Archives for category: Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

North Carolina: Turncoat Teacher Delivers for Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2023 //
14

Rep. Tricia Cotham ran for office as a Democrat and was elected as a Democrat. She had previously been Teacher-of-the-Year and claimed to be a strong advocate for the state’s beleaguered public schools. She switched her party and joined the Republicans, giving them the one vote they needed to have a supermajority in both houses. Republicans can now override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s vetos.

The NC General Assembly has been consistently hostile to public schools and to teachers. They have authorized charter schools, including for-profit schools, and vouchers. Many financial scandals have marked the charter sector.

Yet Rep. Cotham just voted to give the Republican-dominated General Assembly contro of charters. No critics or skeptics allowed!

Former Democratic lawmaker Tricia Cotham sealed her move to the Republican Party this week by co-sponsoring a bill that would remove the State Board of Education from the charter school approval process.

Under House Bill 618, that approval would be handed over to a new Charter School Review Board, whose members must be “charter school advocates in North Carolina.”

The new review board would replace the Charter School Advisory Board.

Most members of the new review board would be chosen by the General Assembly, which is currently led by state Republicans. The review board’s membership would include the State Superintendent of Public Instruction or a designee, four members appointed by the House, four by the Senate and two members appointed by the state board.

Open the link to read more.

Categories Accountability, Character, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, Scandal

Peter Greene: Idaho Rejects Voucher Expansion

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2023 //
6

The Idaho legislature turned down a voucher expansion that would have subsidized the tuition of rich kids. Behind the voucher defeat was a passionate network of parents determined to keep public dollars in public schools.

Peter Greene reports:

Last year, Idaho’s legislature passed a limited school voucher bill; this year school voucher supporters raised a more expansive proposal that was just defeated by Republicans.

Last year’s Empowering Parents Grant Program used $50 million of American Rescue Plan recovery money to give education vouchers to families. It limited the education savings account (ESA) vouchers to students who were already enrolled in public schools and whose families had an income equal to or less than 250% of the free or reduced lunch cut-off.

That program was established on a modest scale. This year voucher supporters proposed a larger, more universal form.

Senate Bill 1038 included no income limits and no requirements for previously attending public school. In other words, a wealthy family who had always enrolled their children in private school or home school would get $6,000 of taxpayer money, and that money would be pulled from the funding for schools that the students had never attended in the first place; the school’s funding would be reduced, but their operating costs would not.

Like most of the current boilerplate ESA bills, it not only failed to provide for oversight for those funds, but actively barred the state from exercising any oversight or authority over the education providers.

There was a huge price tag involved. While the bill’s sponsors estimated a $45 million price tag for the first year, other estimates suggested that the programwould quickly balloon to over $360 million. That expansion would match the experience of other states like New Hampshire, where the predicted cost of the program quickly grew by 5,800%.

As Senator C, Scott Grow (R-Eagle) put it, “I have absolutely no clue what the dollar amount on this is.”

It’s a huge amount of taxpayer money to be taken out of the public school system and distributed without oversight or accountability, and while conservative lawmakers in some states have not balked at that issue, some Idaho GOP members were not having it. Reported the Idaho Statesman:

“It’s actually against my conservative, Republican perspective to hand this money out with no accountability that these precious tax dollars are being used wisely,” said Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls…

Three more voucher bills also failed.

Two GOP representatives, Greg Lanting and Lorei McCann, explained their no votes:

McCann and Lanting both said for every email supporting ESA legislation, they receive five opposing it. Lanting represents the same district as Clow.Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint, said voting for the legislation would be equivalent to voting against his constituency.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Idaho, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers

Report: The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2023 //
8

Samuel E. Abrams and Steven J. Koutsavlis wrote a fiscal analysis of private school vouchers, and it comes as several states have enacted new voucher programs without any realistic review of the financial consequences for their states. It is typical of voucher proponents to give a low-ball projection of the cost, then to say “Oops, sorry” when the actual cost is two or three times their projection. Whatever the limits or caps in the first legislation, you can be sure that those limits and caps will be lifted or erased in future legislative sessions.

