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Texas: Battle Over Vouchers Looms in Legislature

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2022 //
31

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is determined to pass a voucher bill in the upcoming legislative session, along with voucher zealot Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. They hope to use the culture war nonsense about public schools “indoctrinating” students on race and gender issues. They pay no attention to the research showing that students who use vouchers are likely to lose ground, academically, and learn less than in public school. Does the legislature really want to harm the state’s public schools while sending kids off to religious and private schools where they are likely to get a worse education than in public schools?

Edward McKinley of the Houston Chronicle wrote recently:

Private school vouchers were within a handful of votes of becoming Texas law in May 2005. Former Rep. Carter Casteel still remembers the constituent who confronted her in her office that day.

“He kind of threatened me, not to harm me, but that I wouldn’t be reelected if I didn’t vote for the vouchers,” Casteel, a New Braunfels Republican, said in an interview. A public school teacher and school board member before she served in the Legislature, Casteel is and was a staunch opponent of private school vouchers.

“I explained to him my position, and he wasn’t very happy, I remember that,” she said. “If you want your child to go to a private school, then that’s your choice and you spend your money, but you don’t take taxpayer dollars away.”

Debate on the floor of the Texas House stretched on for hours, and the voucher bill was gutted following a series of back-and-forth, close votes. Casteel voted no, saying publicly that she was willing to lose her House seat over it.

In a dramatic capstone to the proceedings, Rep. Senfronia Thompson ran across the floor and yanked the microphone out of the bill author’s hand, yelling for attention to a procedural mistake in the bill that led to its death.

That day was the high-water mark in efforts to pass private school vouchers in Texas.

They have been blocked by a powerful coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans in the House. In fact, the House has routinely and overwhelmingly supported a statement policy that outright bans taxpayer funds from going to private schools in sessions since.

But advocates for vouchers believe that those legislative dynamics that have been frozen for the last 17 years may finally be thawing.

As Republicans for the past year have raised alarms over what they see as liberal indoctrination in the public school curriculum — especially in the way racism and LGBT issues are taught — they’ve chalked up victories in statehouses across the country. Texas parents have carried that same fight to school board meetings, their local libraries and trustee elections. Now, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick are calling for more of the same in the upcoming legislative session, with pledges to back ‘parents matter’ initiatives that include another voucher push.

“Families started to see there’s another dimension to school quality that’s arguably more important, which is whether the school’s curriculum aligns with their values,” said Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow with the American Federation for Children, which advocates for vouchers. “And I think that’s sparked a wave of support for school choice around the country.”

Abbott earlier this year announced his support for a policy that would allow public funds to follow students, regardless of whether they attend public schools or private schools. Shortly after, DeAngelis posted a photo of himself meeting with the governor, and “it’s happening, Texas,” has become a refrain on his popular Twitter account.

“With all the national momentum, I think a lot of people are looking toward Texas as the next step,” DeAngelis said. “It’s going to be all eyes on Texas coming up this session. And people are going to be watching.”

Eyes on Arizona, Virginia

The argument for vouchers has traditionally been that children, particularly in urban areas, are forced to attend struggling schools, when the state could instead subsidize them attending private schools nearby. One problem with this argument is that polling has often found that while people have critical views of public schools generally, they often like their own public schools just fine.

“In the past, they’ve tried to get vouchers by saying we’ve got to do something about kids trapped in failing schools. And so we’d say we’ve got all these failing schools. And then you’d look at the data and you have about 80 campuses out of about 8,500 or so that were ‘improvement required.’ So you’re looking at 1 percent,” said Charles Luke, head of the Coalition for Public Schools, which represents education groups opposing voucher policies.

“So when you’re talking about how horrible the public school system is, 99 percent of them are doing fine,” he said. “A kid takes a test and he gets a 99 on it, you wouldn’t say ‘he’s failing, I’m failing him, The system is failing him.’ You’d say, he’s doing great!”

But instead of school budgets or test scores, this time it’s culture war issues with spinoffs that include whether teachings on racism damage the self-esteem of white kids, and if it’s OK for young children to see a drag show or discuss gender identity.

“There’s this misalignment to what parents thought was going on in their schools and now their eyes have been opened, and now they say hey, hey lets fix this,” said Mandy Drogin, with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “No more of this social justice warrior, whatever the teacher or administrator feels about pushing into our classrooms. I think that’s where you see so much momentum, and everybody feels and sees that momentum.”

