Archives for category: Inequity
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

NY Redistricting Creates Turmoil, Dilutes Black Vote, and Favors Republicans

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2022 //
19

In New York State, a court determined that the state’s congressional districts were gerrymandered in favor of Democrats. The special master appointed by the court drew new districts that dilutes the black vote and negatively affects Congressman Jamaal Bowman, one of the state’s most progressive members of Congress. The redistricting might lead to a primary between Bowman and Rep. Mondaire Jones, who is also Black. That would mean the loss of a Black member of Congress. The redistricting is weighted towards helping Republican candidates.

The New York Times writes that the new map is likely to create seats for Republicans.

The new lines even cast the future of several long-tenured, powerful Democratic incumbents in doubt, forcing several to potentially run against one another.

The most striking example came from New York City, where Mr. Cervas’s proposal pushed Representatives Jerrold Nadler, a stalwart Upper West Side liberal, and Carolyn Maloney of the Upper East Side into the same district, setting up a potentially explosive primary fight in the heart of Manhattan. Both lawmakers are in their 70s, have been in Congress for close to 30 years and lead powerful House committees.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and a favorite to become the party’s next leader, was one of a handful of incumbent lawmakers who, under the new map, would no longer reside in the districts they represent. In one case, the new lines put Representative Brian Higgins mere steps outside his greater Buffalo district.

Taken together, the proposed changes have broad national implications, effectively handing Republicans the upper hand in a national fight for control of the House, and rattling the top echelons of House Democratic leadership…

In a blistering statement, Mr. Jeffries accused the court of ignoring the input of communities of color, diluting the power of Black voters and pitting Black incumbents against each other in “a tactic that would make Jim Crow blush.”

One of my friends, Jamaal Bowman, has been imperiled by the redistricting. His office issued this statement:

For Immediate Release
Date: May 17, 2022
Contact: press@bowmanforcongress.com


STATEMENT: Rep. Jamaal Bowman Responds to Proposed District Map that Decreases the NY-16 Black Voter Population by 17%
 

YONKERS, NY – Yesterday a court filing unveiled the newly redrawn congressional districts in New York City. The new maps, which were drawn by court-appointed Special Master Jonathan Cervas but are not yet final, change the 16th Congressional District to remove much of the Bronx, decreasing the Black voter population by about 17%. In response, Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) released this statement:

“The whole point of redistricting is to create congressional districts that keep communities of interest together. Unfortunately, the map created by the special master splits NY-16’s historically low-income Bronx communities into three congressional districts and decreases the Black voter population by 17%. This occurred despite an outpouring of testimony urging redistricting officials to protect the Black vote by keeping the northeast Bronx with lower Westchester together. The proposal shows that Co-Op City is mapped into NY-14, Williamsbridge and Baychester into NY-15 and Edenwald kept in NY-16. The map data shows that this directly resulted in the Black voter population declining by 17%. Co-Op City, Williamsbrige, and Edenwald are strong communities of interest that must remain together as a unity and connected to lower Westchester. The Black voting power in NY-16 cannot be diluted in favor of more compact but less fair maps.

“Edenwald in the Bronx is home to the third-largest public housing community in New York State and one of the largest in the country. The Edenwald community is a vulnerable community that is separated in this proposed map from the other densely populated majority Black communities like Co-Op City, Williamsbridge, and Baychester, whose voting power helps protect these communities’ specific needs around housing, public safety, and poverty alleviation. Similarly, Co-Op city is the largest naturally occurring retirement community in the country predominantly populated by lower-income and Black seniors. By splitting these communities, the map further alienates them and perpetuates the opportunity for further historical neglect by the electoral system. These are communities who have been kept together in maps for decades for good reason and with good intention. Their voting power is directly tied to their lives and they deserve a fair chance at electing representatives that take their unique needs into full consideration.

“Now, I only have one message for NY-16: I will continue fighting for you, and I will fight to continue to represent you. I also hope that voters continue to have their voices heard in every elected official that represents them as I intend to continue and advocate for their needs and the needs of every person in NY-16.”   

