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Indiana: Three Former State Chiefs Join to Denounce Voucher Expansion Plan

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2021 //
19

Three former state superintendents of education in Indiana wrote a joint letter opposing the Republican plan to expand vouchers.

Jennifer McCormick, Glenda Ritz and Suellen Reed Goddard released a letter criticizing the proposals for diverting funding away from traditional public school students.

House Bill 1005 seeks to expand the eligibility of who can receive a school voucher and would create the “education scholarship program” to allow some families funding for education services outside of public school.

The House is expected to take up the bill for final vote Tuesday.

Reed Goddard took part in a virtual event Monday with the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, a non-profit organization that opposes legislation to fund private school vouchers. Goddard urged people to call their elected officials to oppose the House bill and other legislation. 

“Now is not the time to divert any of our funding from public education where about 94% of our students are educated,” she said. “We are in the throes of a pandemic which challenges technology, teaching techniques, students and parents support and workforce issues.”

Goddard and others fear Gov. Eric Holcomb’s modest increase for K-12 funding in his two-year budget proposal will be erased by legislation expanded choice options if they become law.

Here is the text of the letter signed by the three former state chiefs:

An Opposition Letter from Public School Supporters
to Members of the Indiana General Assembly and Governor Holcomb

In support of the 94% of Indiana students who attend public schools, we strongly oppose House Bill 1005, Senate Bill 412 and Senate Bill 413. Education Scholarship Accounts will divert adequate and equitable funding away from public school students and open the door to unacceptable practices. Hoosiers all lose when children are not well educated and public tax dollars are not accounted for responsibly. 

In Indiana communities, public schools have been and will continue to be the hub for vital services supporting the well-being of the whole child. Passing HB 1005, SB 412 or SB 413 would divert significant monies away from public schools, enhance the opportunity for a lack of oversight related to the intended educational purpose of such funds, further exacerbate insufficiencies tied to Indiana’s teacher compensation, and increase the risk to student growth, proficiency, and well-being. 

Indiana’s most vulnerable youth and families deserve a per-pupil funding level that promotes adequate and equitable funding. Unfortunately, the language of HB 1005 gives advantages to families with high incomes and adds disadvantages for our most vulnerable by shifting risks. HB 1005, if passed, will defeat the spirit of the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act and run counter to the initial rhetoric behind Indiana’s school choice.

Even with the amendment, HB 1005 would result in 94% of Indiana’s students receiving less than the tuition support increase of $377 million over two years that Gov. Holcomb’s proposed. Teacher compensation, support staff pay, COVID-19 academic and operational-related costs, student support service demands, constantly changing graduation and accountability requirements, and K-12 workforce development efforts certainly deserve the funding necessary to serve Hoosier students. 

We firmly oppose HB 1005, SB 412 and SB 413. We firmly support the adequate and equitable funding of our Indiana’s public schools representing 94% of Hoosier students and families. 

Dr. Suellen Reed Goddard
1993-2009 Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction

Glenda Ritz
2013-2017 Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction

Dr. Jennifer McCormick
2018-2021 Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

The following organizations support this letter:

Indiana Coalition for Public Education
AFT Indiana
Indiana Association of Career and Technical Education Districts (IACTED)
Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE)
Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents
Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education (ICASE)
Indiana Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)
Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association
Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA)
Indiana Urban Schools Association

Can anyone explain why the Republicans in the legislature want to harm the public schools that enroll 94% of the children of the state? Did the Republicans familiarize themselves with the research on vouchers, which consistently finds a “significantly negative effect” on academic achievement for students who leave public schools for voucher schools? Why do they want to undermine the quality of their state’s public schools?

Categories Education Industry, Indiana, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Indiana: Expanding Vouchers Hurts Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2021 //
7

The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette demonstrated what an absurdity the Indiana voucher program is and why it should not be expanded. Research increasingly shows the negative effects of vouchers on students (see here and here).

Its editorial explained:

Fort Wayne has a parks system, supported primarily by property taxes. Most residents appreciate the parks, whether they use them or not, recognizing the benefits they afford the entire community. There are property owners, however, who don’t use the parks and spend their own money to pay for health club memberships or country club dues.

