, GCI’s D or F zip code identifier understates school grades within those zip codes.
GCI found only 3.5% of all applicants came from zip codes that had a high school or 2 K-8 schools with a D or F grade. No zip codes with a median income above $80,000 had a high school or 2 K-8 schools receiving a D or F grade.
These results belie the claim that the program was primarily designed for average and lower income families. Rather, similar to the flat tax passed by the legislature, the primary beneficiaries of this government policy are wealthier families.
Total Private School Subsidies $600 Million
($180 Million from Universal ESAs)
Arizona has extensive subsidy programs for private schools. Dollar-for-dollar tax credit donations to private Student Tuition Organizations amounted to $250 million in FY2021 from individuals and corporations. In addition, the existing ESA program which serves a large number of students with disabilities was on track to cost the state at least $190 million plus administrative costs for FY2023 based on program growth. Collectively private school subsidies likely cost at least $440 million since tax credit data was less current.
Universal voucher access looks to add up to $180 million to that number taking the total cost of private school subsidies to in excess of $600 million dollars.
The Arizona Department of Education reports that about 80% of universal ESA applicants are not in public school, meaning these students are already attending private schools, being home schooled, or just entering schooling. At a cost of about $7,000 per voucher this equates to a cost of $177 million.
The remaining 20% of applicants are currently attending public district or charter schools. The voucher formula provides 90% of the state’s per pupil funding formula for charter schools plus charter additional assistance. While students moving from charters to private schools represent a net savings of about $700, vouchers to students who attended district schools represent a net cost to the state’s general fund. The voucher exceeds what the state is currently paying because district additional assistance is significantly less than charter additional assistance. Charter additional assistance is between $2,000 and 2,300 per pupil while district additional assistance is between $500 and $550. The difference exceeds the 10% overall reduction from charter payments for vouchers. In addition, students moving from wealthier district schools cost the state even more. Under the state’s education equalization formula their districts rely primarily on local property taxes, not state funding.
Movement from charter schools is more likely to occur, from GCI’s past analysis. However, the loss from district movement is significantly more, such that it’s likely to be an overall net cost to the state.
An unknown number of these students may already be using the STO private school scholarship program, so some parents may switch to ESAs which would reduce the net cost to the state. Likewise, not every applicant may qualify.
The estimated total cost of up to $180 million is significantly higher than the $33.4 million projected by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee for FY2023. The 31,7500 applicants are more than five times what the Joint Legislative Budget Committee projected of about 5,800 applicants in the first year of the program. The JLBC estimate though was very rough and saw the program doubling in year two.
STO scholarship award amounts are likely to increase in order for them to stay more competitive with the universal ESAs and because the number of of STO scholarship applicants may decline. Keep in mind, STO scholarships are administered by privately-run organizations that can take up to 10% of tax credit donations to cover administrative costs. Universal ESAs represent competition for their business. Some past STO scholarship awardees may switch to the universal ESA program, which could reduce contributions to STOs (it was common for STO donors to contribute on behalf of a particular recipient), but since the tax credit costs contributors nothing, they may persist.
Many of the new applicants are likely homeschooled students, which the JLBC had estimated at 38,000 who are now eligible for state funding.
Risk of Misuse Rises Significantly
Two potential issues arise with universal vouchers that might fall under the general category of fraud-whether pursued civilly or more likely with internal enforcement-relates to violations of the ESA contract. These occur if an ESA recipient were to misspend monies or double dip by receiving an STO scholarship simultaneously in violation of the ESA contract. Since ESAs go through the Department of Education, students are well tracked. An audit process is designed to prevent misspent dollars.
As GCI noted in September, already a number of permitted ESA expenses are questionable. But with a wider program that expands to homeschool, such oversight may be more challenging. Parents or guardians accepting ESAs sign a contract where they also agree not to accept an STO scholarship. However, the state does not track recipients of STO scholarships outside broad aggregate reporting to the Arizona Department of Revenue. It has been evident for a number of years that many parents or guardians seek and receive scholarships from multiple STOs, such that in 2019-2020 about 90,000 scholarships were awarded to around 50,000 private school students who were not receiving an ESA voucher (see diagram above). While some parents or guardians may not currently be in compliance with this restriction, the narrower scope of ESA eligibility limited that opportunity. However, with universal vouchers, the potential that a parent or guardian might attempt to double dip from both the ESA and STO scholarship programs rises significantly and an effective mechanism to catch when that occurs does not appear to exist.
