Parents have pressed the New York Legislature for years to mandate smaller class sizes. They are close to achieving their goal.
State lawmakers have struck an agreement on bills that would extend mayoral control of the New York City school system for two years and mandate reductions in public school class size.
State Sen. John Liu of Queens, who chairs his chamber’s New York City education committee, and Assembly Education Chair Michael Benedetto confirmed the deal Tuesday morning.
“As you can imagine, there were many parties to the negotiation,” Liu said in an interview with Gothamist. “At the end of the day – or I should say at the end of the night – the Senate and Assembly concurred with this pair of bills.”
Legislative leaders reached the agreement late Monday, introducing a pair of bills that will be ready for a vote Thursday – the last day of the Legislature’s annual session in Albany. The two-year timeframe is less than what Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul were lobbying for and is designed to give parents more control over school governance
Class Size
If passed, the class size bill could dramatically shrink classes, a move many parents and educators say is the key to improving public school students’ academic and social growth.
The new bill would cap kindergarten through third grade classes at 20 students; fourth through eighth grade classes at 23 students; and high school classes at 25 students.
That’s compared to current caps for kindergarten at 25 students; first through sixth grade at 32 students; middle school classes at 30 (for Title I schools) or 33 students (for non-Title I schools); and high school classes at 34 students.
The reduction would be phased in starting this fall, and would have to be complete by 2027. If the city does not comply, money will be withheld.
“If enacted I think it will be a sea change for New York City students and their ability to learn,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters. “These are really, really big class size changes, but they’re within our grasp.”
Haimson has been advocating for Class size reduction for many years. She has led countless rallies and organized parent actions. This act is a tribute to the power of parents.
The same bill will renew mayoral control for two years. Mayor Eric Adams had hoped for more. After two decades off mayoral control, it has lost its luster.
If you live near Houston, or if you can get there by car or air, join a protest at the NRA. The notorious National Rifle Association is holding its annual meeting at the Convention Center in Houston.
Will they talk about promoting sensible gun control? Of course not.
They will strategize about defeating any gun control. They will strategize about removing existing restrictions in the states. They will strategize to seize the moment to sell more guns. They will strategize about keeping their lock on the Republican Party. They will strategize about raising more money to keep their allies in place.
Maybe they will have a moment of silence for the shoppers in Buffalo and the children and teachers in Uvalde.
Hypocrites. That’s the least offensive and printable word that comes to mind.
Governor Gregg Abbott has endorsed vouchers, which have repeated failed to pass the legislature. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is a voucher fanatic, and Senator Ted Cruz says that school choice is the most important issue in the nation. Pastors for Texas children has worked with a bipartisan coalition of legislators to stop vouchers.
Prepping for a war over private school vouchers in Texas, public school advocates are out with a new poll that shows the majority of likely voters oppose voucher programs that would hurt funding for public schools, and the opposition is deep in rural Texas.
The poll released Tuesday showed that 53 percent of likely Texas voters are against taxpayer-funded private school vouchers when hearing vouchers mean less money for their local public schools. And 71 percent of voters in rural areas said vouchers wouldn’t do anything to help them…
“These poll results show that Texas parents support their public schools, have confidence in their teachers, and are demanding investment in all of our students’ education,” said Julie Cowan, co-chair of Texas Parent PAC, which opposes private school voucher programs. “They do not support a blank check for private school voucher giveaways and charter school CEOs.”
The results come just over a week after Abbott declared in San Antonio that he was ready to make another run at passing a private school voucher plan that he insists won’t take money from public schools — a claim critics have questioned….
The poll released on Tuesday is from Change Research, a San Francisco-based firm. The poll surveyed 1,083 likely Texas voters. It had a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.
“Texas parents want to be absolutely clear to Governor Greg Abbott and every politician in office — don’t mess with our public schools,” said Dinah Miller, another co-chair of Texas Parent PAC.
Pro-voucher groups counter with a poll of Republican voters after the March 1 primary:
In the March 1 primary, Republican voters were presented a non-binding question previewing the school voucher fight. About 88 percent of GOP voters said yes to: “Texas parents and guardians should have the right to select schools, whether public or private, for their children, and the funding should follow the student.”
The wording of the question matters. Voters should be asked how they feel about taking money away from their local public school to pay for private and religious schools.
