Archives for category: Funding

The board of the Pasadena Unified School District debated whether charter schools should share in the receipts of a new tax. The board voted 4-3 not to include the charters. The three members who voted in favor of including the charters said that the votes of the parents of 2,000 charter students would help meet the 2/3 majority needed to pass the tax. The four who voted “no” held that charters are independent of the district and should not benefit from its taxes. The members opposing the sharing said that the charters could affiliate with the district but they choose not to.

The Pasadena school board considered a resolution to approve an education parcel tax for the ballot in the November 2024 election. The resolution was moved for approval and seconded. The board discussed and voted down an amendment in the ballot language to add charters as beneficiaries of the measure.

Board President Kim Kenne and Members Patrick Cahalan and Tina Fredericks voted to add charter schools as beneficiaries of the parcel tax on the November ballot.

Member Cahalan appreciated the public comments from charter supporters whose families have students in both regular PUSD schools and charter schools. The district’s survey about the November measures showed the potential support for passing this measure and the facilities bond is very close to the ⅔ needed for passage. He wanted the support of the approximately 2000 charter school parents to get it over the threshold. He proposed a board resolution to spell out the sharing of monies…

Those voting against the amendment were Michelle Richardson-Bailey, Patrice Marshall McKenzie, Yarma Velazquez and Jennifer Hall Lee.

Vice President Hall Lee spoke about having charters in the district authorized by other entities, not PUSD, like the L.A. County Board of Education. She spoke of the history of charters. While initially founded to help the public schools, they have become competitors and have become anti-union. She said she is a union-supporter, and she believes there is competition between charters and PUSD schools, like in Altadena. She spoke against the argument that charters are needed to be cutting edge options. PUSD is recognized in state education circles as a cutting edge district of excellence. Later in the meeting she mentioned that members of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) were present earlier. She found that CCSSA is funded by the Walton family, and a director of CCSA is also an employee of Walton Enterprises. The wealth of the Walton family is problematic when the CCSA threatens legal action against the district.

Member Marshall McKenzie introduced herself to the charter supporters in attendance, who had referred to her by a shorter version of her name not used by her. She spoke about her deep roots in the community and in PUSD public schools; her parents attended PUSD schools. She spoke of her university training in state public universities, her full commitment to public education as democratic, a creator of society, a lever of economic mobility, and a center of community. These things are really important to her and are why she ran to be on the board of education. She was not prepared to entertain or accept any amendments tonight, as those are longer conversations.

Member McKenzie said that she was clear on the nature of charters as separate Local Education Agencies (LEAs), which have the ability to raise money from their parents, and which get their own Average Daily Attendance (ADA) money from the State. These funds do not go to PUSD. She pushed back on the charter supporters’ comments about inclusion and building community, saying, “If you are willing to convert your charters to be affiliated charters or dependent charters, let’s have that conversation about how we build community and how we serve all of the students in the area of the Pasadena Unified School District because now we’re all public schools.” She said she has been consistent on this point.

Member McKenzie made the same argument back in 2019 at the joint meeting of the City Council and the PUSD Board, when charters wanted some of the Measure J sales tax monies. At the time she said, “Since charters are their own LEA, that would be like PUSD giving Measure J money to Glendale Unified. We would not do that. So why would we give these dollars away as well? I just don’t understand the logic in that. So right or wrong, I’m going to be consistent in my position on that.” She struggles with the situational alliance with PUSD. “When it’s convenient for you, you want to be PUSD kids, you want to be public school kids, and when it’s not convenient for you, you’re very happy to divest… I feel like right now you’re not with us; it’s for your personal benefit and not for the greater good of the community.”

Like Vice-President Hall Lee, she referred to the origin of charter schools as being the center of innovation and providing flexibility for educators in curriculum development and with staffing, but charters have gone far away from those principles in the current charter and school landscape. “We simply just cannot afford to fund two systems out of one pot of money, and what you’re asking us to do is to dilute this one small pot of money even smaller.” She referred to the parcel tax amount being small compared to PUSD’s state funding and budget challenges. Yet she said she was very supportive of the bond and the parcel tax as a voter and a property owner who is happy to make the investment in public education. She reiterated that charters could have the same flexibility in curriculum development and staffing and special programs if they were PUSD-affiliated charters, but if they aren’t willing to have that conversation, she stated that she’s not willing to go down this road of sharing funding. Member McKenzie ended by saying she can’t support the amendment without a longer dialogue and a building of community with those in charters.

Regarding the argument about losing the votes of many parents with children at both a charter and a PUSD high school, Member Velazquez said, “They have the choice to support our public high schools. I support our PUSD teachers; I support our PUSD staff. I am a proud CFA (California Faculty Association, the faculty union for the CSU system) member. I am a proud educator in the public education system in this beautiful state of California. I am a ‘NO’ on the amendment.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Walton Foundation

Politico: Explosion of Choice in Florida Dooms Many Public Schools

By dianeravitch

May 29, 2024 //

Ron DeSantis has been determined as governor of Florida to privatize the funding of schools, and he has had a compliant legislature to help him achieve his goal of destroying public schools.

Andrew Atterbury of Politico wrote about the fiscal crisis of many public school districts as they lose students to private schools, charter schools, religious schools, and home schools.

Most vouchers are claimed by students already enrolled in private schools—a subsidy for the rich and upper-middle-class—but the public funds are causing serious enrollment declines in some districts. Those districts are now considering closing public schools as tax money flows to unaccountable private schools.

Atterbury writes:

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans have spent years aggressively turning the state into a haven for school choice. They have been wildly successful, with tens of thousands more children enrolling in private or charter schools or homeschooling.

Now as those programs balloon, some of Florida’s largest school districts are facing staggering enrollment declines — and grappling with the possibility of campus closures — as dollars follow the increasing number of parents opting out of traditional public schools.

The emphasis on these programs has been central to DeSantis’ goals of remaking the Florida education system, and they are poised for another year of growth. DeSantis’ school policies are already influencing other GOP-leaning states, many of which have pursued similar voucher programs. But Florida has served as a conservative laboratory for a suite of other policies, ranging from attacking public- and private-sector diversity programs to fighting the Biden administration on immigration.

“We need some big changes throughout the country,” DeSantis said Thursday evening at the Florida Homeschool Convention in Kissimmee. “Florida has shown a blueprint, and we really can be an engine for that as other states work to adopt a lot of the policies that we’ve done.”