About Jamaal Bowman
Congressman Jamaal Bowman was an educator and advocate for public schools for over 20 years and previously served as principal for the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action (CASA), a public middle school he founded in 2009 in the Baychester neighborhood of The Bronx. Rep. Bowman is a life-long New Yorker who lives in Yonkers with his wife and children.

###

Categories Accountability, Democrats, Inequity, New York, Race

Greg Brozeit: The Danger of the Alito Draft Decision Goes Way Beyond Abortion

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2022 //
72

Greg Brozeit notes here an alarming aspect implicit in the Alito draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade. His comment appeared on the blog. Alito and four other radical conservatives demonstrated that precedent and stare decisis mean nothing to them. Despite their assurances under oath to the Senators who interviewed them, the radical justices intend to overturn a right declared by the Supreme Court 49 years earlier. Never in the history of the Supreme Court has a right granted by the Court been overturned. This radical, reckless decision will set off more demonstrations and protests. Recent polls show that only about 20% of the nation believes that abortion should be banned under all circumstances. The rest believe that it should be safe and legal, with certain conditions, such as rape, incest, the life of the mother. The sweep of this unprecedented revocation will leave many people wondering what other prior decisions will be overturned.

Greg Brozeit writes:

Just as CRT is not about education, the Alito Roe draft is not about abortion. It is much bigger. Some of you come oh so close to crossing the rhetorical goal line. The real question is not if or why, but how this becomes a legal mallet that makes no decision “safe.”

If the wording “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” remains intact in the final opinion, it basically creates a precedent that precedent no longer exists. It would effectively be the first mortal wound in the legal doctrine of stare decisis as a check on judicial power. Its goal is to make a mockery out of the idea of judicial review as to render it meaningless. It’s “reasoning” could seep into and dominate all law from civil to maritime to military. And it fits perfectly with ALEC’s strategy to marginalize judicial review with packaged, ready-to-go legislation for lazy, partisan, or stupid (or all of the above) statewide elected legislature or governor.

This was not a legal shot over the bow. It was a direct hit on democracy and left no doubt that the only thing this court wants more is a tailor-made case that will give them stronger legal “reasoning” to be even more draconian. That would be the only reason this language might not be in the final decision handed down. It would be a short-lived “victory” that would be a prelude to something even worse for average and poor Americans.

This is the typical drivel the DNC-driven agenda gives us, focusing on individual policies rather than the real existential threat to democracy the Republican Party poses from local government through the office of the presidency. Now as correct as we may be about the fate of women’s rights and as big as that issue is, this is about much, much basic stakes. The radical right and their few partners on the looney left understand this. Hardly anyone else, it seems, does. Or at the very least, they can’t identify the true threat this enemy is posing. If they do not win now or in the next elections, they will continue to poison and cripple the system until they do. That, it seems, is the best we can hope for now. A slow death with faint hope for a miracle recovery rather than an immediate plunge into fascism.

Categories Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Inequity, Injustice, Republicans

Jan Resseger: Unfair School Funding and the Legacy of Jim Crow

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2022 //
5

Jan Resseger writes here about the continuing effects of racism on school funding today, not only in the south but across the nation. She cites the important writings of law professor Derek Black, whose work deeply informed her about the history of racism and how it persists today (I think that is called “critical race theory”).

She writes:

In a powerful new article, Legacy of Jim Crow Still Affects Funding for Public Schools, constitutional law professor, Derek Black and Axton Crolley expose the largely unexamined racist past of the kind of school funding inequity we observe today across many of the fifty states.