Here’s a copy of the poll results that should cause Governor Abbott to cut back on his support for vouchers.
Bill Phillis, retired state education official, is campaigning relentlessly to block the expansion of the state’s voucher program. He is a staunch opponent of privatization. He frequently writes about the low academic quality of the state’s charter schools, their fiscal irresponsibility, and their drain on the state’s public schools. If you live in Ohio, you should join his organization to support public schools.
He writes:
EdChoice Voucher Scheme Does Not Align with the Intentions of the Delegates of Ohio’s 1850/1851 and 1873/1874 Constitutional Conventions Regarding the Public Common School System—Part 1*
The EdChoice voucher scheme is contrary to the intention of the Delegates’ vision of the state system of common schools. During the 1873/1874 Constitutional Convention, when a delegate proposed to alter the 1851 constitutional provision for education to fund private schools, Delegate Asher Cook stated:
Here the children of a district, and often those of an entire village, are united in one school, where all cause of strife and contention is removed, and their minds, true to the instincts with which they are endued, rich and poor, mingle together, for a loving group of little friends, who, hand in hand, march bravely up the rugged hill of science, making the ascent easy by each other’s aid, and smoothing its rugged surface by glad peals of laughter, which ring out merrily and clear over hill top, across valley and up the mountain side, until their echoes wake up a joyous community to thank God for the common schools.
The Delegates to the 1850/1851 Constitutional Convention were intentional in selecting the word “common”. Delegate Archibold expressed that the meaning of “common” at that time might change and thus, suggested the word “useful” to replace “common”. An 1828 dictionary defines “common” as “belonging equally to more than one or to many indefinitely.” Delegate Humphreville stated his belief that “common” as they intended it to function in the clause would never be misinterpreted, and thus, responded to Delegate Archibold’s concern by stating “[C]ommon schools in the future will be common schools—that is to say they will not be uncommon schools.” The inclusion of the word common was intentional.
During the 1874 debates, a discussion ensued regarding the meaning of “a system of common schools.” The discussion led to the question of whether public school funds should be provided to private religious schools. Delegate Root informed the discussion, saying, “Common schools to be successful must be the union of schools. The 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines “union” as, [c]oncord; agreement and conjunction of mind, with affections or interest.” Delegate Root asked:
What kind of a common school system would you have but for uniform rules and uniformity of discipline, and by whom are these prescribed? By the legislative power– the highest power in the State. They may relegate the details to certain officers, but it must come from them.
Regarding the same issue, Delegate Miner stated:
I am utterly opposed to a constitutional provision, or to any legislation, having in view the allotment of anypart of the common school fund to any schools except those established, maintained and controlled by, or under the authority of the state. The moment we consent to do so, we deal with a death blow to the system of common schools, upon which, expanded and improved by increasing experience and wisdom, more than upon anything else, it is my profoundest conviction, depends on the perpetuity and efficiency of our American institutions and government.
It is clear that those who established the Constitution language for a system of schools meant that only one system of common schools was to receive public funding for the support thereof.
*Research for this post and much of the content of it is credited to Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Juris Doctor Candidate, Kira Sharp.
Colorado is a blue state where the privatizers have poured in millions of dollars to win school board seats. It’s the rare blue state that has gone all-in for privatization, led by Senator Michael Bennett (who served as Superintendent of Schools in Denver, although he was never an educator). Colorado’s Governor is Jared Polis, who is super-wealthy and founded two charter schools. Betsy DeVos hailed Denver as an exemplar of school choice.
Our friend Jeanne Kaplan served two terms on the elected Denver School Board and is a passionate advocate for public schools and civil rights. She has observed the bipartisan consensus around the DeVos-ALEC agenda with despair.
At 9:23 p.m. MDT on May 11, 2022 Education Reformers in Colorado suffered their first serious setback in the Colorado legislature. While SB 22-197, the so-called Innovation and Alternative Governance Bill passed both houses of the legislature, the resulting legislation was actually a defeat for reformers/privatizers in Colorado, a first such legislative stumble in many years. At the very least the adopted Bill placed a roadblock in the previously unobstructed march to privatization. At the most it was a sign of the weakening of privatization. We can only hope.