Samuel E. Abrams is the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, and the author of Education and the Commercial Mindset (Harvard University Press, 2016). He is serving during the current academic year as a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Turku in Finland. Steven J. Koutsavlis is a Ph.D. candidate in education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a veteran math teacher at MS 443 in Brooklyn.

In their analysis, they explain the three different types of vouchers: conventional vouchers; tax credit scholarship programs; and educational savings account vouchers.

They explain the dangers of these three types of vouchers:

The prevalence of all three types of vouchers described above has surged over the past decade. The number of students using vouchers in the fall of 2012 was 212,000.12 By 2021, that number had topped 600,000.13 While that sum in a country with nearly 50 million students in public PK-12 schools is small,14 the trend is significant. Indeed, although dozens of voucher proposals are rejected by state legislators and governors each year, many states continue to estab- lish or expand these programs, despite their consequences for
state budgets.15


With this growth come mounting concerns. As noted, voucher programs—of any type—send public dollars to private schools or companies, depleting the public treasury and shifting public resourc- es to private hands. The programs are expensive to operate, with studies showing they typically cost more per student than public schools.16 And many of the nation’s public schools remain chronically underfunded although they serve the vast majority of the nation’s children.17

States can ill afford to siphon scarce resources away from public education to private providers.
The claim that it costs less to educate students with private school vouchers than in public schools ignores numerous realities. Voucher programs shift key expenses to parents; often subsidize private tuition for families who would never have enrolled in public schools; do not dilute fixed costs for public education systems; and concen- trate higher-need, more-costly-to-educate students in already-un- derfunded public schools.18

As noted above, early voucher programs were explicitly discriminatory—providing white families with educational opportunities unavailable to Black children with the explicit intent to preserve segregation. Still today, data show that voucher programs exacerbate racial segregation.19 Moreover, private schools accepting vouchers are not subject to many of the anti-discrimination laws that protect students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, and other vulnerable groups, who may—sometimes unknowingly—give up their rights when they move to private schools.20 While public schools are required to serve all children, many private schools have a history of denying admission or pushing students out based on these and other characteristics. These discriminatory practices often apply to educators and staff, as well.

Private schools participating in voucher programs are generally not subject to the same regulatory standards as public schools. These may include standards for licensing of teachers, criminal background checks for employees, curriculum requirements, building safety codes, and more.21 Most states do not require private schools partici- pating in voucher programs to publicly report the results of state and national tests. Nor do they require public reporting of demographic data on participating students.22 A lack of fiscal transparency and oversight has resulted in incidents of fraud and mismanagement
of public funds, as documented in several states.23

Separate and apart from these troubling issues, numerous studies have failed to demonstrate that vouchers improve academic outcomes, particularly for low-income students and students of color. A range of studies on academic outcomes for students using vouchers have found that there is either no significant change in student test scores or that students actually perform worse than similar peers in public schools.24

The authors review the costs of vouchers in seven states.

They reach the following conclusions:

The pattern of education spending in these seven voucher states is unmistakable. Private school voucher programs are initially proposed as limited in size and scope, then grow as existing programs are expanded, and/or additional voucher programs are established. This results in greater and greater amounts of public funding diverted to private educational institutions and private corporations. At the same time, as noted, funding for public schools in these states has largely decreased.
Although direct cause and effect is difficult to prove, the bottom line is clear: As states transfer millions of dollars to private hands, there are fewer available state resources for projects that serve the public good, from mass transit to public parks, libraries, and schools.

Voucher programs, even with significant expansion during the last one to two decades, still serve only a small percentage of the nation’s children.82 Nearly 90 percent of PK-12 students in the U.S. continue to attend public schools. Yet this expansion in voucher programs is nevertheless cause for substantial concern, particularly in districts with heavy usage of vouchers. The financial consequences of vouch- ers in such districts can be severe. Even when students with vouchers leave public schools for private schools, the fixed costs involved in running public school systems remain virtually unchanged. In addition, the children with the greatest needs, who, in turn, require the greatest resources, in large part remain in the public schools.