The issue of private school vouchers has historically hewn closely to the culture war issues of the day. The modern voucher advocacy movement has roots connecting to efforts to resist racial integrationafter the Brown v Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, supporters of vouchers wanted to leave “government schools” because they argued such schools were experimenting with “social engineering” and radical ideologies, education historian Jon Hale has noted, particularly desegregation. The debates from yesterday over leaving public schools because of their values mirror contemporary political arguments over how LGBTQ+ issues are discussed or the children who are undocumented immigrants attending American public schools.

One question legislative observers have had is whether those pushing vouchers will attempt to pass a universal program or a more limited one.

Teachers unions, Democrats and other public school advocates have traditionally opposed any voucher program, no matter how small, but voucher advocates have seen success in other states starting small and building out from there.

This year, however, Arizona passed a universal program, and advocates say that should be the goal in Texas.

Mayes Middleton, who served in the House in the 2019 and 2021 sessions and was elected this year to the state Senate, has filed one such bill. His would create education savings accounts, a form of vouchers, that could be used by anyone to send their kids to public school, private school, community college classes, virtual schools or home school.

This approach is the best way to maximize “parental empowerment,” he said in a Friday interview, and to capitalize on the momentum behind that movement that helped carry Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to victory last year. There were also Republicans unseated in the primaries earlier this year across the state who were less supportive of voucher policies, Middleton said, which could help win additional support.

He says his bill could be particularly helpful for rural Texans who want their kids to access more flexible, hybrid home school models, as well as for people who want to send their kids to private Catholic schools but cannot afford it, many of whom he said are Hispanic. Those are groups who would need to support voucher policies for them to win passage in the Legislature.

“Look in Arizona what they did it with one-seat GOP majority in their house and senate,” DeAngelis said. “If every Republican in Arizona can show up for their platform issue, other red states should be able to follow suit as well.”

Vouchers fell far short in 2021

Public school advocates and opponents of vouchers acknowledge that the fight is going to be tighter and more intense than it has been in many years, but they feel that even with intense lobbying in support, the policies will ultimately fall short.

“These are the same issues that raised their ugly head in past sessions,” said Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat who chaired the House Public Education Committee last session, noting that more than 100 of the 150 House members voted in favor of an amendment last year barring the state from spending public funds on private schools. “I don’t see that changing a whole lot, and certainly not being able to get a majority.”

Members of the GOP’s right wing have called for House Speaker Dade Phelan to end the practice of naming Democrats to head a limited number of committees. Some have named Dutton in particular as an obstacle last session to school choice legislation.

Dutton said he hadn’t thought about whether or not he’ll be chair again, but noted: “When vouchers failed before, the person in the chair of public education was a Republican, so what does that tell you?”

Several Republican members of Public Education, who might be in line for the chairmanship if Dutton is not selected again, have also expressed skepticism or opposition to voucher proposals. Rep. Ken King from Canadian has said, “If I have anything to say about it, it’s dead on arrival. It’s horrible for rural Texas. It’s horrible for all of Texas,” while Rep. Gary VanDeaver has said, “This sense of community is what makes Texas great, and I would hate to see anything like a voucher program destroy this community spirit.”

As promised, after Casteel’s role in the demise of the voucher bill in 2005, she lost her seat in 2006.

She noted that a prominent San Antonio businessman and GOP donor who was present in the House the day of the vote and advocated strongly for vouchers donated more than $1 million to her opponent, as the donor did for other Republicans who opposed the voucher bill that day.

“I’ve got a great family, I’ve got a great law profession, and whether I’m (there) or I go home it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. I didn’t go there to do nothing but what’s right,” Casteel said.

“And I did. I went home. And it never came back up — until this year.”

edward.mckinley@chron.com

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

The Schools That Indoctrinate Students

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2022 //
53

The claim that public schools “indoctrinate” their students is an integral part of the rightwing attack on public schools . This is a canard, a bald-faced lie.

The rightwingers insist that any efforts to teach tolerance and acceptance of others is “indoctrination.” Teaching children the importance of justice, they say, is “woke.”

This is the mission of public schools: to teach children academic skills and knowledge, of course, but also to teach them to work with people who are different from them and their family.

Teaching children to live, work, and play with others and to respect others is important to the functioning of our democracy. We are a people of many diverse origins, different nationalities, different religions. One of the implicit functions of public schools is to help bind us together as one nation, one people who share civic values.

Do you know which schools truly indoctrinate students? Religious schools. That is one of the essential goals of religious schools. They teach the doctrines of their faith. That is why they exist.