Now, imagine some of those property owners decide the share of tax dollars they spend for city parks should instead be returned to them as a “park voucher,” available for the members-only clubs they prefer. Without an increase in the tax rate, the amount of money available for city parks would shrink.

That’s the essence of Indiana’s school voucher program, which shifts tax dollars from a public good to a private commodity under the clever name of “Choice Scholarships.” With a voucher framework firmly in place and many Indiana voters convinced “school choice” is a sacred right, the General Assembly’s Republican supermajority is prepared to make its most audacious push yet to expand the program to wealthy Hoosiers.

House Bill 1005, with an estimated cost of $202 million over the next two years alone, will be heard in the House Education Committee at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The proposed bill expands the $172 million a year voucher program to allow a family of four earning as much as $145,000 a year to qualify for vouchers. Median household income in Indiana is about $60,000 a year.

Open the link and read the rest of the editorial.

Multiple studies show that students who leave public schools to enroll in voucher schools fall behind academically. Why do Indiana Republicans want to defund their public schools?

Categories Education Industry, Indiana, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

David Berliner on the Travesty of Public Funds for Religious Schools

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2021 //
12

David Berliner, a distinguished scholar of American education, is writing a long essay about the dangers of public funding for religious schools. Currently numerous red states are considering proposal to expand vouchers and transfer more public funds to religious schools, typically without accountability. Their actions will overturn the historic tradition of separation of church and state. As the Pastors for Texas Children often say, that separation guarantees religious Liberty.

Berliner writes:

Public dollars for support of religious schools costs citizens billions of dollars annually, and ends up supporting some horrible things. A contemporary example of this is the criteria for entrance to the Fayetteville Christian School (FCS) in North Carolina. 

The Fayetteville Christian School is recipient, in a recent school year, of $495,966 of public money. They got this in the form of school vouchers that are used by students and their families to pay for the students religious schooling. The entrance requirements for this school, and other religious schools like it, frighten me, though they are clearly acceptable to North Carolinians. From their website, in 2020:1

“The student and at least one parent with whom the student resides must be in agreement with (our) Statement of Faith and have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. In addition, the parent and student must regularly (go to) a local church. (We) will not admit families that belong to or express faith in religions that deny the absolute Deity/Trinity of Jesus Christ as the one and only Savior and path to salvation. …. FCS will not admit families that engage in behaviors that Scripture defines as deviate and sin (illicit drug use, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality (LGBT), etc.)

Once admitted, if the student or parent/guardian with whom the student resides becomes involved in lifestyles contradictory to Biblical beliefs, we may choose to dis-enroll the student/family from the school.” 

[Retrieved February 8, 2021, from https://www.fayettevillechristian.com/copy-of-criteria-1

So, despite the receipt of public money, the Fayetteville Christian School is really notopen to the public at all! This school says, up front and clearly, that it doesn’t want and will not accept Jews, Muslims, Hindu’s, and many others. Further, although supported by public money, it will expel students for their family’s alleged “sins”. Is papa smoking pot? Expelled! Does your sibling have a homosexual relationship? Out! Has mama filed for divorce? You are gone! The admissions and dismissal policies of this school–receiving about a half million dollars of public funds per year–are scandalous. I’d not give them a penny! North Carolina legislators, and the public who elects them should all be embarrassed to ever say they are upholders of American democracy. They are not.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, North Carolina, Religion, Separation of church and state

Tennessee: State Supreme Court Will Review Voucher Case

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2021 //
6

The Tennessee legislature passed a voucher law. It was declared unconstitutional by lower courts.

However the State Supreme Court will revisit the issue. Voucher advocates are hopeful.

Think of all the low-cost, low-quality religious schools that will drain public dollars away from the state’s public schools.

Vouchers will not only take money away from the public schools, they will lower the overall quality of education in the state. Not a good way to build a better future.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Tennessee, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: DeVos Is Gone, But the Voucher Movement Presses Forward

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2021 //
41

Jeff Bryant writes in Alternet about the renewed strength of the voucher forces, which have been energized by Republican gains in the states in the 2020 elections. They aim to defund the public schools that enroll most children and send public money to private and religious schools, even to home schoolers and entrepreneurs.