While education reformers/privatizers will try to convince you they got a victory in the fight for the soul of public education, that is not the truth. The Bill that passed and will likely be touted as a great success has little substance. In fact, one could say, “There is no THERE THERE,” for the final version neutered the original intent of the legislation and codified:
No third party governance with binding arbitration.
Retention of decision-making powers for duly elected school
An advisory non decision-making role for the State Board of Education should any disputes reach it.
After much ado SB 22-197 ended up being a nothing burger with very few of the original ingredients in place.
The Bill’s original purpose was to install an alternative, third governance model with binding arbitration for disputes between a school district (read DPS) and an Innovation Zone (read City Fund’s RootEd/Gates Family Foundation funded Denver Innovation Zone Schools.) Reformers took this inequitable, highly divisive idea very seriously. Simply put, they wanted special treatment for 12 (!) Innovation Zone schools. The Bill was sponsored by two Denver Democrats Senators, James Coleman and Chris Hansen, both of whom have been highly subsidized by various local and national reform organizations. In real time this bill was crafted specifically for for 12 out of about 1800 public schools in Colorado. After garnering no sponsorship in the House, Jen Bacon, Denver Democrat and former DPS school board member stepped in to co-sponsor the bill. With her leadership and knowledge of the importance of local control for school boards she was able steer the conference committee into producing a more palatable Bill. It must have been very awkward for Senator Chris Hansen to have to admit to his colleagues, the difference between his original bill and the one they were now voting on was the loss of binding arbitration. There were of course other changes but binding arbitration was the big one, for it would have undermined local school boards’ authority by allowing for the appointment of a “third party” to resolve disputes.
The privatizers are constantly on the hunt for new ways to undermine public schools. in this instance, they were thwarted. That’s good news.
Tom Ultican, retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics in California, is now a significant chronicler of the Destroy Public Education movement. He attended the recent national conference of the Network for Public Education in Philadelphia and recapitulates the excitement we shared at being in person after a 2-year hiatus.
After every conference, attendees say, “This was the best one yet.” They enjoy meeting people who are doing the same work to fight privatization of their public schools. By the end of the conference, attendees say they feel energized, hopeful, and happy to know that they are not alone.
I urge you to read Tom’s post. You will get a sense of the embarrassment of riches available to attendees.
I should add that the Nebraska Save Our Schools group shared the Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Activism. Nebraska is one of the few states that has managed to protect its public schools and keep out both charters and vouchers, despite being a Red State.
The Pastors for Texas Children, a co-winner of the award, has repeatedly blocked vouchers in the Texas Legislature and has consistently fought for funding for public schools. PTC has opened chapters in other Red states, where they mobilize clergy to support public schools.
A high point for me was interviewing “Little Stevie” Van Zandt, a legendary rock star and actor (“The Sopranos”), who is dedicated to getting the arts into schools, not as an extra, but across the curriculum. we had a wonderful conversation. He has funded lesson plans based on rock and roll, available free at his website TeachRock.
All of the general sessions were taped. I will post them when they become available.
Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics, lives in California. He has attended every annual conference of the Network for Public Education, except for the first one in Austin, Texas. He met many of the people whose work he admired, and he left fired up to do his part in the struggle to save public schools from the privatizers. Now he has become one of the bloggers that everyone wants to meet! Join us in Philadelphia and share the enthusiasm!
Tom writes:
In 2014, the first Network for Public Education (NPE) Conference was held at Austin, Texas. My first conference was the following year in Chicago. That was the year after the late Karen Lewis and the Chicago teachers union decided enough is enough and stood strong against a host of privatizers and education profiteers. Their powerful teachers’ union victory sent ripples of hope to educators across America. That year, Diane Ravitch, Anthony Cody, Mercedes Schneider, Peter Greene, Jennifer Berkshire, Jose Vilson, Jan Resseger and many other pro-public education activists dominated social media.
NPE Chicago was held in the fabulous historic Drake hotel just up the street from Lake Michigan. When walking into the lobby, I was greeted by Anthony Cody the co-founder of NPE. Steve Singer from Pennsylvania and T.C. Weber from Tennessee arrived just after I did. During the conference, it seemed I met all of the leading education activists in America.
Particularly memorable was lunch the following day. I met Annie Tan in the hallway heading to lunch and she said let’s get a seat near the stage. So, I followed her to an upfront table. Turned out our table mates included Adell Cothorne the Noyes Elementary school principal famous for exposing Michelle Rhee’s DC test cheating. Jenifer Berkshire who had unmasked herself as the Edu-Shyster was also at the table. The Curmugducator, Peter Greene, and his wife were there as was well known education blogger and author Jose Vilson.