Yet, driven by religious zealots, red states are draining public money from public schools for religious schools.

The latest movement is to allow religious schools to become charter schools, enabling them to access public funds for teaching their doctrine.

Politico wrote:

CHURCH V. STATE — Oklahoma’s departing attorney general just took a big step toward achieving a conservative education milestone.

— A state law that blocks religious institutions and private sectarian schools from public charter school programs is likely unconstitutional and should not be enforced, Attorney General John O’Connor and Solicitor General Zach West wrote in a non-binding legal opinion this month .

— Their 15-page memo leans on a trio of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that favored religious schools and won rapt attention from conservative school choice advocates and faith groups. Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said the advisory opinion “rightfully defends parents, education freedom, and religious liberty in Oklahoma.” Newly-elected state Superintendent Ryan Walters called it “the right decision for Oklahomans.”

— “The policy implications are huge because this is the first state that is going to allow religious charter schools,” said Nicole Stelle Garnett , a University of Notre Dame law professor and influential religious charter school supporter who wants other states to follow Oklahoma’s lead . “The legal implications are huge because this is the first state that says that they have to,” she told Weekly Education.

— Now it’s time to see if faith-based Oklahoma institutions successfully apply for taxpayer support to create charter schools that teach religion as a doctrinal truth just like private schools do today, and if legislators will push to change state law.Also watch if legal authorities in other Republican-led states pen similar opinions.

— Those looming decisions and court fights will set the stage for renewed constitutional debates about the line between church and state.

Make no mistake: the bogus claim that public schools “indoctrinate” students is being used to advance the public funding of religious schools whose very mission is indoctrination.

Categories Bigotry, Education Industry, Extremism, Hoax, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state

Dr. John Walcott Debates DeVos’ Ideas at Her Alma Mater

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2022 //
15

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently spoke at Calvin University in Michigan. As one of the university’s most prominent graduates, her remarks were received with respect.

Dr. John Walcott, a professor of education at Calvin University, wrote an article for the school newspaper in which he expressed respectful disagreement with her ideas. The full article is worth reading. It takes courage for a professor to take issue with a state and national leader such as DeVos, especially in a religion-focused university.

Be sure to open the link and read the comments.

He began:

On Nov. 17, Calvin University hosted an event with Betsy DeVos. DeVos served as Secretary of Education during the Trump administration and is a graduate of Calvin University. In making the announcement, President Boer described the event as part of efforts “to hear from people who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives to important conversations.”

DeVos served as Secretary of Education during the Trump administration and is a graduate of Calvin University. In making the announcement, President Boer described the event as part of efforts “to hear from people who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives to important conversations.”

I understand and respect the desire of our university to welcome to our campus a distinguished alum who has a long history of involvement at local, state and national levels. Furthermore, I agree that it is important to provide space for “diverse perspectives” and “important conversations.” We must strive to be a community willing to ask tough questions and engage deeply with important issues in our world.

I believe that an opportunity for additional engagement with these issues is especially necessary because of the problematic nature of much of what Secretary DeVos proposes when it comes to education. For example, her call to support “students and not systems” fails to recognize that student learning can be supported by teachers, curriculum, financial resources, school administrators and, yes, in many cases may even require a building conducive to learning. It is easy to demonize systems, but the use of this sort of false dichotomy is ultimately unproductive.

In that spirit, I suggest that we continue the conversation started at this event. The event used an interview format that did not provide opportunity for the sort of conversation and debate that are required to dig deeply into important issues related to educational policy and the state of education in our nation. Near the close of the event, Secretary DeVos stated her ongoing desire to “debate and advance” the policies for which she advocates. I agree that we need to debate these policies and, as a university community, think deeply about issues that relate to education and political engagement and how God calls us to seek justice and be agents of renewal in our world.

I believe that an opportunity for additional engagement with these issues is especially necessary because of the problematic nature of much of what Secretary DeVos proposes when it comes to education. For example, her call to support “students and not systems” fails to recognize that student learning can be supported by teachers, curriculum, financial resources, school administrators and, yes, in many cases may even require a building conducive to learning. It is easy to demonize systems, but the use of this sort of false dichotomy is ultimately unproductive.