Derek Black’s Schoolhouse Burning is the best and most complex history of American public education I know. While the history of our public schools is generally traced back to New England and Horace Mann, Derek Black’s book examines progress toward equity in the South during Reconstruction, its reversal in the Jim Crow era, the corrections attempted during the Civil Rights Movement, and a period of reaction against the Brown v. Board of Education decision…

In their new article Black and Crolley describe how, after the collapse of Reconstruction, Southern states devised policies to perpetuate inequality: “Some… used ‘racially distinct tax’ policies that reserved separate funds for white and Black schools. Other states… moved school funding responsibility and control from state officials to local communities. Local officials could then ensure inequality without any specific law mandating it… (D)uring the Jim Crow era, localism became the tool to reverse… progress and equality. States increased reliance on local taxation, gave local white officials discretion over state funds, and constitutionally secured segregation. Some went so far as to craft color-coded funding systems where white taxes funded white schools exclusively… The development of Northern local school systems was historically distinct. Yet even in some Northern states, racial antagonism and concerns over segregation prompted pushes for local decision-making.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education was intended to address this long history of inequality, but there was a serious omission: “Nearly 70 years ago—in its Brown v. Board decision—the Supreme Court framed racial segregation as the cause of educational inequality… That framing rightly focused on segregation’s immediate horror—excluding students from schools based on the color of their skin—but obscured an important fact. In addition to requiring school segregation, many states also had long segregated school funding. Some had used ‘racially distinct tax’ policies that reserved separate funds for white and Black schools. Other states had moved school funding responsibility and control from state officials to local communities. Local officials could then ensure inequality without any specific law mandating it. Brown’s focus on physical segregation inadvertently left important and less obvious aspects of local funding inequality unchecked.

As she goes on to demonstrate, these issues perpetuate inequitable funding, based on residence and race. This is a crucial feature of systemic racism, a survival of Jim Crow that harms the education of children of color. Many states in the South and Midwest are passings laws to criminalize the study and knowledge of systemic racism. They fear the teaching the truth will make white students uncomfortable.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Inequity, Racism, Segregation

Arizona: School Choice Allies Back Funding Overhaul to Benefit Charters, Hurt Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2022 //
8

Whenever the school choice lobby in Arizona submits a new bill, you can be sure it will help charter schools, not public schools. As the legislative session winds down, a bill has been introduced to change the state’s funding formula. Charter schools would benefit, but many public schools, especially rural schools, would lose..

Mary Jo Pitzl writes in the Arizona Republic:

A major overhaul of school funding in the name of equitable treatment for all students is making a late debut at the Legislature, drawing complaints that it’s a hasty effort to make significant policy changes that affect half of the state’s $14 billion budget.

The 101-page plan will get its first public airing next week, a week after most committee hearings have wrapped up for the year.

At its core, the bill would increase the base amount of money the state provides for public K-12 schools, while eliminating a number of funding programs that benefit only school districts.

All charter schools, which are public schools, would benefit from the increase, while district-run schools would see a mix of winners and losers, according to an analysis from the Legislature’s budget office. Early estimates are 121 school districts would lose money, primarily in rural Arizona.

The plan proposes an additional $215 million for the state’s K-12 system in exchange for ending programs that benefit district schools, such as more money for experienced teachers. It also would convert Arizona’s program that rewards schools that score high on the state’s achievement tests into a permanent program that, estimates show, benefit higher-income areas at a much greater rate than school districts with higher poverty rates…

Key education lawmaker not in loop

State Rep. Michelle Udall, R-Mesa, is the author of a strike-everything amendment to Senate Bill 1269 that would create the new funding program. The bill builds on a study released last month by A for Arizona, a nonprofit that is a proponent of school choice and the growing charter-school movement.

“This isn’t suddenly brand new language,” Udall said, who is chairwoman of the House Education Committee. She has worked on the plan since October, she said, although traditional education groups such as the Arizona School Administrators and the Arizona Education Association only learned of it in mid-March.

State Sen. Paul Boyer, Udall’s counterpart at the state Senate, learned of the proposal from a reporter.

“If they were smart, they’d know that one vote makes a difference,” Boyer, R-Glendale, said of the bill’s proponents. That’s a reference to the one-vote margin Republicans hold in both the House and Senate, making every GOP vote vital. Boyer has not been shy about breaking from party ranks, a move which has killed numerous bills due to unified Democratic opposition.

Boyer said he has no idea what the bill says and cautioned against the Legislature moving too quickly. All people have to do is look at the mess lawmakers created earlier this month, he said, when they approved a bill that eliminated the election of political party precinct committee members, setting off a backlash that took a lawsuit to resolve.