It strangely turned out that Greene, his wife, Vilson and I were all trombone players. Of course, everyone knows that trombone players are the coolest members of the band.
A highlight of NPE 2015 was the entertaining hour long presentation by Yong Zhao. He is the internationally decorated professor of education who had just published Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon.
Zhao’s presentation focused on the harm caused by standards and testing. He also made fun of the concept of being college ready and the recently broached kindergarten readiness was a new abomination making the rounds. Zhou made the logical observation that it was schools that needed to ready for the children. He also shared that what he wanted for his children was “out of my basement readiness.” Zhao claimed that on a recent trip to Los Angeles that he met Kim Kardashian in an elevator. He observed that she clearly had “out of my basement readiness.”
NPE 2016 in Raleigh, North Carolina
We met in the spring for the 3rd NPE conference. There was some thought about cancelling in the wake of North Carolina passing anti-transgender bathroom legislation. I am glad we didn’t. Many disrespected North Carolina teachers came to our hotel in the large downtown convention center complex to report and be encouraged. It was a great venue and I met more amazing people who taught me a lot.
The Reverend William Barber’s “poor people campaign” was leading the fight against the kind of cruel legislation emanating from the capital building an easy walk up the street. Barber might be America’s most inspirational speaker. His keynote address fired up the conference.
A major highlight for me was meeting Andrea Gabor. She is a former staff writer and editor for both Businessweek and U.S. News ξ World Report and is currently the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College. Gabor is also one America’s leading experts on W. Edward Deming’s management theories which are credited with the rise of Toyota among other successes. She was there leading a workshop based on the research she did in New Orleans which eventually led to her 2018 book “After the Education Wars; How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform.”
Gabor was an agnostic concerning charter schools when she went to New Orleans. Her experience there gave her insight into how damaging the privatization agenda had become. A New Orleans parent accompanying Gabor described how during her eighth-grade year she was in a class with 55-students. Their room was not air-conditioned and they were restricted to running the fan 10-minutes each hour to save on electrical costs. With the promise of never before seen large scale spending on schools in black communities, residents did not care about the governance structure. It was the first significant spending on education in their neighborhoods in living memory. Now, they have no public schools left and choice is turning out to mean the schools chose which students they want.
NPE 2017 in Oakland, California
In early fall, we gathered at the Marriot hotel in the Oakland flats. The first evening, smoke from the big Napa fire made being outside uncomfortable. That night, KPFA radio hosted an event at a local high school featuring Diane Ravitch in conversation with Journey for Justice (J4J) leader, Jitu Brown. Two years earlier, Brown led the successful 34-day hunger strike to save Dyett High School from being shuttered by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. J4J, Bats, NEA, Black Lives Matter at School, AFT, Parents Across America and many other organizations had representative both attending and presenting.
When leaving the inspiring session with Jitu and Diane, I ran into San Diego Superintendent of Schools, Cindy Marten. A San Diego teacher carpooling with me had what appeared to be a heated exchange with Marten. However, when Marten was appointed Deputy Secretary of Education by Joe Biden, that same teacher lauded her saying “don’t worry my Superintendent will take care of us.”
We were one of two conventions that weekend at the Marriott. The other was sponsored by the nascent California marijuana industry. When returning to my room in the evenings, the sweet smell of pot wafted down the hallways but as far as I know there were no free samples.
In the main hall, a Seattle kindergarten teacher, Susan DeFresne, put up a series of posters that covered all of one very long wall. Her artwork depicted the history of institutional racism in U.S. schools. Six months later Garn Press published this art in the book The History of Institutional Racism in U.S. Public Schools.
In Oakland, I saw a new younger leadership appearing. It is also where I met activists, board members and researchers from Oakland who would become invaluable sources for my articles about the public schools they are fighting desperately to save.
One of our keynote speakers was a recipient of the 2017 MacArthur Genius award, Nicolle Hanna-Jones. Today everyone knows about her because of the 1619 Project.
NPE 2018 in Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis was a trip into Mind Trust madness and home of the second most privatized public education system in America. Diane Ravitch jubilantly opened the conference declaring, “We are the resistance and we are winning!”
Famed Finnish educator, Pasi Sahlberg, was one the first featured speakers. He labeled the business centric education privatization agenda the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) and buttressed Ravitch’s declaration stating,
“You are making progress. The global situation is getting better.”
One of the most visible people at NPE 2018 was founding board member Phyllis Bush. She was dealing with the ravages of cancer and seemed determined not to let it slow her in the least. She had always shown me great consideration so the news of her demise not long after the conference was sad, but in the last years of her life she helped build NPE into a great force for protecting public education.
Last year, I was also saddened to learn that the woman with the walker, Laura Chapman, had died. Her research into the forces attacking Cincinnati’s public schools and the spending nationally to privatize public schools made her a treasure. I really enjoyed our breakfast together in Indianapolis and will miss her.
There were many outstanding small group presentations at NPE 2018. One that I found personally helpful was put on by Darcie Cimarusti, Mercedes Schneider and Andrea Gabor. Darcie did significant research for the NPE report, Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools. In her presentation she demonstrated LittleSis a program she used for her research. It is a free database and orthographic mapping facility. LittleSis is viewed as the antidote to “Big Brother.” Gabor and Schneider shared how they search for non-profit tax forms and explained the differences between an IRS form 990 and form 990 PF, the forms non-profits must file.
Jitu Brown and the Journey for Justice (J4J) came to Indianapolis with a message:
“We are not fooled by the ‘illusion of school choice.’ The policies of the last twenty years, driven more by private interests than by concern for our children’s education, are devastating our neighborhoods and our democratic rights. Only by organizing locally and coming together nationally will we build the power we need to change local, state, and federal policy and win back our public schools.”
J4J introduced their #WeChoose campaign consisting of seven pillars:
A moratorium on school privatization.
The creation of 10,000 community schools.
End zero tolerance policies in public schools now. (Supports restorative justice)
Conduct a national equity assessment.
Stop the attack on black teachers. (In 9 major cities impacted by school privatization there has been a rapid decline in the number of black teachers.)
End state takeovers, appointed school boards and mayoral control.
Eliminate the over-reliance on standardized tests in public schools.
Jitu Brown introduced Sunday morning’s keynote speaker, Jesse Hagopian, as “a freedom fighter who happens to be a teacher.”
In his address, Hagopian listed three demands: (1) End zero tolerance discipline and replace it with restorative justice; (2) Hire more black teachers (he noted there are 26,000 less black teachers since 2010) and (3) Teach ethnic studies including black history.
For me personally, I had the opportunity to cultivate deeper friendships with the many wonderful individuals who I first met at NPE Chicago. That included once again speaking with my personal heroine and friend, Diane Ravitch.
#NPE2022PHILLY
I am excited to see everyone in Philadelphia to ignite a new wave or resistance to billionaire financed efforts aimed at destroying public education.
COVID-19 interrupted our 2020 plan to meet in Philadelphia and again interrupted us twice in 2021. This year we will finally have what promises to be a joyful rejuvenation for the resistance.
I do not think it is too late to be part of it. Go to https://npeaction.org/2022-conference/ and sign up for the conference. It will be the weekend of April 30 – May 1.
Frank Breslin is a retired teacher in New Jersey. This article originally appeared in the NJEA monthly publication.
What if your race had known only tragedy throughout America’s history? What if your people had been enslaved, murdered, persecuted and denied their civil rights?
And what if, instead of owning up to having inflicted such outrages, showing remorse, asking forgiveness, and making amends, those responsible, their descendants and sympathizers denied that those actions had ever occurred or, if they had, they had best be forgotten?
But what if the history of those deeds could never be taught in our schools, but covered in silence because it would only be “divisive” or “racist” against those whites who had committed them? Rather, let bygones be bygones! We should forget the past and simply move on!
This is the white supremacist gospel being preached by some in our country today, especially by protestors at school board meetings. It is the New Jim Crowism that would leave no public record in the classroom of the centuries-old infamy that was inflicted on the Black race.
Moreover, these protestors add insult to injury by denying the victims of this racism the chance to finally have their story told to America’s children as our schools have done for the Holocaust. Children deserve the truth, not fairy tales, even when the truth makes racists uncomfortable.