We also need to carefully consider Secretary DeVos’ focus on parental choice and individual rights as the basis of her calls to change our educational system. This perspective ignores the function of our schools as a public good, an institution at the core of our desire to promote democratic values and the flourishing of all students. We need to think carefully about the purpose of education in a democratic society and about the role of public schools that have been part of our nation’s commitment to education since before the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Our call to seek justice and be agents of renewal in our world may push us to prioritize the needs of our community and of the most vulnerable in our society over individual rights.

As an educational scholar and researcher, I recognize the need to carefully examine the impacts of policies that use the language of choice and freedom on student learning and on public schools. For example, advocates for school vouchers, which allow parents to use public education funds for tuition in private schools, argue that these policies can be the key to improving student outcomes while ignoring research that does not support these claims. For example, Dr. Christopher Lubienski (Director of the Center for Evaluation and Policy Analysis at Indiana University), summarizing research since 2015, states that “every study of the impacts of statewide voucher programs has found large, negative effects from these programs on the achievement of students using vouchers.”

A thorough discussion will explore the impact of DeVos-supported policies on school funding. Recent reports from Florida note that this year, school vouchers will divert $1.3 billion from public schools, and reports from states like Arizona, New Hampshire and Wisconsin show that the overwhelming majority (80%, 89% and 75%) of students utilizing vouchers were already in private schools before the programs began. We need to ask if public funds should be given to schools that are in some cases not required to comply with regulations related to special education, federal civil rights laws and curriculum standards. We should engage critically in questions regarding the role of teachers’ unions before dismissing out of hand their role in public education. And we should critically examine the rhetoric that is currently a part of the so-called “culture wars,” especially as it relates to education. I am concerned that Secretary DeVos has contributed to a misrepresentation of critical race theory and may be perceived as aligning with groups and individuals that have advanced a harmful narrative directed at the LGBTQ+ community.

These are just a few of the many complex and vitally important issues that need to be a part of a deeper conversation. I am not criticizing the decision to host Secretary DeVos, a distinguished graduate with years of activism in the public sphere. However, as a faculty member in the School of Education, it is important to me that the broader educational community understands that this does not signal an endorsement of her policies and perspectives by the School of Education. And I remain hopeful that we, as a community, will embrace the opportunity to not only offer diverse perspectives, but also engage deeply in important conversations of what it means to think deeply, act justly and live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reform, Courage, Democracy, Education Industry, Equity, Funding, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Onward to Taxpayer-Funded Religious Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2022 //
31

For years, charter friends and charter foes have debated whether charter schools are public schools and whether they are, like public schools, “state actors.” The lame-duck Attorney General of Oklahoma recently declared that religious schools could be charter schools. He seems to believe that privately managed charter schools are not public schools, because no one claims that religious schools are public schools. His opinion does not have the force of law, but you can see that Oklahoma is eager to give public money to religious schools.

The AG’s opinion raises many questions. If charter schools are religious schools, may they limit admission only to members of their faith? May they exclude gay students, teachers, and families? May they substitute religious books for the state textbooks? May they indoctrinate their students into their faith? If charter schools are religious schools, how do they differ from voucher schools? What state regulations apply to them, if any?

Peter Greene writes about the issue here:

The Supreme Court has slowly and steadily busted a hole in the wall between church and state when it comes to education. AG opinion: Statute barring charter school operators from religious affiliation unconstitutional (nondoc.com)

In a fifteen-page opinion issued December 1, Attorney General John O’Connor argued that in the wake of Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson, he believed that SCOTUS would “very likely” find Oklahoma’s charter law restriction on nonsectarian or religious charters unconstitutional. Therefore, his opinion is that the state should no longer follow the law forbidding sectarian or religious charter schools.

Each of those cases elevated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment over the establishment clause. In other words, the court has repeatedly (and in a break from previous court decisions) found that the free exercise of religious beliefs outweighs any restrictions against government-sponsored religious activity.

Carson v. Makin in particular established that if the state allows for taxpayer funding of any non-public secular schools, it cannot exclude religious schools from the chance to receive taxpayer funding. While Carson involved school vouchers and private schools, observers like Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s School of Education, noted that in light of these three decisions, “states will probably be forced to let churches and other religious institutions apply for charters and operate charter schools.”

While charter schools have often been considered public schools (at least part of the time), the extension of free-exercise protections, as Welner wrote after the prior decision, complicate the issue.

If courts side with a church-run charter school, finding that state attempts to restrict religiously infused teachings and practices at the school are an infringement on the church’s free-exercise rights, then the circle is complete: Charter school laws have become voucher laws.