Education officials in some of the state’s largest counties are looking to scale back costs by repurposing or outright closing campuses — including in Broward, Duval and Miami-Dade counties. Even as some communities rally to try to save their local public schools, traditional public schools are left with empty seats and budget crunches.

Since 2019-20, when the pandemic upended education, some 53,000 students have left traditional public schools in these counties, a sizable total that is forcing school leaders to consider closing campuses that have been entrenched in local communities for years.

In Broward County, Florida’s second-largest school district, officials have floated plans to close up to 42 campuses over the next few years, moves that would have a ripple effect across Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood.

The district has lost more than 20,000 students over the last five years, a decline that comes as charter schools in particular experienced sizable growth in the area. Enrollment in charters, which are public schools operating under performance contracts freeing them of many state regulations, increased by nearly 27,000 students since 2010, according to Broward school officials.

Broward County Public Schools claims to have more than 49,000 classroom seats sitting empty this year, a number that “closely matches” the 49,833 students attending charter schools in the area, officials noted in an enrollment overview.

These enrollment swings are pressing Broward leaders to combine and condense dozens of schools, efforts that would save the district on major operating costs. So far, some of the ideas are meeting heavy resistance…

Enrollment among charters has increased by more than 68,000 students statewide from 2019-20 to this school year, according to data from the Florida Department of Education. More than a third of that rise happened in Broward, Duval and Miami counties alone.

Private school enrollment across Florida rose by 47,000 students to 445,000 students from 2019-20 to 2022-23, according to the latest data available from the state. Much of that growth is from newly enrolled kindergartners, with only a small fraction of these students having been previously enrolled in public schools, according to Step Up for Students, the preeminent administrator of state-sponsored scholarships in Florida.

A growing number of families also chose to homeschool their children during this span, as this population grew by nearly 50,000 students between 2019-20 and 2022-23, totaling 154,000 students in the latest Florida Department of Education data.

As all of these choice options ascend, enrollment in traditional public schools across the state decreased by 55,000 students from 2019-20 to this year, state data shows. But enrollment isn’t down everywhere. While Duval County has lost thousands of students, enrollment is up by more than 7,700 students at neighboring St. John’s County, the state’s top-ranked school district…

The state’s scholarship program is expected to grow, which could lead to more students leaving traditional public schools. While most new scholarship recipients previously attended private schools already, there is space for 82,000 more statewide — nearly 217,000 total — to attend private school or find a different schooling option on the state’s dime next school year.

Across the state, public schools are facing budget cuts, layoffs. and school closures, all to satisfy Gov. DeSantis’ love of school choice. Over time, billions of public dollars will flow every year to unaccountable private schools that are allowed to discriminate. And the outcomes will be worse, not better, as students flock to low-cost schools whose teachers and principals are uncertified.

It the main win for DeSantis is to subsidize the cost of private schools for parents whose children were already enrolled in private schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Florida, Funding, Home Schooling, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Texas: Governor Abbott’s Maniacal Passion for Vouchers

By dianeravitch

May 28, 2024 //

Politico reporters Liz Crampton and Andrew Atterbury report on Governor Greg Abbott’s determination to purge the Republican Party in Texas of any elected official who opposes vouchers. He managed to defeat some rural Republicans who put the needs of their communities over the demands of the governors. He has driven the state party to the extremist right by targeting moderate Republicans. He is fighting for a voucher program that will cost the state $2 billion a year by 2028 and serve mainly students already in private schools. In effect, the state would transfer billions to the mostly white, affluent kids in private schools while underfunding the public schools that enroll five million children, mostly black and brown.

Today are the runoffs that will determine whether Abbott has enough votes to pass a voucher bill. If he wins, he can deliver a plum to his wealthy and upper-middle-class supporters who send their kids to private schools.

Crampton and Atterbury write:

When nearly two dozen Republican state lawmakers defied Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to oppose a centerpiece of his agenda — the creation of a school voucher program — they knew they’d face political payback.

But Abbott’s vengeance has been ferocious, even by Texas standards.

He helped knock off seven incumbents in the Republican primary in March and is targeting a handful more contests at the end of the month by handpicking conservative challengers and collecting millions of dollars from donors in Texas and beyond. Another two anti-voucher incumbents lost even though they weren’t specifically blacklisted by Abbott.

The enormous amount of money pouring into Texas Republican primaries from national pro-school-choice groups sets a new precedent as national interests become increasingly intertwined in state legislatures. Abbott’s targeting of former allies has escalated a Republican civil war that is defining Texas politics today, all in pursuit of enacting a voucher law that stands to remake K-12 education in the nation’s second biggest state.

“It’s just so unusual for an incumbent governor to campaign against members of his own party,” John Colyandro, a Texas lobbyist and former top aide to Abbott, said in an interview. “He was the pivot around which everything turned here.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott arrives to speak at the State Capitol during a rally in support of school vouchers. — Gov. Greg Abbott’s targeting of former allies has escalated a Republican civil war that is defining Texas politics today. | Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP

Backed by deep-pocketed conservative figures like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, the school-choice movement has leveraged Republican majorities in state legislatures across the country to pass laws that provide families with lump sums to spend on private school tuition. The efforts, according to supporters, are meant to bolster parental rights by giving families the financial freedom to choose a different option for schooling their children.

Anti-voucher Republicans “thought they had a stronghold,” said Hillary Hickland, a candidate who was backed by Abbott and won her race in March. “They had this elitist air, that they know better for a community than the taxpayers, or the parents. And they were wrong.”

[Of course, it’s the height of irony to refer to the supporters of public schools as “elitists.” Abbott could not have knocked off his critics without the millions sent by out-of-state billionaires DeVos and Yass and in-state billionaires Dunn and Wilks.]

Ten states passed or expanded school-choice laws in 2023 alone. There are now 18 states that have education savings accounts, which allow parents to spend state funding on a variety of choices including private schools. Students are flocking to these programs, yet data shows that the majority of scholarships or vouchers are going to wealthier families already enrolled in private schools — not students leaving their traditional public schools.

But despite all the momentum across the country, voucher bills have repeatedly failed in Texas. That’s why Abbott and pro-school-choice advocates are continuing their big money push as early voting is underway for the primary runoffs next week. Even after knocking out a number of party defectors in March, Abbott and aligned Republicans are teetering on securing enough votes to pass school-choice when the Legislature returns with a new class in January 2025.

