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Bill Phillis: Who Should Be Held Accountable for the ECOT Fiasco?

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2018 //
9

Bill Phillis is a retired deputy State Superintendent of Schools in Ohio and a passionate advocate of public schools, equity and accountability.

He launched the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding. You should subscribe to his email list.

ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) wasted $1 billion of taxpayers’ money, diverted funding from real public schools, and was endorsed by Ohio’s most prominent Republican elected officials. Betsy Dezvos wants more virtual charters, which have an abysmal track record.

He writes:


The ECOT scandal could have been stopped many times since its beginning

After ECOT ripped off a billion dollars from Ohio school districts and collected a couple hundred million from the federal government during a 17-year run, the corrupt operation was finally exposed. How did this business enterprise feed illegally at the public tax trough in plain sight without being held accountable? That critical question is being debated in the final days before the November 2018 election. Candidates are debating who is to blame.

One person said; don’t blame Bill Lager-he is a businessman trying to make a buck. Lager used millions of tax dollars gobbled up from the public trough to buy political favors. Public officials turned a blind eye to the corruption.

Who should have been watching ECOT and other bad actors in the charter industry?

State Board of Education
Ohio Department of Education
State Superintendents
State Auditors
State Attorney Generals
Governors
Legislators
Private watchdog groups

Over the years state officials have shut down small charter operations-the kind that had meager political campaign budgets. But ECOT wasn’t on their radar.

The ECOT scandal should prompt state officials of all political stripes to put the spotlight on the other big time charter operators such as K12 Inc., Imagine Schools, Gulen Islamic charters, Accel, etc.

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”
– John Adams, September 10, 1785

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

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Arizona: State Pays 75% More to Subsidize Students in Private Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2018 //
29

The Grand Canyon Institute of Arizona audits the use of tax dollars that are spent for public and private schools. Under Governor Douglas Ducey, the state has been very generous to private, religious, and charter schools, but not with public schools.

Here is its latest report:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Dave Wells, Research Director
dwells@azgci.org, (602) 595-1025 Ext. 2
Amy Pedotto, Communications Manager
apedotto@azgci.org, 602-595-1025, Ext. 3

State pays $10,700 subsidy for private school students;
75 percent more than their public school peers

Phoenix — According to a new policy paper, Arizona’s two private school subsidy programs cost the state $10,700* on average per regular education student who would not otherwise have enrolled in private school. This imposes an additional $62 million expense on the state’s General Fund.

Published by the non-partisan think tank the Grand Canyon Institute (GCI), the policy paper $10,700 Per Student: The Estimated Cost of Arizona’s Private School Subsidy Programs looks at how the state’s two private school subsidy programs — private school tuition tax credit scholarships and Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) vouchers — have impacted private school enrollment and then estimated a per student cost to taxpayers. The paper looks at regular education students; it does not include students with disabilities because of the significant cost differences in providing their education.

The study’s findings also include that:

The estimated cost per subsidized private school student has increased $700 in the two years since GCI first analyzed the cost of the subsidy programs in Arizona.

On average, taxpayer-funded private school subsidies cost an additional $4,700 or 75 percent more per student than the $6,000 the state pays to educate a regular education public school student when paid entirely from state funds.

In 2015-16, private school subsidies cost Arizona’s General Fund a total of $141 million, nearly a 50-fold increase from $3 million in 1999-2000.

In 2015-16, GCI estimates that 13,170 students who used the taxpayer-subsidized program would have attended public school if the scholarships and vouchers were not available.

Private school as a percentage of total student enrollment has declined from 5.9 percent to 4 percent since Arizona first introduced a private school subsidy in the late nineties. An increase in the percentage of private school enrollment would have occurred if the programs were more effective.

“GCI’s research of academic studies found that lower income families using similar subsidy programs in other states frequently had negative academic impacts compared to public school peers,” Wells says. “The study raises questions about the efficacy of private school subsidy programs as voters are asked to expand Arizona’s ESA voucher program with Prop. 305 this November.”