Justice Sotomayor, when dissenting on Carson, noted that

“in just a few years, the Court has upended constitutional doctrine, shifting from a rule that permits States to decline to fund religious organizations to one that requires States in many circumstances to subsidize religious indoctrination with taxpayer dollars.”

Given the previous decisions, an attempt by charter supporters to extend religion to charter schools was probably inevitable.

Charter supporters, including Governor Kevin Sitt and State Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Ryan Walters praised the decision. Officials of the Catholic Church in Oklahoma, the church likely to go after the taxpayer funding made available by this opinion (there are reports that they have an application for a Catholic virtual charter school ready to go), also praised the decision, as did officials of the American Federation for Children, the pro-privatization group with connections to Betsy DeVos.

The potential complications are many. If the taxpayers of Oklahoma are going to be compelled to fund religious charter schools, which religions will qualify for those dollars, and who will decide?

Oklahoma law designates charters as public schools, but how much discrimination in the name of religious exercise will the state allow? O’Connor argues that charges of discrimination can only be brought against state actors, and “actions taken by charters are unlikely to fit this bill.” So are charter schools public schools or not, and to what degree should taxpayers be forced to fund schools that exist in some sort of fuzzy grey law-free zone?

AG John O’Connor was a Trump nominee for a United States district judge in 2018; the American Bar Association rated him “not qualified,” and his nomination was withdrawn. After Oklahoma’s previous attorney general resigned in May of 2021 over “personal matters,” Governor Stitt appointed O’Connor to the office. O’Connor ran for the office this year and was defeated in the primary, making him a lame duck in the office.

An opinion such a this does not carry the weight of law, and it is possible that the matter will be tested in court. But given the foundation laid by the Supreme Court, it takes no great stretch to reach the conclusion that O’Connor did. They ripped the hole in the wall; he just walked through it.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Religion, Separation of church and state

Oklahoma: State Attorney General Rules that Charter Schools Can Be Religious

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2022 //
20

The state Attorney General in Oklahoma just obliterated the distinction between charters and vouchers by ruling that the state law requiring charters to be non-sectarian was invalid. His decision won plaudits, not surprisingly, from far-right Governor Kevin Stitt, the state’s Catholic Conference, and the state’s American Federation for Children, which is part of Betsy DeVos’s voucher-advocating national group of the same name.

This is the breakthrough that Betsy DeVos has counted on for years: that charter schools would be the stepping stone to vouchers.

Think of all the “liberals” and “progressives” who have supported charters, abetting the eventual and inevitable public funding of religious schools: Senator Cory Booker, Senator Michael Bennett, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, former Governor Jerry Brown, the Center for American Policy (CAP), DFER, the Obama Education Department, and many more. CAP is supposedly the Democratic Party think tank, but it has resolutely supported charter schools. And now it’s on the same side as Betsy DeVos.

In a 15-page opinion released today, outgoing Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor advised charter school authorizers that the aspects of the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act requiring school operators to be non-religious and non-sectarian likely violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and should not be enforced.

Primarily citing three recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings regarding religious liberties in public education — Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (2017); Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020); and Carson v. Makin (2022) — O’Connor argued that religiously affiliated private organizations should be allowed to apply to operate charter schools.

“In sum, we do not believe the U.S. Supreme Court would accept the argument that, because charter schools are considered public for various purposes, that a state should be allowed to discriminate against religiously affiliated private participants who wish to establish and operate charter schools in accordance with their faith alongside other private participants,” O’Connor wrote in the opinion which is embedded below.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that can be governed and operated outside of traditional school districts. The schools can run by private management companies. Currently, Oklahoma statute requires operators of the state’s approximately 30 charter schools to be “non-sectarian” and “non-religious.”

Among the entities allowed to authorizer a charter school in Oklahoma is the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. Executive director Rebecca Wilkinson originally asked the formal question that resulted in O’Connor’s office issuing an opinion on whether the board may “continue to enforce the nonsectarian requirements set forth” in Oklahoma statute.

Reached for comment Thursday, Wilkinson said she didn’t know the opinion had been released.

“I have not seen it,” Wilkinson said. “I can’t comment on it today, but when we hang up I guarantee you I will be going out to search for it.”

‘Overjoyed with the attorney general’s opinion’

Gov. Kevin Stitt, the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma and the American Federation for Children-Oklahoma celebrated the opinion.

“Attorney General John O’Connor’s opinion rightfully defends parents, education freedom, and religious liberty in Oklahoma,” Stitt said in a statement. “Ultimately, government takes a backseat to parents who get to determine the best learning environment for their child.”