Other groups, watching from the outside, said they’re alarmed at the seeming rush to make a change halfway through the legislative session.

“That’s the biggest red flag I have,” said David Lujan president and CEO of the Arizona Children’s Action Alliance. “They are trying to put forward major changes to school funding with very little input.”

An idea long discussed

Matt Simon, vice president of advocacy and government affairs for Great Leaders, Strong Schools, a school-choice organization, said components of the bill were long in the making….

“This isn’t the surprise they’re making it out to be,” Simon said of critics. Besides, it’s past time to update Arizona’s 42-year-old school finance system, which was created before charter schools existed and before Arizona became a leading school-choice state.

Besides, he said, when the “alphabets” (shorthand for groups such as the Arizona School Boards Association, the AEA and others) propose education measures, they cost millions of dollars. By tailoring school funding to the student, rather than a system, Simon said funding can even out over a five-year period as aspects of the bill are phased in…

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Inequity

New York: Charters Scoop Up All the New Funding for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2022 //
26

Advocates for fair funding for public schools in New York have pursued a remedy from the state for years. They finally won a big increase in the budget, but were shocked to discover that almost the entire increase in funding will be diverted to charter schools, which enroll 14% of the state’s students. Either coincidentally or not, Governor Hochul’s election campaign is heavily funded by charter school advocates from the financial industry.

CHARTER SCHOOL FUNDING INCREASE WIPES OUT STATE FORMULA AID BOOST FOR NYC DISTRICT SCHOOLS

February 2, 2022

In testimony on Governor Kathy Hochul’s FY23 Executive Budget, Education Law Center warned New York lawmakers that a proposed increase in state aid to charter schools in New York City will nearly offset the aid increase to district schools under lawmakers’ promised phase-in to reach full funding of the State’s Foundation Aid Formula.

Last year, after over a decade of resistance, New York elected officials committed to fully funding the Foundation Aid Formula enacted in 2007, with a three-year phase-in. After Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, Governor Hochul declared her intention to fulfill this commitment. Her administration also reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in NYSER v. State, a school funding lawsuit by public school parents in New York City and Schenectady, which conditions ultimate dismissal of the case on reaching full formula funding by 2024. The Governor’s proposed FY23 budget provides for a $1.6 billion increase in Foundation Aid, as required to meet the planned phase-in.

In testimony on the proposed FY23 State Budget, ELC underscored to legislators that the Governor’s proposed 4.7% increase in state aid to New York City charter schools will effectively negate the phase-in of formula funding to the City’s district schools. If the Governor’s proposed budget is enacted, New York City charter schools would receive an increase of $300 million this year, while the City’s district schools will be allocated an increase of approximately $345 million in Foundation Aid. Under state law, New York City is the only district that receives no transitional state aid to offset what the district is required to pay in charter school tuition.

“The math is simple and shocking,” said ELC senior attorney Wendy Lecker. “The increase in tuition payments to charter schools, which enroll just 14% of New York City students, will consume the entire increase in Foundation Aid intended for the almost one million City students enrolled in district schools. Even worse, the City is also mandated by state law to provide space or pay rent for charter schools.”

The ELC testimony also calls out the Executive Budget’s failure to make any additional investments in New York’s preschool program. In a May 2021 ruling, in the “Small Cities” school funding case, a New York Appellate Court recognized preschool as an essential element of a sound basic education guaranteed students under the State Constitution.

It is undisputed that high quality preschool provides a host of academic and life benefits, such as decreased placement in special education, decreased suspension rates, higher educational attainment, higher income, and decreased contact with the criminal justice system. Yet, tens of thousands of four-year-olds across New York lack access to any preschool classes, let alone a high-quality program. ELC is urging the Legislature to invest an additional $500 million to help ensure all four-year-olds access to this essential resource.

ELC also pressed the New York Legislature to maintain and strengthen the Contracts for Excellence (C4E) Law. This law was enacted in 2007 to ensure that struggling school districts receiving additional Foundation Aid would spend those funds on programs proven to improve student outcomes. As districts across the state finally receive these long-awaited increases in funding, it is crucial to have a strong framework for directing the funding to essential resources, including class size reduction in New York City district schools.