In most states, public elementary and secondary education accounts for over a third of state general fund spending. Public schools were hit particularly hard by the 2007 Great Recession. Amidst the economic crisis, states made deep cuts in public education spending. Yet, as economies rebounded over the ensuing years, most states chose not to restore those investments. Education Law Center’s 2021 report $600 Billion Lost: State Disinvestment in Education Following the Great Recession found that public schools across the U.S. lost nearly $600 billion through state disinvestment in the decade following
the Great Recession.25 While economic activity, measured as gross domestic product (GDP), recovered, state and local revenues for public schools lagged far behind, despite increasing enrollment and, importantly, increases in the percentage of high-need students concentrated in public schools.26Over that same decade, state spending on vouchers nevertheless mounted considerably. In some states, spending on vouchers doubled during this time, and in the case of Georgia—one of the states profiled here—it increased by nearly 900 percent. Beyond expanding existing voucher programs, many states launched new ones.

In this report, we document rising spending on voucher programs in seven states from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2019. As a point of comparison, we also provide data on these states’ spending on public education during the same period.

Over that same decade, state spending on vouchers nevertheless mounted considerably. In some states, spending on vouchers doubled during this time, and in the case of Georgia—one of the states profiled here—it increased by nearly 900 percent. Beyond expanding existing voucher programs, many states launched new ones.

This is an important study. Open the link and review the data. Then share it with your elected officials.


Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

“School Choice” Will Destroy Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2023 //
51

A reader who identifies as “Retired Teacher” sees the school choice juggernaut as a deliberate plan to destroy our common good: public schools. Thomas Jefferson proposed the first public schools. The Northwest Ordinances, written by the founding fathers, set aside a plot of land in every town for a public school.

The origin of the school choice movement was the backlash to the Brown Decision of 1954. Segregationists created publicly-funded academies (charters) for white flight and publicly-funded vouchers to escape desegregation.

What replaces public schools will not be better for students, and it will be far worse for our society.

So much reckless “choice” will make the public schools the schools of last resort for those that have nowhere else to go. Choice is a means to defund what should be our common good. How are the schools supposed to fund the neediest, most vulnerable and most expensive students when so much funding is transferred to private interests? How will public schools be able to pay to maintain the buildings, hire qualified teachers and pay for all the fixed costs like insurance, transportation and utilities?

The billionaires and religious groups behind so-called choice would like to see public schools collapse. Choice benefits the ultra-wealthy and segregationists. Choice empowers the schools that do the choosing, not the families trying to find a school for their child. If public schools become the bottom tier of choice, they will become like the insane asylums of the 19th century where the unfortunate were warehoused, ignored and abused. This dystopian outcome would be the opposite of what the founding fathers envisioned. Their vision was one of inclusion where all are welcome, a place serves the interests of the nation, communities and individuals with civil, social and individual benefits. A tiered system of schools is neither ‘thorough or efficient.’ It is a nightmare, and nothing any proponents of democracy should be supporting.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, History, Hoax, Privatization, Racism, Religion, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Texas: Republicans Hate Education: Dumb and Dumberer

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2023 //
5

The Texas Signal has figured out the Republican plan for education. Defund the public schools. Send public money to greedy charter operators who have their eye on the bottom line. Send public money to voucher schools that indoctrinate their students. The goal: Dumb and Dumberer. Members of the Texas House of Representatives—both Democrats and Republicans—voted against public funding for private schools just a few days ago (after this article was posted), but the Governor is likely to try again.

For decades, Texas Republicans have been hoping you won’t notice how much public education is underfunded. Now that the far right is in the driver’s seat, we can see it was a failure by design.

Under Republican leadership, Texas has long underfunded our teachers and schools. For a while, this worked for Texas Republicans – at least politically. If someone complained, they could always point their fingers at the need for property tax relief or blame our failing schools on underpaid teachers. And if that didn’t work– blame Black and Brown communities. And if that didn’t work – hell blame the kids themselves. 

Of course, they could also avoid the topic altogether. Instead of allowing the light to shine on our school, they could simply redirect their high beams to some unfortunate Texas group as a distraction in their signature Texas Republican culture war two-step. Anything to avoid responsibility.

Texas Republicans have been happy to keep up this understanding during their 6-month stay in Austin every odd year. The Texas Republican culture war two-step: bully some women or LGBTQ kids and do the bare minimum so that they can say they’ve done their part for our kids while they find ways to build personal wealth. 

That worked for a while until the failures of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) started to show. 

