Members of Support Our Schools Nebraska turned in over 117,000 signatures on their petition to put a new state voucher law on the state ballot in November 2024!
Supporters of the petition needed 60,000 signatures, which must now be verified by the Secretary of State. They collected far more than was necessary in case some were not valid. If they had collected 200,000 names, the law would have been suspended but that was an impossible goal.
Vouchers have never won a state referendum.
This is a wonderful challenge to privatization.
The governor vowed to keep fighting for private school funding no matter what happens in the referendum.
In a statement, Gov. Jim Pillen said the petition drive failed to suspend the law, and it will go into effect.
“We should not be fighting this fight. With the support of the Legislature, I provided the largest funding increase in the State’s history for public education. The signatures collected will now have to be certified by the Secretary of State. If this initiative makes it onto the 2024 ballot, I can promise you the fight will not be over. I have confidence in education, both public and private. I will continue to make sure each student in Nebraska has the educational freedom to choose where they want to attend school. We will never give up on our kids,” Pillen said in a statement.
Organizers took the podium Wednesday in Lincoln, discussing the results of their petition drive against LB 753, which commits public dollars into tax credits for scholarships to kids across Nebraska.
But these advocates said this law doesn’t help children at all.
They want public schools to be better funded, as Nebraska ranks 49th in the nation in state aid to public schools.
“The future of Nebraska is the future of our children. All children, not just some children, all children,” one organizer said.
Nebraska was one of the few states that managed to resist privatization. But it is a well-known fact that the privatization industry cannot tolerate any state that devotes its resources to public schools open to all students. Nebraska had no charter schools, no vouchers, no Common Core, and no grounds for dissatisfaction: its scores on NAEP are strong.
We have some very bad news to share with you, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it: Our legislature has passed Nebraska’s first school privatization bill.
Just a while ago, 33 senators voted to pass LB 753. But we aren’t deterred; we’re determined. Over 300,000 students attend a public school in Nebraska. And there are hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans who, like us, support public schools and will stand up for what’s right.
If you’re one of those Nebraskans (and we think you are), please support our work today for Give To Lincoln Day. A gift of $20 or more will send the school privatizers a strong message: NOT IN NEBRASKA.
Right now, somewhere not in Nebraska, DeVos and other billionaires who backed this bill are undoubtedly celebrating. Our state was one of the last to fall for their privatization schemes.
While the mega-donors like DeVos break open their champagne, our team at Stand For Schools is still hard at work – fighting to advance public education in Nebraska for ALL and getting fired up for the Support Our Schools Nebraska effort.
Please support our work today with a gift of $20 or more for Give To Lincoln Day. We can honestly say we’ve never needed your help more than we do today. Our team is ready to win this fight – whether it’s in a courtroom or at the ballot box – but we can’t do it without you.
Here is Stand for Schools statement, released today:
Today’s passage of LB 753 marks a dark new era for schooling in Nebraska.
The Legislature’s Education Committee considered proposals this year to make school lunches free, broadly prohibit discrimination, include student voices in curriculum decisions, and increase the poverty allowance in TEEOSA. But instead of improving the schools that serve 9 out of 10 children in our state, instead of addressing the needs of over300,000 students attending Nebraska public schools, 33 senators chose todayto prioritize giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations by sending tax dollars to unaccountable private schools.
They did so despite overwhelming and constantly mounting evidence that the implementation of tax-credit voucher schemes does not improve access to private schools or academic outcomes but rather marks the beginning of a devastating dismantling and defunding of public education, as it has in dozens of other states.
Policymakers who voted to pass LB 753 made the wrong choice. Statewide polling consistently shows a strong majority of Nebraskans firmly oppose school privatization measures. From Omaha to Ogallala, and Spencer to Sidney, Nebraskans take pride in our public schools because we know they are the head and heart of our urban and rural communities.