Sustained grassroots advocacy – coupled with strategic litigation – has moved New York to make important strides toward providing all students, including students of color, the essential resources required for a constitutional sound basic education. Lawmakers must revise Governor Hochul’s proposed budget to ensure the equitable distribution of increased funding, especially in New York City.

Related Stories:

COURT SETTLEMENT LOCKS IN NY’S COMMITMENT TO INCREASE SCHOOL FUNDING BY $4.2 BILLION

APPELLATE COURT: STATE VIOLATED EDUCATION RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NY’S SMALL CITY DISTRICTS

Press Contact:

Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Inequity, Injustice

Arthur Camins: Stop Filling the Potholes in Education and Healthcare

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2022 //
21

Arthur Camins, scientist and technologist, warns that public policy in both education and healthcare is deeply flawed and cannot be fixed with patches. No matter how many potholes are fixed, the underlying problems go untouched and unchanged.

Our flawed policy is the result of deeply ingrained flawed thinking.

The United States, he writes, is the victim of a combination of forty years of skepticism of government solutions and acceptance of “let’s be realistic about what we can accomplish” thinking.

For example, for decades scattershot treatments of outcomes have characterized bi-partisan education improvement efforts with little to nothing to show for it except undermined public education and stress. The driving causes of inequitable outcomes, systemic inequity, its enabler, racism, and resultant precarious lives remain rampant and unaddressed. 

Instead, the dominant education interventions have been to push or blame individuals. These include rewards and punishments for educators or students based on standardized test scores; rigid discipline regimes; and, more recently, a focus on developing grit to work through, put up with, or overcome rather than eliminate challenging social and economic conditions.

Equally, if not more, insidious is you-can’t-save-everyone solutions, such as escape hatches for some kids through charter schools and vouchers, most of which are no better than local public schools.  More broadly, the lack of universal health care and inequitable funding of schools through local real estate yield the same help-a-few result.

Open the link and read the rest.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Funding, Inequity

Capital & Main: Scholars Who Study Unions Are Harassed

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2021 //
10

This part of Capital & Main’s examination of union busting reviews the targeting of academics who study labor by corporate critics. It was written by Jo Constantz.

Many scholars who study the history and economics of organized labor are sympathetic to the union cause. These academics often encounter threats, harassment, and defunding of their research.

It begins:

Throttled by both strong-arm tactics from anti-union interests and a chronic lack of support from universities, the field of labor studies has dwindled in the U.S. in recent years.

Researchers in the field have been the target of legal threats and lawsuits, onerous public records requests and misinformation campaigns from union avoidance consultants, business executives, corporate lawyers and conservative think tanks. It’s one aspect of the business lobby’s relentless war against unions in recent decades, which has seen companies spend more than $340 million a year on consultants to defeat organizing efforts by their employees and helped sink union membership.

Labor studies, an interdisciplinary field in academia that examines workplace issues and worker organizations, reveals working conditions that motivate people to want to join a union. Much of the scholarship has illuminated the central role that labor’s decline has played in exacerbating income inequality. In doing so, the field has aroused the ire of anti-union companies and their allies. The field has never been a major force in academia and many centers have been gradually shuttered due to lack of funding or merged with other departments. Only a handful of universities currently offer a major or minor in labor studies. Faculty are often untenured, vulnerable to layoffs and budget cuts, and they are often not replaced when they retire.

Open the link and read on.

Categories Democracy, Economy, Higher Education, Inequality, Inequity, Research, Unions

Chicago: CTU Seeks Compensation for Teachers Who Lost Jobs in “Turnarounds,” Which Had Racially Disparate Impact

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2021 //
17

Chicago was the starting place for Arne Duncan’s very bad ideas about school reform. Duncan boasted about how many schools he closed, working on the theory that the students would transfer to a better school or a charter school. As Eve Ewing documented in her book, Ghosts in the Schoolyard, Duncan’s punitive approach wreaked havoc on black and LatinX students, communities, and of course, neighborhood schools. Arne Duncan, the President who appointed him (Obama), and the mayor who followed his failing model (Rahm Emanuel), pushed policies that hurt children and educators. The mainstream media has not yet held them accountable. Perhaps this settlement will. Meanwhile, the thousands of African American teachers who were fired in New Orleans lost their court battle and will never receive either compensation or acknowledgement of the injustice done to them.