The Catholic Conference of Oklahoma also praised O’Connor’s opinion. In an interview. executive director Brett Farley said the Catholic Conference has an application ready to submit to the SVCSB to operate its own Catholic virtual charter school.

Simply summarized, “religious charter schools are now legal in Oklahoma.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Religion, Separation of church and state

Texas: State Board of Education Opposes Vouchers

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2022 //
6

A tweet by Mark Wiggins, a pro-public education lobbyist in Texas, spread the news that the Republican-dominated State Board of Education came out against vouchers.

*NO VOUCHERS*

As one of its 2023 legislative priorities, majority Republican @TXSBOE urges #txlege to reject vouchers in all their forms. #txed

@MarkWigginsTX

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Public Schools Are on the Ballot

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2022 //
5

Texas Republicans have been longing to pass a voucher bill, but they have been stymied by grassroots opposition and by our friends, Pastors for Texas Children, who believe in separation of church and state.

This year, Governor Greg Abbot and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick are determined to pass voucher legislation, and they have the support of wealthy white Evangelical Christian nationalists.

NBC News reported the story of the big money behind vouchers:

Texas Republicans bankrolled by Christian conservative donors are hoping to ride a wave of parental anger over the teaching of race and sexuality in schools to achieve what has long been an unattainable goal: state funding for private education.

Groups committed to giving parents the option of sending their children to private schools using taxpayer dollars — sometimes known as “school choice” or “vouchers” — have given millions of dollars to Republican candidates in Texas this year, helping to win key races and pushing some establishment lawmakers further to the right on the issue. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently pledged to make school choice a priority in the next legislative session if he wins re-election over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday.

The push for private school vouchers has been funded in large part by Defend Texas Liberty, a Christian nationalist-aligned political action committee led by a former far-right Republican state lawmaker and bankrolled by a pair of West Texas billionaires. The PAC has spent nearly $10 million this year, largely backing candidates who support public funding for private education and attacking those who oppose it, according to an NBC News analysis of Texas Ethics Commission campaign finance reports and data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets.

Defend Texas Liberty did not respond to messages requesting interviews with PAC leaders.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said big spending by groups like Defend Texas Liberty and local fights over the way schools address racism, history and LGBTQ identities have “softened the ground” for school privatization — in Texas and nationally.

“These groups have been demonizing what is being taught in public schools, and that’s the fastest way to erode faith that public schools work,” Rottinghaus said. “Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. If people believe that it’s true, then it’s politically potent.”

Defend Texas Liberty gave $3.6 million to former state lawmaker Don Huffines, an Abbott primary challenger who ran a campaign promising to crack down on medical care for transgender children, require the teaching of creationism in public schools and give parents government money to send their children to private schools. (Abbott publicly came out in support of private school vouchers two months after winning the primary with 66.5% of the vote.)

The PAC also spent $168,000 supporting Republican Nate Schatzline, a former pastor running for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives on a campaign to give parents more freedom to decide how and where their children are educated. Schatzline won a competitive GOP primary in a solidly conservative North Texas district in part by painting his Republican opponent as an advocate for teaching “leftist, woke ideologies” in schools.

“It’s time to outlaw the sexualization of our children!” Schatzline wrote on his campaign website. “It’s time to outlaw racist ideologies that seek to divide our children, not unify them. It’s time to teach our children to love America, not hate it!”

Defend Texas Liberty donations accounted for more than a third of Schatzline’s campaign funding. He initially agreed to speak with a reporter for NBC News, but later did not return phone calls or text messages.

And this fall, Defend Texas Liberty spent $100,000 to put up dozens of billboards along Texas highways, including some that showed a photo of O’Rourke next to a baseless allegation about “grooming” children, an anti-LGBTQ attack that’s become popular among conservatives this year.

In a statement, Tori Larned, a spokesperson for O’Rourke’s campaign, said, “Abbott is now calling to defund public education with his voucher program that takes tax dollars out of public school classrooms across the state and sends them away to private schools.”

Abbott has denied that vouchers would harm public education.

“We can fully fund public schools while also giving parents a choice about which school is right for their child,” he said during a May campaign event in San Antonio. “Empowering parents means giving them the choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.”