Like our fellow Nebraskans, Stand For Schools remains committed to a vision of public education that is welcoming to all students regardless of their race, religion, gender, or ability. Realizing that vision is neither easy nor politically expedient. It is, for instance, far easier to lean on out-of-state bill mills and think tanks than it is to grow our own nonpartisan solutions to nonpartisan Nebraska problems. It is far easier to demonize the education professionals who work hard in our public schools every day than it is to address crisis-level staff shortages by recruiting and retaining the qualified teachers and school psychologists our students need. It is far easier to restrict the ability of school districts to raise revenue than to finally, fully fund our K-12 public education system. And it is far easier to offload the duties of educating the next generation of Nebraskans to unaccountable private schools than to do the hard work of providing a free, fair, equitable, and excellent public school system that works for all.
Today, 33 senators chose what was easy over what was right. The consequences of their decision will be far-reaching and long-lasting. The hours the Legislature spent debating LB 735 will not compare to the years it will take to undo the damage done to public schools and the harm caused to students, their families, and their communities.
Thankfully, there are hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans who aren’t afraid of hard work, who are undeterred by today’s decision and determined to make it right. Stand For Schools is proud to join them. Together with theSupport Our Schools Nebraska coalition, we will work to put LB 753 on the 2024 ballot and ensure voters’ voices are heard: Not in Nebraska.
As many as several hundred students at Omaha’s Central High School braved dropping temperatures Friday and walked out of class to protest two pending bills in the Nebraska Legislature.
Armed with bright, colorful signs and a microphone, students used speeches and poetry to protest Legislative Bills 574 and 575, which focus on transgender youths. Both bills were introduced by State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha.
The Central students were joined by others, including parents, young children and community members, to hear a number of student activists talk about the potential impact of the bills.
Several students said the legislation would prevent transgender youths from accessing lifesaving medical care and limit how they participate in sports or the bathrooms they can use.
“I am a human being. I am not defined by my gender,” said Harley Lawton, a junior at Central High. “They are trying to take away our rights. They are trying to define us as what they first saw us as, not what we became, not what we decide to be.”
A Democratic legislator in Nebraska has brought all legislation to a halt by filibustering against an anti-trans bill. The legislator is married, with children. The legislative session is half-way done.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — It was a mundane, unanimously supported bill on liquor taxation that saw state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh take to the mic on the Nebraska Legislature floor last week. She offered her support, then spent the next three days discussing everything but the bill, including her favorite Girl Scout cookies, Omaha’s best doughnuts and the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar.”
She also spent that time railing against an unrelated bill that would outlaw gender-affirming therapies for those 18 and younger. It was the advancement of that bill out of committee that led Cavanaugh to promise three weeks ago to filibuster every bill that comes before the Legislature this year — even the ones she supports.
“If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone,” the Omaha married mother of three said. “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”
True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering.
True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering….
“This is a bill that attacks trans children,” Cavanaugh said. “It is legislating hate. It is legislating meanness. The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them.”
Nebraska is one of the few states that has thus far managed to keep the privatizers out. That makes it a tempting target. Here is a message by one of the state’s strong advocates for public schools.
As you know, Stand For Schools is dedicated to advancing public education in Nebraska. Our work involves not only advocating for evidence-based policies that would help schools serve all students better, but also being vigilant for and responsive to efforts to privatize our state’s public schools.
Campaign filings reveal that William Oberndorf, a billionaire hedge fund manager from California, has donated $125,000 to Nebraska Federation for Children, and the organization is spending $25,000 in each of two legislative races in Nebraska.
For decades, Oberndorf has spent huge sums of his fortune to influence elections and education policy across the country. Oberndorf succeeded Betsy DeVos as AFC board chair, so while he is not new to the school privatization agenda, his political campaign contributions are new to Nebraska.
Oberndorf’s large contribution caught our attention, but he is hardly the first out-of-state billionaire attempting to advance his agenda in Nebraska–a state where voters and nonpartisan legislators have rejected school privatization time and again.
The evidence is clear: School privatization does not benefit students or low-income families; it benefits wealthy privatizers like William Oberndorf.
Nebraskans deserve to know about the presence of out of state money in our democracy and the attempted interference on education policy by special interests that will directly impact our schools and communities.
