Archives for category: Vouchers
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Tampa Bay Times: Legislature Imposes Death Sentence on Florida Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2019 //
22

 

The Tampa Bay Times published a powerful editorial about the Legislature’s enactment of yet another voucher program for private and religious schools. Needless to say, the Legislature does nothing for public schools other than to divert funding to nonpublic schools, enact mandates, and harass teachers.

The schools that get vouchers will not be subject to the school letter grades foisted on public schools. They will be free to take the students they want and throwout those they don’t want. They don’t have to follow the state curriculum standards or take state tests. Their teachers don’t have to be certified. They are relieved of  any accountability, while public schools are submerged in it.

The editorial begins:

They approved the death sentence for public education in Florida at 1:20 p.m. Tuesday. Then they cheered and hugged each other. The legislation approved by the Florida House and sent to the governor will steal $130 million in tax money that could be spent improving public schools next year and spend it on tuition vouchers at private schools. Never mind the Florida Constitution. Never mind the 2.8 million students left in under-funded, overwhelmed public schools.

The outcome of this year’s voucher debate in the decades-long dismantlement of traditional public education was never in doubt. It was sealed when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was narrowly elected governor in November and quickly appointed three conservatives to the Florida Supreme Court. The overhaul of the court emboldened the Republican-led Legislature to approve the creation of vouchers that clearly are unconstitutional, confident that an expected legal challenge will be rejected. Elections have consequences, and this is a devastating one.

Don’t be fooled. This legislation is not just about helping children from the state’s poorest families attend private schools. It does more than take care of 13,000 kids who are on a waiting list for the existing voucher program that is paid for with tax credits. It raises the annual income limit for eligibility from $66,950 for a family of four for the current voucher program to $77,250 for the “Family Empowerment Scholarship Program.’’ That income limit will rise in future years, and so will the state’s investment in vouchers. Welcome to a new middle class entitlement.

Florida cannot afford this free market fantasy. The state ranks near the bottom in spending per student and in average pay for teachers. Hillsborough County has hundreds of teacher vacancies, broken air conditioning systems in dozens of schools will take years to repair and voters just approved a half-cent sales tax to help make ends meet. Pinellas County would need $1,200 more per student in state funding just to cover inflation over the last decade. Yet Florida will send $130 million to private schools next year for tuition for 18,000 students.

Legislators who voted for SB 7070 talked about empowering families and school choice. Parents in most communities already have plenty of choices. Nearly 300,000 students attend more than 600 publicly funded charter schools, and more than 225,000 students attend choice or magnet schools in their districts.

State Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran was in the House chamber for the vote. He previously served as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. His wife operates a charter school. He doesn’t like public schools or unions.

Jeb Bush was also present, happy to see another big step towards the vouchers he believes in. Ironically, he is the father of both the school choice movement and Florida’s harsh accountability regime (for public schools). I wonder if any journalist ever asks him why his beloved voucher schools are exempt from all accountability.

Despite the hostility of the elected officials to public schools, I’m not yet ready to call them dead. There are nearly three million students in Florida. Ten percent go to charters (at least half of which are operated by for-profit entrepreneurs), and another five percent choose to go to religious schools, most of which are inferior by any measure to the public schools.

More Than 80% of families choose public schools. When will the public wake up and start voting for elected officials who support the public schools to which they send their children?

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider on the Tennessee Voucher Legislation and Public Reaction to It

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2019 //
12

 

Mercedes Schneider conducted a search to find the voucher legislation just passed by both houses of the Tennessee Legislature. You will not be surprised to learn that the legislation was written by ALEC (the rightwing bill mill funded by DeVos, the Koch brothers, and corporations).

I had a hard time plowing through the dreary legislative language, but if you skip to the end of that section, you will find vitriolic comments directed at the bill’s co-sponsor, Brian Kelsey, by his constituents on his Facebook page. They express outrage and a sense of betrayal.

Let’s hope they remember when Kelsey runs again.

Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Koch Brothers, Tennessee, Vouchers

Matt Barnum: New Research Shows Vouchers Do Lasting Damage to Student Achievement in Math

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2019 //
11

 

Matt Barnum reports that new research from Louisiana shows that the negative effects of vouchers persist over time. 

There used to be a belief that the negative effects were temporary, but apparently the voucher students do not bounce back, as voucher proponents hoped.

New research on a closely watched school voucher program finds that it hurts students’ math test scores — and that those scores don’t bounce back, even years later.

That’s the grim conclusion of the latest study, released Tuesday, looking at Louisiana students who used a voucher to attend a private school. It echoes research out of Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. showing that vouchers reduce students’ math test scores and keep them down for two years or more.

Together, they rebut some initial research suggesting that the declines in test scores would be short-lived, diminishing a common talking point for voucher proponents.

“While the early research was somewhat mixed … it is striking how consistent these recent results are,” said Joe Waddington, a University of Kentucky professor who has studied Indiana’s voucher program. “We’ve started to see persistent negative effects of receiving a voucher on student math achievement.”

The state’s voucher program also didn’t improve students’ chances of enrolling in college.

The results may influence local and national debates. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is working to drum up support for a proposed federal tax credit program that could help parents pay private-school tuition, and Tennessee lawmakers are debating whether to create a voucher-like program of their own.

If past history is a guide, Betsy DeVos will dismiss the research, as will Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. They want vouchers regardless of their impact on students.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Research, Tennessee, Vouchers

Tennessee: Legal Challenge Expected if Senate Passes Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2019 //
10

 

Chalkbeat reports the likelihood of a legal challenge to any voucher bill in Tennessee if State Senate passes one as House did yesterday in a contentious proceeding.

Read the details here.

Categories Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Tennessee, Vouchers

Tennessee: House Passes School Vouchers When Deciding Vote Gets Promise to Exempt His District

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2019 //
26

 

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a hotly debated voucher bill by one vote after the deciding vote, Jason Zachary of Knoxville, was promised that his district would not get vouchers.

Isn’t it a curious commentary on the appeal of vouchers that the issue was decided by pledging that the decider would NOT get them? Vouchers in this bill would be limited to Nashville and Shelby County (Memphis). Just fine for black children, but not for Rep. Zachary’s District.

Thanks, Jason Zachary, for your profile in cowardice. If you thought it was a great idea, why not include Knoxville?

For cowardice, I place Rep. Jason Zachary on this blog’s Wall of Shame, along with the rest of his shameless and craven Republican colleagues who voted to undermine public schools in Nashville and Shelby County, endorsing a program known to harm children’s academic achievement.

 

Categories Tennessee, Vouchers, Wall of Shame

Mercedes Schneider: Vouchers in Tennessee Moving Forward to a Worse Education

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2019 //
14

Mercedes Schneider writes that the legislature in Tennessee is coming closer to passing voucher legislation that would provide $7,300 per pupil to attend a private or religious school. 

Governor Bill Lee is making this happen because he found nearly $1 million in prizes that he could hand out to undecided legislators.

The students eligible to get a voucher would be in Nashville or Shelby County (Memphis).

Among 57 private schools in Nashville, only 17 would accept students with a voucher of $7,300, and of course the decision belongs to the school, not the family or the students.

If the schools didn’t like the students they accepted, they can toss them out.

Schneider notes:

The Tennessee voucher saga continues to unfold, but already it holds the same promise as does walking through a field of cow patties after dark in your best shoes.

 

 

 

Categories Tennessee, Vouchers

Indianapolis: The Purpose of School Choice is to Destroy Communities, Which Endangers Us All

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2019 //
28

 

Jim Scheurich is a professor at Indiana University and a public education activist. He writes here about how School Choice is intended to destroy community.

 

Folks, the philosophy that charter and innovation schools are built on is that your children’s school should be individualized parental choice.  This means parents individually search across the Indy area as to where to send their children, which often means leaving their neighborhood community.  Each family or individual parent is thus on her, his, or their own and not engaged with their neighborhood community.  Also, each family or individual parent is pitted against or in competition with other similar families and parents for the so-called “better” schools.

This individualistic orientation of charters and innovation schools undermines neighborhood communities and even the possibility of neighborhood communities.   Undermining neighborhood communities, according to sociological research, increases violence, including murder.  Other research shows that building community decreases violence, including murder.

This, therefore, means that charter and innovation schools are likely one of the causes of our high murder rate in Indianapolis as the individualized school choice model is broadly undermining neighborhood communities across our city. 

Of course, building community in low income areas is not easy, but not impossible.  However, many such communities have created positive community spaces.  Given the difficulty of creating such communities, we certainly do not need more policies, like charter and innovation schools, that are threats to community and community building.

If you study the neoliberal political and economic “philosophy” behind the choice school movement, you will find a strong focus on individualism over community.  If you want to understand this movement, which is driving the creation of individualistic “choice” schools, read Democracy in chains by Nancy MacLean, a Duke historian, and then read the award winningDark money by Jane Mayer, which analyzes who the Koch brothers are as they are primary supporters of neoliberalism.  Indeed, overwhelmingly, the financial supporters of neoliberalism, the people behind the curtain, the people funding Stand for Children and the Mind Trust, are conservative to rightwing billionaires.

If you don’t believe me or think I am just some conspiracy nut, I dare you to read Democracy in chainsby the highly respected Duke historian, Nancy MacLean. I dare you.

My point is that charter and innovation schools help destroy community, which according to sociological research can lead to increased violence.

 

Jim Scheurich, Indianapolis Public Schools Community Coalition, a multi-racial, multi-class, citywide group of Indianapolis citizens working to reverse the takeover of our school district by those funded by white, conservative or rightwing, billionaire neoliberals. Also, an activist professor of Urban Education Studies at Indiana University – Indianapolis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Indiana, Indianapolis, Injustice, Innovation, Privatization, Safety, School Choice, Vouchers

Tennessee: Civil Rights Groups, Parents, School Boards Oppose Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2019 //
9

A coalition of civil rights and parent groups spoke out against Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s proposal to create a voucher program, Chalkbeat reports.

The Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition, which champions policies that address disparities in education, said Lee’s plan to create education savings accounts would instead end up helping middle-class families. The accounts are a new kind of voucher that give families taxpayer money to pay for private school or other private education services.

The group charged that the proposed plan would exclude and discriminate against some students and questioned the state’s ability to measure the program’s success if participants are not required to take the same state assessments as Tennessee’s public school students.

Calling voucher bills moving through the legislature “a step backwards” for Tennessee, the coalition urged the governor to instead invest more money in proven school improvement strategies like Shelby County Schools’ Innovation Zone, which gives additional resources and pays for extended school days to turn around low-performing schools….

The coalition’s diverse members include the Tennessee chapter of the NAACP, the YWCA, the National Civil Rights Museum, and education funds, foundations, or urban leagues in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.

“Vouchers take critical resources away from our neighborhood public schools, the very schools that are attended by the vast majority of African-American students,” the NAACP said in a separate statement. “Furthermore, private and parochial schools are not required to observe federal nondiscrimination laws, even if they receive federal funds through voucher programs.”

Governor Lee met with leaders from the urban districts that would be affected by vouchers, and they gave him an earful.

“If this voucher bill passes, the private schools will pick the best of the best, and we will become a district of the academically and behaviorally challenged,” said Stephanie Love, a board member with Shelby County Schools in Memphis, recounting her message to the governor as she left the meeting.

In all, more than 20 board members and four superintendents from Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Jackson met with the governor, according to Tammy Grissom, executive director of the Tennessee School Board Association, which organized the gathering….

Meanwhile, the administration revised its proposed budget to move the $25 million previously allocated for the controversial program to go instead to fighting hepatitis C in state prisons. Lee’s finance commissioner, Stuart McWhorter, said the funding shift is not a sign of trouble for the governor’s education plan.

 

 

 

 

Categories Civil Rights, Parent Groups, Tennessee, Vouchers

Florida: The Graveyard of American Public Education

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2019 //
36

 

Florida has the worst education policies of any state in the nation, and it is about to get even more destructive, more ignorant, more backward.

Read this alarming article and remember that Betsy DeVos points to Florida as a model.

A model, yes. A model of how religious extremists, rightwing ideologues, and uneducated political hacks can destroy public education, drive away teachers, and fund “schools” that indoctrinate students in religious dogma.

The post was written by Kathleen Oropeza Parent Activist in Orlando.

Jeb Bush started the descent into the swamp of ignorance. Now the torch is carried by Ron DeSantis, who wants to arm teachers, expand the state’s voucher programs to include middle-class families with income up to $100,000 a year, reduce the power of local school boards so they can’t block new charter schools, and undercut public schools in every way their little minds can imagine.

Oropeza writes:

“Pay attention, because what happens in Florida usually shows up in the thirty or so other states under GOP control.

“Step one for DeSantis was to stock the State Supreme Court with three conservative judges. Next, DeSantis charged the Board of Education with appointing Richard Corcoran as State Commissioner of Education. As the immediate past Speaker of the Florida House, Corcoran was the architect of the “school choice” expansions logrolled into multi-subject, opaque omnibus bills that became law over the past several sessions.

“DeSantis, a known Trump ally, made it clear in his proposed education visionto legislators before the the start of the 2019 session that they should “send me a bill” for a new private school tax-funded voucher program. The DeSantis voucher became SB 7070/HB 7075, the radical Family Empowerment Scholarship Program. Funded through the Florida Education Finance Program from property taxes, this is a dangerous co-mingling of the already thin dollars designated for Florida’s district public schools.

“In a state that prizes high-stakes accountability for its public-school students, these vouchers go to unregulated private schools that maintain their right to discriminate against certain students, charge more than the voucher for tuition, teach extreme curriculums, and are not required to ensure student safety or hire certified teachers. This dramatic expansion of private religious school vouchers, once meant for low-income recipients, is morphing into a middle-class entitlement program for families of four making close to $100,000 a year….

”On teacher pay, DeSantis wants to double down on the awful policy of providing bonuses instead of raises via SB7070. Teacher pay in Florida ranks 45th in the nation: $47,858 on average. The state is struggling with a massive teacher shortage projected by the Florida Department of Education to reach 10,000 vacancies by the start of next school year.”

As Oropeza points out, no one ever bought a home with a one-time bonus (except on Wall Street).

”DeSantis supporter Representative Kim Daniels continues to insert religioninto public schools this session by sponsoring HB 195. This is model legislation from ALEC-like Christian Nationalist Project Blitz. Daniels, a Democrat, passed a 2018 law requiring “In God We Trust” to be displayed in public schools. This year Daniels is pushing Blitz legislation requiring public high schools to offer a religion class that teaches only Christianity.”

Another bill allows schools to withdraw any book that is “morally offensive,” such as Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes.” Expect to see demands to remove a lot of “morally offensive” classics by authors such as John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, and Mark Twain.

“Another bill, HB 330 by Senator Dennis Baxley, the original sponsor of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, seeks to revise curriculum standards and force public schools to teach “science” theories such as creationism and alternate views to subjects such as climate change.”

Florida is indeed a model: a model of kakistocracy.

Look it up.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Standardized Testing, Vouchers

Bernie Sanders’ Staff Called Me to Talk About Education Policy

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2019 //
186

 

I got an e-mail recently from Senator Bernie Sanders’s education advisor. She said she reads the blog and wondered if we could talk. I said sure but I was not ready to endorse anyone in the Democratic primaries.

I asked for and got her permission to share that this conversation occurred. As everyone knows who ever gave me confidential information, I never write or speak about what I was told in confidence.

We set a date to speak on the phone since I am in New York and she is in D.C.

She called and conferenced in the campaign’s chief of staff.

Here is what happened.

I told them that I was upset that Democrats talk about pre-K and college costs—important but safe topics—and skip K-12, as though it doesn’t exist. Every poll I get from Democrats asks me which issues matter most but doesn’t mention K-12.

I expressed my hope that Bernie would recognize that charter schools are privately managed (in 2016, he said in a town hall that he supports “public charter schools but not private charter schools). No matter what they call themselves, they are not “public” schools. They are all privately managed. I recounted for them the sources of financial support for charters: Wall Street, hedge fund managers, billionaires, the DeVos family, the Waltons, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, ALEC, and of course, the federal government, which gave $440 million to charters this year, one-third of which will never open or close soon after opening. (See “Asleep At the Wheel: How Athens Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride,” Network for Public Education).

I proposed a way to encourage states to increase funding for teachers’ salaries. I won’t reveal it now. I think it is an amazingly innovative concept that offers money to states without mandates but assures that the end result would be significant investment by states in teacher compensation, across the board, untethered to test scores.

I recommended a repeal of the annual testing in grades 3-8, a leftover of George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind. I pointed out to them that all the Democrats on the Education Committee in the Senate had voted for the Murphy Amendment (sponsored by Senator Chris Murphy of Ct), which would have preserved all the original punishments of NCLB but which was fortunately voted down by Republicans. I suggested that grade span testing is common in other developed countries, I.e., once in elementary school, once in middle school, once in high school.

We had a lively conversation. Our values are closely aligned.

They are in it to win it. I will watch to see if Bernie moves forward with a progressive K-12 plan. No one else has.

My options are open. My priorities are clear.

Let’s draw a line in the sand. We will not support any candidate for the Democratic nomination unless he or she comes out with strong policy proposals that strengthen public schools, protect the civil rights of all students, curb federal overreach into curriculum and assessment and teacher evaluation, and oppose DeVos-style privatization (vouchers, charters, cybercharters, for-profit charters, home schooling, for-profit higher education).

Silence is not a policy.

Democrats support public schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Sanders, School Choice, Teacher Pay, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers
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