Republican failures, TEA Takeovers, and Privatization

In 2018, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) was placed under federal oversight by the Department of Education for its failings regarding special education. This was due to the illegal actions of the Texas Education Agency that put a limit on the percentage of students it would allow into special education programs, impacting countless kids.  

This normally would be a wake-up call for any elected official who had the interests of their constituents at heart. But then again, we’re dealing with Greg Abbott. 

Instead of fixing the root of most issues, underfunding, Governor Greg Abbott made a hard right turn led by party extremists. Greg Abbott decided to turn to Republicans’ trusted distracted dance, except now he created a new cultural war two-step. Step 1: Blame teachers at struggling schools in our most diverse cities and 2) funnel money into the pockets of his rich donors who put their kids to private Christian schools through the scheme known as vouchers.

While Abbott has been on a statewide tour pushing his voucher scheme, he simultaneously had TEA take over the Houston Independent School District (HISD) takeover earlier this year. The takeover was blasted by civil and racial rights advocates, including the ACLU of Texas. “The state takeover of HISD is not about public education — it’s about political control of a 90 percent Black and brown student body in one of the country’s most diverse cities,” they wrote on Twitter.

Then in late March, Abbott continued his strategy with a new diverse (and Democratic-run) city: Austin. State Representative Gina Hinojosa (D- Austin) is a leading voice on public education and sits on the prominent House committee. And late on the last Friday of March, she sent an explosive alert on social media to activate pro-public education Texans. She announced that the TEA recommended conservatorship over Austin Independent School District (AISD). 

This means that a team selected by Commissioner Morath will have the power to take action over our local school district indefinitely, similar to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) takeover earlier this year. 

According to Rep. Hinojosa, the agency has cited the district’s failings regarding students receiving special education. And in November, the voters of Austin elected four new trustees and an interim superintendent has since been hired. Most folks agree AISD is heading in the right direction. “Specifically, we know that many of AISD’s challenges are due to staffing shortages, “ said Hinojosa. “Additionally, the TEA has acknowledged that the state underfunds special education in AISD by close to $80 million annually.” 

Of course, facts would only matter if Republicans cared about improving the lives of children. The solution seems simple: more funding equals better results. However, this is all a ruse toward the larger direction right back to the voucher scheme pushed by the extreme right. 

As we’ve noted, current proposals that could become law give families enrolling in private or parochial schools $8,000 per student, per year to cover tuition and other related expenses. 

This would be devastating to our public schools. Texas ranks near the bottom of national rankings of per-student funding, with the basic allotment totaling around $6,160 per student. 

The Governor and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick are fully on board, leaving only the Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan left as a question mark. While Phelan generally is a pushover when it comes to right-wing agenda items, some rural Republicans may force his hand into a fight. 

The solution to most of our public education problems is simple: funding. Simple solutions are usually welcome news. However, with the growing issues of sexual assault problems for Texas Republicans and other issues that plague the state, Republicans go for what they’re most familiar with for answers. The ole’ culture war two-step.

Are you tired of Texas Republicans pushing big lies and trying to steal your vote? So are we, that’s why we’re fighting back against the right-wing lie machine. Our commitment to ethical, fact-based journalism is vital to our democracy, and we can’t do it without you. Consider donating today to help us stay in this fight.

CONTINUE READING

Musings: How Ted Cruz helped turn politics into pro wrestling
Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fascism, Ignorance, Privatization, Propaganda, Stupid, Texas

Peter Greene: Vouchers Restore Discrimination and Segregation

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2023 //
9

Peter Greene has written several columns about the U.S. Supreme Court’s step-by-step effort to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. With its June 21: 2022, decision called Carson v. Makin, the High Court ordered the state of Maine to pay the tuition for students at two religious schools. Under Maine law, districts that do not have a public high school must pay tuition for high school students to attend a private non-religious school. A majority of the justices ruled that Maine violated the students’ free exercise of religion rights by denying them the same benefits as those who go to private schools at the public’s expense.

The decision was 6-3. The majority were all appointed by Republican presidents (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett). The minority were appointed by Democratic presidents (Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan). All six of the Justices in the majority were born Catholic; Gorsuch graduated from Georgetown Preparatory Academy, a Jesuit school (Brett Kavanaugh was two years behind him.) Gorsuch and his family now attend an Episcopal church. The minority bloc consists of two Jews and a Catholic (Sotomayer).