Defend Texas Liberty is led by former state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a Republican who earned a reputation as the state’s most conservative lawmaker before leaving the legislature in 2021. Nearly 90% of the PAC’s funding this year has come from Tim Dunn and the family of Farris Wilks, a pair of billionaire oil and fracking magnates who have expressed the view that Texas state government should be guided by Biblical valuesand run exclusively by evangelical Christians. Combined, they’ve spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade funding far-right Texas candidates and a network of nonprofits and advocacy groups that push conservative policy ideas. Stickland, Wilks and Dunn did not respond to interview requests.

Please open the link and read the rest of the story. There are five million children in the public schools of Texas. The schools have been underfunded since 2011, when Republicans cut their budget by more than $5 billion. Where does Governor Abbott get the idea that the state can fund Evangelical schools (and Catholic and Muslim and Jewish and all other private schools) without taking more money away from public schools?

Categories Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Religion, Texas, Vouchers

How the Hasidic Community Became Powerful in New York

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2022 //
69

As a secular Jew, I find it hard to write about the Hasidic community at a time of rising anti-Semitism. But the way they have organized their political power in New York to protect their religious schools is a cautionary tale. They have amassed political power by voting as a bloc. They have used that political clout to gain huge amounts of public money to fund schools that don’t teach English and don’t teach most secular subjects, even though state law requires them to offer an education that is equivalent to a secular school. They ignore the law because they have friends in high places.

The New York Times told the story on Sunday. The Hasidic community is about 200,000, or 1% of the state’s population. Their first priority is to protect their schools. State law says that religious schools, which receive public funding for required services, like transportation and special education, must offer education equivalent to public schools. Recently a state court fined one of thr state’s largest yeshivas $8 million for misusing public funds. The Times previously reported that the 100 of the state’s yeshivas have received more than $1 billion in public funds in the past four years. Most don’t take the state tests but when some did recently, not one student passed the tests. Why? Because they are taught in Yiddish or Hebrew, and many never study history, science or other secular subjects.

The secret of their power was the relationships they cultivated with politicians. Andrew Yang sought their support when he ran for NYC mayor but it was too late: they had already pledged their loyalty to Eric Adams, who won. To win their support means hands off their schools but keep the money flowing. On election night, a Hasidic leader was on the dais with Eric Adams. They previously forged close relationships with Rudy Guiliani and other mayors and governors.

As the Times reported:

During last year’s mayoral primary in New York City, Andrew Yang, then a leading Democratic candidate, made a calculated investment: If he could make meaningful inroads into the Hasidic Jewish community, its bloc of votes could help carry him to victory.

He hired a Hasidic Democratic leader in Brooklyn as his Jewish outreach director. He publicly pledged not to interfere with Hasidic Jewish religious schools, which were being investigated over whether they were providing a basic education. Still, some were not persuaded.

“I told him he might be a very nice person, but I don’t know him,” said Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of the Satmar Hasidic group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I said we have a good history with someone who is here for years; we know that he cares for the community. It’s not nice to take an old friend and throw him under the bus.”

That old friend was Eric Adams, then the Brooklyn borough president, who won the primary and became mayor in January. Mr. Adams, like Mr. Yang, has been supportive of the Jewish schools’ independence, saying on the eve of his inauguration that they generally served as the basis for a “well-rounded quality education.”

Particularly disgusting is the Orthodox takeover of school boards in communities in Rockkand County and in New Jersey where their own children do not attend the public schools. The school boards use their power to cut school budgets and to direct public funds to their yeshivas. The children in public schools in these districts suffer the cuts and lack of voice.

Politicians offer services beyond protection of the religious schools.

As mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg once drew more than 10,000 members of the Hasidic community to a rally where they filled six blocks of bleachers. In 2004, he helped bring water from the New York City drinking supply to Kiryas Joel, a village 50 miles outside the city — a project still ongoing.

Mr. de Blasio worked with Orthodox leaders to ease regulations of a circumcision ritual, metzitzah b’peh, that led to numerous babies becoming infected with herpes.

Mr. de Blasio also faced scrutiny in 2019 for acting too slowly to declare a public health emergency in Orthodox communities in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, over a measles outbreak and for not requiring vaccination sooner. The community also resisted vaccination requirements during the coronavirus pandemic, and cases were often higher in their neighborhoods.

In this year’s governor’s race, Mr. Zeldin is enthusiastically courting Hasidic leaders,many of whom are concerned over new state rules requiring private schools to prove they are teaching English and math. Mr. Zeldin, who is Jewish, has defended the schools in his visits to Hasidic areas in Brooklyn and Rockland County, and frequently mentions that his mother once taught at a yeshiva, although it is unclear if it was a Hasidic school.