He begins:

Supporters of public education and school teachers were relieved to see Betsy DeVos leave her job as head of the Department of Education, knowing full well the education policies she and former President Trump supported would go nowhere in a President Biden administration. But they should remain incensed over how her efforts to privatize public schools are being rolled out in state legislatures across the country.

In states as politically diverse as Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, and New Hampshire, state legislators are introducing bills to increase the number of charter schools and create new school voucher programs or greatly expand current ones. According to the Educational Freedom Institute (EFI), a think tank that advocates for vouchers, charter schools, and other forms of “school choice,” there are at least 14 states actively considering legislation to pour greater sums of taxpayer dollars intended for public education into privately operated schools. Many of the bills have been introduced since the November 2020 elections, which ousted Trump and DeVos but resulted in big gains for Republicans down-ticket.

These proposals to privatize public schools are taking on new forms that are less transparent, would be easier to pass through legislation, and take larger sums of money from public schools, which educate between 80 and 90 percent of American children. Further, the bills are surfacing when public education is highly vulnerable due to the pandemic and the ensuing economic havoc it is wreaking.

Supporters of public education and the common good must mobilize and push back against efforts to weaken and/or destroy the public schools. Republican legislators are ignoring their own state constitutions, and the historic American tradition of separation of church and state by pushing public money to religious schools. Their obvious goal is to cut funding to education, and they don’t care if it reduces the quality of education in their states, as it surely will. Religious schools and the other private schools that take vouchers hire uncertified teachers, are free of state oversight, and teach prejudice.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Religion, Resistance, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Florida: Stop the Mega-Voucher Bill!

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2021 //
28

The Constitution of the state of Florida bans the transfer of public funds to religious schools or any religious institution. The ban is unequivocal. It says: “No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”

In 2012, the state voted on a referendum to permit vouchers for religious schools. The proposed Amendment 8 was misleadingly called “the Religious Freedom Amendment.” Voters turned it down by 55%-45%.

Despite the explicit language of the State Constitution, despite the defeated state referendum, despite the body of research that shows that voucher schools are mostly inferior to public schools, despite the number of religious schools that openly discriminate in admissions and that use textbooks that are racist and sexist, Florida’s Republican governors and legislature have steadily expanded its multiple voucher programs, which currently sends about $1 billion to mostly religious schools. These schools are not subject to the same standards and accountability as public and charter schools. Now Florida legislators want to combine its several voucher programs and expand them.

If you live in Florida, say no to this degradation of public education and waste of public funds.

From: Network for Public Education Action <carol@npeaction.org>
Date: Tue, Feb 2, 2021 at 8:16 AM
Subject: [test] Urgent: Stop the Florida Mega-Voucher Bill Today
To: <burriscarol@gmail.com>

Florida SB 48  merges and expands the multiple voucher programs that already exist into two large programs.

If passed, this bill would also reduce the frequency of audits to detect fraud from every year to once every three years, increase the yearly growth rate of voucher programs, and via ESAs, expand the use of public funds for parents to “shop” for private schools or homeschool services.

Here is what to do.

1. Pick up the phone today and call:(Sample Script) My name is (name). Please tell Senator (name) that I strongly oppose SB 48. I support public education. SB 48 is one more attempt to fund private schools and destroy our public school system. 

Chair, Sen. Joe Gruters (850) 487-5023gruters.joe.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @JoeGruters 
Vice Chair, Sen. Shevrin Jones (850) 487-5035jones.shevrin.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @ShevrinJones
Senator Lori Berman(850) 487-5031berman.lori.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @loriberman 
Senator Jennifer Bradley (850) 487-5005bradley.jennifer.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @jenn_bradley 
Senator Doug Broxson(850) 487-5001broxson.doug.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @DougBroxson
Senator Travis Hutson(850) 487-5007hutson.travis.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @TravisJHutson 
Senator Kathleen Passidomo(850) 487-5028passidomo.kathleen.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @Kathleen4SWFL 
Senator Tina Polsky (850) 487-5029polsky.tina.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @TinaPolsky 
Senator Perry Thurston, Jr (850) 487-5033thurston.perry.web@flsenate.govTwitter: @PerryThurstonJr2.