We are a state widely known and revered for our unicameral legislature. Our Second House is supposed to be the people of Nebraska and our best interests – not people like Californian William Oberndorf and his financial interests. Nebraska has some of the most lax campaign finance laws in the country, and that needs to change.
As always, Stand For Schools remains committed to advancing public education in Nebraska, and that means doing our part to inform the people of our state about threats to our public schools. We are a nonpartisan nonprofit that does not endorse any political candidate – but we believe Nebraskans deserve to know the truth about who is spending money in our elections.
Stand For Schools is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing public education in Nebraska byadvocating for evidence-based policies to close the opportunity gap and ensure schools havethe resources they need to serve all students better – no matter their race, ethnicity,nationality, citizen status, language, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or special need. You can find our organization’s Form 990 here.
This is an achievement worth celebrating. Nebraska remains one of only a handful of states without charter schools, vouchers, or tax-credit scholarship programs despite study after study demonstrating just how harmful they are.
We at Stand For Schools are proud of the hard work by many this legislative session to protect our state’s excellent public schools and advance public education in Nebraska. Please know your calls and emails have made a difference. Thank you!
Thank you also to the many, many senators who listened to you and engaged in such a respectful and robust debate Monday afternoon.
Together, we did it!
We hope you’ll keep Stand For Schools in mind during Omaha Gives and Give to Lincoln Day! (Or click the button below to make a donation now.)
We couldn’t do this important work without the generous support of our donors.
We proudly endorse Paul Theobald for the third Congressional district of Nebraska. Mr. Theobald is a former college dean and a farmer. Most important of all, he is a fearless supporter of public education.
Mr. Theobald understands the importance of the rural school and he is adamantly opposed to rural school consolidation. He believes that standardized testing should be “optional” for any district that can demonstrate that its students are learning well. He sees testing as a way of “maximizing corporate profits.”
Finally he has pledged to do all in his power to fight the proliferation of charter schools that are privatizing American public education.
We hope that you will join us and support Mr. Theobald on November 6.
Betsy DeVos did not visit a public school in Omaha, somewhat strange since almost all children in Omaha attend public schools.
She visited the Nelson Mandela Elementary School, then visited a Catholic school. Her snub of public schools was blatant.
At the Mandela school, she was greeted by the founder, Dianne Seeman Lozier and by students and teachers wearing pro-public school stickers.
Several teachers and students wore “NE (Heart) Public Schools” stickers.
While Mandela is a private school funded by the Lozier Foundation and William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, Lozier said in a release that school officials do not support charter schools, which DeVos has championed. The school has a strong cooperative relationship with OPS [Omaha Public Schools], she said.
“We agree with Secretary DeVos on rethinking how schools engage and teach students, however, we want to be clear that we are not advocates for charter schools,” Lozier said. “We don’t think taking money away from public schools is the right decision and are adamant that public school systems need those dollars to educate all students.”
In February, Mandela Principal Susan Toohey told The World-Herald that she was “extremely disappointed” by DeVos’ confirmation, which came on a razor-thin 51-50 Senate vote.
“We absolutely don’t think taking money away from public school systems is the right decision,” Toohey said then.
Nebraska was not fertile ground for DeVos’ message of all-choice-all-the-time.
Earlier I posted a list of Republican senators who had not yet declared how they would vote on DeVos and her radical privatization agenda for our public schools. One by one, the list has been shrinking. At this point, there is only one Republican senator who might vote NO (I say this with the caveat that someone might surprise us): Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska (she was not on the earlier list).
Nebraska has no charter schools, no vouchers. It has a strong tradition of public education. According to Wikipedia, Senator Fischer’s mother was an elementary school teacher in the Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools. I’m willing to bet that Senator Fischer is a graduate of public schools. She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska.
Which way will she go? Will she support public schools or open the door to public funding (and regulation) of religious schools? Will she give the High sign to entrepreneurs and out-of-state corporate charter chains to poach students and money from Nebraska’s public schools?
Will she preserve her mother’s legacy? Millions of parents and teachers are waiting to find out.
Stand with us, Senator Fischer. Become a hero of American public education.
If you live in Nebraska, call her. If you don’t, send her an email or a tweet.
Diane Ravitch's blog 