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A New Partner in the Fight to Save Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2025 //
8

The Network for Public Education works with scores of state and local grassroots groups that want to protect and strengthen public schools. Almost 90% of out nation’s children attend public schools. We are fighting libertarian billionaires and religious zealots who want to dumb down and indoctrinate our children. Above all, they want to cut their taxes by undereducating our children.

We just added a new partner!

The Network for Public Education congratulates Our Schools Our Democracy (OSOD), a new partner in our work to protect, defend, and improve public schools. Its comprehensive research exposes the harm charter schools do to Texas Public Schools and serves as a blueprint for reforming charter school laws not only in Texas but in every state.

OSOD will focus on fighting school privatization in Texas, with a special emphasis on the impact of charter schools. According to their website, “Texas public schools, governed by locally elected school board members, are the cornerstone of our democracy and the heart of our neighborhoods. However, since state lawmakers first authorized open-enrollment charter schools 30 years ago, unchecked charter expansion has harmed public school districts in every corner of the state.”

Along with the organizational launch is the launch of a comprehensive report: Facing Facts: Charter Schools in Texas. The report presents startling facts on the financial drain of charter schools on public schools, the lack of charter transparency, and the irresponsible practices presently enabled by Texas law. It provides readers with the arguments they need to actively advocate for charter reform.

Please visit their exciting new website here. 

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Resistance, Texas

Michelle H. Davis: Texas GOP Insults Teachers, Unions, and Fellow Citizens

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2025 //
7

Michelle H. Davis follows the sinister machinations of the Texas Legislature, which always pretends to be helping ordinary folks when they are actually hurting them.

She writes on her blog “Lone Star Left”:

Yesterday, the Texas Legislature took another step toward reshaping public education, not necessarily for the better. SB26, a sweeping education bill championed by Conservative lawmakers, passed with promises of boosting teacher pay and improving student outcomes. But beneath the surface, the bill reads more like a Trojan horse for privatization, union busting, and a long-term erosion of public education as we know it.

SB26 shifts teacher compensation from across-the-board salary increases and implements a performance-based pay system. On paper, rewarding high-performing teachers sounds excellent. In reality, this model has been used to justify pay disparities, foster favoritism, and force teachers into a test-score rat race rather than focusing on student development.

Merit and meritocracy are words we hear Conservatives use all too much. They frame these ideas as the backbone of fairness, insisting that success comes purely from hard work and ability. But in practice, “meritocracy” is often just a smokescreen for maintaining existing racial hierarchies. It ignores the systemic barriers that keep marginalized communities from accessing the same opportunities as their wealthier, white counterparts. In education, employment, and economic mobility, so-called “merit-based” systems reward those who already have advantages through generational wealth, access to elite schools, or the benefit of implicit biases in hiring and promotions. 

When conservatives push for “merit” in policies like education funding or hiring practices, they advocate for policies that protect privilege rather than create equity. In reality, meritocracy doesn’t level the playing field. It rigs the game in favor of those already winning. 

Brandon Creighton (R-SB04) used the words “merit” and “meritocracy” yesterday to describe SB26, which was a major red flag 🚩. This bill prohibits school districts from implementing general salary increases for instructional staff, except for inflation adjustments. Instead, funding is funneled into selective incentives that only some teachers will qualify for.

SB26’s move to contract a third party to provide legal assistance and liability insurance for teachers is particularly insidious. 

This might sound like a win, but here’s the catch: this state-controlled insurance provider would replace a key service teachers’ unions offer, weakening their role in advocating for educators’ rights. It’s union-busting in disguise. 

The bill also explicitly bans these contracted entities from engaging in political advocacy. Thus, teachers seeking to oppose harmful education policies will have one less resource. This is a classic conservative strategy: chip away at organized labor under the pretense of “helping” workers.

SB 26 isn’t about helping teachers. It’s about undermining unions, expanding state control over local schools, and pushing a corporate-style pay system that benefits wealthier districts while punishing the most vulnerable. Instead of investing in systemic reforms like universal Pre-K and across-the-board salary increases, the Texas Republicans have chosen to deepen inequities and destabilize an already struggling profession.