“We’re not counting our chickens, not stopping, not laying off,” said David Carney, a consultant with Abbott’s campaign, in an interview.

Abbott’s vendetta comes as other GOP figures are also going after fellow Republicans for perceived crimes against the party, notably Attorney General Ken Paxton’s targeting of incumbents for voting to impeach him. House Speaker Dade Phelan is among those under siege as he fights to defend his own hold on power in the runoffs next Tuesday.

In prior years, state legislature races in Texas typically cost about $250,000. But spending in some of these primaries has been upwards of $1 million, thanks to the involvement of pro-voucher interests attacking Republicans.

“We are outgunned here big time,” said Rep. DeWayne Burns, a Republican lawmaker fighting to keep in his seat representing a district encompassing Cleburne, Texas, a town on the outskirts of Dallas-Fort Worth. “This is a true David v. Goliath situation and I’m the David here.”

The negative attacks on anti-voucher Republicans financed by PACs have gone beyond school-choice and targeted the incumbents for lacking conservative bona fides on issues like guns and the border — often in false or misleading mailers, texts and advertisements.

In one example, residents of Mineral Wells, Texas received mailers paid for by Libertarian PAC Make Liberty Win going after incumbent Rep. Glenn Rogers, who lost his primary in March to an Abbott-backed challenger. That mailer accused him of being “anti-gun” and warned that “if we don’t vote Rogers out, he will only drift further left.”

Rogers, a fifth-generation rancher and veterinarian who was first elected in 2021, said that he was also accused of being soft on the border, an attack line he believes Abbott chose because that issue resonates more with voters than vouchers.

“If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes truth to a low-information voter,” Rogers said. “Unfortunately we have a lot of low-information voters. That doesn’t have anything to do with their mental ability, it has to do with them keeping up. Eventually it becomes truth in their minds.”

Although Republicans boast big majorities in both chambers and control the governorship, school-choice proposals were repeatedly swatted down in 2023, even after Abbott made them a top priority and called special sessions to address the issue. The latest proposal would have given around 40,000 students access to about $10,500 in vouchers for private schooling or $1,000 toward homeschooling.

Republicans, many from rural areas, who have long been opposed to vouchers over concerns that it would jeopardize public education funding, banded with Democrats for an unlikely alliance that proved to be a thorn in Abbott’s side. Those lawmakers were spooked by an estimate that the vouchers program would cost the state more than $2 billion annually by 2028.

“I voted for my district and I have no regrets,” said San Antonio Rep. Steve Allison, who lost his primary. “What the governor did is extremely wrong. Me and the others that he came after have been with him 100 percent of the time on every issue except this one.”

Abbott has major money on his side. Among the constellation of PACs and donations from wealthy political players dumping money into Texas elections this year, there’s Pennsylvania billionaire Yass. A major school-choice supporter, Yass personally cut a check to Abbott for $6 million last year, which the governor called the largest single donation in Texas history.

Yass has also given to PACs backing pro-voucher candidates, like the School Freedom Fund, which is affiliated with the Club for Growth and has run multi-million-dollar TV blitzes.

DeVos’ PAC, the American Federation for Children Victory Fund, has pumped $4.5 million into the races — nearly half of what the PAC has promised to spend nationwide this cycle. Of the 13 anti-school-choice lawmakers zeroed in on by the PAC, 10 candidates either lost their race or were forced into an upcoming runoff.

“If you’re a candidate or lawmaker who opposes school-choice and freedom in education — you’re a target,” Tommy Schultz, CEO of AFC, said when the fundraising organization was createdin 2023. “If you’re a champion for parents — we’ll be your shield.”

Another group, the Family Empowerment Coalition PAC, launched in June 2023 with the singular goal of defending incumbents from both parties who voted for school-choice. But the organization expanded its mission a few months later to include supporting primary challengers to incumbents who voted against the measure — and has spent at least $1.4 million this election cycle, according to data from Transparency USA, a political spending database.

Texas is just one state where the groups are getting involved. Make Liberty Win is also singling out anti-voucher Republicans in Tennessee and Ohio.

All that outside money comes on top of typical spending from big-name conservative donors in Texas, like Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks who each have donated at least $1.7 million to various lawmakers since July 2023, according to data from the Texas Ethics Commission compiled by Chrisopher Tackett, a campaign finance watchdog.

Abbott’s own PAC has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars this cycle to candidates seeking to unseat incumbents who opposed vouchers. He has handed out endorsements to challengers and shown up for appearances to back them on the campaign trail.

The Abbott campaign is projected to spend some $11 million during the primary races, including $4 million on the runoffs alone, Carney said. That’s a massive jump from the $500,000 he would typically spend for primaries, he said.

The governor touts school-choice as a means for parents to leave struggling campuses, often using districts in Houston and Dallas as punching bags. He recently pointed to Dallas schools having a resource guide about students identifying with a different gender and a Lewisville teacher dressing in drag as examples of why vouchers are needed — demonstrating how Republicans are leveraging the culture war to bolster support for vouchers.

“If you’re a parent in that situation, should you be trapped within a school district that’s focusing on issues like that?” Abbott said during a keynote address to the Texas Public Policy Foundation in March. “Of course not.”

By Abbott’s math, the Texas House is sitting at 74 votes in favor of school-choice considering who won their primary race and the candidates that reached a runoff. That count, though, would still put the House two votes shy of passing the landmark policy — upping the stakes for the runoffs.

“I came out with no ambiguity about where I stood or what I expected,” Abbott said. “If the governor puts something on the emergency item list, that means this is something that must pass. And if it doesn’t pass, there’s going to be challenges to deal with.”

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Thom Hartmann: How to Fix the Supreme Court’s Devotion to Big Money

By dianeravitch

May 23, 2024 //

Thom Hartmann is convinced that We, the People, must find a way to restrict the Supreme Court’s devotion to the financial interests of the wealthiest Americans. There is a way, he writes, but note that it will require Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Another reason to vote and make sure your friends and family vote.

Hartmann writes in The Daily Kos:

Is there a way to reverse the decision by five Republicans on the Supreme Court that it’s OK for billionaires and big corporations to bribe politicians?

Americans are watching with increasing shock and dismay:

— President Biden tried to knock up to $20,000 off the debt of every person in the country with a student loan. Republicans decided this might somehow, someday mean fewer profits for banks — who financially support the GOP — so they sued at the Supreme Court. The Republican appointees on the Court, over the objections of the three Democratic appointees, killed the president’s effort without providing any cogent constitutional rationalization.