For more information, contact: Dave Wells, Research Director dwells@azgci.org, 602.595.1025, Ext. 2
The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and improving public policy in Arizona through evidence-based, independent, objective, nonpartisan research. GCI makes a good faith effort to ensure that findings are reliable, accurate, and based on reputable sources. While publications reflect the view of the institute, they may not reflect the view of individual members of the board.SUPPORT US
Steve Hinnefeld, Indiana blogger, writes about the political donations of billionaires who claim to be “liberal Democrats.” First and worst is Reed Hastings, who is CEO of Netflix. Hastings claims to be a supporter of women’s reproductive rights, but he has funded Republicans in Indiana who passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the nation. Why? Because these same conservative Republicans support charter schools. Hastings has said that he looks forward to the day when there are no more school boards, and every school is a charter. So, his passion for charter schools is stronger than his commitment to women’s reproductive rights. His allies in Indiana also loosened restrictions on guns. Michael Bloomberg, who favors abortion rights and gun control, also bankrolled the same Republicans.
Indiana Republicans are spending several million dollars to protect and extend their supermajority status in the state House and Senate in Tuesday’s election. If they succeed, they may want to thank a California billionaire. One who’s usually described as a liberal Democrat.
Reed Hastings is a CEO of Netflix. Politically, he’s known for donating to Democratic politicians, nationally and in California. Netflix supports liberal causes, like abortion rights. But in Indiana, his campaign contributions go almost entirely to Republicans, who trample on his supposed principles.
It’s possible Hastings has given more money to the Indiana House and Senate GOP campaigns than any other individual in the past couple of years. Not directly. The money is funneled through a political action committee called Hoosiers for Great Public Schools. The PAC, headed by former Democratic Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, was founded in 2020 to promote charter schools.
Almost all its direct support for candidates goes to Republicans.
Hastings has given the group $1.4 million, half of it in 2020 and half this year. It also got $200,000 from John Arnold, a Texas billionaire. That’s all the money it has raised.
Hoosiers for Great Public Schools has made campaign contributions totaling $926,000. Some $400,000 went to RISE Indy, a PAC that has supported charter-friendly candidates for the Indianapolis Public Schools board. Another $100,000 went to Hoosiers for Quality Education, which promotes school choice, including vouchers and education savings accounts, and gives exclusively to Republicans.
Of the remaining $426,000 that Hoosiers for Great Public Schools contributed, nearly all went to GOP candidates and groups. It has given $190,000 to the House Republican Campaign Committee, $45,000 to the Senate Majority Campaign Committee, and $75,000 to House Speaker Todd Huston, along with four- and five-figure donations to individual Republicans.
That’s who Reed Hastings is helping elect in Indiana.
A similar story can be told about Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City. He’s known for supporting liberal causes, including gun control and abortion rights. In recent years, Bloomberg has given $550,000 to Stand for Children Indiana, which supports charter schools. All of Stand for Children’s state-level contributions this year have gone to Republicans.
There’s a cynical argument for such behavior: If you have money and you want to influence Indiana politics, you give to Republicans, because they have the power.
Peterson, CEO of Christel House International, which operates charter schools in Indianapolis, told me in 2020 that the purpose of Hoosiers for Great Public Schools was to support charter schools. But Indiana Republicans are no longer in love with charter schools. In 2021, they gave charters a modest funding increase. In 2022, they did nothing. They have moved on to favoring a more radical form of school choice in which state money “follows the child,” including to private and religious schools.
What did Hastings get with his support of the Indiana GOP? For one thing, a new law that says Hoosiers don’t need a permit to carry a handgun in public. For another, a discriminatory anti-trans law that bars transgender students from school sports teams. Republicans also tried to restrict what schools could teach about “divisive topics” – i.e., racism and slavery – but fell short.
The 1% understand very well that the Republican Party is dedicated, first and foremost, to cutting the taxes of the rich. How else to explain the billionaires who don’t like Trump but spent millions on candidates who repeated The Former Guy’s Big Lie?
Of course, they want low taxes. But they have another goal: School choice. Somehow these billionaires became convinced that charters and vouchers are superior to public schools, and they want to make sure that those in public office agree with them, regardless of ample evidence that school choice has proven to be a failure over the past three decades.
Maggie Severns reports at GRID:
Some of the biggest Republican megadonors don’t support former president Donald Trump — but have wound up supporting his candidates.