If the GOP were serious about education, they’d invest in all teachers, not just a select few. So, when Republicans announce that they’re pushing bills to raise teacher pay, just know that it’s total bullshit.

On top of this bill, which the Senate will claim is “teacher pay raises,” during yesterday’s hearing, Senator Bettencourt (R-SD07) continued his Trump impressions throughout. Weirdly, he does this in every hearing now. 

Please read my book Reign of Error, in which I review the research showing the consistent failure of merit pay.

Categories Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Lies, Teacher Pay, Texas, Unions

Sara Stevenson: Fully Fund Texas Public Schools Instead of Handouts for the Wealthiest

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2025 //
5

Sara Stevenson is a retired school librarian and Catholic school English teacher. She is a fearless advocate for public schools. Her article was published in The Austin American-Statesman. At this very time, the Texas Legislature is debating voucher legislation. It has already passed the State Senate. It is now being considered in the House.

She writes:

Many years ago at a school financing conference, I approached an East Texas House member from a rural district. I asked him, “Do y’all even have private schools for vouchers in your district?” He answered, “Hell, no. Private school vouchers are a tax break for families that already send their kids to private schools.” I thanked him for clearing that up.

Now most of those rural House Republicans opposing private school vouchers are gone. Jeffrey Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire investor in TikTok, gave Governor Greg Abbott $10 million to primary them out of office.

Texas has been trying to pass a school voucher or (ESA: Educational Savings Account) bill since 1995, but the bills keep failing session after session. In their earlier forms, these bills called for ESAs (using public tax dollars to pay for private school tuition) as a way to help poor children or those with disabilities trapped in Texas’s “failing public schools.”

Sidenote: If Texas schools are failing, the Republican party is responsible since it has dominated the Legislature for more than two decades and has controlled the governor’s office since 1994.

But over time, the proposed bills kept demanding more, not only in the amount of tuition money offered, but in the expanding pool of students qualified to receive them.

With this year’s version, Senate Bill 2, which passed the Senate, the GOP is saying the quiet part out loud. No longer are the ESAs solely for the families who can’t afford private school tuition or those with disabilities; now a family of four, making as much as $161,000 a year, five times the federal poverty level, can still receive up to $10,000 toward private school tuition or $11,500 for students with disabilities.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick then reassures us that 80% of the vouchers will go to special needs or “low-income” children. Since eligibility is universal, 20% will go to families making more than $161,000 per year.

I remember in 1976 when Ronald Reagan talked about people who abused the welfare system by getting government handouts they didn’t need. He called them “welfare queens.” In those days the GOP praised the working poor for their dignity in refusing a government handout.

Fast forward to 2025. Now families making over $161,000 per year are entitled to your tax dollars to send their children to private schools with little to no accountability. In fact, Sen. José Menendez’s Amendment 36, requiring the state to collect data to determine if the program is even successful, failed.

In earlier iterations, the student had to be enrolled in a failing public school before receiving a voucher. Now children already enrolled in private schools are eligible. Promoters argue this is only fair because private school families pay thousands each year in property taxes to schools their children don’t attend. Well, if they deserve a taxpayer refund, what about all the Texas property taxpayers, including seniors, who have NO children currently attending Texas schools?

No, because contributing to public education is a common good; an educated citizenry benefits all Texans and the Texas economy.

And speaking of children with disabilities, this bill clearly states that these students receiving vouchers must waive any rights for accommodations guaranteed by IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).

Although SB 2 boosters contend the bill promotes school choice for parents, the bill really means “schools’ choice” for private schools. While public schools must accept every child, private schools, including those receiving vouchers, are free to turn away or expel any child for any reason. For instance, they can continue to prefer legacies and the siblings of current students.

SB 2 earmarks $1 billion for this program in order to give vouchers to just 100,000 students. In contrast, 5.4 million Texas students currently attend public school, 10% of all U.S. school children.