Chicago Teachers Union

STATEMENT: 
For Immediate Release| ctulocal1.org

CONTACT: Chris Geovanis, 312-329-6250, 312-446-4939 (m), ChrisGeovanis@ctulocal1.org

Mayor’s Board of Ed to vote on compensating Black educators harmed by racially disparate ‘turn-arounds’

CHICAGO, Dec. 13, 2021 — The Chicago Teachers Union issued the following statement today in wake of CPS’ statement on the Board of Education’s upcoming consideration this Wednesday of a settlement agreement related to the racially disproportionate layoffs and terminations of Black teachers and paraprofessionals in ‘turned-around’ schools in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The Chicago Teachers Union aims to defend public education in the City of Chicago for staff and students—including for the vast majority of Black and LatinX people in the city. 

On Wednesday, the Chicago Board of Education will vote on a settlement between the Chicago Teachers Union, Local 1, and CPS relating to layoffs and terminations from their positions that had a disparate racial impact on African American teachers and paraprofessionals resulting from the Board’s turnaround policies and in certain CPS schools in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

The agreement concludes nearly 10 years of litigation and will result in the creation and distribution of a settlement fund to benefit those staff members affected by the turnarounds. Resolving this matter is in CPS students’ best interest and will allow the District to move forward while the impacted teachers and staff will receive some compensation for the harm that was done to them. As a union, we have fought for increased funding for schools, adequate staffing and fair treatment of all teachers, regardless of race.

The cases settled are Chicago Teachers Union et al. v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago (Case Nos. 12-cv-10311 and 15-cv-8149), both pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The CTU will issue further statements once the final terms of the settlement are documented and submitted to the court for approval.”

###

The Chicago Teachers Union represents more than 25,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in schools funded by City of Chicago School District 299, and by extension, over 350,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third-largest teachers local in the United States. For more information, please visit the CTU website at www.ctulocal1.org.Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from CTU Press, please click here.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Emanuel, Rahm, Inequity, Obama, Race to the Top

U.S. Treasury: Richest Americans Dodge $163 Billion inTaxes

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2021 //
15

CBS News reported on an analysis by the U.S. Treasury showing that the richest Americans avoid paying $163 billion each year.

The top 1% of Americans are avoiding paying an estimated $163 billion in taxes a year, according to the Treasury Department. In contrast, more than 99% of taxes on regular incomes — paid via a paycheck — get paid.

That discrepancy is pushing the estimated tax gap, the amount of money owed by taxpayers that isn’t collected, to nearly around $600 billion annually, and to approximately $7 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade, the Treasury Department finds.

Tax evasion is concentrated among the wealthy in part because high-income taxpayers are able to employ experts who can better shield them from reporting their true incomes, the Treasury Department argued in a blog post. More complicated incomes such as partnerships and proprietorships – more frequent among high earners — have a far greater noncompliance rate that can hit as high as 55%.

“The tax gap can be a major source of inequity. Today’s tax code contains two sets of rules: one for regular wage and salary workers who report virtually all the income they earn; and another for wealthy taxpayers, who are often able to avoid a large share of the taxes they owe,” wrote Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Natasha Sarin.

Meanwhile our roads, bridges, tunnels, and other vital infrastructure are underfunded. Schools need to invest in physical improvements. Class sizes are too large, especially in urban districts. Teachers are underpaid in comparison to other professionals with the same education credentials.

Taxes are too low on those who can most afford to pay them. Tax avoidance is thriving while our society’s basic needs are not.

It’s past time for nation building at home.

Categories Billionaires, Economy, Inequity, Injustice

New Hampshire: Why We Need Equitably-Funded Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2021 //
8

This clear and thoughtful article was written by Michael Turmelle, director of education and career initiatives, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The Republican-controlled legislation intends to pass sweeping voucher legislation that would harm the public schools attended by the great majority of the state’s children.