Anyone with an ounce of humanity could not help but be moved when learning about the brutal treatment of Blacks over the centuries. Students would learn that the justification of slavery was preached even from church pulpits. They would learn about the KKK, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, fire bombings of Black churches, racial segregation of our schools today—decorously disguised as “school choice,” the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the killing of George Floyd, and the freedom march in Birmingham, Alabama when Commissioner “Bull” Conner turned his fire hoses, attack dogs, and police truncheons on peaceful Black marchers demanding their civil rights, as Americans watched aghast at their TV screens as it unfolded.
It would be a national catharsis to know that America was finally coming to terms with the dark chapters in its history and not-so-distant past. For this is what great nations do that are big enough, humble enough, contrite and courageous enough to admit their failings and vow to do better. The beginning of healing is the admission of wrong!
Great nations also reverence the sacrosanct nature of the mind. They do not insult those who have dedicated their lives to the noble profession of teaching the young. They do not force teachers to indoctrinate their students with a sanitized history that omits the entire truth about their nation’s past.
However, teaching the truth is terrifying to these protestors who view truth as dangerous, especially for their children, for it would mean losing control over their minds. Schools that teach what actually happened should be shut down because truth leads to social unrest, and it is better to have peace based on lies.
In a word, we are dealing with an educational philosophy that teaches: Thou shalt not think! Thou shalt not question! Thou shalt only conform!
These protestors abhor teaching about what happened to Black people since this would mean the end of their white supremacist world. Their protests are an assault on the mind itself, the importance of truth, and the nature of education.
An education in its ultimate sense is not an initiation rite into the myths of one’s tribe, but a personal struggle to free oneself from those myths. It is escaping from Groupthink. An education is not about fear of the truth or a blind acceptance of White supremacist doctrine.
Teachers resist such indoctrination of their students. They want to teach, not suppress, the truth of what happened, but these protesters know what happened and want to suppress it lest it be taught not only to their children, but to everyone’s children, as well, a.k.a. censorship.
Teachers refuse to aid and abet this fantasy of a dying white Supremacy whose days are numbered as anyone knows who has checked the demographics, for what we are hearing today is but its death knell!
A classroom is a sacred place, a temple of reason, not a recruiting station for a white supremacist doctrine that would ban the teaching of Black history because it dismisses Black people themselves as unimportant in their kind of supremacist democracy that is not a democracy at all, but an ethnocentric, xenophobic, wouldbe fascist dictatorship, and not the American democracy most of us know, cherish, and want to preserve.
Teachers refuse to violate their consciences by lying to children and shattering their trust in them, and when they are forbidden to tell the whole truth lest it embarrass white racists, they refuse to betray both children and truth
Frank Breslin is an NJREA member and a retired English, Latin, German, and social studies teacher. An educator for over 40 years, he retired from the Delaware Valley Regional High School.
More than 100 school districts in Ohio have joined a lawsuit against the state of Ohio opposing vouchers.
Bill Phillis, former deputy superintendent of the Ohio Department of Education, now leads a pro-public school advocacy group called the Ohio Coalition of Equity and Adequacy. He and a new group called “Vouchers Hurt Ohio” have organized the campaign to have the voucher program declared unconstitutional. This is their website.
Bill Phillis posted this description of the lawsuit when it was filed in court in Ohio in early January:
Vouchers Hurt Ohio and Ohio E&A Coalition
File Lawsuit Against Private School Voucher Program
COLUMBUS – A coalition of public school districts filed a lawsuit today in Franklin County Common Pleas court challenging the constitutionality of the rapidly growing private school voucher program that is siphoning away hundreds of millions of dollars from public school students, teachers, classrooms and communities.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice and current Columbus City Schools board member Eric Brown said the lawsuit asks the judicial system a simple, but critical question:
“Where does the Ohio General Assembly get the power to fund private school vouchers? That power is nowhere to be found in the Ohio Constitution. In fact, the Ohio Constitution forbids it. Lawmakers have the authority and responsibility to fund “a” system of “common schools,” with common standards and resources for all of Ohio’s taxpayers, parents, and students,” Brown said at a press conference today outlining the lawsuit.
“Funding schools that aren’t for everybody is not the business of the Ohio General Assembly, and it is not the responsibility of Ohio taxpayers to pay for these private schools,” Brown said. “The Ohio General Assembly either knows they are violating the Ohio Constitution and doesn’t care or the members who support expanding the private school vouchers need a history lesson themselves.”