Before the case was decided, Peter Greene expressed concern that the two religious schools openly discriminated against student, families, and staff by refusing to accept into the school’s community.

He wrote six months before the decision was released:

Bangor Christian Schools require adherence to a code of conduct; trans or gay students will be expelled, even if celibate. Their religious indoctrination is inseparable from their academic instruction. A fifth grade social studies objective is to “recognize God as Creator of the world,” while a ninth grade objective is to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion with the truth of God’s word.” Teachers at BCS must certify that they are born again Christians.

Temple Academy is an extension of the Centerpoint Community Church. TA is unlikely to admit students that do not come from a Christian family; that family must sign a Family Covenant saying they agree with TA’s views on abortion, marriage, and homosexuality. Again, only born again Christians may be hired to teach; teachers also sign an employment agreement acknowledging that the Bible says that God considers “homosexuals and other deviants as perverted.”

The issue, he wrote, was not about freedom of religion or free exercise of religion, but about whether taxpayers should pay for schools that discriminated against defined groups of people.

For several years, fans of school choice have been pushing the argument that a religious school is not free to exercise its religious faith if it does not get to share in taxpayer dollars. The wall between church and state has thus been characterized as discrimination against religion. Turns out you can’t be really free without taxpayer funding.

A few weeks ago, Peter returned to the subject and reviewed some of the Justices’ arguments. Quite simply, he wrote, the Supreme Court was ordering the state of Maine to pay tuition at schools that engage in discrimination.

Justice Breyer asked:

What happens once “may” becomes “must”? Does that transformation mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?

Justice Sotomayor said:

In 2017, I feared that the Court was “lead[ing] us . . . to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.” Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.

But the case goes on, because Maine passed a law stating that it would not fund schools that discriminate. The Bangor Christian Academy sued the state and asserted its right to discriminate.

Bangor Christian Schools is now suing the state of Maine, asking first for an injunction against the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) restriction that bars them from receiving state money as long as they continue to discriminate. Their assertion is that the “poison pill” of human rights law in Maine violates their religious liberty, that they cannot exercise that liberty unless they can both receive state funds and continue to discriminate against students and prospective faculty that don’t meet their religious requirements.

The state of Maine insists that it will not fund schools that discriminate:

Attorney General Aaron Frey said that “all Mainers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, whether it be in their workplace, their housing, or in their classrooms. The Maine Human Rights Act is in place to protect Mainers from discrimination and the Office of the Attorney General is steadfast in upholding the law. If abiding by this state law is unacceptable to the plaintiffs, they are free to forego taxpayer funding.”

Peter continued his dissection of the decision in a third post, wherein he debated the libertarian Neil McCluskey of the CATO Institute. McCluskey asserts that secular schools are hostile to religion, and the only way to secure true freedom of religion is to fund all choices, all religions.

Peter writes:

First, I don’t accept the premise that “secular” requires hostility to religion. If you play in the percussion section, you aren’t hostile to melody–it’s just not your job to handle it. A secular education system doesn’t try to fulfill any religious functions, for a variety of reasons we’ll get into.

There’s another issue in that first point, which is the newly revived idea among some folks that they cannot fully and freely practice their religion unless they are free to discriminate against people of whom they disapprove, like the Mom who objects to having her child taught empathy because she believes there are some people her child should not feel empathy for. This is a whole other post, but my short answer is this–there is no placating these people as long as circumstances find them in a pluralistic society.

But where I really disagree with McCluskey is in his central notion that by allowing everyone to retreat to their own personal bubbles, we can end all the various battles over culture and religion…

The whole choice thesis is that by not using taxpayer funds to support private religious choice, the government is discriminating against religious folks (with the newest legal test of this theory coming to a courtroom in Maine). Again, this reasoning goes, I am not fully free to exercise my religion if the taxpayers aren’t subsidizing my choice.

I should get to practice in my little bubble, and the taxpayers should help pay for the bubble.

That’s how this vision of choice leads to religious discrimination on an unprecedented scale and takes us all the way back to the question of separate but equal.

