Missouri legislators are gearing up for a renewed battle to expand charters, despite a lackluster record of existing charters.
When there was a Democratic governor, charter expansion went nowhere.
Now with a Republican governor, the pro-charter forces are ready to push for more.
One of the major out-of-state lobbying groups is Betsy DeVos’s American Federatiob for Children, which has hired a herd of lobbyists to replace public schools with charters and tax credits for vouchers.
Republicans in Missouri have been trying for years to pass a “right-to-work” law that would cripple unions, and they finally did.
But unions have gathered over 300,000 signatures to put the law to a referendum.
Labor unions had to collect a little more than 100,000 signatures from across Missouri by Aug. 28 if they wanted to put a repeal of right-to-work on the 2018 ballot.
On Friday, they turned in more than 310,000 signatures.
Republicans have sought to turn Missouri into a right-to-work state for decades. In February, they got their wish when Gov. Eric Greitens signed legislation allowing employees in unionized workplaces to opt out of paying unions for the cost of being represented.
But now the law is in jeopardy, and a yearlong battle that will likely cost millions of dollars is about to commence.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article167997712.html#storylink=cpy
The currently popular means of establishing vouchers in the states where the state constitution forbids them is called an “education savings account.” The way it works is otherwise known as money laundering. Suppose Daddy Warbucks owes the state $200,000 in taxes. He gives the money to an independent organization that gives out money for private and religious schools. He gets a state tax credit and may actually make money on the deal if he also gets a federal tax credit.
Very clever. Daddy Warbucks makes a generous gift of money that should have gone to the state treasury to pay for public services. The independent organization collects millions of dollars to hand out as vouchers.
This particular game was created in Florida, where the state courts ruled vouchers unconstitutional, and the voters rejected an effort by Jeb Bush to alter the state constitution.
Now it is happening in Missouri, where the richest man in the state is Rex Sinquefield.
Rex has long been a hater of public schools. He stands to achieve his dream, undermining the public schools, and getting a hefty tax deduction too.
The Missouri legislature ended their legislative session without passing legislation that would authorize “education savings accounts,” a form of voucher that parents could use to spend anywhere for anything. It is a path to allowing parents to spend public money on anything regardless of quality. Where ESAs exist, many children are getting a subpar education or none at all.
Other countries must think we have gone crazy or turned against educating our young.
Good work, Missouri!
Legislators in Missouri are about to pass an expansive school choice bill that paves the way for vouchers and privatization of public education.
Here is the language of the Missouri state constitution:
“Section 5. The proceeds of all certificates of indebtedness due the state school fund, and all moneys, bonds, lands, and other property belonging to or donated to any state fund for public school purposes, and the net proceeds of all sales of lands and other property and effects that may accrue to the state by escheat, shall be paid into the state treasury, and securely invested under the supervision of the state board of education, and sacredly preserved as a public school fund the annual income of which shall be faithfully appropriated for establishing and maintaining free public schools, and for no other uses or purposes whatsoever.
“Section 8. Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation, shall ever make an appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any religious creed, church or sectarian purpose, or to help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by the state, or any county, city, town, or other municipal corporation, for any religious creed, church, or sectarian purpose whatever.”
But what does the constitution mean anyway when you want to put kids into private and religious schools with public funds?
NPR reports:
“A wide-ranging education bill is expected to make it through: one that would establish a tax credit program known as education savings accounts, or ESAs, which could be used by foster children, children with disabilities, and children of military personnel to enroll in private schools. It would also expand Missouri’s student transfer law, allowing students in unaccredited districts to attend a public school in another district, or go to a private nonreligious school, charter school or virtual school.
“Backers of the measure say that the bill, known as a “school choice” measure, allows parents to make the best choices for their kids. But opponents believe it’s a way to put public money toward private schools instead of better-funding public schools.”
However, the legislature is not likely to increase charters outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.
In Arizona, voucher supporters started with the same limitations and expanded the program bit by bit to extend vouchers to almost everyone.
Why should a detail like the state constitution get in the way?
I am happy to report that Valerie Strauss reposted my article on why public funds should go only to public schools, and she added a valuable introduction about the case that will soon come before the Supreme Court.