William L. Phillis, executive director for the Coalition of Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, was instrumental in leading the successful court challenge to the way Ohio pays for public schools during the ‘90s.
“The DeRolph school funding lawsuit was the case of the 20th century. The EdChoice private school voucher lawsuit we filed today is destined to be the case of the 21st Century,” Phillis said. “In fact, the private school voucher system is siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars from an already underfunded system of public schools. The legislature and the governor are putting our state and our public school children at risk and they admit it.”
Nneka Jackson, a school board member with the Richmond Heights School District in Cuyahoga County, said private school vouchers are making school segregation in Ohio worse, not better.
“If someone tells you this is about helping poor minority children, hook them up to a lie detector test asap and stand back because the sparks are going to fly,” Jackson said.
“About 40 percent of Richmond Heights residents are white. Before the EdChoice private school voucher program, about 26 percent of the students in the Richmond Heights School District were white and 74 percent were students of color. Today, after EdChoice, Richmond Heights is three percent white and 97 percent students of color,” Jackson said.
“Private schools are allowed to discriminate, plain and simple, based on disability, disciplinary records, academic standings, religion and financial status. These are often proxies for race and other protected characteristics. Ohio is essentially engaged in state-sponsored discrimination in admissions and retention. You know who can’t do this? Public schools. Common schools,” Jackson said.
Dan Heintz, a school board member in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, said his district lost more than $27 million to private school vouchers, and this forced voters to pass two levies to raise property taxes.
Heintz said 95 percent of our EdChoice voucher users have never been enrolled in one of our schools.
“So, contrary to the narrative, these families aren’t fleeing a failing school.”The only thing they’re fleeing is a tuition bill. A private school tuition bill that is now being paid by Ohio taxpayers,” Heintz said.
Eric Resnick, a school board member for Canton City Schools in Stark County, said high school students receive a $7,500 voucher while public school students receive far less from the state in basic education funding.
There is no truth to the claim by voucher proponents that “the money follows the student,” Resnick said. “To those who say the money should follow the student, I ask why the discrepancy? Why should voucher students get $7,500 and some public school students get one-fifth or less than that amount? If the money was truly following the student, then each public school student would also receive $7,500.”
School districts in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition can be found here.
The E&A Coalition is working with Vouchers Hurt Ohio, a growing coalition of public school districts that have come together to sue the state over the unconstitutional and harmful private school voucher program. Vouchers Hurt Ohio now has nearly 100 member school districts in 47 of Ohio’s 88 counties that open their doors wide and welcoming to more than 250,000 public school students.
Despite the support of Governor Kevin Stitt, a bill authorizing vouchers failed in the Oklahoma State Senate. Most rural Republicans support public schools. Pastors for Oklahoma z children actively opposed vouchers.
A polarizing Oklahoma bill that would dedicate $128.5 million in taxpayer dollars for private school costs failed in a late-night vote on the Senate floor Wednesday.
In a 24-22 vote, a majority of senators nixed Senate Bill 1647, called the Oklahoma Empowerment Act, effectively defeating the bill for this legislative session.
One of the most high-profile pieces of legislation this year, the bill stalled after two hours of debate and two more hours of waiting as Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, the bill’s author, tried to flip a few Republican holdouts in a last-ditch effort to advance the measure…
Had SB 1647 advanced, it would have faced a difficult road in the House, where Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, said last month he wouldn’t give the bill a hearing.
McCall’s stance hasn’t changed, House Majority Floor Leader Jon Echols told News 9 this week.
“Here’s the bottom line: I’m in favor of parents being able to choose,” said Echols, R-Oklahoma City. “I’m in favor of finding a way to have more parental involvement, but no, this bill is a waste of time this year.
“Speaker McCall’s not going to budge on this. It’s not going to be heard in the House…”
McCall said the bill is a non-starter for rural lawmakers, whose districts have far fewer private-school options. Even with the bill no longer drawing money out of the education funding formula — the multi-billion-dollar pot of state funds supporting public schools — it still struggled to attract enough rural Republicans to pass.
Senate Democrats almost unanimously opposed the measure. State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, a Democratic candidate for governor, celebrated the bill’s failure while claiming it would have “effectively destroyed public schools in Oklahoma.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 