Peter demonstrates a variety of scenarios that show how thorny this issue is.

A variety of secular schools realize that if they re-configure themselves as religious schools, the “free exercise” clause is a ticket to the Land of Do As You Please and they can start discriminating against students and faculty in pretty much any way they wish as long as they claim that it’s an essential part of their religion. This will force taxpayers to fund all sorts of things that they (and not just liberal especially) object to, from aryan supremacists to gender theory schools. One worst case scenario will be a government agency given the task of figuring out which religious schools are “real” religious schools and which are just playing games. The other worst case scenario will be states figuring out how to regulate these schools so that they can’t discriminate in ways that would be illegal for anyone else. Or maybe we’ll just have a government office of educational equality that makes sure that every religion gets an equal shake in the school funding/free exercise department. No way that could end badly. None of these “solutions” will be popular.

Now that we’re establishing that I can’t have freedom to exercise my religion without enough of a taxpayer subsidy, who is going to decide how much subsidy is enough?…

I can imagine taxpayers rejecting bond unissued because they don’t to subsidize all those religious schools.

Peter concludes:

I can imagine plenty of awful scenarios. What I can’t imagine is how vouchers + religious schools results in a free and adequate education for every child or greater harmony and cohesions for our pluralistic nation. Yes, yes, I understand we haven’t exactly mastered either of those things currently, but I don’t see how vouchers + religious schools does anything except make matters worse.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Disruption, Education Industry, Maine, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state

Texas: House of Representatives Says “No” to Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2023 //
14

Governor Gregg Abbott has said repeatedly that vouchers was a high priority for him. He has traveled the state, visiting private schools, to promote them. His party controls both houses of the legislature. Voucher legislation passed in the Senate. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill barring vouchers by 86-52.

Edward McKinley of The Houston Chronicle reported:

The Texas House voted Thursday to restrict public funds from subsidizing private education, a major rebuke of Gov. Greg Abbott and the state Senate, which was expected to pass a so-called voucher program later in the day.

Although past efforts have fallen short in the House, voucher programs have received more support this year than ever before. Gov. Greg Abbott named them a priority in his State of the State address earlier this year, and he has toured the state calling for enaction. Abbott argues that parents are currently deprived of options for their children’s education, and he also says that public schools have become tools for progressive indoctrination.

The margin on Tuesday was 86 to 52. House Public Education Chair Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, attempted to prevent the chamber from voting on the measure at all, saying it was inappropriate considering that his committee plans to hold public hearings for several voucher policies next week.

“This process with this amendment turns things really in the wrong direction. It is the proverbial cart before the horse,” he said. In past sessions, Buckley has voted for the same amendment. If Buckley had been successful, it would have allowed the House to avoid any provocation of the governor or lieutenant governor.

Buckley’s effort failed by a seven-vote margin, with about a dozen Republicans joining the Democrats to stop it.

The House’s measure still needs approval from the Senate and from Abbott, and members could still decide to ultimately approve a voucher program later this session – but it proves there’s not a strong desire in the House to go on-record as supporting vouchers.

“These are public funds for public schools, as outlined and stated specifically in the Texas Constitution,” said Rep. Abel Herrero, a Robstown Democrat and the author of the amendment calling for the ban. Herrero has offered the same amendment in past sessions, where it has often won more than 100 votes.

In past years, the Herrero amendment has been opposed by the state Senate and ultimately stripped out during negotiations between the two chambers.

edward.mckinley@houstonchronicle.com

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Stuart Egan: Betrayal in North Carolina!

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2023 //
4

Stuart Egan teaches in North Carolina and blogs about the state’s politics. North Carolina has a Democratic Governor, Roy Cooper, but Republicans control both houses of the General Assembly. In the State Senate, they were one vote shy of a super-majority. And then—BOOM—a Democratic legislator switched parties, giving Republicans a super-majority, meaning they can override any vetoes by Governor Cooper.

Egan writes about the defector, Tricia Cotham, here and here.

Cotham was a teacher of the year. Her family was long involved in Democratic politics. She campaigned as a Democrat. She said she supported abortion rights. She said she was a strong supporter of public schools.

Yet now she has joined a party that is determined to ban abortion. That has spent the past dozen years attacking public schools, demonizing teachers, and introducing charter schools and vouchers.