George Cunningham, GCI’s board chair and former state legislator, commented, “Arizona can’t afford fiscally irresponsible private school subsidies that siphon money away from its public education system. These subsidy programs are placing an increasing burden on the state’s General Fund meanwhile research shows they provide no academic benefit when comparing demographically similar students attending public and private schools.

“Given these facts, it is appropriate to ask why our state government would continue tuition tax credit scholarships and seek to expand ESA vouchers to the general education population. At a minimum, it is strongly recommended that the total amount in tuition tax credit scholarships a student can receive be limited to the amount paid by the state for regular education public school students similar to ESA vouchers.”

What are Arizona’s two private school subsidy programs?

Tuition tax credit scholarships were introduced two decades ago. They divert individual and corporate taxpayer dollars from the state’s General Fund, providing donors a dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes owed while decreasing the state’s revenue. GCI’s research found that in many cases students are receiving more than one tax credit scholarship by applying for funding from multiple School Tuition Organizations (STOs), the private organizations that accept tuition tax credit donations and distribute them to students.

ESA vouchers were introduced in 2011. Distributed by the state’s Department of Education and financed from the General Fund, ESA vouchers allow certain categories of students to attend private schools such as those with disabilities, students from D and F rated public schools, foster children and children of veterans. GCI’s paper did not include vouchers used by students with disabilities in its analysis due to the significant cost differences in meeting their needs. In November 2018, Prop. 305 will give Arizona’s voters the opportunity to decide whether ESA vouchers should be made available to all students, a significant expansion to the program.

Click here to read the full report.

*Methodology:

First, GCI’s analysis estimated that 13,710 out of 46,252 regular education students attending private school in Arizona did so because of the state’s private school subsidies. The ratio of Arizona to US private school enrollment as a portion of all students (0.45) was the dependent variable used in the regression analysis to control for any factors outside of Arizona that impacts private school enrollment such as recessions or economic growth. All of these factors impact private schools generally and would not have a separate impact on Arizona’s private schools. The analysis’ independent variables were the state’s enrollment growth of charter schools and private school subsidies because in both cases Arizona far exceeds the national average.

Next, GCI determined the cost of private school subsidies to the state, for those regular education students that chose private school because of the subsidy programs. This amount was calculated based on the total value of subsidies allocated for regular education students ($140,874,776) divided by the number of students that opted for private school due to the subsidies (13,710). GCI determined that subsidies cost the state an average of $10,700 per regular education private school student for those that would have attended public school if the private school subsidy programs weren’t available.

Finally, Arizona’s private school subsidies cost $140,874,776 for regular education students who would not have otherwise attended a private school. For this analysis, GCI uses the cost of educating a charter school student ($6,000) for comparison because the state government uses this amount to determine the value of ESA vouchers for a regular education student. The cost of educating a charter school student is used in GCI’s analysis because they are completely state funded, whereas the cost of educating a public district school student varies per district based on a state and local funding. (This provides a more conservative comparison because the average cost of educating a regular education student in a district school is less than a charter school.) Arizona would have spent $82,260,000 to educate taxpayer-subsidized private school students if they had attended a charter school instead. Therefore, Arizona’s private school subsidies increased the cost of educating these regular education students by $4,700 each or $62 million in total.

If information like this matters to you, please consider a tax deductible donation to the Grand Canyon Institute to support our continuing work.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Reform, Funding, School Choice, Vouchers

Chicago: Now That Rahm’s Leaving, What Should Happen Next?

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
9

Raise Your Hand for Public Education-Illinois has some excellent ideas about what should happen next in Chicago.

As you may know, we have been critical of many of the mayor’s education policies over the years, as they haven’t often aligned with our vision of an education system that is based on high-quality, researched-backed policies, centers on children’s curiosity and creativity, emphasizes collaborative learning environments instead of competition, and provides crucial social-emotional and health supports alongside academics.

We’ve also been critical of how those policies have been decided and rolled out; rather than encouraging debate, engaging families, students, teachers, and communities in a robust process to provide input, and seeking consensus beforehand, the mayor’s office has frequently sought only a post-hoc rubber stamp from the Board for decisions about CPS.