Get on Twitter and tweet: Don’t destroy Florida public schools. #SayNotoSB48  @PerryThurstonJr @TinaPolsky @Kathleen4SWFL @TravisJHutson @DougBroxson @jenn_bradley @loriberman @ShevrinJones @JoeGruters @NPEaction @pastors4flkids Stop the mega-voucher bill. I love Florida Public Schools. Stop defunding them. #SayNotoSB48  @PerryThurstonJr @TinaPolsky @Kathleen4SWFL @TravisJHutson @DougBroxson @jenn_bradley @loriberman @ShevrinJones @JoeGruters @NPEaction @pastors4flkids Stop the mega-voucher bill. #SayNotoSB48 that outsources Florida’s $1 billion voucher program to private organizations for profit.. @PerryThurstonJr @TinaPolsky @Kathleen4SWFL @TravisJHutson @DougBroxson @jenn_bradley @loriberman @ShevrinJones @JoeGruters @NPEaction @pastors4flkids 

3. Send an email to the senators above, using the email addresses under their names (click the address and cut and paste text below):
I oppose SB 48 because it contains no standards, no transparency, and only tri-annual accountability. It gives to the few while ignoring the needs of the many children in public schools. Please vote to oppose SB 48.

Don’t wait. Thanks

 

Carol Burris, Executive DirectorDonations to NPE Action (a 501(c)(4)) are not tax deductible, but they are needed to lobby and educate the public about the issues and candidates we support.
Please make a donation today.Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Network for Public Education Action, please click here.
Categories Accountability, Florida, Funding, Hoax, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state

Oklahoma: Second-Grade Girl Expelled Because She Admits She Likes Another Girl

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2021 //
33

Rejoice Christian School in Owasso, Oklahoma, was expelled because she told another girl that she had a crush on her.

If every little girl who had the same feelings for a best friend admitted the same, there would be very few little girls left in school. Children at that age are not thinking about sex, although their elders are.

Should public funds support religious schools? Of course not.

Categories Bigotry, Education Reform, Oklahoma, Religion, Stupid

North Carolina Hopes to Demolish Its Public Schools, Too

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2021 //
10

A few days ago, I published a list of states that are considering new legislation to defund their public schools while expanding the corporate charter sector and increasing the funding of vouchers for failing religious schools.

One state was inexplicably left off that list of infamy: North Carolina.

A bill has been filed in that state peppered with words like “equity” and “opportunity,” a typical ruse to divert attention from the main purpose of the bill: privatization of public funds and defunding of public schools.

Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly want more public money to flow to unregulated and unaccountable private and religious schools, which are free to use any curriculum they want, free to hire unqualified teachers, free to kick out or exclude students they don’t want, for any reason. Such schools are not subject to federal regulations securing the civil rights of their students. They are not subject to the state’s accountability system that applies to public schools. They are free to discriminate against students they don’t want.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Funding, Hoax, North Carolina, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Republicans in Florida Seek to Gut Public Schools Entirely

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2021 //
15

Peter Greene here disentangles the latest move to expand vouchers in Florida and the latest attempt to demolish public schools in a state where 80 percent of students attend public schools. Florida’s voucher schools currently are not required to take state tests or to have any standards for teachers or principals or to adhere to the state curriculum. Most of the voucher schools are religious, ignoring the State Constitution which explicitly prohibits public funding of religious schools and ignoring a 2012 state referendum that rejected vouchers. There are schools where the “educators” do not have college degrees, where racism is okay, where gay students and staff are barred, and where students are using textbooks that teach hate. No matter. The Orlando Sentinel published a three-part investigation called “Schools Without Rules.” Florida wants more of the same.

Greene writes:

Florida’s legislature is at it again, joining in a national trend of using the pandemic crisis to fuel school voucher initiatives. 

Manny Diaz, Jr., (R-Hialeah) has spent his career chip chip chipping away at public education in Florida, and yesterday he returned with another bold idea. 

Florida has allowed choice programs to grow like an unweeded garden, but Diaz’s new bill proposes to collapse five “scholarship” (aka “voucher”) programs into just two Education Savings Account (ESA) programs. So Family Empowerment, Hope, Florida Tax Credit Scholarship–all under one roof now, along with the newly condensed Gardner-McKay programs for students with special needs...

So here comes SB 48, designed to expand the eligibility for programs, combine them, and put them under ESAs and folding in Tax Credit Scholarships. There are a few other wrinkles as well.