Egan wrote in his open letter to Cotham:

Five previous terms in the NC General Assembly before running on a 2022 platform of pro-public education, pro-choice, and protections for all North Carolinians that got you elected in a heavily blue district and you…sold out.

And before you talk about that “well I had to go with my heart and my convictions” excuse, the very things you said you would champion on your campaign website just months ago seem not to be important any longer.

Many of us remember what you said on that campaign website. You seem to want to forget about it. In fact, just today that same website which talked about your “priorities” after five previous terms terms was gone. Erased.

Just like your integrity.

In an interview concerning the switch with abc11.com, you stated:

“The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgement, has solutions and wants to get to work to better our state. Not just sit in a meeting and have a workshop after a workshop, but really work with individuals to get things done. Because that is what real public servants do. If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside.”

Did you see whom you were standing with when you made your switch from those “bullies” to the NCGOP?

Ma’am, you just went to a party that is run by two people who happen to be right next to you: Sen. Phil Berger and Rep. Tim Moore. If you do not do what those two expect of you, then you don’t remain in Raleigh.

And you know that. You’ve been in the NC General Assembly long enough to know that you must “toe the line” with that party to remain in that party. You know exactly what is expected of you now.

You now become the vote that almost ensures that another 1.5 billion dollars goes to unproven school choice “reforms” that take more money away from traditional public schools. Remember your tenure as an educator in public schools? Sure you do. It was on your website before you erased it.

Tricia Cotham has betrayed her voters and her profession. She should be ashamed of herself.

Categories Accountability, Character, Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Hypocrisy, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, Vouchers

Texas: Vouchers Blocked in House of Representatives!!

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2023 //
12

Governor Gregg Abbott went all in and all out to pass vouchers, so that public money would fund religious schools, private schools, and homeschools. His proposal passed in the State Senate.

But it in trouble in the House of Representatives, where rural Republicans are standing with urban Democrats against vouchers for nonpublic schools. The House today passed the Herrero Amendment, prohibiting public funding for vouchers.

The Pastors for Texas Children have worked tirelessly to protect public funding for public schools. Five million children attend public schools. Three hundred thousand students are enrolled in private schools. they issued the following statement about today’s events:

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Rev. Charles Foster Johnson

210-379-1066

Johnson.cfj@gmail.com

 

Herrero Amendment Blocking Voucher Funding Passes Overwhelmingly

 

The Herrero Amendment prohibiting tax money for private school vouchers passed the Texas House of Representatives this afternoon on an 86-52 vote.

The Texas House has once again repudiated a private school voucher program, as they have many times over the past 25 years.

This rejection of vouchers is particularly powerful because Gov. Greg Abbott made the passage of a voucher policy an “emergency item” this legislative session, and personally lobbied House members on the chamber floor to advance it.

“Texans abhor private school vouchers,” said the Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, Founder and Executive Director of Pastors for Texans Children. “For public dollars to be diverted to subsidize the private education of affluent children and to pay for religious education, particularly that contrary to one’s own, is fundamentally unjust.”

“Unfortunately, Gov. Abbott has tied up the entire legislature this session, at the cost of millions of tax dollars, for in his own petty personal political agenda.”

The Texas State Constitution, in Article 7, Section 1, calls for the suitable provision for “public free schools.” There is no consideration whatsoever for public funding diverted to private schools.

Using public tax dollars, taken from our 5.4 million Texas schoolchildren, to underwrite the private education of a few, is an egregious moral violation.

We find it particularly troubling for public funding to advance and establish religious programs in private schools. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and God’s Moral Law.

Pastors for Texas Children is grateful that the Texas House of Representatives once again stood firm for the true Texas conservative value of universal education for all Texas schoolchildren, provided and protected by the public.

+++

 

Pastors for Texas Children mobilizes the faith community for public education ministry and advocacy. http://www.pastorsfortexaschildren.com

PO Box 471155 – Fort Worth, Texas 76147

http://www.pastorsfortexaschildren.com

Categories Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Florida Vouchers: A Multi-Billion-Dollar Hole in the Budget

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2023 //
7

The Florida legislature passed a universal voucher plan, meaning that the state will subsidize the tuition of every student, no matter their family income, Rich or poor. The state will hand out subsidies to rich families whose children go to elite private schools. All money deducted from public schools. Short-sighted and stupid, a giveaway to families who can afford private schools.