Let’s first pass Senate Bill 1, the budget bill, and include increasing the basic student allotment to fully fund our public schools. Since Texas ranks 44th among the states in per pupil spending, let’s first invest in the school system we already have rather than spend a billion dollars to fund another one.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Hoax, Religion, Separation of church and state, Shame, Texas

Texas: Public Schools Are Imposing Austerity Measures While State Holds Huge Surplus

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2025 //
14

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is holding hostage the more than five million students in public schools while he demands vouchers for kids who are already enrolled in private and religious schools. Abbott has refused to increase funding for the state’s public schools unless the legislature approves vouchers, most of which will subsidize the affluent.

Last year, the legislature refused to approve vouchers. Since then, Abbott engineered the defeat of several anti-voucher Republicans. He’s hoping to win approval in the current session. Vouchers will pass easily in the state senate. We will see what happens in the House, where rural Republicans stood against vouchers in the past, before Abbott’s purge.

Abbott is playing Reverse Robin Hood. He is stealing from the poor to pay for the rich. Billionaires like Jeff Yass, the richest man jnnOennstlvsnia, and Betsy DeVos of Michigan, are funding his intransigence with millions in campaign contributions.

The Texas Monthly reports that school superintendents are increasing class sizes, laying off teachers, eliminating electives, and doing whatever they can to keep their doors open.

The article says:

Two years ago, during the 2023 legislative session, superintendents of Texas schools were optimistic that state lawmakers would boost public-education funding. After all, soaring inflation was straining the already meager finances of districts across the state, and lawmakers had at their disposal a $32.7 billion budget surplus. Spending some of that money on the urgent educational needs of the state’s children might have seemed like an uncontroversial proposal. 

Instead, the unthinkable happened: Legislators left Austin without putting any significant new money into schools or giving teachers a raise. The consequences have been dire.

Texas’s public schools were already among the most poorly resourced in the country: Our per-student funding is about 27 percent less than the national average. The basic allotment—the minimum amount of funding per student that school districts receive from the state—has been stuck at $6,160 since 2019. That would need to be upped by about $1,400 just to keep pace with rising costs. Public education advocates worry that lawmakers will provide only face-saving increases to the basic allotment in 2025 while diverting billions to private schools.

Many school leaders have had to undertake draconian austerity measures. Nearly 80 percent of districts have reported challenges with budget deficits. Given the stakes, 2025 could be a pivotal year for Texas’s public-education system….

Texas Monthly spoke to a group of superintendents to ask about how they were coping. They all spoke about the budget cuts and unfunded mandates (like requiring the hiring of police officers without providing funding). One superintendent, Jennifer Blaine of Spring Branch, said:

JB, Spring Branch: We don’t have anywhere else to cut. We are cut to the bone. I consolidated everything I could, and I cut everything that I could. If we have to cut further, you’re talking about severely impacting academics in the classroom and, quite frankly, safety and security. Five and a half million kids are in Texas public schools, and I don’t understand how our legislators and our governor don’t see this as a crisis. If we don’t educate these kids to the highest levels and prepare them for postsecondary success, we’re going to crumble as a state. I don’t know where the disconnect is. Education is the great equalizer. But nobody is talking about that, and I think it’s a missed opportunity because this is not going to end well. 

The title of the article in the print edition was  “A Legislature That Will Spend at Least as Much Per Pupil as Louisiana.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Corruption, Cruelty, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Gov. Abbott Says He Will Accept Nothing Less than Universal Vouchers, for Rich and Poor Alike

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2025 //
12

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas insists on vouchers. He has promoted them in every legislative session. Last year, he called several special sessions of the legislature, solely to get his vouchers passed. He failed and failed and failed. Since last year, he collected millions of dollars to spend defeating anti-voucher Republicans. He spent it on a campaign of lying about them, barely mentioning vouchers but accusing the refuseniks of opposing extra funding for public schools (they opposed extra money for public schools linked with vouchers), he accused them of failing to support Trump on the border, he threw dirt and lies, and he defeated several of those anti-voucher Republicans for their perfidy.

Here’s where matters stand today, as reported by Gromer Jeffers, Jr, in the Dallas Morning-News:

AUSTIN – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott insisted Monday that he would accept nothing less than a robust, universal school choice voucher program, and he resisted calls to join the plan with blanket increases in public school funding.

As he did in Sunday’s State of the State speech, Abbott committed to raising public teacher pay, but on his terms and largely in the form of merit increases

A plan to allow families to use public dollars on private schools is the centerpiece of his legislative agenda for the legislative session that ends in June. Abbott said his success last year in using the primaries to oust House Republicans who voted against school choice dictates that any plan approved by lawmakers be universal and substantive.

Political Points

“An overwhelming majority of Texans want school choice,” Abbott said during an interview in the Governor’s Mansion with The Dallas Morning News. “I won all of those races because the voters want school choice, so now there’s no reason for us to ratchet back on what we’re going to do, especially knowing full well that what we’re seeking to achieve here right now is exactly what the voters of Texas want. Most important is what the parents across the state of Texas want.”

Abbott will make a campaign-like stop Tuesday in support of school choice at a private Christian school in Athens.

In Monday’s interview with The News, Abbott also stressed his commitment to helping President Donald Trump with his immigration policies, discussed the mechanics of lowering property taxes and said his relationship with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows was better than ever.Related:Texas Senate committee approves ‘school choice’ bill on party-line vote

The governor said he was hopeful his agenda, which includes seven emergency items, would be approved by Texas lawmakers.

School choice tops his wish list.

Abbott is backing Senate and House plans that would devote $1 billion for education savings accounts to help families pay for private school expenses and tuition. He wants voucher-type assistance available to any Texas student who wants it.

Public school advocates say they are concerned about the impact universal school choice would have on public education. In the past, a coalition of rural Republicans and urban Democrats in the Texas House have been able to block voucher-style plans, but Abbott says he has 79 votes in the 150-member chamber to approve school choice.

His stronger political position has resulted in a hardening of his education policies, which do not include a significant increase in money to public education outside of teacher pay raises.Related: ‘Hardcore’ supporters will help Texas finally pass school choice plan, Gov. Abbott says

“We bent over backwards to try to provide a compromise position last session,” Abbott said. “They weren’t going to negotiate at all. They said they don’t want anything other than ‘not school choice.’”

Abbott said public education is being funded at historic levels, adding that private schools in Texas were not on “equal footing” with public schools that use taxpayer dollars to build facilities.

“We’re talking apples and oranges here,” Abbott said. “There’s so much money and so much expansion. Spending on the education side has been on the administrative side. We’ve got to ratchet back the spending on administration and devote that money to where it belongs and where it’s most useful, and that is paying our teachers.”

Teacher pay raises would be partly across-the-board because it would come in the basic allotment. The bulk, however, should be devoted to merit increases, Abbott said.

“We want to ensure that we’re putting teachers on a pathway to be able to earn a six-figure salary,” he said. “Some will be across the board. A lot will be a merit.”

A Senate proposal would add $4.9 billion to the Foundation School Program for teacher pay and changes to the Teacher Incentive Allotment. Teacher pay would increase $4,000 for all teachers, plus an additional $6,000 for rural teachers.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, disagrees with Abbott, saying public schools are not adequately funded because of inflation and unfunded mandates, including paying for increased school security.

“The unfunded mandates that both he and the Legislature put on local school districts, we need to make them whole, because it’s the right thing to do,” Anchia said. “We asked them to increase security, and we said we would pay for it.”

Anchia said $5 billion devoted to public education is sitting unspent.

“We should fully fund public schools based on the historic reform bill that we passed in 2019 and release the funds that he withheld during the last biennium for public education,” Anchia said. “He held these funds hostage to get his subsidy of private schools, also known as the voucher scheme, done.”

Abbott says schools could have had that money, but they rejected his education savings account plan.

Anchia said he hoped pay raises would become a reality.

“I’m all about driving money through the formulas down to the local districts, where they know how to make investments better than any politician in Austin,” he said.

Another major agenda item for Abbott is taxes. Texas has a $24 billion budget surplus to work with, and the governor wants property taxes reduced on top of the historic $18 billion property tax cut he signed in 2023.

Abbott said local tax increases often mitigated the 2023 property tax cut, and he said he hopes to sign legislation that would require local tax increases to be approved by two-thirds of voters.

“Reducing property taxes going forward is only going to work if we tie the hands of the taxing authorities to make sure they’re not going to be able to increase property taxes,” Abbott said.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Lies, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Governor Abbott Has No Mandate for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2025 //
5

Dr. Glenn Rogers, a staunch conservative from a rural district in Texas, opposed vouchers because the people who elected him didn’t want vouchers. Governor Greg Abbott promised his deep-pocketed donors that he would get vouchers. So Republican legislators like Glenn Rogers had to go.

Dr. Rogers is now a contributing columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He is a rancher and a veterinarian in Palo Pinto County. He served in the Texas House of Representatives from 2021-2025.

He explains here that Governor Abbott has no mandate for vouchers.

The 2024 Texas Republican primary was brutal and unprecedented in the volume of unwarranted character assassination, misdirection and, of course, money spent from both “dark” and “illuminated” sources.

Despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s persistent opposition to rural Republican House members and a fourth special legislative session, a bipartisan majority defeated school vouchers (called education savings accounts) by stripping off an amendment in Rep. Brad Buckley’s ominous omnibus education bill that tied critical school funding to vouchers.

The governor then proceeded to launch his scorched-earth attack on rural Republicans. Of the 21 that voted for their districts instead of Abbott’s pet project, five did not seek re-election, four were unopposed, nine lost their seats and three were victorious. Only one third remain in the House.

Reducing Republican opposition to vouchers was a resounding success for the governor and he has been crowing ever since that the 2024 slaughter proves Texans across the state desire vouchers (“school choice” in governor speak). But does it?

During the primary campaign, polling data clearly demonstrated vouchers were not a priority for Texas voters, including those in my district. The border, followed by property taxes and inflation were top of mind, with vouchers barely making the top 10.

With four special sessions, Christmas and a week with a major freezing-weather event, block-walking time before the early March primary was limited to about six good weeks. I hit the pavement hard and, true to the polling data and my consultant’s advice, the border and property taxes were on everyone’s mind. In fact, after knocking on thousands of doors throughout the district, I had only a handful of questions about vouchers and usually from current or retired educators who were anti-voucher.

Abbott frequently referred to Republican ballot Proposition 9 as proof of massive voucher support. “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 ballot measure read.

With only around 20% primary voter turnout and questions designed by the State Republican Executive Committee to confirm their often-radical views, the results are hardly a reputable referendum for anything. The wording and structure of the voucher proposition were flawed. Professional surveyors suggest that to receive the most genuine responses, questions should be asked one at a time. The proposition fails to follow this fundamental rule by asking two questions at once and only allowing for a single “Yes” or “No” response.

Of course, everyone wants choice and thankfully we already have a choice of public, charter, private and home school opportunities

The proposition also failed to ask whether voters supported taking tax dollars away from public education to fund a voucher program. That question certainly would have told a different story.

The goal was vouchers, but the tactic was misinformation about completely different issues that captured voters’ attention. The governor repeatedly stated that my fellow rural Republicans and I were weak on the border or that we couldn’t be trusted on border issues. He referred to my F rating from Tim Dunn-financed scorecards.

Ironically, the governor was fully supported by me on every one of his legislative priorities, especially the border, but with one major exception: school vouchers.

I served on the House Republican Caucus Policy Committee the last two sessions and voted 97.5% with caucus recommendations. I voted 96% of the time with the Republican majority. Yet Abbott stated in his rallies in my district that I consistently voted with Democrats. These are disingenuous tactics straight out of the Texas Scorecard playbook.

The governor may have an out-of-state mandate for vouchers, funded by Pennsylvanian TikTok billionaire and voucher profiteer Jeff Yass, who poured over $10 million into Abbott’s crusade to purge Republican House members.

But here in Texas, the mandate simply does not exist.

If Texans truly supported diverting public-school funds to private interests, there would have been no need for fearmongering and smear campaigns to achieve it. The fact that the governor resorted to such underhanded methods is not a show of strength or conviction. It is a tacit admission that Texans are not buying what he is trying to sell.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Privatization, Rural Schools, Texas, Vouchers

Texas Adopts Bible-Based Lessons for K-5 Classes

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2025 //
9

Texas is offering a curriculum for K-5 classrooms that is infused with Biblical stories. It is called the Bluebonnet Learning Materials. Its proponents contend that this cultural knowledge will prepare students to understand art, literature, and history, but the children are way too young to absorb the religious lessons as part of their lifelong knowledge. Critics also complain that one religion is favored above all.

The Houston Chronicle reported:

Controversy has surrounded new state-approved lessons referencing the Bible that are being offered as part of the Texas Education Agency’s elementary reading curriculum, with some confusion on financial incentives to adopt the materials. Months after the State Board of Education approved the materials created through House Bill 1605, some districts still don’t know exactly how the funding will be used and what the limitations are….

The TEA’s Bluebonnet Learning materials are free educational resources owned by the state of Texas. The resources Texas has commissioned include textbooks for grades K-5 in reading and math materials through algebra.

The bill bans materials associated with “Balanced Literacy.”

All materials approved had to meet certain requirements, such as being free of three-cueing content in kindergarten through third grade, the practice of using context clues to find the meaning of unknown words before sounding them out. The law also mandated that materials not be obscene or include harmful content, as delineated in the Texas Penal Code, and that they have parent portal compliance. ..

The resources were built off materials from Amplify, a New York-based publisher, that were purchased during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Amplify declined to supply further revisions, according to a story from The 74, after they were allegedly asked to create lessons around certain stories from the Bible but not other world religions. TEA officials said this claim was “completely false” and the material “includes representation from multiple faiths…”

If districts choose a resource from the State Board of Education’s approved list for high-quality instructional materials, they receive an extra $40 per enrolled student on top of the instructional materials and technology allotment, or IMTA, of $171.84 per student. If the district chooses to adopt Bluebonnet, they would also receive an extra $20 for printing the materials, totaling $60 per student…

Both Republicans and Democrats have condemned the Bluebonnet resources for their inclusion of certain Bible-specific lessons and stories. Other religions are referenced in the resources, but according to a study commissioned by the Texas Freedom Network,the religious source material addressed is overwhelmingly Christian. Hinduism is briefly mentioned, despite the significant population of Hindus in Texas. Buddhism and Sikhism are also briefly mentioned. The first version of the Bluebonnet Learning did not include references to Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism, and some deities were characterized as “mythical,” while the truthfulness of the Christian God was not qualified. 

In one kindergarten lesson, students are asked to use sequencing skills to order the creation events as portrayed in Genesis. 

Critics also had concerns that the textbooks whitewashed historical events by using gentler language to describe colonization, such as “share” or “introduce.” In some units, the lessons teach students that abolitionists used their beliefs in Christianity to argue against slavery, without noting that Christianity was also used as a justification for slavery in U.S. history. 

“I really struggled with the Bluebonnet materials, especially on the (English Language Arts) side of things, because, while there was representation from other religions, other faith-based communities, it was overwhelmingly written with Christian bias,” Perez-Diaz said. 

Texas law does require districts to include “religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament, and its impact on history and literature” in curricula, but critics felt that the reliance on Christianity at an early age for students goes beyond what the law requires. Conservative critics had said that the interpretation of certain Bible passages was not in-line with all Christian belief systems and that only parents should have the right to teach their children about their religion. 

Categories Bias, Curriculum, Ethics, Extremism, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Texas

Mercedes Schneider: Trump Picks Controversial Penny Schwinn as #2 at Ed. Dept.

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2025 //
9

Trump selected Penny Schwinn to serve as Deputy Secretary of Educatuin, under wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, this choice for Secretary. Mercedes Schneider did some digging and quickly learned that where Penny Schwinn goes, controversy follows.

Among other issues raised by critics is Schwinn’s multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to TNTP (formerly known as The New Teachers Project), where her husband works.

Schneider writes:

President Donald Trump has nominated former Tennessee Ed chief, the controversy-steeped Penny Schwinn, for the position of US deputy secretary of education, a post that requires Senate confirmation.

Interestingly, even conservatives oppose her confirmation (see here also).

I’m not sure how much of the Schwinn sketchiness will reveal itself in Schwinn’s confirmation hearing, but the information is out there– easy enough for a Louisiana education blogger to find.

For example, in 2017 as Texas deputy commissioner for academics, Schwinn was in the news as part of a no-bid contract issue for several million dollars with a sketchy, inexperienced company out of Atlanta, SPEDx, which was supposed to handle special education data for both Texas and Louisiana.

The situation of two states offering no-bid contracts worth millions to a new company run by a CEO with no experience in analyzing special education data caught the attention if the media, and Texas canceled its contract even as Louisiana was questioned about keeping theirs.

When queried by the media, Texas education commissioner, Mike Morath, tried to distance himself from the situation. However, on December 28, 2017, Andrea Ball of the Austin American-Statesman revealed that Schwinn was involved in the contract and “helped write it.”

You can read about the details in this March 20, 2018, post.

Two years later, in February 2020, I again wrote about Schwinn. By this time, she had moved from Texas to become commissioner of education in Tennessee and had been there for a year.

Controversy followed her there, as well:

Within ten months of Schwinn’s arrival as Tennessee ed commissioner, the Tennessee Department of Education experienced 250 resignations, including “people with decades of institutional knowledge,” which the November 15, 2019, Tennessee Chalkbeat characterized as “not typical.”

In 2019, according to the Tennessee Lookout, the Tennessee legislature nixed Schwinn’s ability to vote on state textbooks after complaints from a publisher and some district leaders following accusations that Schwinn was “playing favorites.”

Too, Schwinn and no-bid contracts were again connected:

On February 12, 2020, Schwinn was again in the news related to a no-bid contract controversy, this time in connection with Tennessee’s school voucher program and the ed-fund-tracking company, ClassWallet, as Chalkbeat reports:

Lawmakers who oversee the spending of Tennessee taxpayer money blasted the Department of Education Wednesday for its handling of a no-bid contract with ClassWallet, hired for $1.25 million a year to manage the state’s upcoming voucher program.

Commissioner Penny Schwinn and members of her team were grilled for almost two hours over the decision to bypass a competitive bid process to hire the Florida-based company — and for twice the amount budgeted for work this year on Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program. …

“Fiscal Review didn’t find out about this contract grant until Nov. 13 when it was published in Chalkbeat. Do you think that that’s acceptable?” asked Rep. Matthew Hill, the Jonesborough Republican who chairs the panel. …

“To the general public, it looks like you found a vendor, and then created a contract,” said Faison, a Republican from Cosby.

There is a lot more detail to the Chalkbeat article, which is certainly worth a complete read. It seems that Schwinn’s rogue maneuvers have the support of Tennessee governor Bill Lee, and Schwinn justified her no-bid decision by saying it was necessary to begin the voucher program in 2020, a year earlier than the legislature planned, as per the governor’s wishes.

Another major irritation for Tennessee legislators is the ballooned pricetag due to Schwinn’s no-bid: The legislature budgeted $750K for costs associated with the voucher program, but Schwinn blew it up, committing her ClassWallet no-bid to $2.5M for two years.

But there’s more: Schwinn’s chief financial officer said that it decided– without legislative approval– to use teacher-pay funds from an expired program to fund the increased voucher program cost due to the no-bid it awarded. In response, Tennessee House Fiscal Review Panel chair, Matthew Hill, replied, “…We robbed teacher pay. … I can’t stress how bad this looks for us….”

Schwinn remained in her Ed commissioner post in Tennessee until 2023, when she resigned effective June 1st. In 2021, Schwinn faced a possible no-confidence vote of the Tennessee legislature, a vote that did not happen. Then, in 2022, the Tennessee Holler noted this conflict of interest, which is included in my May 12, 2023, post:

In April 2022, the Tennessee Holler noted that Schwinn omitted from her most-recent financial disclosure mention of her husband’s employer, TNTP (started by Michelle Rhee, incidentally)– a notable omission since on March 01, 2021, Schwinn signed a two-year, $8M contract with TNTP, with the Tennessee Lookout noting, “The contract took effect March 12, and is to run through fiscal 2022 at a rate of $4.032 million for each year, even though only four months remain in this fiscal year.” In December 2021, the contract was renewed for an additional $8M through 2024 “despite a potential conflict of interest for the state’s education commissioner,” the Tennessee Lookout again reports.