— Scientists have developed lab-grown meat that is healthier, easier on the planet, and, when manufactured at scale, cheaper than beef, pork, or chicken. The animal ag industry freaked out and threw a bunch of cash at Republican members of Congress, who are now trying to outlaw the product before the companies developing it can get to scale. Even the buggywhip makers back in the day didn’t think the way to protect their industry was to buy off politicians (of course that was before five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery).

— Climate change is devastating our planet and fine particle emissions from trucks cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and illnesses from heart disease, COPD, asthma, and cancer every year. To solve the problem, the EPA put forward new truck emission standards that will phase in between 2027 and 2032. This week, twenty-seven Republican-controlled states whose politicians take money from the fossil fuel industry sued to block the rules and protect the profits of the trucking and petroleum industries.

— Title IX of the federal code, which forbids gender-based discrimination in education, is being extended by the Department of Education to protect members of the queer community. Rightwing Christian groups, which provide billions of dollars and millions of votes to Republicans, pinged state-level politicians, so now Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have filed suit before hand-picked rightwing judges to allow schools to legally trash LGBTQ+ students.

— The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) promulgated a new rule limiting credit card late fees to $8 each, protecting America’s most vulnerable families. The banks pulled the GOP’s chain and Republican senators Tim Scott, John Thune, John Barrasso, Jerry Moran, John Boozman, Steve Daines, Mike Rounds, Thom Tillis, Marsha Blackburn, Kevin Cramer, Mike Braun, Bill Hagerty, and Katie Britt introduced legislation to reverse the policy and allow banks to again screw low-income people.

— In 2003, George W. Bush signed legislation to privatize Medicare through the so-called Medicare Advantage scam, which last year overcharged our government more than $140 billion while denying millions of claims from Americans unfortunate enough to have signed up for it. Republicans on the take from the insurance industry are now pushing a plan to gut or even shut down real Medicare, leaving all seniors to the tender mercies of this predatory industry.

— Ultra-processed foods are accused of causing obesity, diabetes, cancer, and host of other illnesses both physical and mental: American children, who consume as much as two-thirds of their calories from these products, are experiencing an epidemic of obesity and diseases associated with it. With Republican politicians running interference for them, the processed food industry has now succeeded in getting their ultra-processed “food” products placed in thousands of school lunch programs, paid for with our tax dollars. As The Washington Post noteda few months ago, “Republicans have continued to fight stricter standards” and, “Some Republicans are now threatening to block the USDA from further limiting sodium and reducing added sugar in milk…”

Increasingly, Americans are realizing the cancer eating our democracy is the power of great wealth and Supreme Court-legalized political bribery. And Sam Alito flying his flag upside-down in support of Trump’s coup and Clarence Thomas openly taking bribes are their ways of saying they think they’re completely immune from accountability.

In a 1978 Republican-only decision written by Lewis Powell (author of the notorious “Powell Memo” which told rich people how to take over our politics, schools, media, and courts), five corrupt members of the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are “persons” with full access to the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment right of free speech. They added that money is the same thing as “free speech,” legalizing political bribery by both billionaires and giant corporations.

In 2010, five other Republicans on the Court doubled down on that Bellottidecision with Citizens United, which overturned hundreds of good government and anti-bribery laws, some dating all the way back to the 19th century. As a result, it’s almost impossible to prosecute any but the most obvious and egregious examples of bribery (see: Menendez) of both American politicians and judges, including billionaires and religious corporations blatantly bribing Supreme Court justices.

Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito openly flaunt the gifts they receive from wealthy interests with business before the Court, as Trump fangirl Aileen Cannon and hundreds of other federal and state court judges are routinely wined and dined at luxury resorts. As long as they continue to rule the way the morbidly rich want and bribery continues to be legal, it appears the gravy train will never end.

Unless we do something about it.

Every single one of these problems — and hundreds more — continue to exist in the face of overwhelming public disapproval because one or another industry or group of rightwing billionaires has been empowered by the Supreme Court’s Bellotti and Citizens United decisions to bribe politicians and judges.

Democrats in Congress must reverse those bizarre, democracy-destroying decisions with a new law declaring an end to this American political crime spree. If they retake the House and hold the Senate and White House this fall, it’ll be their opportunity to re-criminalize bribery of elected officials.

To do that, they need to defy the Court’s declaration that money is “free speech” and corporations are “persons.” That defiance requires something called “court-stripping.”

Republicans understand exactly what I’m talking about: Since the 1950s, they’ve introduced hundreds of pieces of court-stripping legislation. They tried to do the same thing most recently in 2005 with the Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives on July 22, 2004.

That law, designed to override Supreme Court protections of LGBTQ+ people, contained the following court-stripping paragraph:

“No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C or this section.”

In other words, Congress wrote, the Supreme Court has no say in the matter of this particular legislation.

The Marriage Protection Act died in the Senate, but it’s one of hundreds of pieces of court-stripping legislation introduced — almost all by Republicans (House Whip Tom Delay was the master of this) — in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v Board and Roe v Wade.

This process of “court-stripping” is based in Article 3, Section 2 of the US Constitution, which says:

“[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Regulations? Exceptions?!?

Turns out, the Constitution says Congress can regulate the Court by, for example, expanding the number of its members, determining if Court hearings must be public/televised, or if they must live by a Judicial Code of Conduct (among other things).

Congress should be doing all these things as soon as possible.

Additionally, Congress can create what the Constitution calls “Exceptions” to the things the Court can rule on.

In today’s crisis, Congress could say, “Supreme Court, you may no longer rule on whether money in politics is ‘free speech.’ We’re taking that power from you because the Constitution gives it to us and you have screwed it up so badly.”

And, it turns out, Congress has already gone there, most recently creating exceptions to what our courts may do in a law that waspassed and signed by President Bush the very next year: The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

That law explicitly strips from federal courts — including the Supreme Court — their power to hear appeals against the Bush administration detaining, torturing, imprisoning in Guantanamo, or even killing suspected Muslim terrorists. It says:

“[N]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…”

And that’s just the beginning. There’s even, as the Brennan Center notes, a court-stripping provision in the PATRIOT act of 2001. I lay out dozens of other examples and a history of court-stripping that extends back to the presidency of Thomas Jefferson — an outspoken advocate or reducing the power of the Supreme Court — in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America.

As House Speaker Tom Delay said back in the days of his court-stripping Marriage Protection Act: “Judges need to be intimidated” and “Congress should take no prisoners in dealing with the courts.”