Many Democratic leaders are also hesitant to criticize yeshivas, or call for greater oversight of them, including Governor Hochul, who said in response to The Times’s investigation that regulating the schools was not her responsibilit

Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent Times article did not mention one of the leading critics of the yeshivas, Naftuli Moster, who organized a group of yeshiva graduates to call attention to the failure of the yeshivas to provide a secular education. Moster was born to a Hasidic family of 17 children. He attended college and then earned a degree in social work. He was keenly aware of the limitations of his yeshiva education. He founded Young Advocates for Fair Education(Yaffed), an advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that students at Hasidic yeshivas in New York City be given a secular education.

Categories Education Reform, New York, New York City, Religion, Scandal, Separation of church and state

Justice Amy Coney Barrett Gets $2 Million Book Deal

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2022 //
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Blogger Robert Hubbell reports that Justice Any Coney Barrett has won a $2 million advance on a book that explains how her personal views don’t affect her judicial decisions. Tell me another. Must be a very short book.

Hubbell writes:

Why does this feel like a “reward” for overruling Roe v. Wade?

Justice Amy Coney Barret has secured a $2 million advance from Penguin Random House for a book that will reportedly discuss “how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule.” Given the dissonance between the proposed topic and Justice Barrett’s religiously motivated ruling in Dobbs, it is possible that the book is intended to be satirical, but there is little evidence that Barrett has a sense of humor.

So, the most reasonable explanations are that Justice Barrett (a) lacks self-awareness and any sense of shame, and (b) the shocking advance is an indirect “reward” for being the final vote necessary to overrule Roe v. Wade. To be fair, Barrett secured the $2 million advance for a book that can be summarized in a sentence fragment before she overruled Roe. To be fairer, there is little evidence that the German conglomerate that owns Penguin Random House has any interest in US politics—apart from monetizing controversy. A group of publishing professionals is calling on Penguin Random House to reconsider its deal with Barrett.

I, for one, cannot wait not to read Justice Barrett’s explanation of how her deeply held faith did not influence her vote to impose Catholic dogma on 320 million Americans. Perhaps future confirmation hearings can ask nominees for the Supreme Court if they intend to accept an obscene advance for writing a book of judicial fairy tales. That will give nominees something else to lie about besides their respect for precedent.

If you read Hubbell’s post, be sure to see his critique of the blunders of the Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus, which released a statement calling on Biden to negotiate with Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, then withdrawing their statement as a mistake. I agree with Hubbell. Any negotiation that doesn’t include Ukraine is ridiculous. Any negotiation that rewards Putin with Ukrainian territory for his aggression encourages more aggression. I fully support the heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people in resisting Putin’s naked aggression.

Categories Ethics, Hypocrisy, Lies, Religion

New York: Hasidic School Will Pay $8 Million After Admitting Fraud

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2022 //
19

The New York Times reported that the largest private Hasidic Jewish school in the state of New York—the Central United Talmudical Academy— admitted in federal court that it had stolen millions of dollars from government programs. The school enrolls 2,000 boys and is located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The leaders of the school acknowledged that they had taken money intended for “school lunches, technology and child care” They created no-show jobs for some employees and paid others in cash, so they could receive welfare. The school will pay $5 million in fines in addition to more than $3 million that it has paid for restitution. .

State law requires all private schools to provide an education comparable to what is in public schools. In 2015, New York City’s education department said it would investigate complaints about the quality of secular education in schools in the Hasidic Jewish community.

The school will be overseen by an independent monitor for the next three years.

The Central United Talmudical Academy, an all-boys private religious school, factored prominently in a New York Times investigation last month that found that Hasidic boys’ schools across the state had received hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding while denying their students a basic secular education.

The Williamsburg school received about $10 million in government funding in the year before the pandemic, according to a Times analysis. Its leaders, who are affiliated with the Satmar group of Hasidic Judaism, also operate several other schools in the state.

There are more than 100 Hasidic boys’ schools in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley, and they have received a total of more than $1 billion in taxpayer money over the past four years, The Times found. They focus on providing religious instruction, with most offering little instruction in English reading and math and almost no classes in history, science or civics.

In general, many Hasidic boys’ schools score lower on state standardized tests than any other schools in the state, public or private.

In 2019, The Times reported, the Central United Talmudical Academy agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students. Every one of them failed.

Categories Ethics, Fraud, New York, New York City, Religion
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