Penny Schwinn in a confirmation hearing? 

We’ll see where this one goes.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding, Tennessee, Texas

Texas: Moderate Republican Wins as Speaker of the House with Democratic Votes

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2025 //
11

The top elected leaders of Texas are far-right extremists–Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Abbott is passionate about school vouchers, despite the fact they would harm rural public schools. He called multiple special sessions of the legislature last year specifically to pass vouchers, but failing each time.

Gov. Abbott got more than $10 million from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass to oust the moderate Republicans who blocked vouchers. He won most of those races, defeating conservatives who prioritized their constituents over the wishes of the Governor, Jeff Yass, Betsy DeVos and the Texas oil and gas billionaires Wilks and Dunn, devout evangelical supports of vouchers.

A new session of the legislature opened. The hard right backed Rep. David Cook to be Speaker of the House. Rep. Dustin Burrows ran against him. Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton supported Cook. Burrows won. Burrows received more Democratic votes than Republican votes.

The Texas Tribune has the story.

Burrows won the speaker’s race after two rounds of voting, edging out Cook by a vote of 85-55. During the first round, Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez-Ramos, a Richardson Democrat, received 23 votes from fellow Democratic members — enough to keep Burrows and Cook from reaching the majority threshold of 76.

In the ensuing runoff round, twelve Democrats who had voted for Rodríguez-Ramos switched to Burrows. He also netted two more GOP votes from members who defected from Cook. Nine members marked themselves present without voting for either option, and one member, Yvonne Davis of Dallas, was marked as absent.

Burrows’ winning coalition was made up of 49 Democrats and 36 Republicans, drawing instant backlash from hardline members and activists who vowed revenge in next year’s primaries.

The Abbott wing of the party–more MAGA than Trump–is furious.

The question is: Does this mean that Abbott’s voucher plan will lose again?

A time for watchful waiting.

Categories Billionaires, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Republicans, Texas, Vouchers

Scott Tomlinson: Texas Voters Are in for a Rude Surprise

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2025 //
17

Scott Tomlinson, opinion writer for The Houston Chronicle, predicts that MAGA voters, especially in Texas, are soon to have an unwelcome surprise, thanks to the DOGE commission of Elon and Vivek. They voted for deep budget cuts. They voted to downsize the federal government, aka the “Deep State.”

He writes:

President-elect Donald Trump’s coalition splintered over visas for specially skilled workers in recent weeks, which turned especially ugly on Twitter, now known as X.

Elon Musk told critics of the program, including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, to “Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”

Solving the immigration crisis is relatively easy compared to balancing the budget, which Musk is supposed to be focusing on. When Trump voters find out what must be cut or whose taxes must rise to stop deficit spending, they’ll start grabbing pitchforks.

U.S. politicians from both parties have unintentionally experimented with the global economy. By running up huge deficits, they tested Modern Monetary Theory, an idea put forward by the left.

MMT was a hot topic during the Obama administration, with proponents arguing that economic powerhouses like the United States don’t have to worry about deficits. Governments can print as much money as they want through borrowing as long as inflation doesn’t rise.

Oops.

Conventional macroeconomic theory recommends governments spend money, cut taxes and raise deficits during recessions. When the economy grows, governments should spend less, raise taxes and build surpluses. Governments should act as economic shock absorbers. We’re good at spending but not taxing.

Musk promises to cut federal spending by a third, or $2 trillion. The Texas Legislature ranks 10th in the nation for dependency on the federal government to pay for state spending, according to economists at Wallet Hub. 

Federal funds pay for a third of the state budget, the Legislative Budget Board reports.

Imagine what would happen to Texas if the Legislature had to come up with $30 billion to make up for federal spending cuts?

Every dollar the federal government spends has a champion somewhere. If Musk tries to cut popular programs, the backlash over H1-B visas will seem like a walk in the park.

.

Categories Budget Cuts, Democrats, Disruption, Economy, Elections, Extremism, Funding, Musk, Elon, Texas, Trump
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