Putting forward such a law would highlight how Citizen United’s SCOTUS-legalized political bribery is at the core of our political dysfunction, even if it doesn’t pass Congress or even if the Court itself strikes it down.

Rightwing oligarchs and giant corporations have now taken total control of the entire GOP and corrupted more than a few Democrats, all while polluting our public discourse with their think tanks and media outlets: such legislation would, at the very least, highlight this and pressure the Court to change their policies. “Intimidate” the Court, to quote Tom Delay.

Congress must stand up for what’s right and is consistent with American values: Legally bribed politicians and judges aren’t that.

It’s high time to end the bribery and get something done for We the People.

Categories Corruption, Dark Money, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Justice

Jan Resseger: Why Vouchers Are Disastrous Public Policy

By dianeravitch

May 23, 2024 //

Jan Resseger can always be counted on to add the voice of reason into heated issues, relying on research and calm discussion.

She writes:

In a thoughtful commentary, the Economic Policy Institute’s Hilary Wething and Josh Bivens deride as bad public policy today’s state-by-state wave of new and expanded private school tuition vouchers:

“Public education is worth preserving—it should be seen as one of the most important achievements in our c0untry’s history and crucial for the social and economic welfare of future generations… In the 21st century, unfortunately, too many policymakers seem determined to squander this legacy by starving public education of money and legitimacy, often in the name of ‘school choice.’ Their central claim (when they bother to make one with any clarity) is that public provision of goods or services is ineffective by definition and that a dose of private market-like competition will lead to better schooling outcomes for the nation’s children.”

Wething and Bivens explore the basic economic flaws in pro-voucher ideology and argue that “conditions needed for market competition to lead to better outcomes clearly do not exist in the educational realm.” In the first place, our nation benefits from educating all children, and the marketplace can’t be counted on to fill that role: “In other markets, if the private sector is doing a poor job at offering attractive options for a good or service, people can just consume other things.” “Second, competition works well when the cost of switching providers is small,” but “switching schools is an extraordinarily costly decision in time, administrative burden, and severed social networks.” Third, markets work when the choice of product affects only the buyer and seller, but, “Universal schooling generates positive spillovers to society at large, meaning that individuals would be inclined to underinvest in education relative to the full benefits it provides.”

Wething and Bivins describe voucher supporters presuming that diversion of dollars to vouchers will not harm the essential institution of public schools. In fact, however, public schools in most places are underfunded in terms of the actual cost of needed services: “Newer research with better methods confirms that more money for public schools does improve educational outcomes… In short, the evidence indicates that public schooling in the United States simply needs more resources to deliver even better student achievement—not some radical disruption in how it is delivered and by what institutions.”

Not only does more money improve schooling outcomes for children, but recent academic research demonstrates that by investing more public resources in their public schools, states and localities can “improve schooling outcomes for children… (with) the largest beneficial effects on the performance of particularly disadvantaged students.” Wething and Bivins cite peer-reviewed, 2016, research by Kirabo Jackson, Rucker Johnson, and Claudia Persico on the impact of statewide school finance reforms that increased public school spending between 1972 and 2010: “(A) 10% increase in school spending for 12 years led to increases in high school graduation rates, 7% higher wages, and 10% higher family incomes in adulthood for children from districts that saw the spending increase.”

New research also confirms that vouchers are ineffective as an educational investment. Dollars diverted from public schools often flow to private schools with inferior academics: “Several high-quality studies have investigated the impact of recent voucher programs and have found notably worse outcomes for student achievement… In Ohio, under the EdChoice program, students who went to private schools with a voucher performed worse than they would have had they remained in public schools. In Indiana, students that used the Indiana Choice Scholarship voucher program experienced an average achievement loss of 0.15 standard deviations in mathematics.”

The expansion of vouchers inevitably sets up a long term drain on public resources: “Vouchers reduce public school resources, but introduce large new fiscal obligations overall… Where significant voucher programs have been instituted, the resources available to public school children have decreased… The failure to increase per-pupil (public school) funding leads to the erosion of public education services in all forms: everything from school meals, extracurricular activities, mental health and counseling services, vocational and technical programs and investments in teacher quality and pay. It is worth noting that flat per-pupil educational spending—even in inflation-adjusted terms—is effectively a decline in the quality of education over time.”

Wething and Bivens sum up the evidence: “Vouchers are not a cost-free policy that simply adds on another education option for children—they are instead an intentional attack on universal public education… Vouchers make no coherent economic sense, and the evidence shows that vouchers harm student achievement and expose state budgets to large future obligations that are hard to forecast, even while they divert spending away from public education.”

The new brief from Wething and Bivens describes in concrete economic terms,what the late political theorist Benjamin Barber formulates as a basic principle of good public policy: “Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: it dissolves the bonds that tie us together into free communities and democratic republics… Public choices rest on civic rights and common responsibilities, and presume equal rights for all. Public liberty is what the power of common endeavor establishes, and hence presupposes that we have constituted ourselves as public citizens by opting into the social contract. With privatization, we are seduced back into the state of nature by the lure of private liberty and particular interest; but what we experience in the end is an environment in which the strong dominate the weak… the very dilemma which the original social contract was intended to address.” (Consumed, pp. 143-144)

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Vouchers

Nancy Flanagan: Just Who Is Trashing Public Education?

By dianeravitch

May 21, 2024 //

Veteran teacher Nancy Flanagan explores the question of who is trying to destroy our public schools. She nails some of the loudest critics, who have personally benefitted from public schools. She doesn’t explore why they are trying to annihilate the schools that educated them, but that may because we know what the privatization movement has to offer: money. There is a gravy train overloaded with munificent gifts from Betsy DeVos, the Waltons, Charles Koch, Michael Bloomberg, and a boatload of other billionaires. They can endlessly underwrite anti-public school organizations that offer well-paid jobs.

On the pro-public education side, it’s hard to find big spenders or highly compensated jobs. The two big unions have resources, all of which come from the dues of their members. They do not have the funds to support the numerous grassroots groups that are found in every state. Most, if not all of the state and local groups, operate on a shoestring; typically, their employees are volunteers. They do not have six-figure jobs for someone who tweets and writes statements. No one who works for a state “Save Our Schools” group makes big money.

The Network for Public Education is the biggest pro-public education groups; it has 350,000 people who have signed up to support it, but there is no membership fee. NPE has one full-time employee and a few part-timers.

