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Carol Burris: How Mike Pence Expanded Indiana’s Corrupt and Ineffective Voucher Program

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2018 //
10

 

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, explains here how Mike Pence expanded and deregulated Indiana’s voucher program, with substantial cash infusions from Betsy DeVos and Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com.

Despite state law, failing voucher schools were renewed. Failing charter schools converted to voucher schools to evade accountability. The voucher program has subsidized churches and paid tuition for students who never attended public schools and thus were not “escaping” to better schools. Many of the religious schools teach fraudulent science and history.

School choice is a big step backward for education in Indiana

Categories Charter Schools, Fraud, Funding, Indiana, Mike Pence, School Choice, Vouchers

How Charter Schools Rip Off Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2018 //
8

This article by Carol Burris was published in January but it remains as pertinent as ever.

Tell this to your friends and neighbors:

It is time we have an honest discussion about the true cost of school choice. It is a policy with steep fiscal consequences for our communities and our nation. Here is what every taxpayer should know:

Billions of federal tax dollars have poured into charter school promotion, without regard for success and with insufficient oversight.

By 2015, the federal government spent more than $3.7 billion to boost the charter sector — with millions wasted on financing “ghost schools” that never opened. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Michigan spent $3.7 million of its federal dollars on 25 “ghost” schools. In California, more than $4.7 million federal dollars went to charter schools that shut down in a few years. And the flow has not stopped. In 2016, the federal government poured another $333 million to push charter schools, yet put forth no reforms to prevent waste. The same year the Department of Education’s own Inspector General warned of “the current and emerging risk” that is posed by charter management organizations for fraud and abuse.

Some charter schools spend more tax dollars on administration and less on teaching.

Most taxpayers want their tax dollars to go to the classroom for teaching and learning. Yet time and again, some charters spent far more than public schools on administration. In 2014-2015, Arizona charter schools spent over $128 million more than Arizona public schools on management costs. One charter chain, Basis, spent nearly $12 million on administrative costs in one year, for fewer than 9000 students — all hidden from public review.

When the latest federal study of D.C. voucher schools showed that students who take a voucher go backwards, not forward, Betsy DeVos responded that it didn’t matter. She said that when choice is fully implemented, all sectors–public, charter, and voucher–will get the same results.

Some investment! Divide up the money, undermine public schools (that take the neediest kids), and get the same results in all sectors.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

MIchigan: House Approves Bill to Let Charters Share Tax Revenues

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2018 //
20

 

The Michigan House passed a bill to let the charter sector—including for-profit charters and cyber charters—share in millage revenues. Voters no doubt think they are underwriting their local community public schools, but they will be paying for the privately managed charters if the State Senate agrees.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2018/01/18/michigan-legislation-millage-charter-schools/1045504001/

Michigan charters are unusual in that they operate with little accountability. Some 80% of the state’s charters operate for profit.

In recent years, with the spread of charters, Michigan’s ranking on NAEP has fallen from the middle of the national rankings to near the bottom.

Michigan believes in investing in failure. Results don’t matter.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Michigan

Maryland: Exposing Governor Hogan’s Shameless Lies about Baltimore

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
5

 

Why are children in Baltimore sitting in frigid classrooms?

Republican Governor Larry Hogan says the public schools are mismanaged.

Jess Gartner, a former teacher and current analyst of education finance, fact checks Governor Hogan and says he is wrong/lying, to evade responsibility for inequitable funding.

Categories Accountability, Baltimore, Funding, Inequity

Donald Cohen: Time to Investigate Charter School Finances

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
7

 

 

Donald Cohen, executive director of the anti-privatization organization “In the Public Interest” calls for audits of charter school finances in California, especially the charter chain run by Ref Rodriguez, former president of the Los Angeles Unfied School District Board and still a member of the board, even though he is under indictment for financial crimes.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/los-angeles-deserves-to-know-more-about-ref-rodriguezs_us_5a53e7e2e4b0f9b24bf319ed

Millions of public dollars have been allocated to privately run charter schools with little or no oversight.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Richard Brodsky: Trump’s Tax Plan Will Blow Up School Funding in New York

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2018 //
21

 

 

Richard Brodsky, a former Democratic legislator in New York, warns that Trump Tax Plan will be a disaster for New York. 

Of course, Republicans have boasted about the devastation that their tax law will cause to New York, New Jersey, and California, the big blue states. It is a partisan hit job, unlike the 1986 tax reform, where the parties worked together.

He writes:

 

“That loud rumbling sound New Yorkers are hearing is the ground shifting beneath their feet.

“The recently enacted federal package of tax cuts and increases does much more than increase the state’s outsized contribution to the federal treasury. It will fundamentally transform New York’s government and politics by undermining support for current school funding arrangements.