Currently, there are more than 400,000 students enrolled in private schools. About 80,000 may already have a voucher. Now, even those attending an exclusive school will be subsidized by the state. Homeschoolers will also be subsidized by the state, at least 20,000 in the fumigation year.

Most of the schools that take vouchers are religious and most are not accredited.

Likely new cost: 320,000 students already enrolled in private schools without a voucher plus 20,000 homeschooled kids x $7,800=$2.65 billion. And that’s without a single student now in public school asking for a voucher. A realistic estimate for the annual cost of Florida’s universal voucher would be at least $3 billion a year.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priotities notes that the Florida voucher funding is designed to reduce the funding of public schools, which currently enroll about 80-85% of the state’s children:

While voucher programs are often funded as line-item appropriations in state budgets or through private donations (which over time reduces the revenues available for education and other state priorities), this Florida voucher is actually designed to take money away from the state K-12 funding formula designated for public school districts.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel says that Florida’s universal voucher program is likely to blow a billion-dollar hole in the state budget. As I pointed out above, $1 billion is a low estimate. That hole in the budget will be closer to $3-4 billion, when you include the students whose parents can already afford to pay tuition.

He writes:

Florida lawmakers are about to take the biggest educational gamble in American history — financed with your tax dollars.

They want to offer every child in Florida the chance to use publicly funded vouchers at private schools that have virtually no regulation and offer no guarantee that the students will get educated.

Florida’s existing network of voucher schools is so infamously unchecked that the Orlando Sentinel has found schools employing teachers that don’t have high-school diplomas themselves. Some refuse to serve children with disabilities or gay parents. Others were such financial wrecks that they shut down in the middle of the school year, stranding students.

Flaw #1:

Voucher schools in Florida are unregulated. They can hire teachers who are not certified. They can hire teachers who never finished college. Voucher schools do not take state tests. They need not disclose their graduation rate or their curriculum. They are not overseen by state officials. Some voucher schools ignore safety codes, because they are not required to comply with them. The Orlando Sentinel conducted an investigation called “Schools Without Rules,” demonstrating that voucher schools take tax money without any oversight, transparency or accountability.

Flaw #2:

Voucher schools operate in secrecy. They are not required to report anything to the state.Not test scores, graduation rates, SAT scores, or anything else. Florida is operating on the principle of “Trust But Don’t Verify.” Public schools are held to tight accountability requirements. Voucher schools, none at all. If accountability is good for public schools, why is it unnecessary for voucher schools?

Flaw #3:

Voucher schools can discriminate against any group. Unlike public schools, voucher schools can discriminate on any grounds. They don’t have to accept students with disabilities, gay students, students who don’t speak English, or students from a religion they don’t like.

Flaw #4:

Legislators think that choice is the only accountability needed. If a parent is unhappy, make a different choice. The only choice that parents do not have is to stop paying their tax dollars to fund this sector.

There is another grievous flaw:

The Florida voucher program reduces funding for the schools that the overwhelming majority of students attend. Why does this make sense?

Maxwell says there are good voucher schools, and they should have no objection to accountability, transparency, and oversight. Maxwell recommends the following fixes for the state voucher program.

All voucher-eligible schools should be required to:

  1. Publish graduation rates and nationally accepted test scores.
  2. Hire teachers who are certified or at least have a college degree.
  3. Disclose all the curriculum being taught.
  4. Ban discrimination. (If discrimination is a key tenet of a religious organization’s belief system, they should fund that discrimination with their own money. Any group that receives public dollars should serve all the public.)

Maxwell does not address the two glaring defects of the voucher program:

1. 75-80% of the students who take vouchers already attend private schools. Why is it in the interest of Florida to pay their tuition?

2. About 60% of the students who switch from a public school to a voucher school will drop out within two years. The vast majority of voucher studies conclude that students lose ground academically when they take a voucher. Shouldn’t parents be warned of the risk that they are taking by accepting a voucher?

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Deregulation, DeSantis, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Funding, Privatization, Republicans, Special Education, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »