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Texas Vouchers Subsidize Students Already Attending Private Schools

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2026 //
5

When Governor Greg Abbott sold his voucher program, he talked about helping the poorest kids escape public schools and choose better private schools; he talked about enabling those with disabilities go to private schools. He talked about spreading opportunity through school choice.

Some moderate Republicans and rural Republicans supported their community public schools, and they repeatedly voted down Abbott’s vouchers. So Abbott used the millions of dollars contributed by Pennsylvania billionaire to replace them with conservatives who backed vouchers.

But now the data are in on which students are getting vouchers. Three-quarters of them are private school students. This is similar to what happened in other states. Vouchers are not about helping public school students; the reality is that they subsidize kids who never attended public schools.

Maryam Ahmed of The Dallas Morning News reported:

As Texas’ $1 billion school choice program approaches rollout this fall, preliminary data shows most of the program’s applicants were already enrolled in private schools, fewer applications came from families in poorer districts, and less that 30 students with special needs got the top award amount of $30,000.

The Dallas Morning News analyzed data from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which runs the Texas Education Freedom Account program.

The first year of TEFA has exposed key challenges voucher programs have faced nationwide: insufficient funding for some families to make the move to expensive private schools, difficulties for special education students finding private schools that can support their needs, and minimal benefits for lower-income and rural families.

Since similar data are reported in every state that has no income limits, it’s reasonable to conclude that the transfer of public money to kids in religious and private schools is a feature of school choice, not a bug.

Out of 5.4 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, 275,000 applied for vouchers. The legislation, passed last year, offers students $10,474 while disabled students can receive up to $30,000. Homeschooled students can get $2,000. Median private school tuition is about $9,400, not including books and transportation. Elite private schools charge much more.

Now we learn that the purpose of the voucher program was to “ease the burden” on families already paying for private school, not to help kids in public school:

TEFA spokesperson Travis Pillow said the program’s goal is not to “lure away” public school students but make private school affordable across the board. Many families with children in private school make major sacrifices to keep them there, Pillow said, and TEFA eases that burden….

Out of 5.45 million public school students in Texas, only about 68,000 even applied for TEFA — barely one percent. Half of those students were awarded funds, as of June 16 records provided to The Dallas Morning News, but more could drop out of the program if they can’t find a school to fit their needs.

But even a small drop in public school enrollment leads to budget cuts.

Florida’s voucher program has ballooned to more than $4 billion dollars since it was implemented in 2023, taking up nearly a quarter of the state’s public school fund.  In Arizona, which has the country’s oldest universal school choice program, vouchers contributed to a $1.4 billion budget shortfall in 2024…

In Texas, public school districts receive a $6,215 allotment per student from the state, meaning fewer public school students directly translates to less funding…

About one in four of the voucher awards went to students with disabilities but only 20 in the entire state received the top award of $25,000-$30,000. However, private schools are not bound by federal law and may deny admission to students with disabilities. It is anticipated that many who received vouchers may return to their public school, where they are guaranteed admission and services.

If the state’s public education budget becomes strained, said Daniel DeMatthews, an educational policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin, lower-income and rural districts would likely be hit hardest.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Lies, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Steve Nelson: Don’t Trust the Federal Voucher Program

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2026 //
4

Steve Nelson was headmaster of a prestigious private school in Manhattan, yet is a strong believer in public schools. Now retired, he holds to the principle that public money belongs to public schools, and only to public schools. If parents make a private choice for their own child, they are obliged to pay for it.

He writes here about the newly passed federal voucher program:

The latest, most manipulative and dangerous assault on American education is largely flying under the radar. Endorsed by such luminaries as former Ed Secretary Arne Duncan and Colorado governor Jared Polis, the soon-to-be rolled out federal school choice plan has gotten little public scrutiny, perhaps because the daily flash bangs tossed by the Trump administration keep folks distracted.


I encourage you to read this NYT article and then consider my post a rebuttal.


The program’s architects have brewed a kettle of artificial sweeteners to persuade policy makers that this is really a win-win-win proposition.
For example, they argue that vouchers for private schools will not reduce funding for public schools because the vouchers will be paid for by donations to non-profits. The donations, up to $1,700 per person, will be 100% deductible. Sound harmless? Well, not really. Every buck funneled into this program is a buck diverted from other programs as a result of reduced tax revenue; which means the rest off us will pay for the vouchers once this sleight of hand completes its circular play.


The other “oh-my-gosh-ain’t-this-swell?” gimmick is that public schools can tap the funds for a few after school services, thereby realizing additional revenue. What is unmentioned is that the voucher scheme will result in students leaving the public system and per capita funding will reduce overall revenue for many schools. As any reasonably informed observer knows, a school cannot reduce expenses in proportion to enrollment losses.


As is already the case in many states, this scam allows affluent folks to access voucher funds to take to the private school of their choice. Stunning, I know, that wealthy families win agaIn.


Beneath the heaps of cleverly contrived bullshit, the purpose of this scheme is unambiguous. Conservatives constantly rage against those damn “government schools,” which they accuse of indoctrinating kids into socialism, atheism, and white self-loathing caused by all those DEI programs. In truth, of course, most “government schools” are having enough trouble managing huge classes, hungry kids, and the enervating expectations of the accountability crowd.


This “choice” program will also allow many parents to choose a school that doesn’t expose their darlings to too many brown and Black children. America’s schools have become steadily re-segregated in recent years. White flight will get a fresh pair of wings with this program.

So, beneath the thin, shiny veneer, this massive con job is designed to kill public education and redistribute money and children to unaccountable charter schools, storefront religious schools, online money-suckers and other varietals that might appeal to the average News Nation viewer. Trump famously said he likes the uneducated, and this Education Freedom program will swell their ranks.

The current conservative movement, led by people who are generally operating behind the scenes, does not care a great deal for democracy. They support an autocrat wannabe and have enabled a steady attack on democratic institutions.


Public education is the institution best equipped to sustain a thriving democracy. It is among the only systematic ways of forging a common culture out of a wonderfully diverse population. Most Americans, including the less rabid MAGA troops, say they bemoan the deep divides in our nation. Then they cheer the possibility of sending their children to a school that deepens the divide by indoctrinating them into a perverse understanding of our history and values.


Amidst the more spectacular offensives of the current era, this issue may seem less urgent, but it is more urgent, not less. Most of the Trump era unraveling of decency and democracy can be re-raveled within a few election cycles. Our public education system is nearing the point of no return. Once gone, it’s too late. I cannot envision any politician or policy maker demanding or persuading parents to leave the school they chose for a “government school.” What’s left of the public system will warehouse children in poor neighborhoods, whose parents have insufficient power, energy or resources to do anything about.


An objective look at American schools today shows that we are not far from that point now.

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Privatization Causes Catastrophic Damage to Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2026 //
2

Jan Resseger, stalwart champion of public schools, is alarmed by the damage that privatization inflicts on public schools, attended by the vast majority of children. She describes the erosion of public schools as “a national wave of educational injustice that has reached crisis proportions.”

Resseger writes:

On Monday, the Network for Public Education (NPE) released an urgently important report, Public Schooling in America: Measuring Each State’s Commitment to Democratically Governed Schools. The report ranks the states on their protection of the institution of public schools that serve the mass of our children and adolescents and the degree to which school privatization is undermining that promise.

In what I found to be the report’s most shocking statistic, 19 states now provide Education Savings Account (ESA) vouchers and ten of those states give ESA vouchers to “virtually every family regardless of income or need.” An ESA is a virtual debit card that parents whose children do not attend public schools can use to pay for any kind of privatized education or for materials and services the parents claim to be using to homeschool their children. What this really means is that many of these states are basically just giving money away to parents to use as they please without appreciable regulations or oversight.

The Network for Public Education (NPE) confirms “a troubling and consistent pattern.  The states most aggressively redirecting public funds toward private alternatives—charter schools, voucher programs, and education savings accounts—are the same states most neglectful of their public schools, their teachers, and their students.  Our analysis found a strong, statistically negative relationship between the expansion of privatization and public school support…. Privatization and disinvestment, it turns out, go hand in hand.”

What is the scale of the problem? “Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia now fund one or more private school voucher programs, and nineteen states operate Education Savings Account (ESA) programs… The charter school sector presents parallel concerns. Forty-seven states have charter school laws, and in the majority of them, private unelected boards govern schools with no term limits and no formal accountability to the communities they serve… The consequences fall hardest on the children least able to seek alternatives: those in poverty, those with disabilities, those in rural communities, and those whose families lack the time or resources to navigate a fragmented marketplace of educational options. Public schools remain the only institutions in American life constitutionally obligated to welcome every child, regardless of circumstance. They are governed by elected boards, funded by public taxes and accountable to the communities they serve…”

The report examines four related threats.

Privatization     Vouchers are one form of school privatization.  The Network for Public Education reminds readers that vouchers trace back to the combination of racism and libertarian ideology. The first voucher schools supported segregation academies in the years immediately following Brown v. Board of Education, and NPE’s report explains that even today, “Study after study has found that school choice programs generally increase segregation,” with vouchers “enabling outright discrimination with public money.” Thirty-four states have at least one voucher program; in total states operate 73 voucher programs, “including some that allow families to double-dip, applying for funding from multiple programs.” Besides their traditional school voucher programs, some states have education savings accounts (“the most damaging and irresponsible of all voucher programs”). Some states have tuition tax credit ‘scholarship’ programs with tax credits for parents and others who contribute to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) which are tapped by parents to pay for private schools and other educational expenses.  “(S)ome states also give individual tax credits (TTCs) for educational expenses at private schools or homeschools.” Thirty-one states have now also opted in to the federal tuition tax credit program created in the “One Big Beautiful” Bill.

What about the effects of the vast growth of private school vouchers? Because few states set income limits on the families who can qualify for the vouchers, they primarily benefit children from wealthy families. The vouchers “result in the defunding of public schools,” fail to protect the rights of disabled students, often fail to admit LGBTQ students, fail to provide any proof that students are thriving academically, fail require teachers to be certified, and fail to require background checks for teachers. Many states are spending on each voucher a large percentage of what they spend per-pupil on each public school student, and many vouchers are going to children who were always enrolled in the private school where the voucher will reimburse the families who have been paying tuition.

Publicly funded, privately operated charter schools are the second primary form of school privatization. Kentucky’s supreme court recently found that state’s charter school funding unconstitutional, and Nebraska, South Dakota, and Vermont have never had charters. Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia all have passed laws that enable the operation of charter schools.  Additionally, “a growing sector operates entirely online—and is largely run by for-profit corporations”—often displaying flagrant “financial opportunism” and “fraud.” And, “Like voucher schools, charter schools are subject to fewer regulations and less oversight than neighborhood public schools. As with voucher schools, this has resulted in significant concerns regarding accountability, accessibility, fiscal responsibility, and academic quality… In 39 states, for-profit companies are permitted to manage nonprofit charter schools. One common arrangement—known as a ‘sweeps’ contract—allows a for-profit management company to handle a school’s day-to-day operations while receiving the bulk of its public funding in return… This practice is especially prevalent in six states—Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and West Virginia….”

Protections for Homeschooled Children     “Homeschooling… is now the fastest-growing education sector,” fed by Education Savings Account vouchers.  However, “even as homeschooling growth has accelerated, laws to protect the homeschooled child have not. Through the relentless pressure exerted by the Homeschool Legal Defense Associations… even the most modest legislation designed to protect homeschooled children from educational or physical neglect and abuse has been opposed with breathtaking ferocity.”  The report details how states fail to require that parents let states know they are homeschooling children; fail to protect students from sexual abuse or violence; and fail to demand some kind of evidence that students are progressing academically.

Conditions that Promote Teaching and Learning     Along with the massive growth of  privatization, “Right-wing political forces have mounted a coordinated campaign against public education—eroding trust in neighborhood schools, creating hostile working conditions for teachers, and withdrawing support from the students who depend on them….  (N)umerous states have enacted laws that make the lives of transgender students significantly more difficult, while not fully protecting… LGBTQ students from bullying and discrimination.  Nearly half of all states still permit corporal punishment in schools.”  Class size has been increased, collective bargaining to ensure adequate teachers’ salaries has been undermined, and other conditions to attract highly qualified teachers have been undermined.

School Funding     NPE declares: “Research has firmly established a positive correlation between per-pupil (public school) spending and student learning.”  “This report tells a clear and troubling story.  Across the country, statehouses are making deliberate choices—choices that defund neighborhood schools, strip teachers of dignity and professional standing, leave vulnerable children without protection, and redirect billions of public dollars to private alternatives that are too often beyond public control… They are the predictable results of an ideological campaign decades in the making, whose architects have been candid about their ultimate goal: the elimination of public education as Americans have known it… States that most aggressively expand vouchers and charter schools are the same states that underfund their public schools, underpay their teachers, and provide the weakest protections for students… States with the most expansive ESA programs have produced the most egregious fraud… States that strip teachers of collective bargaining rights are the same states with the lowest teacher attractiveness ratings…the overlap is not coincidental.  Privatization and disinvestment are two sides of the same coin.”

The report grades each of the states overall for their protection of the public schools.”Seventeen states earned an F for their lack of support of public schools, students and educators while embracing privatization.” A second privatization grade identifies the states where schooling has been most damaged by privatization.  In both categories, Florida earns the lowest “F” grade, while Arizona’s grade is almost as bad.

NPE’s new report traces the impact of today’s national wave of school privation and the overall impact on our nation’s largest institution—a fifty-state system of public education. It cannot trace the convoluted history of any one state’s legislative and sometimes legal battle around school finance. It cannot examine the specific politics in any particular state that have contributed to the spread of today’s wave of privatization—of the role of gerrymandering, of particular regional funders of  state legislators’ political campaigns or the lobbyists who surround the statehouse. And it cannot examine the role of disparities caused by racial and economic injustice any particular state’s school funding.

The fact that such a report cannot possibly explore state-by-state detail, however, does not reduce the report’s significance. The Network for Public Education accomplishes an urgently important goal: identifying a national wave of educational injustice that has reached crisis proportions.  NPE concludes:

“Public schools are not merely institutions that deliver academic instruction. They are the places where children of every background, ability, faith, language, and circumstance are welcomed—not as paying customers, but as members of a community with an equal right to learn. They are governed by publicly elected boards, funded by public taxes, and accountable to the public in ways that no charter management company, no ESA vendor, and no private religious school is required to be… When public schools are weakened—through funding cuts, through the diversion of students and dollars, through the erosion of the teaching profession—the consequences fall hardest on the children least able to seek alternatives…  For those left behind in underfunded, understaffed public schools… (there) is no choice at all.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Equity, Funding, Network for Public Education, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

“The Grades Are In!” Support Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2026 //
3

The organization called “In the Public Interest” is a valuable source of information on the creeping (or galloping) privatization of public goods and services. Headed by Donald Cohen, ITPI keeps tabs on takeovers by billionaires and equity services of public services that we all need and squeezing a profit out of them.