Ken Griffin, the founder of hedge fund Citadel and currently the third-biggest donor to the 2022 midterms, is a business leader and repeat critic of Trump. Earlier this year, he publicly called on Republicans to abandon the idea that the election was stolen, saying, “It’s really important that we end the rhetoric in America that elections can be rigged.” He maintains the Republican Party should “move on” from Trump in 2024.
When it came time for this year’s midterms, Griffin went big, becoming a top contributor to super PACs helping Republicans win back the House and Senate. But those super PACs are supporting the very politics that Griffin has shunned: He gave $10 million to a PAC that has aired ads for Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, a Peter Thiel acolyte who has falsely claimed Democrats are trying to “import” immigrants to help them win elections; Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania who recently said “lots more information” is needed to determine if Trump won the 2020 election; and Adam Laxalt, the Republican nominee in the Nevanda senate race, a former state attorney general who held press conferences and filed lawsuits alleging widespread voter fraud in 2020….
Jeffrey Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania and the fourth-largest donor of the midterms, didn’t give money to Trump’s campaign during the 2020 election, but he has poured $47 million into federal politics this cycle, much of it to the conservative Club for Growth and an affiliated PAC, which have supported candidates who espouse conspiracy theories and challenged the 2020 election results. Yass is also focused on education policy, working to advance charter schools and school choice with his political money. Republican financier Paul Singer, another major super PAC donor who did little support to Trump, has spent $20 million this cycle.
Texas Republicans have been longing to pass a voucher bill, but they have been stymied by grassroots opposition and by our friends, Pastors for Texas Children, who believe in separation of church and state.
NBC News reported the story of the big money behind vouchers:
Texas Republicans bankrolled by Christian conservative donors are hoping to ride a wave of parental anger over the teaching of race and sexuality in schools to achieve what has long been an unattainable goal: state funding for private education.
Groups committed to giving parents the option of sending their children to private schools using taxpayer dollars — sometimes known as “school choice” or “vouchers” — have given millions of dollars to Republican candidates in Texas this year, helping to win key races and pushing some establishment lawmakers further to the right on the issue. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently pledged to make school choice a priority in the next legislative session if he wins re-election over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.
As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday.
The push for private school vouchers has been funded in large part by Defend Texas Liberty, a Christian nationalist-aligned political action committee led by a former far-right Republican state lawmaker and bankrolled by a pair of West Texas billionaires. The PAC has spent nearly $10 million this year, largely backing candidates who support public funding for private education and attacking those who oppose it, according to an NBC News analysis of Texas Ethics Commission campaign finance reports and data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets.
Defend Texas Liberty did not respond to messages requesting interviews with PAC leaders.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said big spending by groups like Defend Texas Liberty and local fights over the way schools address racism, history and LGBTQ identities have “softened the ground” for school privatization — in Texas and nationally.
“These groups have been demonizing what is being taught in public schools, and that’s the fastest way to erode faith that public schools work,” Rottinghaus said. “Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. If people believe that it’s true, then it’s politically potent.”
Defend Texas Liberty gave $3.6 million to former state lawmaker Don Huffines, an Abbott primary challenger who ran a campaign promising to crack down on medical care for transgender children, require the teaching of creationism in public schools and give parents government money to send their children to private schools. (Abbott publicly came out in support of private school vouchers two months after winning the primary with 66.5% of the vote.)
The PAC also spent $168,000 supporting Republican Nate Schatzline, a former pastor running for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives on a campaign to give parents more freedom to decide how and where their children are educated. Schatzline won a competitive GOP primary in a solidly conservative North Texas district in part by painting his Republican opponent as an advocate for teaching “leftist, woke ideologies” in schools.
“It’s time to outlaw the sexualization of our children!” Schatzline wrote on his campaign website. “It’s time to outlaw racist ideologies that seek to divide our children, not unify them. It’s time to teach our children to love America, not hate it!”
Defend Texas Liberty donations accounted for more than a third of Schatzline’s campaign funding. He initially agreed to speak with a reporter for NBC News, but later did not return phone calls or text messages.
And this fall, Defend Texas Liberty spent $100,000 to put up dozens of billboards along Texas highways, including some that showed a photo of O’Rourke next to a baseless allegation about “grooming” children, an anti-LGBTQ attack that’s become popular among conservatives this year.
In a statement, Tori Larned, a spokesperson for O’Rourke’s campaign, said, “Abbott is now calling to defund public education with his voucher program that takes tax dollars out of public school classrooms across the state and sends them away to private schools.”