Last year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley. The case involves the appeal of a Lutheran church in Missouri and its preschool that had sought a grant from a state program to use scrap tires for a playground but was denied because of the 1875 provision in the state constitution — known as a Blaine Amendment — that forbids using any public money “directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, or denomination or religion.” The church and preschool sued the state, citing the First Amendment, but lost in a federal district court and a federal appellate court upheld the decision by the state.
Now the Supreme Court will hear the case, with arguments set to begin April 19, and the decision could determine the fate of Blaine Amendments across the country. The high court just returned to a full complement of justices, with President Trump successfully placing his first nominee, the conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, on the court to take the seat of Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch may well be the deciding vote in this case.
If the state is required to pay for the new playground, it would also be required to pay for a new roof and for any other expenses incurred by religious schools. You see where this is heading.
There won’t be more money for public schools, there will be less.
The League of Women Voters in Missouri released a strong condemnation of rightwing legislators’ effort to expand charter schools.
“The League of Women Voters of Missouri opposes charter school expansion because:
• Charter schools are not held to the same standards as traditional public schools. They are “freed” from having to comply with most state regulations that are designed to ensure a minimum level of adequacy, including being accredited by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. For example, 100 percent of faculty in traditional public schools must meet state certification standards, while only 80 percent of charter school faculty members must be appropriately certificated.
• Charter schools are not required to serve their “fair share” of students who present many challenges such as significant disabilities, homelessness, and those recently released from juvenile detention programs. This inequity results in higher concentrations of students who require significantly more resources in traditional public schools.
• Charter schools are governed by boards that are privately appointed, not elected, and such boards often employ private for-profit corporations to operate publicly funded charter schools. This significantly weakens accountability and contributes to citizens becoming “disinvested” from their local public schools.
• There is an unfounded belief that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools and therefore provide parents with an advantageous choice. Studies of charter school academic achievement do not demonstrate that they are better than traditional public schools. Parents expect superior outcomes when placing their children in charter schools. Unfortunately, such is often not the case, and all too often charter school outcomes are actually inferior to those of traditional public schools.
For these reasons, the charter school program in Missouri is seriously flawed. HB634 has already passed the Missouri House and is headed to the Senate. The League of Women Voters of Missouri calls for the defeat of HB 634. Please contact your senator as a constituent opposing charter school expansion.
In this area, Sen. Caleb Rowden’s email is: caleb.rowden@senate.mo.gov or (573) 751-3931.”
Peggy Placier and Diane Suhler are co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Columbia-Boone County.
The privatization steam roller continues to move through the Republican controlled states.
The Missouri House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to expand the number of charter schools in the state. The bill now moves to the Senate.
After more than five hours of debate Wednesday and more than an hour of debate Thursday, the measure advanced to the Senate on an 83-76 vote.
Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that operate independently from elected school boards. They currently operate in St. Louis and Kansas City only; the plan would allow charter schools in places like Columbia and Springfield.
The sponsor, Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, touted the legislation as a way to provide students and families with more choices. The changes, she said, will bring competition to schools, triggering improvement and innovation in education.
Public education advocates warned that charter schools have not fulfilled their promises of success and innovation, but Republicans were determined to pass the bill anyway.
The Trump-DeVos privatization agenda is moving fast in the Deep South, where some people long for the good old days of segregated schools.
In Arkansas, charter advocates said there would be no action on a bill to turn public facilities over to charters, then introduced the bill with no opponents present, and passed it without debate. Word is that the same legislation was introduced in Missouri, though I don’t yet official confirmation of that.
This bill requires local school districts to hand any underutilized buildings over to charter operators.
The charter operators get free public space that was paid for by local taxpayers.
This sounds ominously like ALEC at work. ALEC is a fringe-right organization that writes model legislation and gives it to its members (state legislators), who fill in the name of their state, and lobby for privatization and deregulation. The beneficiaries of ALEC legislation are corporations and alt-right folk.
ALEC opposes local control. It supports vouchers, charters, state takeovers of school districts, high-stakes testing, and opposes unions, tenure, and any rights for teachers.
No doubt the Walton family helped this legislation along, perhaps with the help of their paid-for academics at the University of Arkansas, endowed by the billionaire Waltons.
The Parkway School District in Missouri posted this beautiful video about the first day of school. It asked students what they hoped for. It asked teachers what they hoped for.
Please notice that no one mentioned higher test scores.
They spoke of hopes and dreams. Being better. Making new friends. Having school feel like home. Caring. Feeling wanted. Belonging.
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