So these are some of the things we’ll be looking out for:

Funding: Budgets are a set of priorities. What are the essentials that have been cut over the years, or were never funded, and how will the next mayor fund these things? Will a candidate end the damaging student-based budgeting (SBB) system? SBB contributes to an accelerated death cycle for schools with decreasing enrollment, distorts hiring practices to favor the least-experienced teachers, and forces schools to eliminate librarians, art, and music to cut costs. And how will the next mayor work to get increased revenue to the schools?

School ratings: Test scores and attendance are the primary factors used to rate elementary schools. These ratings drive a lot of bad practice inside schools. How will the next mayor change this?

Overemphasis on test scores: Linked to above issue. Skill-drill test prep must be replaced with authentic learning environments. This requires time for serious professional development and planning! PD and planning time have been cut dramatically under this mayor to make room for the longer unfunded day. When teachers can’t collaborate, schools can’t improve. Test prep is not a good practice to improve learning.

Privatization: Charter schools have proliferated in areas of declining enrollment, and the mayor accelerated outsourcing of critical positions in the school building. CPS has also engaged in a new partnership with Mark Zuckerberg where private student data will likely be handed over to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC. How will the negative impacts of this be addressed and outsourcing reversed? Is a candidate willing to fight the continuation of IL’s tax credit scholarship program when it is up for renewal in 5 years?

Community: Schools should be community anchors. A number of schools with lottery-based or test-score based admissions have been added to the CPS “portfolio” over the past eight years. How can schools function as community hubs when there are so many barriers to access? How will facilities decisions be made to decrease race and class segregation rather than further entrench it in our divided city?

Wrap-around supports: CPS ratio of clinicians to students is grossly inadequate. The recommended ratio for students to social workers is 1:250 in districts without high poverty. In CPS the ratio is 1:1250. Will increasing clinician positions be a priority for the next mayor?

Early childhood ed: Rahm announced a new plan recently, but we are hearing from parents that there is a lot of chaos in the current system. We plan to do some listening tours with parents this year to find out what’s going on. Candidates should explain how new preschool programs will be funded and whether expanding services for one age group will mean reduction in services for another.

Special ed: CPS’s deliberate diversion of resources away from special education resulted in the state taking over special ed. How will the next mayor instruct CPS to systemically correct this debacle and to work with the ISBE monitor?

Elected school board: We believe that checks and balances, transparency and accountability are crucial in moving the school system to a better place. We need a Board of Education that’s directly accountable to the public at the ballot box and one whose deliberation of issues doesn’t take place behind closed doors. Where do the candidates stand on a fully elected, representative school board for Chicago?

So there’s a lot of research for everyone to do, and obviously education is only one area to focus on when determining who to vote for. Stay informed, stay involved, go to candidate forums, do your homework!

And attend our annual fundraiser, Raise a Glass for RYH, on October 2 to talk with us about all the important education issues facing our schools!

Happy school year, all.

Categories Accountability, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Charter Schools, Chicago, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Funding, Privatization, Special Education, Supporting public schools, Testing

California: State Board of Education Rejects Rocketship Charter Expansion Plan!

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
6

Best news of the day!

The charter-friendly State Board of Education turned down Rocketship expansion plan, after 25 speakers denounce it. Chair of board voted to support.

“In a 9-1 vote, the board agreed with the California Department of Education’s recommendation to deny the charter organization’s petition to establish a new school in San Pablo near Richmond, which the West Contra Costa Unified school board and Contra Costa County board of education had also denied. Citing concerns about the charter school’s financial and educational plans, some board members said Rocketship – which operates 10 schools in San Jose, one in Antioch, one in Concord and one in Redwood City where the company is headquartered – may be trying to expand beyond its capacity. Board President Michael Kirst voted against denying the appeal.

“Board members said they were especially concerned about problems associated with the Rocketship Futuro Academy charter school, which opened in Concord two years ago, with the State Board’s approval. The California Department of Education has sent six letters of concern to the school, which is located in the Mt. Diablo district, related to finances and other issues. Rocketship said they expected new philanthropic support which would improve the school’s finances.

“Chief Deputy Superintendent Glen Price, who was sitting in for State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, said the California Department of Education was concerned about the lack of students with disabilities in Rocketship schools, lack of information about its English learner program, high suspension rates among some student groups, and its governance model, which includes charter school board meetings held in San Jose. Price, who lives in Contra Costa County, said meetings that far away were “counter to all of our objectives for parent and stakeholder engagement.””

Even with the billionaires’ support, charter schools are becoming toxic.

Resistance works.

Charter schools divert money from public schools.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

Andrea Gabor: School Reformers are Going Local, But….

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2018 //
30

Andrea Gabor, author of Education After the Culture Wars, believes that the latest Gates grant for “networks” is evidence that corporate reformers have decided to “go local” instead of funding big national plans like the Common Core.

“For two decades, the prevailing wisdom among education philanthropists and policymakers has been that the U.S. school system needs the guiding hand of centralized standard-setting to discipline ineffective teachers and bureaucrats. Much of that direction was guided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has spent billions since 2000 to influence both schools and education policy.

“But as schools open this year, top-down national initiatives based on standardized testing and curricular uniformity are in retreat.

“Last fall, the Gates Foundation ended its support for a $575 million, six-year teacher-effectiveness project; the initiative had failed to meet the foundation’s goals to “dramatically improve student outcomes,” according to a recent study commissioned by the foundation.

“Two dozen states started backing away from the Gates-backed Common Core State Standards not long after they were first embraced in 2010 (though many of these states retained “key elements” of the standards, according to a 2017 report by an education organization the foundation helps fund.) Earlier, the foundation acknowledged that “many of the small schools” that it invested in — the foundation’s first major education initiative — “did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way.”

“Now, the foundation seems to be stepping back from sweeping national initiatives in its bid to remake education. In the coming years, its K-12 philanthropy will concentrate on supporting what it calls “locally driven solutions” that originate among networks of 20 to 40 schools, according to Allan Golston, who leads the foundation’s U.S. operations, because they have “the power to improve outcomes for black, Latino, and low-income students and drive social and economic mobility.”

She believes this represents a significant shift from the top down mandates of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and similar efforts cheered on by Gates and other titans.

I am not so sure.

The Gates grant of $92 Million for “networks” is chump change. It’s amorphous.

Besides, Gates is still funding Common Core, despite its failure to fulfill any of the bold promises made on its behalf eight years ago.

Worse, as Gabor notes, Gates and Arnold and other malefactors of great wealth are funding another “go local” project called City Fund, which draws together the leaders of privatization to plant charter schools in many cities. “Going local” in this case means trying to fly below the radar to push privatization in many places, whether the local people want it or not. Eli Broad has “gone local” by buying control of the Los Angeles school board (that is, until the swing vote was convicted and removed from the board. But he won’t give up.) Betsy DeVos went local by buying the state of Michigan. Jeb Bush engineered the hostile takeover of education policy in Florida. DFER long ago went local by bundling campaign contributions for state and local candidates who support charter schools and high-stakes testing.

Going local may be more insidious than pushing a noxious national agenda, which, in the Trump era, brings resistance to a boil.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization

Carol Burris: New Orleans Was No Miracle, and It is No Model for School Reform

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2018 //
24

Corporate reformers have touted the New Orleans “transformation” as proof that privatization works. The recipe is simple: First, get a natural disaster to wipe out all the public schools. Then, fire all the unionized teachers and replace them with inexperienced, low-wage teachers willing to work long hours. At the same time, replace the public schools with privately managed charter schools. Let everyone choose. And, eventually, great things happen: test scores go up, graduation rates go up, college admission rates rise, college persistence goes up. All these great things happen by the miracle of privatization.

As Carol Burris explains in this important article, the narrative is all wrong.

Before Hurricane Katrina, there were 65,000 students in the schools of New Orleans. Today, there are about 45,000. The hurricane did the most damage to the low-lying areas where very poor people lived, and some of them never returned.

In mid-July, Douglas Harris and Matthew Larsen wrote a paper about the great success of the reforms in New Orleans. There are many caveats, mostly having to do with the causes of improvements. And, as Valerie Strauss points out in her introduction to Burris’s article, the New Orleans school district is still significantly below the state average on the state tests.

Burris notes that even Douglas Harris is cautious about whether the New Orleans reforms are “scalable.” Funding increased by almost $1,400 per pupil. That mattered, though Harris doesn’t know how much it mattered. Second, Harris warns that the situation in New Orleans was unique and that its reforms cannot be extrapolated to other districts that might want to adopt the portfolio model or otherwise expand charters. “New Orleans,” he said, “was uniquely situated for these reforms to work. The district was extremely low-performing, and pretty much everyone agreed that some type of major change was in order. It’s easier to improve from such a low starting point. … I don’t think we can extrapolate New Orleans to most of the country. It’s more like a best-case scenario.”

Burris reports that the Network for Public Education commissioned Bruce Baker of Rutgers University to review the Harris-Larsen report on NOLA.

The Baker report is here.

Baker faults Harris and Larsen for downplaying the role of extra funding and the importance of demographic change.

Baker reviews the effects of adding substantial new resources to a struggling district. He points out that in the case of New Orleans, a disproportionate share of the new funding went to administration and transportation. Because the teaching staff was young and inexperienced, the cost of instruction was unusually low and is probably not sustainable in the long run.

He also points out the dramatic decline of concentrated poverty in New Orleans. This in itself was an important “reform” which helped to boost outcomes.

As usual, things are more complicated than they seem. Any reformer who blithely suggests applying the New Orleans model to a city without a hurricane, without a huge boost in funding, and without positive demographic changes to reduce poverty, is likely to be disappointed.

Categories Funding, New Orleans, Poverty

Arizona: Governor Ducey Packed the State Supreme Court to Block #RedForEd Funding (and Broke His Promise)

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2018 //
8

Governor Doug Ducey added two new members to the Arizona Supreme Court to ensure that the court would strike down an effort to raise the state income tax off the ballot in November. Last week, the court dutifully complied.

This was a slap in the face to the #RedForEd movement, which campaigned for increased funding. It raises the stakes in the Governor’s Race this November, when Ducey will face the Democratic nominee, educator David Garcia.

“The measure, recently titled Proposition 207, was expected to bring in $690 million in additional funding for Arizona public district and charter schools.

“Supporters had framed Prop. 207 as a way to fully restore the more than $1 billion in cuts to education funding since the recession.

“Prop. 207 would have raised income-tax rates by 3.46 percentage points to 8 percent on individuals who earn more than $250,000 or households that earn more than $500,000. It also would have raised individual rates by 4.46 percentage points to 9 percent for individuals who earn more than $500,000 and households that earn more than $1 million.”

The increase in taxes was opposed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and a group deceptively called “Arizonans for Great Schools and a Strong Economy.” Yeah, great schools with bare bones funding.

The opponents claimed that the referendum misstated the tax increase. Instead of saying that taxes would go up “by 4.46 percentage points to 9 percent,” they wanted the referendum to characterize the increase in the worst possible light:

“The complaint alleged the petitions were misleading because they referred to the proposed tax-rate increase as a “percent” increase and not the more accurate “percentage point” increase. According to the complaint, the tax rate would have seen a 76 and 98 percent increase and not a 3.46 and 4.46 percent increase.”

Supporters of the tax increase had collected 270,000 signatures.

“Supporters of Prop. 207 immediately placed blame for the measure’s defeat on Ducey, who is running for re-election.

“David Garcia, the Democratic nominee for governor, on Wednesday said Ducey had “stacked” the state’s highest court, leading it to shoot down Prop. 207.

“Ducey has appointed three of the seven judges who sit on the court’s bench. The governor also signed legislation in 2016 that expanded the court from five justices to seven.

“The stakes for the race for governor in Arizona just changed utterly and irrevocably,” Garcia said. “We must elect pro-public education candidates up and down the ballot to prevent this kind of corruption in the future. I’m proud to stand with our educators, parents and kids.”

“The Ducey campaign did not immediately comment on Wednesday’s court ruling. A spokesman for Ducey said Wednesday evening that the governor was still reviewing the five-paragraph ruling.”

Obviously, Governor Ducey reads slowly. He is still digesting the five paragraph ruling.

Jan Resseger has an excellent analysis of the slapdown of the AZ funding measure, which was supposed to be the means for Ducey to keep his promise to raise teachers’ salaries 20% by 2020.

She writes:

“In May, after Arizona teachers walked out of school and flooded the capitol, the legislature passed a budget to give the teachers the first installment in what Governor Doug Ducey promises will be a 20 percent pay raise by 2020. Wanting to ensure there will be a second installment of that promised raise, however, and worrying about catastrophic cuts in state expenditures on other necessities at their schools, organized teachers gathered thousands more signatures than were required to put an Invest in Ed initiative on the November ballot to raise taxes on families making over $250,000 annually, with the money designated for public education.

“The teachers secured the signatures before the deadline, but the Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit to block the referendum—alleging that the ballot language was not clear enough. A trial court okayed the ballot language, and on August 16, an appeals court affirmed that the initiative could go forward. However, last week, siding with the Chamber of Commerce, the Arizona Supreme Court yanked the referendum off the ballot.

“Here are some facts to explain why the tax increase was so desperately needed in Arizona, and why the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to block the initiative is such a serious matter.

“The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Michael Leachman describes Arizona’s desperate revenue shortage, the product of years of tax cuts: “At least 12 states have cut ‘general’ or ‘formula’ (school) funding—the primary form of state support for elementary and secondary schools—by 7 percent or more per student since 2008…. Seven of these states have also cut income taxes over the decade, making it particularly hard for them to raise revenue needed for their schools.” Arizona is one of the seven.

“In a recent report, ‘A Decade of Neglect’,: the American Federation of Teachers describes what the tax cuts have meant for Arizona’s schools: “In the years following the Great Recession, the Arizona Legislature cut funding for K-12 schools by $4.6 billion…. For 2015-16, Arizona ranked 49th among the states and the District of Columbia for per-pupil funding. Spending was down 12.7 percent compared with 2007-2008, and only two other states saw a larger decline in per-pupil spending between 2008 and 2016. The state ranks 46th for teacher salaries… After a 15 percent decline in the student-teacher ratio, Arizona ranks 50th among the states… Arizona also ranks near the bottom for support for higher education. For FY 2017, spending was 55 percent below pre-recession levels, and the state ranked last for spending on higher education. No other state showed a larger decline in post-recession support for higher education. Arizona’s failure to fund education is the result of what has been described as an ‘ideological aversion to taxes.’”

Arizona’s teachers trusted Ducey to keep his promise. He won’t. If he is re-elected, he will forget he ever promised to raise salaries.

Categories Arizona, Funding

New Hampshire: How to Get More Spending, Higher Taxes, Less Opportunity

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2018 //
4

Tom Loughman writes here about the harmful impact of vouchers, which were recently defeated by a slim margin in the state legislature.

He writes:

“When I was a little boy, we lost my father to cancer. Not long after, my family lost everything else too and we struggled to make ends meet. We were always thinking about getting through the week and end of the month. But for all its challenges, my childhood taught me empathy, grit, and drive; drive to make a better life for myself. I knew I only needed the opportunity.

“That opportunity came in the form of a public education. The one thing we never had to worry about was whether I would get a great education and a hot lunch at school. I made the most it and have made a better life for my family.

“As a parent now, I followed closely the efforts of New Hampshire Republicans to pass Senate Bill 193, which would establish one of the most comprehensive school voucher programs in the country. It would siphon money from our public schools and divert them to private, religious and home schools.

“Fiscally responsible constituents would be alarmed at the financial implications of the school voucher bill. According to the legislative staff, it would have siphoned off $100 million over the first 11 years from public schools to send 2,000 children to private, religious and home schools. As expensive as that is, Sen. Dan Innis voted for a far more sweeping version twice, which would more than double those costs.

“You can imagine the impact: a reduction in public school quality and big increase in local property taxes. Despite all that spending to privatize more of our education system, there is no anticipated improvement in achievement. According to studies like the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, private schools were not better than public in producing higher achievement.

“The bottom line is that the school voucher bill significantly increases the costs of education in New Hampshire and puts the burden on local property taxpayers. Don’t take my word for it; take Republican fiscal hawk and House Finance Chairman Neil Kurk’s who said, “this bill downshifts $99 million to local property tax payers in ways that they will not be able to avoid by reducing expenses. I was not elected to downshift money on my constituents.” A few Republicans stood with him and House Democrats to defeat the bill by a slim margin. Fiscal responsibility prevailed.

“Sen. Innis and his colleagues have pledged to try again. Innis said in a recent op-ed that he believes in school choice for all New Hampshire children. However, the vouchers would not cover the full cost of private school tuitions. Therefore, the only families that can take advantage of these vouchers and attend private schools would be people who can afford a few thousand dollars difference between the voucher and tuition.

“The results of this voucher bill are entirely predictable. Children from families who can afford private education could pay less by applying a voucher to their tuition bill. Children from families who cannot afford to pay thousands will remain in public schools that would now face budget shortfalls. It’s actually even worse because private schools can deny admissions to students with disabilities, excluding them entirely from the “choices” vouchers give their fellow students. That makes education opportunity less equal.

“These reverse Robin Hood policies of taking resources and opportunities from lower income families to give to wealthier ones is a non-starter. The high costs of living on the Seacoast are already impacting our seniors, working families and small businesses. New Hampshire Republicans should stop pushing a radical bill that would significantly increase our spending, raise property taxes, and hurt our public schools.

“We are proud of our public schools. On the Seacoast, they are without a doubt, one of the best draws we have to attracting working families to live and work here. I believe Sen. Innis’ support for defunding them and prompting tax increases is an untenable position to hold as our senator. It does not reflect our values or interests.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, New Hampshire, School Choice

New Study: Spending More Improves Student Achievement

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2018 //
30

That headline is like saying, “Flash! Water is Wet!”

Yet there are many elected officials who disparage that money matters. They say thatclass size doesn’t matter. They ignore real world problems of staffing schools and teaching kids with widely varying needs.

A new study finds that spending more does matter. When affluent parents spend large sums to send their children to a private school or to live in an expensive neighborhood, they are paying for small classes, well-maintained facilities, and a stable, experienced teaching staff.

We are unwilling to pay the price to provide similar resources to all children, even when we know that it matters.

Categories Education Reform, Funding

Arizona: Court Kicks Education Funding Measure Off November Ballot

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2018 //
13

Supporters of education had hoped to get a referendum on the ballot to raise taxes on high earners to generate a guaranteed revenue stream of funding for the schools.

But the Arizona Supreme Court kicked the measure off the ballot.


PHOENIX — Arizonans will not get a chance to decide whether to hike taxes on the rich to generate more money for education.

In a brief order Wednesday, the Arizona Supreme Court said petition signers were not informed that the measure would do more than increase the tax rate on those earning more than $250,000 a year. It also would eliminate the indexing of income tax brackets to account for inflation.

Chief Justice Scott Bales, writing for the court, said a majority concluded that omission “creates a significant danger of confusion or unfairness.”

The ruling is a significant setback for the education community, and not just because it means there will not be a dedicated revenue stream for public education. There were hopes that having this measure on the ballot, coupled with a referendum already on the ballot over expansion of vouchers, would bring out voters who also would support candidates willing to put more money into public schools.

There was no immediate comment from supporters of the Invest in Ed initiative, including the Arizona Education Association.

Wednesday’s ruling is a victory for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry which led and financed the legal fight to block a public vote.

Organization president Glenn Hamer argued that hiking income taxes on the wealthiest Arizonans “would just create a drag on the state’s overall economy.” And he said that if the state targets the rich, many would just choose to move elsewhere.

That question is now academic.

There is no dispute that the main provision of the measure would have imposed an 8 percent state income tax on earnings of more than $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples. That compares with the current 4.54 percent rate.

And there would be a 9 percent tax rate on anything over $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples filing jointly.

Proponents estimated that the additional revenues would generate about $690 million a year for public education.

Categories Arizona, Education Reform, Funding
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