So, Nancy Flanagan asks, just who is trashing public schools?

She writes:

Get ready for a big dump–a deliberately chosen word–of anti-public education blah-blah over the next five months. It’s about all the right wing’s got, for one thing–and it’s one of those issues that everybody has an opinion on, whether they went to public school. have children in public schools, or neither.

Public education is so big and so variable that there’s always something to get exercised over. There’s always one teacher who made your child miserable, one assigned book that raises hackles, one policy that feels flat-out wrongheaded. There’s also someone, somewhere, who admires that teacher, feels that book is a classic and stoutly defends whatever it is—Getting rid of recess? The faux science of phonics? Sex education that promotes abstinence? —that someone else finds ridiculous or reprehensible.

Not to mention—teaching is the largest profession in the country, So many teachers, so many public schools, so much opportunity to find fault.

In other words, public education is the low-hanging fruit of political calculation. Always has been, in fact.

A few years back, when folks were going gaga over Hillbilly Elegy, seeing it as the true story of how one could rise above one’s station (speaking of blahblah)—the main thing that irritated me about ol’ J.D. Vance was his nastiness about public education. Vance has since parlayed a best-seller that appealed to those who think a degree from Yale equates to arriving at the top, into a political career—and putting the screws to affirmative action, in case anyone of color tries to enjoy the same leg-up he did.

J.D. Vance’s education—K-12, the military, Ohio State—was entirely in public institutions until he got into Yale Law School. He doesn’t have anything good to say about public ed, but it was free and available to him, a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. When I read Rick Hess’s nauseating interview with Corey DeAngelis in Education Week, I had a flashback to ol’ J.D., intimating that he achieved success entirely on his own, without help from that first grade teacher who taught him how to read and play nice with others.

DeAngelis says:

I went to government schools my entire K–12 education in San Antonio, Texas. However, I attended a magnet high school, which was a great opportunity. Other families should have education options as well, and those options shouldn’t be limited to schools run by the government. Education funding should follow students to the public, private, charter, or home school that best meets their needs. I later researched the effects of school choice initiatives during my Ph.D. in education policy at the University of Arkansas’ Department of Education Reform.

So—just to clarify—Corey DeAngelis went to public schools K-12, for his BA and MA degrees (University of Texas), as well as a stint in a PUBLICLY FUNDED program at the notoriously right-focused University of Arkansas. That’s approximately 22 years, give or take, of public education, the nation-building institution DeAngelis now openly seeks to destroy.

I’m not going to provide quotes from the EdWeek piece, because anyone reading this already knows the hyperbolic, insulting gist—lazy, dumb, unions, low bar, failing, yada yada. He takes particular aim at the unions—although it absolutely wasn’t the unions—shutting down schools during a global pandemic. He paints schools’ turn-on-a-dime efforts to hold classes on Zoom as an opportunity for clueless parents to see, first-hand, evidence of how bad instruction is. He never mentions, of course, the teachers, students and school staff who died from COVID exposure.

Enough of duplicitous public school critics. My point is this:

The people who trash public education—not a particular school, classroom or curricular issue, but the general idea of government-sponsored opportunity to learn how to be a good, productive American citizen—have a very specific, disruptive ax to grind:

I got what I needed. I don’t really care about anybody else.

This goes for your local Militant Moms 4 Whatever on a Mission, out there complaining about books and school playsand songs and health class. It’s not about parents’ “rights.” It’s about control. And never about the other families and kids, who may have very different values and needs.

It’s about taking the ‘public’ out of public education. And it’s 100% politically driven.

OPEN THE LINK TO FINISH READING THE ARTICLE!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Unions, Vouchers

Join Me at the Skinny Awards on June 12 in NYC!!

By dianeravitch

May 20, 2024 //

Class Size Matters is one of the most effective—if not the MOST effective—advocacy organizations for public schools in New York City. Its leader, Leonie Haimson, fights for reduced class sizes, more funding, and the privacy of student data. I am a member of the board of Class Size Matters.

On June 12, CSM will hold its annual awards dinner. The awards are called the Skinny, in contrast to the Broad Award, which was given to districts that raised test scores, closed schools, and used metrics inappropriately.

I will be there to celebrate the award winners, who are parent-members of the Board of Education who stood strong for students, teachers, and well-funded public schools.

Please join us!

Class Size Matters Skinny Award Dinner

START:Wednesday, June 12, 2024•6:00 PM

END:Wednesday, June 12, 2024•9:00 PM

LOCATION: 1st floor•124 Waverly Pl. , New York, NY 10011 US

HOST CONTACT INFO: info@classsizematters.org

Buy tickets:

https://actionnetwork.org/ticketed_events/class-size-matters-skinny-award-dinner?source=direct_link
[2024_Skinny_Awards_Announcement_final.png]
Class Size Matters Skinny Award Dinnerhttps://actionnetwork.org/ticketed_events/class-size-matters-skinny-award-dinner?source=direct_link
actionnetwork.orghttps://actionnetwork.org/ticketed_events/class-size-matters-skinny-award-dinner?source=direct_link

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
http://www.classizematters.org
Leonie@classsizematters.org

Categories Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Courage, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, New York City, Parents, Students, Teachers

Georgia: Students Demand Fully Funded Public Schools, Not Vouchers!

By dianeravitch

May 17, 2024 //

Seventeen high school students in Georgia marked the 70th anniversary of the Brown decision by writing an article calling on the state’s political leaders to fully fund public schools, instead of funding vouchers. They are members of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition.

They wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

As young Georgians, we share the belief that all children should have the freedom to pursue their dreams and that our futures depend on receiving a great education. To get there, we must equip every public school with the resources to deliver a quality education for every child, no matter their color, their ZIP code or how much money their parents make.

Unfortunately, we find ourselves in yet another moment of massive resistance to public education with increasingly aggressive efforts on behalf of the state of Georgia to privatize our public schools and return us to a two-tiered system marked by racial segregation. As public school students in high schools across Georgia, we believe that the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education is not just a cause for celebration but an invitation to recommit ourselves to the promise of a public education system that affirms an essential truth: Schools separated by race will never be equal.

Even as our country celebrates the anniversary of Brown this month, we know that our state actively worked to obstruct desegregation, which did not meaningfully take place for another 15 years. Seven years after the Supreme Court’s ruling that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional, the Georgia General Assembly revoked its school segregation law in 1961. Another 10 years later, a court-ordered desegregation plan finally took effect — in 1971.

In 2024, educators across Georgia, from Albany to Atlanta, from Valdosta to Vinings, from Dalton to Dublin, and everywhere in between, are working hard to provide students like us with a quality education, empowering us to build a brighter future in Georgia for all. Yet politicians in the Georgia Capitol seem dedicated to resegregating and privatizing our public schools by taking tax dollars meant to support all of the students in our communities and giving it to unaccountable voucher programs that favor the wealthiest few.

The long and shameful history of vouchers is something that politicians who forced them to become law this year don’t want us to know. In many cities, public education funding was funneled to private “segregation academies” where white children received better resources than children of color. Instead of making our public schools stronger and moving us all forward together, these politicians are defunding our public schools by more than $100 million and working to drag us backward to the days when Georgia was still resisting court-ordered desegregation.

We want our leaders to get serious about what works: fully funding our public schools so that we can improve our neighborhood schools. That’s where 1.7 million public school students in Georgia learn and grow, and where we all can have a say. Research all across the country shows that voucher programs will not improve student outcomes in Georgia, but we know what will best serve students.

Young Georgians like us need investments in our public schools so we have the opportunity to learn and thrive. Gov. Brian P. Kemp has $16 billion of unspent public funds — enough to cover the costs of funding our schools and investing in our communities. Georgia has one of the highest overall rates of child poverty in the nation. Yet our state is one of only six states that provides schools with no specific funding to support children living in poverty. By refusing to give our schools what they need, we are setting our schools and our students up for failure.

Politicians brag about Georgia’s teachers being among the highest paid in the South even though they know they have created a crisis around public education that puts our teachers, our parents and students like us in an impossible position. Right now, nearly every school district in Georgia operates with a waiver to avoid adhering to classroom size restrictions because they cannot afford to hire enough teachers. And though the American School Counseling Association recommends a counselor-to-student ratio of 1:250, Georgia mandates a counselor-to-student ratio of 1:450 students. Many schools cannot even meet that ratio because of a lack of funding. All of that is by design because politicians have refused to update Georgia’s school funding formula for nearly 40 years.

This year, as we celebrate 70 years since Brown v. Board of Education, we invite every Georgian to join us in our call for fully funded neighborhood public schools so that every Georgia student has an inviting classroom, a well-rounded curriculum, small class sizes and the freedom to learn.

The writers are members of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition. Nia G. Batra is a sophomore at Decatur High School. Hunter Buchheit is a senior at Walton High School. Ava Bussey is a senior at Marietta High School. Keara Field is a senior at McDonough High School. Saif Hasan is a junior at Lambert High School. Jessica Huang is a senior at Peachtree Ridge High School. Shivi Mehta is a junior at the Alliance Academy for Innovation. Bryan Nguyen is a senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. Rhea Sethi is a senior at North Gwinnett High School. Maariya Sheikh is a senior at Campbell High School. Harrison Tran is a junior at Jenkins High School. Sharmada Venkataramani is a sophomore at South Forsyth High School. Thomas Botero Mendieta is a junior at Archer High School. Kennedy Young is a senior at Campbell High School.

Categories Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Georgia, Inequality, Injustice, Privatization, Racism, Segregation, Students

Steve Suitts: The New Segregation Looks Like the Old Segregation

By dianeravitch

May 17, 2024 //

Steve Suitts wrote an important essay on the continuity between the “school choice” movement of today and its roots in the fight against the Brown decision in the 1950s.

Charter schools and vouchers are not innovative. Their most predictable outcome is not “better education,” but segregated schools.

Suitts’ essay delves into the issue, state by state. I encourage you to open the link and read it in full. I skipped over large and important sections. Read them.

He begins:

Overview

On the seventieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education—the US Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation in the nation’s public schools—Steve Suitts reveals an emerging, seismic shift in how southern states in the United States are leading the nation in adopting universal private school vouchers. Suitts warns that this new “school choice” movement will reestablish a dual school system not unlike the racially separate, unequal schools which segregationists attempted to preserve in the 1960s using vouchers.

INTRODUCTION

On the seventieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation in the nation’s public schools, the states of the southern US are pushing to reestablish publicly financed, dual school systems—one primarily for higher-income and white children and the other primarily for lower-income and minority children. This seismic shift in how states fund K–12 education through universal vouchers isn’t confined to the South. But it is centered among the states that once mandated racially separate, unequal schools and where segregationists in the 1960s attempted to use private school vouchers to evade the watershed US Supreme Court decision.

More than thirty-five states have created voucher programs to send public dollars to private schools. At least nineteen, including most in the South, have adopted or are on a path to enact legislation making state-funded “Educational Savings Accounts” (ESAs)—the newest type of voucher approach—available to all or most families who forego public schools. These families can use the funds to send their children to almost any K–12 private school, including home-schooling, or purchase a wide range of educational materials and services, such as tutoring, summer camps, and counseling.

In recent times, private school vouchers were pitched to the public for the purpose of giving a targeted group of disadvantaged children new educational options, but legislatures are now expanding eligibility and funding for vouchers to include advantaged students. By adopting universal or near universal eligibility for ESAs, states will be obligating tens of billions of tax dollars to finance private schooling while creating a voucher system for use by affluent families with children already attending or planning to attend private school.

States are rushing to enact ESAs while they still have the last of huge federal COVID appropriations to distribute among public schools. This timing allows ESAs’ sponsors—Republican legislative leaders and governors—to entice once-reluctant, rural legislators to support vouchers. It also camouflages the severe fiscal impact this scheme will have on routinely underfunded public schools after the special federal funds run out.

The states adopting ESAs are also structuring this emerging, publicly funded, dual system so that private schools and homeschooling remain free of almost all regulations, academic standards, accountability, and oversight. These sorts of rules and regulations are always imposed by state legislatures on public schools and are understood as essential to protect students and to advance learning. Even as legislatures are adding restrictive laws on how local public schools teach topics involving race, sex, ethnicity, and gender they are providing new state funding for private schools and home-schooling that will enable racist, sexist, and other bigoted teaching.

If state legislatures succeed in establishing and broadening this dual, tax-funded system of schools, the tremors will transform the landscape of US elementary and secondary education for decades to come. Calling for “freedom of choice,” a battle cry first voiced by segregationists who fought to overturn the Brown decision,¹ predominantly white Republicans will take states back to a future of separate and unequal education.