ITPI reported on the report created by the Network for Public Education to evaluate state support for public schools.

We’ve long argued that increased funding for alternatives to public education usually comes at the expense of public education. While some politicians have insisted that it’s a “yes, and,” not an “either/or” proposition, we’ve known that, since the 1960s, the long game has been to slowly defund public schools while increasing high-stakes consequences through reliance on standardized testing and sanctions against schools and educators to justify further defunding. As schools are increasingly labeled as “failing,”  privatization in the guise of “school choice” becomes the only alternative. 

Now a new, comprehensive study from our friends at the Network for Public Education (NPE), a nonprofit public education advocacy organization, brings the receipts. 

Public Schooling in America: 2026 Report Card studied all 50 states, plus DC, reviewing nearly forty factors across four categories: Privatization, Protections for Homeschooled Students, School Funding, and Conditions for Teaching and Learning.

The study makes a clear case that the more states invest in private education alternatives, the less they invest in public education.

“The data confirm what we have long suspected: privatization and disinvestment go hand in hand,” says Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author. “These are not states struggling with limited resources. They have made deliberate choices to abandon their public schools while directing billions in public dollars to private alternatives.”

The full report, a must-read for anyone who cares about education in the United States, is available here, or you can start with the executive summary here.

Donald Cohen
Executive Director

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Funding, Network for Public Education, Privatization, School Choice, Supporting public schools

NPE Rates States for Support of Their Public Schools: 17 States Get an F! How Did Your State Rank?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2026 //
7

The Network for Public Education, which I co-founded with science teacher Anthony Cody in 2012-2013, supports the improvement of public schools and opposes privatization of public funding for schooling. Nearly 90% of children in the U.S. are enrolled in public schools. Their schools should be staffed by qualified teachers and fully funded. NPE works with state organizations that share our commitment to the principle: Public funds for public schools.

The following report was produced by NPE Executive Director Carol Burris and staff. Burris retired as a career teacher and award-winning high school principal.

NEW REPORT GIVES 17 STATES FAILING GRADES FOR ABANDONING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Network for Public Education’s Most Comprehensive Report Card Finds Privatization and Disinvestment Go Hand in Hand

New York, New York

The Network for Public Education (NPE) released Public Schooling in America: Measuring Each State’s Commitment to Public Schools (2026), an expansive state-by-state assessment of support for public education. The report evaluates all 50 states and the District of Columbia across four categories: Privatization, Protections for Homeschooled Students, School Funding, and Conditions for Teaching and Learning. It documents a troubling national pattern: the statehouses most aggressively redirecting public money toward private alternatives are the most neglectful of their public schools, teachers, and students. NPE’s analysis found a strong, statistically significant negative relationship between privatization and policies that support public schools (p < 0.0001).

Only two states — Nebraska and Vermont — earned an A. Seventeen states received an F, failing to meet even 40% of the points allocated across NPE’s 39 standards. Florida ranked last, scoring 14 out of 102 possible points, with Arizona close behind. “The data confirm what we have long suspected: privatization and disinvestment go hand in hand,” said Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author. “These are not states struggling with limited resources. They have made deliberate choices to abandon their public schools while directing billions in public dollars to private alternatives.”

The report draws on original research in addition to research from other organizations — including the Education Law Center, the Learning Policy Institute, and EdChoice — to deliver a comprehensive assessment of public education and privatization across 39 distinct factors. These include teacher-to-student ratios, teacher satisfaction, school funding levels, and the degree to which laws governing vouchers, charter schools, and homeschools protect both taxpayers and students.

Public Schooling in America also provides a roadmap for reform, showing policymakers and advocates exactly where laws and policies must change to better serve students and rein in the serious, well-documented problems created by privatized alternatives.

“Public schools are the only institutions in American life obligated to welcome every child, regardless of circumstance,” NPE President Diane Ravitch added. “They build community and democracy. They are as American as apple pie.”

The full report is available here. 

About the Network for Public Education

The Network for Public Education is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to protecting, preserving, and strengthening public schools for every child in America.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Supporting public schools

Scott Maxwell: Voucher Schools in Florida Should Be Accountable

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2026 //
9

Scott Maxwell is a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. In this column, he argues that voucher schools in Florida should not be allowed to dodge accountability. And, he explains, they are completely unaccountable. The state Constitution requires that the state provide high-quality education, which voucher schools do not. He neglects to notice that the state Constitution states that no public money should go to religious schools. Not a penny, but most vouchers go to religious schools.

What is more, the voters of Florida rejected an effort to strip that language from the state Vonstitution in 2012.

Scott Maxwell wrote:

Teachers and parents have filed a landmark lawsuit challenging the legality of Florida’s billion-dollar school voucher system

The argument at the heart of their suit is that Florida’s constitution requires tax dollars be spent on “high-quality” education. Yet Florida’s voucher system is a black-hole of accountability, sometimes paying for kids to go to “schools” that are total disasters — where teachers lack degrees, inflate grades and use curriculum that is rubbish.

I’m not convinced the teachers and parents will win this lawsuit. In fact, I doubt they will. Similar challenges have been unsuccessful. And Gov. Ron DeSantis has done a pretty thorough job of stacking the courts with political allies, especially at the appellate level.

But I know for a fact the teachers and parents have a point. In fact, It’s inarguable. This newspaper has spent nearly a decade documenting voucher schools that failed children.

Often, the parents themselves were shocked and outraged to learn that schools were failing their kids and that there was little to no accountability.

The Sentinel’s multi-year “Schools Without Rules” investigation into voucher (or “scholarship”) schools found some schools employed teachers that lacked any teaching credentials or college degrees.

Some were such financial disasters, they shut down in the middle of the year, stranding families. (One in Orlando was evicted from a commercial complex where a neighboring tenant was “Drug Tests R Us.”)

Some refused to serve children with disabilities, whether it was autism or reliance on a wheelchair. Even more refused to teach children who are gay or had gay parents. These were schools eager for the public money but unwilling to serve all the public. None of this was discreet. Some had written policies saying that they wouldn’t serve children with Down’s syndrome or who uttered the sentence: “I am gay.”

Some schools taught junk science and bogus history, suggesting that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together and downplaying slavery and segregation.

And at some schools, parents were so appalled at what they found that they reported to the state things like “Cleaning lady substituting for teacher” and “I don’t see any evidence of academics.”

If you think any of that represents “high quality” education, you might also believe the mini tacos at 7-Eleven are five-star dining.

Many private schools that accept vouchers do stellar jobs and fill niche needs that public schools have historically struggled to meet. But too many taxpayer-funded schools are total trainwrecks. And the reason is that Florida has very few standards for voucher schools.

That is, in fact, the crux of the lawsuit, which lists about 20 different things that public schools are required to do by state law, but which all voucher schools are not.

Like providing certain levels of school safety staffing and having threat-management plans in place. Offering vetted curriculum and providing transportation. Hiring qualified teachers. And publicly posting test scores from state assessments that show whether students are actually learning anything. Public schools must do all of that.

The argument from choice-without-standards supporters is that parents should be able to choose any education they want for their kids without exception.

There are two problems with that argument.
One is that no other government-funded voucher program works that way — and for good reason. We don’t let recipients of food vouchers use them on Twinkies and Mountain Dew. This is public money meant to provide nutritional sustenance. So there are guidelines. The same way there is for Medicaid and Medicare. You don’t get to spent public money that’s meant to fulfill a public purpose on anything you like just because you invoke cries of “freedom” or “choice.”

The other problem is that using this money to provide “high quality” education isn’t optional. It’s part of the Florida Constitution — a point the lawsuit addresses when it says: “… choice does not change the Constitution. When public funds are used to educate a child, that child is entitled to the same level of educational opportunities, the same quality standards, and the same basic protections.”

You can certainly make the argument that some public schools have failed some students. Do you know how we know that? Because these schools were required by law to disclose their test scores, standards, hiring practices and curriculum.
In fact, newspapers in Florida were often the ones that exposed problems at public schools.

And most anytime we did, public officials would spring to action and agree reform was needed.
Yet most every time we’ve exposed problems in taxpayer-funded voucher schools, state lawmakers leaders looked the other way.
The most pathetic part of all this is that it’s easily fixable.

Florida could still offer “choice,” but also demand that any schools that receive public money meet basic standards. Hire qualified teachers. Post the results of nationally-normed standardized test scores and graduation rates. And ban discrimination.

“To me, this is just common sense,” said Stephanie Vanos, an Orange County School Board member who also happens to be an Orlando mom and joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff in that capacity. “I’m not saying they need the thousands of pages of rules that apply to us, but we need a common-sense set of rules that should apply to everybody.”

She is, of course, right. Schools that do good jobs shouldn’t be afraid of accountability and transparency. Most aren’t.

In fact, ask yourself these basic questions:
Why shouldn’t parents and students be guaranteed qualified teachers?

Why shouldn’t taxpayers be able to see what kind of test scores are being produced at all the schools they’re funding?

And why shouldn’t taxpayers be assured that the money they’re spending is actually providing “quality” education, as the Constitution requires?
Better yet, ask those who defend the status quo.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Curriculum, DeSantis, Education Industry, Elections, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Racism, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Colorado: Will Billionaires Buy the Governor’s Race?

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2026 //
2

Mike DeGuire, retired Denver educator, warned Coloradans that the usual billionaires are lining up behind Mike Bennett for the Democratic nomination for Governor. Bennett is currently a Senator but previously was Superintendent of Schools in Denver, where he promoted the NCLB agenda of test-and-punish, charters schools, and corporate reform. He never was an educator so he swallowed corporate reform hook, line, and sinker.

DeGuire wrote:

Colorado’s Democratic primary for governor between Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is heating up. TV ads are everywhere, and social media is abuzz with supporters extolling their favorite candidate’s strengths or the opponent’s weaknesses. Colorado has elected only one Republican governor in 50 years, so many pundits believe whoever wins the Democratic primary will likely win the November election. 

Money is becoming a big factor in this campaign. Bennet has a distinct advantage thus far, primarily due to one group of funders: billionaires. More than half of Bennet’s super PAC donations are from billionaires, individuals and groups affiliated with organizations run by billionaires, and from a “dark money” group. Research shows that billionaires “are swaying elections all across America.”

As of the May 18 filing deadline, Bennet had over $11.5 million in total donations compared to Weiser’s $7 million. Over $7 million of Bennet’s money is from his super PAC, Rocky Mountain Way, which includes over $1 million from an independent expenditure dark money organization called Brighter Future for Colorado. Weiser has $1.1 million from his super PAC, Fighting for Colorado, and just over $6 million from individual donations.

Michael Bloomberg is the 18th richest man in the world with a net worth of over $109 billion, and he is the largest individual donor to Bennet’s super PAC, giving $2.5 million thus far. But he is not the only billionaire donor in Bennet’s camp. These billionaires also contributed to Bennet’s super PAC: Steve Mandel and his wife ($175,000,); Tench Coxe and his wife ($100,000); Edythe Broad ($3,000); Marc Heising ($75,000); Eric Mindich ($25,000); Deborah Simon ($25,000); and Robert Fanch ($25,938).

In addition to the billionaires’ money, over a dozen hedge fund managers and venture capitalists contributed between $10,000 and $100,000 each to Bennet’s super PAC. The ultra-wealthy use their donations to gain loyalty from candidates who will enact policies that align with their values and protect their wealth through tax breaks, financial incentives and limited regulations on their corporations. They also use nonprofit foundations to fund organizations they support philosophically. 

Tax filings published by ProPublica for the years 2022-24 show that billionaires Reed Hastings and John Arnold used their nonprofit, City Fund, to give money to Denver Families for Public Schools, which contributed $45,000 to Bennet. The former CEO of City Fund, Neerav Kingsland, donated $2,000. The Bloomberg Family Foundation donated millions to the Charter School Growth Fund. That nonprofit also funds the Colorado League of Charter Schools which, along with 50Can and Stand for Children, gave $470,000 to Bennet’s super PAC. Bloomberg’s dark money group, the American Opportunity Action, gave $45,000. The total investment from Bloomberg and other billionaire-funded nonprofits surpasses $3 million. 

Bloomberg’s support for Bennet’s candidacy reflects a relationship and shared philosophy on education reform that stretches back nearly two decades. Before Bennet entered the U.S. Senate, he served as Denver’ school superintendent from 2005 to 2009, the same time that Bloomberg was serving as New York mayor, where he had control of the city’s schools. Like Bennet, Bloomberg promoted corporate education reforms, oversaw the expansion of charter schools, test-based accountability systems, and market-oriented policies. 

Both Bennet and Bloomberg ran for president in 2020. Bloomberg spent over $37 million of his own money on his unsuccessful campaign. Bennet received money for his candidacy from over 32 billionaires who were hedging their bets on who would eventually win the party’s nomination. Several billionaires supporting Bennet for president included some of the richest people in Colorado: the Ergen family, Pat Stryker and Ken Tuchman.

While Bloomberg often wins when he donates money to candidates, there are exceptions. Last year, Bloomberg joined with 26 other billionaires to support former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York mayoral race, donating $13 million to his campaign. New Yorkers resoundingly said no to the billionaire money and elected Zohran Mamdani. 

The money involved so far in this year’s gubernatorial Democratic primary pales in comparison to the $34 million spent in the last contested Colorado Democratic primary, in 2018.Many observers believe that Gov. Jared Polis basically bought the governor’s seat by contributingmore than $22 million of his own money to defeat three other candidates. Bloomberg was also involved in the 2018 gubernatorial race, donating $2 million to Mike Johnston who came in third to Polis. Five years later, Bloomberg helped Johnston win his 2023 race for Denver mayor when he and another billionaire, Reid Hoffman, donated nearly $2 million to Johnston’s election. 

Ballots drop June 8 for the June 30 Democratic primary. Will the independent and Democratic voters buck the trend of billionaires swaying elections and elect Weiser, or will this billionaire investment pay off for Bennet? 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Elections, School Choice, Standardized Testing

Peter Greene: A New Definition of “School Choice” in Ohio

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
5

Peter Greene describes the hypocrisy at the center of school choice. Its partisans talk about giving parents the power to choose the school they want. The truth is that the school they want doesn’t have to admit them. Schools choose the students they want. “School choice” literally means schools choose. That may explain why every state that offers universal vouchers is paying the tuition of kids who were already enrolled in private schools.

Greene writes:

Around 200 school districts in Ohio sued the state over its voucher program, a program that funnels a billion dollars (give or take a few million) to private schools (most of them religious). Last summer, the Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page, ruled that EdChoice is mostly unconstituttional. That, of course, triggered an appeal (and some special legislator crankiness) and that appeal seems to have triggered a whole new definition of school choice.

The Institute for Justice, one more education privatization law shop, has been working on the state’s case, and after the Franklin County decision they were pointing at Simmons-Harris v. Goff, an old case that supported a different version of choice. They also mentioned the argument that the parental right to direct a child’s education requires a school choice system. And the state has also been claiming that having two separately operated but equally swell school systems is totally okay. Because “separate but equal” has always been a winning argument in education.

The Ohio 10th District Appellate Court panel of judges heard arguments from the parties (the school district count is now up to 330) and seemed to notice a problem with that whole “parental rights” argument. 

Parents don’t actually get to choose.

Judge David Leland posited hypothetical gay parents of a student living in a rural area with just one private school. The school could reject that student, and then parental choice available would be… what?

As reported by Laura Hancock at Cleveland.com:

“All the parents do is apply to private schools,” Leland said. “The schools are the ones who make the choice. They’re the ones who decide. Unlike a public school … the public schools have to take everybody. That’s the requirement in public education so that everybody in society would have an equal opportunity to get a good education and grow to the extent of their ability.”

That’s when the state floated its new definition of school choice:

Stephen Carney, an appellate lawyer with the Ohio Attorney General’s office, argued that parents nonetheless have a choice in applying. That’s why it’s considered school choice, he said.

Got it? Parents have a choice of where to apply, and that’s school choice. 

First, that’s silly. I have a choice to apply for a mortgage for a multi-million dollar house. That’s not the same as being able to choose that house. 

Second, if that’s what school choice means, then everyone in the state already had school choice before any voucher program was ever started! Every parent in the state always had the ability to apply for their child’s admission to any private school. 

This is not what anyone ever thought school choice promised, though it is an accurate definition of what it delivers. 

It’s one more reminder that the voucher crowd is not actually interested in school choice, because they consistently avoid addressing the actual obstacles to parents who want to choose a private school– tuition cost and discriminatory policies. EdChoice is not about providing actual school choice; it’s just about finding ways to funnel public tax dollars to private mostly-religious schools. 

If the 10th District panel upholds the ruling against, that will simply grease the wheels carrying the case up to the state (mostly-GOP) supreme court. Can’t wait to see what arguments the state uses there, but I’m betting they’ll keep the wheels on those goalposts.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Fake, Ohio, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Colorado Governor Endorses Schools That Discriminate

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2026 //
5

Peter Greene knows the dirty little secret about vouchers: schools choose, families don’t.

Not only do private and religious schools choose their students, they are free to discriminate against students because of their race, religion, sexual preference, disability, or for any other reason. A religious school can exclude students who are not of the same faith. Any private school may exclude gay students or straight students if their parents are gay.

Governor Jared Polis of Colorado is openly gay, but he embraced Trump’s federal vouchers, which subsidizes private schools that discriminate against him and his children.

He is the first Democratic Governor to sign on to the Trump-McMahon voucher plan. They both hate public schools and are doing their best to defund them. Polis is willing to go along.

Now, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is interested in following Polis’s lead. She thinks that she will win the votes of Orthodox Jews by letting the state pay their tuition. This is truly outrageous for two reasons:

  1. The Orthodox Jews vote Republican. Hochul’s gift won’t change their behavior.
  2. The Orthodox schools have been called out repeatedly for refusing to teach the state curriculum, for teaching students primarily in Hebrew, not English, and for delivering a sub-par education.

Governor Hochul should be ashamed of herself.

Governor Polis, on the other hand, has a long history of disdaining public schools. He personally founded two charter schools.

And on a historical note, I had a personal encounter with Polis in 2010, when he was a member of Congress. I was invited by Representative Rosa DeLauro to meet with the Democratic members of the House Education Committee and discuss my book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

When I finished speaking, then-Rep. Polis announced that my book was “the worst book he had ever read” and tossed it across the table at me. He demanded his money back. Another member of Congress pulled out $20 and bought Polis’s copy of my book.

Categories Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

New Hampshire: The Dirty Secret of Vouchers for All

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2026 //
2

Garry Rayno, writer of “The Distant Dome” for inDepthNH, has been covering the legislature for many years. The presence of a large faction of libertarians in the legislature make it difficult to predict what they will do.

In this post, he reviews the likely consequences of passing a voucher bill for which everyone is eligible.

Rayno wrote about what vouchers will accomplish: They will subsidize the well-to-do while diminishing the resources of poor districts.

He wrote:

This week the House will vote on what is perhaps one of the Republicans’ biggest priorities, universal public school open enrollment or Senate Bill 101.

The bill has changed since it left the Senate with a new funding source so one town’s school property tax dollars are no longer sent to another school district following one of its students.

Under the new plan, the district enrolling another district’s student would receive a $9,000 payment from the state’s often tapped Education Trust Fund which was originally established to hold state tax dollars for public education separately to guarantee the state meets its obligation to provide its students an adequate education and to pay for it.

Over the last five years about $130 million dollars has been drawn from the trust fund to largely subsidize the education of children who were not supported by the state dollars because they are in private, or religious schools or homeschooled and their parents were footing the bill.

Despite two superior court rulings the state is not meeting its obligation to pay for an adequate education for its students, lawmakers have not seen fit to increase state aid to public schools which receive about $4,200 per pupil in state aid, along with differentiated aid for poverty, English language learners and special education making the average per pupil aid around $5,000 per student.

If this bill passes, and it probably will, even more money will be drawn from the Education Trust Fund to pay for students moving from one public school to another.

The State Department of Education declined to predict how many students might take advantage of the new open enrollment policy, so just how much of a hit the trust fund will take is not known.

The trust fund is not the only entity that will experience financial loss with the new policy.

The school district losing the student will lose his or her state aid which ranges from $4,200 on the low end to about $8,000 on the high side.

Chances are the districts losing students will be in property poor communities that can ill afford to lose any state aid for their schools without impacting property taxes. Even if they reduce staff if enough students leave, many costs like buildings, electricity, heating and transportation will remain the same.

The district receiving the students will receive the $9,000 per student state aid but its average per pupil cost is likely to be higher than the state average of about $23,000 per student.

That means the receiving district will have to pick up the difference in theory although adding a few students is not likely to change overall costs much.

And the big issue still hanging over the open enrollment bill is who pays for a student’s special education costs who transfers.

The sending district is responsible for those costs, so some — and it may actually be many — school districts will be sending the receiving districts substantial checks to cover special education services which have been growing steadily more expensive with the state and federal governments not living up to their obligations to pay those bills.

That means local property taxpayers in a sending district will continue to pay the majority of the special education costs for their student if he or she transfers out of the district.

Under the bill, parents are responsible for their student’s transportation to the new school although they can make arrangements with the receiving districts to drop their student at a convenient bus stop, but that is not guaranteed.

Looking at the bigger picture, who will be able to participate in the new open enrollment scheme? Probably not a single parent — most likely a mother — who has to work one or two or three jobs to support her children, or poor families with both parents working.

The largest group served by the open enrollment plan will be children of well-to-do parents who have the time and money to drive their children the 10 or 50 or 100 miles to the school of their choice be it for academics, the theater, music, art or athletic program, or even the special education services, to schools in property wealthy school districts.

Once again it is the reverse Robin Hood concept where the property wealthy districts and wealthy families receive the greatest benefit while the property poor districts and their families will see less state aid and dwindling educational resources for their children.

Much like the state’s voucher program, while it was originally touted as a way for low-income parents to access the best educational environment for their children, the greatest benefit is to those families wealthy enough to send their children to private or religious schools or to homeschool their children.

There is a lot of rhetoric about open enrollment providing the best educational experience for children, but that is only true if you can afford to and have the time to transport their children to another school district.

Since the supporters of the voucher program or Education Freedom Accounts, were able to open the program to any eligible parent in New Hampshire last year regardless of income this year, they have proposed several other ways to expand it beyond the legal cap of 10,000 students this year and 12,500 this coming school year by opening it up to military families and allowing EFA students to take classes at their local public schools at no cost.

When the program originally passed, EFA students were not allowed to go back to their former school for a class or two, there was a bold black line.

Now supporters of the program want to blur the line which is fine for the student and his or her parents but not the school districts which lost the state aid associated with those students.

The proposed changes do not help those low-income parents who were used to finally get the program passed by including it in the budget package during the 2021 session, but are now seldom mentioned. The program did not have the votes to pass on its own five years ago.

If the voucher program were truly helping kids who do not do well in the public school environment from low-income families, there would be a lot less opposition.

Those kids are a small minority and do not receive the vast majority of the benefits.

Those who benefit from the new open enrollment program are the same people who benefit from  the voucher program, those wealthy enough to send their children to private and public institutions and homeschool, not those leaving public schools, who are few and far between and a declining percentage.

The greatest beneficiaries of this “school choice” push are not the ones who need government’s help. They can do quite well on their own.

And all of these changes to public education do nothing to reform it or fund it adequately, but do make it more difficult to provide for the educational needs of 90 percent of the state’s children who attend public schools.

And that is the bigger picture too many people fail to see.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Hampshire, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
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