Abbott has denied that vouchers would harm public education.
“We can fully fund public schools while also giving parents a choice about which school is right for their child,” he said during a May campaign event in San Antonio. “Empowering parents means giving them the choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.”
Defend Texas Liberty is led by former state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a Republican who earned a reputation as the state’s most conservative lawmaker before leaving the legislature in 2021. Nearly 90% of the PAC’s funding this year has come from Tim Dunn and the family of Farris Wilks, a pair of billionaire oil and fracking magnates who have expressed the view that Texas state government should be guided by Biblical valuesand run exclusively by evangelical Christians. Combined, they’ve spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade funding far-right Texas candidates and a network of nonprofits and advocacy groups that push conservative policy ideas. Stickland, Wilks and Dunn did not respond to interview requests.
Please open the link and read the rest of the story. There are five million children in the public schools of Texas. The schools have been underfunded since 2011, when Republicans cut their budget by more than $5 billion. Where does Governor Abbott get the idea that the state can fund Evangelical schools (and Catholic and Muslim and Jewish and all other private schools) without taking more money away from public schools?
The race for governor in New York State should not be close but it is. Governor Kathy Hochul has been a responsible governor who tries to improve the lives of New Yorkers.
Her opponent Lee Zeldin is a lackey for Trump. He has supported everything Trump advocated. hHecsupports charters and vouchers. He opposes gun control.
The NYC Kids PAC outlined the differences between them:
Dear all:
An important election is happening right now for Governor and other statewide and local races. Early voting is being held today and Sunday, and then election day is Tuesday. You can check out your ballot and your voting sites here.
NYC Kids PAC strongly urges you to vote for Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has fully funded the CFE decision that is sending another $1.3 billion to NYC public schools, signed the class size bill that will lead to smaller class size caps phased in starting next fall, and supports strong gun control measures, including banning guns from schools.
In contrast, her opponent, Lee Zeldin, is an extremist who is a proponent of school privatization, announced his education platform outside of a Success charter school, and supports voucher-like “tax credits” to pay for tuition to private schools. He even opposes “red flag” laws to remove weapons from individuals deemed to be a threat and is against the ban against carrying guns in schools — all of which would make our children less safe.
So please vote for Kathy Hochul, if you haven’t already; the choice between her and Zeldin is crystal clear.
The more charter schools, the worse the shortage of teachers prepared in university education programs. Those in university programs intend to be career educators, and their numbers are shrinking. Thus concludes a new study from a federal research center created to study choice and its effects.
When Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education, she awarded $10 million to create the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH). The research group is headed by Douglas Harris, and DeVos assumed that he was pro-choice.
While Harris has written papers favorable to choice, he is an independent scholar and follows the data where it leads. In this paper, he and his co-author Mary Penn conclude that charter schools contribute to the teacher shortage.
On its face, the proposition makes sense. If a young person wants to teach, they can get a job in a charter school without a teacher education degree. They can join Teach for America and become a teacher with only weeks of preparation. Or in some states, they can teach with no certification or degrees. Why bother going through the process of professional education and certification when charter schools will hire without any prerequisites?
The summary of the study concludes:
Debates about charter schools center on their immediate effects on students who attend them and how charter schools affect nearby traditional public schools. However, as the charter sector has continued to grow, a broader range of possibly unintended effects become relevant. This study is one of the first to examine the possibility that charter schools affect the teacher pipeline. We focus specifically on how charter schools affect the number of traditionally prepared teachers who receive a bachelor’s in education.
Using data from 290 school districts with at least one commuter college nearby, we analyze the effect on the traditional teacher pipeline from schools of education. We draw the following conclusions:
Increasing district charter school enrollment by 10% decreases the supply of teachers traditionally prepared with a bachelor’s in education by 13.5-15.2% on average.
Charter-driven reductions in the supply of traditionally prepared teachers are most apparent in elementary, special education, and math education degrees.
This is consistent with the fact that charter schools mostly serve elementary grades, express interest in subject matter experts (e.g., math majors), and are less likely to assign students to special education.
These charter-driven reductions are concentrated in metropolitan areas and are largest among Black teachers.
Given how central teachers are to the educational process, any effect on the teacher pipeline is important. The vast majority of U.S. teachers still come from university-based schools of education, and these teachers stay in the profession longer than those who are not traditionally prepared, which makes these declines note worthy. A larger point is that charter schools change the entire schooling market in ways we are only beginning to recognize.
Diane Ravitch's blog 