THE UNIVERSAL VOUCHER SYSTEM

By the seventieth anniversary of Brown, five states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina) have enacted ESA programs that allow all or a vast majority of families with school-age children to send their children to private schools with state funds that equal or closely match the states’ per pupil expenditures for public schools. South Carolina adopted a “pilot” ESA last year, and a bill making its program permanent has already passed one chamber. The lower house of the Louisiana legislature passed a bill for a statewide universal ESA program to start next year, but the state senate is likely to delay adoption for another year to confirm estimated costs. Both states have governors who are likely to push adoption again next year.²

The Tennessee legislature adjourned in April without passing either of two pending universal ESA bills—only because Governor Bill Lee and legislative leaders failed to agree on which voucher bill to enact. They vow to pass legislation next session. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott used campaign funds from a Pennsylvania billionaire in the state’s Republican primary to defeat a handful of legislators who blocked his ESA bill last year. Abbott expects to defeat the two remaining state house members who failed to vote for his legislation—giving him the number he needs to pass his bill, while sending a political message that will keep his supporters in line…³

The historical context is shameful. Five of the southern states that now have universal vouchers also enacted open-ended vouchers in the 1960s—attempting to defeat Brown’s mandate for school desegregation. All but three of the states that have already embraced publicly financed ESAs were the only states authorizing segregated public schools on the eve of the Supreme Court’s decision.⁹

The fiscal impact of this rush to fund private schooling will be devastating to public schools. In 2018, all fifty states allocated $2.6 billion to finance private school vouchers. In 2021, legislatures increased the total amount to $3.3 billion and more recently to over $6 billion. If the eleven southern states enact the bills currently adopted or pending in their legislatures, their total funding for vouchers will be as much as $6.8 billion in 2025–26 and, according to independent estimates, as much as $20 billion for private schooling in 2030. This sum would equal the total state funds to public schools among six southern states in 2021.¹⁰

In 1950, about 400,000 students in the South attended private schools. By 2021-22, the number of private school students was about 1.8 million.

In 2021-22, 38.9% of white students attended public schools, and 63% enrolled in private schools.

AS VOUCHERS SPREAD, BROWN’S PROMISE DIES

During the last seventy years, the nation’s public schools have struggled in meeting the promise of Brown, despite clear proof that racially integrated, well-funded schools improve outcomes for Black children.³⁹ This promise has been especially important to the South, where the states’ first education laws prohibited Black persons from being taught to read or write; where racially segregated schools offered children of color an inferior education across more than a half century. Due to stubborn, racially defined housing patterns, increasing class disparities, adverse, even hostile Supreme Court decisions, a lack of local, interracial community support, and, as recent research confirms, the growth of school choice, public schools continue to face far too many hurdles in providing all children with a good education.⁴⁰

The South’s new dual school system renounces and annuls the mandates and hopes of Brown v. Board of Education. As universal vouchers spread, Brown’s promise dies. By their design, vouchers are an abandonment of Brown’s goal of equality of educational opportunity.

Reestablishing a dual school system will damage the prospects of a good education for all who attend public schools—not just low-income and minority children. The southern states were not able to finance two separate school systems during the era of segregation, even though Black students received a pittance of funding. Today that inability remains. The South continues to be far behind the rest of the nation in state and local funding of public schools. The new schemes of universal Education Savings Account vouchers will exacerbate the lack of sufficient funds for all except those higher-income families whose school-age children can attend private schools or home-schools and enjoy the enhancements and enriching experience that vouchers will subsidize.

Parents, grandparents, and others who support public schools and the democratic promise of public education must raise our voices against this reactionary movement and in furtherance of the importance of public schools. Like democracy itself, public schools may be the worst system for delivering all children an equal opportunity for a good education—except for all the others. We must not betray or abandon public education if we are committed to the democratic goal of a more perfect union and a good society for all.

Categories Bigotry, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Democracy, Education Industry, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Fake, Fraud, Funding, Racism, Segregation, Separation of church and state

Houston: Congressmember Calls for Federal Investigation of HISD under Miles

By dianeravitch

May 16, 2024 //

After Spectrum News reported that millions of dollars had been sent from Texas charter schools founded by Mike Miles to Colorado charter schools in the same chain, parents and students demanded Miles’ resignation as superintendent of Houston Independent School Disttrict. Elected officials have called for an investigation but recognize that neither the State Commissioner (Mike Morath) nor Governor Abbott are likely to criticize Miles, whom they appointed.

HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia formally requested that the U.S. Department of Education investigate the issues at Houston ISD and the financing of schools in the area, according to a letter obtained by KHOU 11 News.

In the letter dated May 15, the Congresswoman refers to recent news stories that reported Ector ISD near Midland, Texas allegedly sent state funds from Texas to Third Future Schools, a charter school operated in Colorado. She requested that an audit be conducted on Ector ISD.

A Spectrum News Texas report highlighted a pair of million-dollar-plus checks allegedly sent from Third Future Schools in Texas to its campuses in Colorado. The report accused Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Milesof sending Texas tax dollars out of state.

Miles has issued a statement responding to the report, saying the report “either intentionally or through gross incompetence, mischaracterized commonplace financial arrangements between charter schools and the charter management organizations that support them.”

Garcia expressed concerns over the financial stability of HISD following last year’s takeover by the state of Texas. This comes after widespread layoffs were announced leading to protests from those affected and HISD families.

Texas Education Commissioner Mick Morath has confirmed that the TEA complaints team will look into allegations against Miles.

The congresswoman also requested the issuance of federal funds by the state from the pandemic that were to be used to supplement public education at HISD be audited.

“It pains me that my home school district has been taken over and is seemingly being intentionally run into the ground and (I) request any additional assistance you can provide to protect our schools and our students,” Garcia said in the letter.

Garcia went on to claim that the state is punishing HISD.

“Houston is a vibrant and diverse community, and our state government is punishing us for that; we need your help,” she said in the letter.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Failure, Funding, Houston, Texas

Pasadena, CA: School Board Votes Against Including Charters in Parcel Tax

Politico: Explosion of Choice in Florida Dooms Many Public Schools

Texas: Governor Abbott’s Maniacal Passion for Vouchers

Thom Hartmann: How to Fix the Supreme Court’s Devotion to Big Money

Jan Resseger: Why Vouchers Are Disastrous Public Policy

Nancy Flanagan: Just Who Is Trashing Public Education?

Join Me at the Skinny Awards on June 12 in NYC!!