It also reduces oversight by the state–previously the outfits overseeing the tax credit scholarships had to be audited annually, to make sure they were spending public tax dollars appropriately; now they would be audited only every three years. That’s important, because an ESA is like a debit card given to parents, and history tells us that without some oversight, the tax dollars carried by that debit card can end up spent on….well, in Arizona they discovered about $700,000 in ESA money on beauty supplies, clothing, and even attempts to just grab the cash.

Publicity touts “adding flexible spending options” as well. The vouchers can be used for the following: instructional materials (including digital devices); curriculum; tuition for full or part-time for everything from postsecondary courses to a “home education program” to private school to virtual school; fees for tests (SAT, AP, industry certification); Florida’s prepaid college savings programs; contracted services, including classes from public school; part-time tutoring services (from someone who has certification or has just “:demonstrated mastery of subject area knowledge”); summer school or after-school ed fees; transportation (under $750). So, a whole lot of things other than just a voucher to go to school somewhere...

This, for many choice fans, is getting close to the end game. The dream– rich people pay fewer taxes and only support the schools they want to support. Wealthy people still have access to all the choices they want, while everyone else gets to pick through a free market morass in search of do-it-yourself education for their children. Education becomes mostly privatized edu-business, and the public schools remains in some markets to do their underfunded best with the “customers” that nobody wants. But hey. Lower taxes. Less paying for the education of Those People. Put Jesus back in charge of more education, even if that means the education is not very good, aggressively exclusionary, or even abusive.

We’ll see what happens. Pay attention. Because Florida remains on the cutting edge of disrupting public education into oblivion, the model which other states that hope to be the very worst still aspire to follow.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Rebecca Klein: Christian Textbooks Echo Trump Rhetoric

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2021 //
15

Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, reviewed the textbooks written for and used in Christian schools and found that they repeated the lies of Trump and the far-right. Because of vouchers, many of these Christian schools receive public funds.

Klein wrote:

Christian textbooks used in thousands of schools around the country teach that President Barack Obama helped spur destructive Black Lives Matter protests, that the Democrats’ choice of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton reflected their focus on identity politics, and that President Donald Trump is the “fighter” Republicans want, a HuffPost analysis has found.

The analysis, which focused on three popular textbooks from two major publishers of Christian educational materials ― Abeka and BJU Press ― looked at how the books teach the Trump era of politics. We found that all three are characterized by a skewed version of history and a sense that the country is experiencing an urgent moral decline that can only be fixed by conservative Christian policies. Language used in the books overlaps with the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, often with overtones of nativism, militarism and racism as well. 

Scholars say textbooks like these, with their alternate versions of history and emphasis on Christian national identity, represent one small part of the conditions that lead to events like last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, an episode that was permeated with the symbols of Christian nationalism. Before storming the Capitol, some groups prayed in the name of Jesus and asked for divine protection. They flew Christian and “Jesus 2020” flags and pointed to Trump’s presidency as the will of God. The linkage between Christian beliefs and the violent attack on Congress has since pushed evangelical leaders to confront their own relationship with Trump and their support for the rioters...

Representatives from BJU Press and Abeka did not respond to inquiries about how many schools use their products. However, a 2017 HuffPost investigation found that about one-third of Christian schools participating in private school choice programs used a curriculum created by these two publishers or a similar company called Accelerated Christian Education, amounting to around 2,400 schools. The number of schools using these company’s products that do not participate in a voucher program likely amounts to thousands more. (Voucher programs allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools.) …

HuffPost’s previous investigation of these textbooks found that they also dismiss evolution as junk science, characterize Nelson Mandela as a “marxist agitator” who helped drive South Africa to “radical affirmative action,” and suggest that Satan hatched the idea of modern psychology. Many of the schools that use these books also ban LGBTQ students and families, and the books repeatedly condemn homosexuality. At one point in an Abeka textbook, slavery is described in purely economic terms, saying that “slaves seemed to be better investments than indentured servants.”

“I absolutely thought of these textbooks when watching what played out last week,” Wellman said. “It’s the anti-science culture, anti-elite, the identification of Christianity with military culture.”


Categories Bias, Lies, Religion, Vouchers
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