“To provide a quality education to a population with many high-needs students, New York spends more per pupil than any other state – an average of more than $22,000 a year. This figure varies throughout the state and there is a lot of attention paid to disparities in school spending. Many school districts don’t have sufficient local resources and need state funds to pay for teachers, physical space and supplies.

“Most education money comes from two separate taxes. The local share is usually paid mostly by property taxes, a particularly regressive tax that does not consider the taxpayers’ income or ability to pay. In most of the state outside New York City – which has low property taxes and an income tax – school property taxes are an enormous social and political problem.

“The state steps in with its own funding on top of the local share, getting its money from the income tax, and distributing it through a formula that sends most of the money to poorer districts. A wealthier suburban district can get as little as 5-7 percent of its budget from the state. Poorer districts, most of them upstate, get 70-75 percent of their budgets from the state. New York City gets 40-50 percent of its budget from the state, largely because it is a wealthy district when compared to the statewide average.

“It’s not as complicated as it seems. The state redistributes income tax revenue to make up for disparities in wealth. Schools across the state function under the system. Taxpayers everywhere complain, but it has been a stable system. The regional impacts are clear. Generally speaking, New York City gets back in state dollars a little less than it sends to Albany in tax payments. Upstate gets an enormous subsidy provided by suburban taxpayers.

“President Donald Trump has blown up that delicate balance. Measured across all state programs – not just education – New York City and the suburbs send billions of dollars to upstate communities. That system has been tolerated partially because it’s fair: State dollars are directed at communities that need the money for basic services, including schools, and partially because political leaders bargained their way into a sustainable compromise.

“Enter Donald Trump. His tax reform legislation unravels a central economic premise of New York’s school funding system. Suburban taxpayers pay both high property taxes and high state income taxes, but they could deduct from their federal income taxes what they paid in state and local taxes. That deduction is now capped at $10,000, far less than the state and local taxes paid by many middle-class and affluent homeowners in New York City and its suburbs. So now many of those New Yorkers will see their total tax liability increase by thousands of dollars a year. New York, already the largest net donor among the states, will be sending an additional $14 billion per year to Washington.

“This will undo the political bargain that has kept the current system afloat. Suburban taxpayers might be willing to absorb an additional burden if those dollars flowed to their home districts. Instead, slowly but surely, they will learn that their money is heading out of town and they won’t like it. That will inevitably erode public support for regional subsidies. A taxpayer revolt is coming.”

Read on. It is ironic that the president from New York is wreaking maximum damage on his home state.

Categories Funding, New York

New Hampshire: Stop the Voucher Scam!

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2018 //
15

 

 

On Wednesday, the New Hampshire legislature will vote on a voucher bill that is unnecessary and will harm the state’s fine public schools, which enroll nearly 90% of the children in the state. Parents should rise up and tell their legislators to support their public schools.

Joe Onosko, a professor of education at the University of New Hampshire, explains succinctly why this proposal should be rejected.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/SB-193-is-an-attack-on-NH-public-schools-14621827

 

 

 

 

Categories Fraud, Funding

How the GOP Tax Plan Will Cut State Revenues and Defund Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2017 //
130

If you aren’t angry yet about the Trump Tax scam, you should be. This article in the New York Times clearly lays out how it will produce tax savings for private school families while devastating state revenues that now fund public schools. The author, Nat Malkus, is deputy director of education policy at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. After this tax pla, never again let it be said that Republicans believe in local control and states’ rights. They believe in federal dictation, so long as they are in charge.

He writes:

Congressional Republicans, traditional defenders of states’ rights, will deliver an unexpected one-two punch to state tax systems if the current version of their tax bill becomes law as expected.

The tax plan, negotiated behind closed doors, includes an expansion of 529 savings accounts and the partial elimination of state and local tax deductions. These changes will provide new avenues for people to avoid state income tax that states never envisioned. And those states will have a hard time making up the difference.

The first blow would come from expanding 529 college savings accounts, which offer tax advantages to encourage families to save money for college, to cover K-12 expenses, such as private school tuition and home schooling costs.

This amendment by Senator Ted Cruz passed only because of a midnight tiebreaking vote cast by Vice President Mike Pence. Under current law, earnings on contributions to 529 plans are not subject to federal taxes. These investment vehicles work well for college savings because deposits grow tax-free over a long time. Using 529 accounts for elementary or high school tuition, however, substantially shortens that period, making these accounts a minimal boost to school choice.

While this change would have only a small effect on the federal Treasury, it creates outsize impacts on the state income tax bases in the 33 states that instituted state tax deductions and tax credits to encourage 529 college savings. The federal expansion opens these state incentives to an entirely new area of expenditures, allowing private school families to funnel their tuition payments through 529s as a way to avoid state taxes.

Imagine for instance that a family in New York spends $10,000 on high school tuition but has not yet started saving for college. Congress’s 529 expansion opens New York’s $10,000 state income tax deduction for 529 contributions to private school tuition. This family could now open a 529 savings account, briefly park the $10,000 for private school tuition in it, and avoid about $600 in state income taxes.

That modest $600 for families takes a much bigger cumulative toll on New York’s income tax base. With about 465,000 New York private school students, roughly $3 billion might be cut from New York’s income tax base.

While the federal government limits its benefits to $10,000 in annual distributions per student for K-12 expenses, some states offer much larger state tax deductions, and their tax bases would be affected even more than New York’s will be. Illinois, for instance, allows deductions for $20,000 in contributions a year per beneficiary to 529 plans, while Pennsylvania allows $28,000. Colorado, New Mexico, South Carolina and West Virginia have broader tax loopholes: all 529 contributions are fully deductible, so participants’ entire private school tuition could be free of state tax.

With this law, the Republican Congress would be nullifying the intent of state legislatures by creating tax breaks for private school parents that are paid for by reducing state tax bases that pay, in part, for public schools. States did not choose to create tax-free private school tuitions, Congress did.

Not all states will bear the full brunt of this law. States without income taxes, like Senator Cruz’s home state, Texas, have no state income tax deductions for contributions to 529 plans to interfere with their state taxing sovereignty.

The second blow to state education funding would come from the new federal cap on the deductibility of state and local tax payments. Public schools are primarily funded by state and local taxes, partly by local property taxes, and partly by the state, often through income taxes. When districts are too poor to raise enough property taxes to fund schools, the state contributes funds to even the scales with wealthier districts.

Expanding 529 plans to deliver state deductions to private school families will erode the tax base that funds public schools, affecting high-poverty schools the most. By limiting state and local tax deductions at the same time, Republicans would make it harder for states and cities to raise taxes to make up for those shortfalls.

The easiest fix is to eliminate the 529 expansion, a federal action that transfers state tax dollars from the poor to the rich and which won’t substantively increase school choice for those who do not already have it. Doing so would be a principled stand for the party that professes to protect state sovereignty. Not doing so will affirm the worst caricature of Republicans and education — taking money from the poor to give to the rich.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding

The Tax Bill Includes a 529 for K-12 Tuition, but It Only Benefits the Wealthy

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2017 //
49

The tax bill includes a 529 plan for K-12 tuition that will benefit the wealthy families who can put away $10,000 a year tax-free to save for private school.

This article explains how the plan works.

This is a giveaway to the families planning to send their babies to elite private schools.

Funny that someone thought this was worth spending federal money on, but not a cent (thus far) to save the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides health insurance for millions of poor children.

Everything is a tradeoff.

Don’t be surprised a few years down the line when Republicans begin seeking massive cuts in social programs–Social Security and Medicare– to pay for the huge corporate tax cut that they will enact next week.

Categories Funding

Economist: How the Tax Bill Will Hurt the Poorest Schools (LINK FIXED)

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2017 //
7

Nora Gordon, an economist at Georgetown University who studies school finance, explains how the GOP tax plan will hurt the nation’s poorest schools. Schools will suffer while corporations and wealthy individuals will enjoy big tax cuts.

She writes:

It’s common to hear people say that the quality of students’ education shouldn’t depend on their ZIP code. But the Republican House and Senate tax bills would make ZIP codes matter more than ever. They would create an incentive to hoard opportunity by raising funds that remain close to home.

Why does our education system have so much at stake? A vast majority of funding for public schools, about 90 percent, comes from the money raised by state and local governments. Currently, taxpayers can deduct their state and local taxes, and that deduction makes them more likely to support higher spending on programs funded by those taxes, including public schools.

With its bills, Congress would significantly cut the deduction of state and local taxes, slicing into that incentive. This is why education advocates are fighting to keep the deductions, and why those who believe state and local governments are too big want to get rid of them.

After a consideration of eliminating all state and local deductions, current proposals have been marketed as a political compromise: Both bills take away taxpayers’ ability to deduct income taxes but allow a property tax deduction of up to $10,000 per year. The problem is that states depend more heavily on income taxes, and local governments on property taxes, so the compromise favors raising funds at the local level. Structuring it this way will only add to inequality in the school system.

As an economist who has studied education funding and policy, to me the historical record is clear: State-level school spending is critical. Economic segregation across school districts means some areas need an infusion of resources to have a chance at serving their students well, and states are the primary source of that infusion. Research shows that when states send more resources to their neediest districts, achievement levels in those districts rise.

But states are already in a tough spot: The most recent data show they are still recovering from the recession, with over half of them spending less on K-12 now, in inflation-adjusted terms, than they did in 2008.

It’s worth noting that more is at stake for states than just education funding. Federal spending cuts are sure to come to pay for this tax bill. There will most likely be calls for cuts in programs that provide food, health care and income assistance to poor families. Just as people will look to the states to fill these new holes in the safety net, it will be harder than ever for states to raise the funds to do so.

Categories Funding, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice
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