He writes:

If you have ever needed a hospital or a pharmacy; driven on well-engineered highways; eaten food that was grown and shipped safely; felt the protective assurance of our armed forces and intelligence services; used a cell phone; gotten a vaccine to guard against a deadly disease, then you have benefited from public schools.

This is the social contract we have made: since we all rely on an educated populace to do countless things we all depend on every day, we all chip in to a system of public schools to educate people. We all agree to support this common good that benefits us all — whether our kids happen to be in school, or if we even have kids of our own. 

We all need strong public schools because we need all our children to be able to get the robust education that will allow them to go on to become the nurses and doctors, the engineers and entrepreneurs, the public-health researchers and food-safety inspectors, the firefighters and intelligence analysts and teachers who will support our communities and economy tomorrow. 

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation is in the midst of a 10-year initiative to improve outcomes for New Hampshire children and families who face significant barriers to opportunity.

Public K-12 schools play a critical role in providing that opportunity by delivering on the very American promise of an education for all — no matter how much money your parents have, or where you live, or the color of your skin or if you get around on your feet or in a wheelchair. null

But the public good that is public education is being imperiled in New Hampshire in ways that put children’s education and the well-being of our communities and our economy at risk.

How? 

By inequity.

Some schools in New Hampshire have well-paid veteran teachers, top-notch facilities, state-of-the-art equipment and resources. Some districts struggle to pay dedicated educators, have constant teacher turnover, patched-together buildings and outdated resources. The former are in wealthy towns, the latter are not. 

And disparities in funding correlate with disparities in outcomes.

In New Hampshire, according to an independent report produced for the state’s Commission to Study School Funding: “The highest poverty school districts have the lowest student outcomes. The negative relationship between poverty and outcomes is very strong.” 

New Hampshire’s state constitution mandates that the state provide an “adequate” education to all children. Since a coalition of “property-poor” towns sued the state in the 1990s, various funding formulas have been applied by the legislature — all of which have continued to rely predominantly on local property taxes to foot the majority of the bill for public education. The amount the state sends to districts remains far below what districts must spend. Another group of districts sued the state in 2019, asserting state adequacy aid would need to triple to meet the basic requirements set out in state law. The state Supreme Court sent the “ConVal lawsuit” (so named for the Contoocook Valley school district, one of the districts that brought the suit) back to Superior Count in March for a trial. Manchester and Nashua, the two largest districts in the state, joined the suit this month.

All children in every public school in New Hampshire (not just the ones in wealthy towns) should have the resources, facilities and teachers needed to ensure them a world-class education and the best outcomes possible. Our current unequal system of supporting schools creates two separate and unequal classes of education for our kids, robbing too many of them of the American promise of equal opportunity.

By a troubling move toward privatization. 

Running through some recent proposed legislation and public discourse is a disquieting attack on the idea of public education as a public good. 

The school voucher program being considered by the legislature is a system under which taxpayer-generated state aid earmarked to educate children in public schools is redirected to private schools or home education.

Voucher programs would risk further exacerbating funding inequity in New Hampshire schools and leaving the most vulnerable children — the ones who rely most on the promise of public education – in schools with fewer resources, increasingly inadequate facilities and diminished opportunity. An analysis by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Reaching Higher New Hampshire shows that the program would cost the state nearly $70 million in new state spending over three years.

Vouchers do not help kids do better. Multiple independent studies from states that have implemented vouchers have shown that voucher programs do not improve academic outcomes. Voucher programs also deepen racial segregation in schools (which has also shown to diminish outcomes for all children) and leave LGBTQ students vulnerable to discrimination.

Taking public funds from our public schools to pay for private education is not a good answer for how to make our schools stronger for the nine out of 10 of New Hampshire’s children who use them.

Just like public fire departments, highways and health departments, public education is a public good that benefits us all. And just like all those other things, it deserves robust investment, access to it should be equitable — and we absolutely cannot do without it.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Inequity, New Hampshire
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »