Archives for category: Vouchers
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Kentucky: Vouchers are Dead This Year, Killed by Pastors, Parents, and Teachers

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2019 //
23

The Kentucky Legislature will not enact a voucher bill this session!

Here is one reason why: Pastors for Kentucky Children stood strongly against the bill and in favor of public schools. Reverend Sharon Felton led the way in Kentucky. Please read her wonderful letter in support of public schools and the principle of separation of church and state.

She writes:

Pastors for Kentucky Children is a grassroots movement of pastors and lay people who want to support, encourage and advocate for our local public schools. Our teachers, administrators and staff are on the front lines when it comes to caring for our children and we are praying that you and your colleagues will give them all the resources they need to fulfill this calling. We implore state legislators to vote down scholarship tax credits, or any legislation that funnels money away from public schools. Public schools are our future, our public trust. Public schools educate and serve all students. Imagine what they could do if they were fully funded! If they had enough counselors, librarians, teachers, technology, and on and on! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could stop collecting box tops to provide for our schools?

Our children deserve the highest-quality, free public education. They deserve to have the best faculty, facilities and future our state has to offer.

We are opposed to scholarship tax credits because they violate the separation of church and state. As clergy, we do not want government money or interference in our religious schools. There is not a church, temple, synagogue or mosque that wants government to fund our educational programs. Taxpayers, in turn, do not want their money going to pay for these religious education alternatives. Public money must stay with public schools. Private schools have flourished for decades without public money, they will continue to do so.

The group that started the Pastors for Children movement on behalf of public schools is Pastors for Texas Children, led by Charles Foster Johnson, which stopped vouchers in Texas one legislative session after another, and inspired similar groups in other states, where pastors don’t want to be dependent on government funding, knowing that where money flows, control eventually follows.

Here is another reason for the defeat of vouchers: Teachers walked out of their schools, rallied at the state capitol, and stopped the momentum towards vouchers.

Parents in SOS Kentucky and “Dear JCPS” spoke out against vouchers.

No vouchers in Kentucky this session. As public awareness builds in support of public schools that 90% of children attend, vouchers will stay dead.

 

 

 

Categories Kentucky, Parents, Resistance, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

NEPC: Reviewing The Myths About Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2019 //
3

The National Education Policy Center published a review of a pro-voucher brief by the Institute for Justice, which publishes advocacy pieces on behalf of school choice. The author of the review, Christopher Lubienski of the University of Indiana, is a national authority on the subject.

There is one fact about vouchers that discredits all the debates: In Florida, which has an expansive voucher program, voucher schools may hire teachers who have not graduated college and are not certified. Voucher schools do not take state tests. Vouchers seems to be a code word for deschooling, not exactly what Ivan Illich had in mind.

 

BOULDER, CO (March 7, 2019) – Researchers have built a substantial body of evidence about policies that use vouchers to fund private schooling, so an honest attempt to bring together that research could have real value. But readers will be disappointed if they look to the Institute for Justice (IJ) for that report.

Christopher Lubienski of Indiana University reviewed the IJ’s report, 12 Myths and Realities about Private Educational Choice Programs. He considers the merits of each of the 12 claims, and finds that the report fails to take advantage of this body of research, instead offering little more than a simplistic and one-sided treatment of the empirical record.

Setting out 12, often cartoonishly caricatured, “myths” about vouchers, the report proceeds to systematically dismiss each myth. The evidence presented in the report is based largely on previous work from other advocacy groups that curated evidence—much of it highly questionable—on the advantages of vouchers. Accordingly, the IJ report repeats earlier advocacy claims, even when flaws in those works have already been publicly explained. In doing so, the report makes claims that are not supported, and in fact sometimes contradicted, by evidence in the sources it cites.

The report provides a textbook case of echo-chamber advocacy. Professor Lubienski concludes that it offers nothing useful in furthering our understanding of school vouchers.

Find the review, by Christopher Lubienski, at:

https://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/voucher-myths

Find 12 Myths and Realities about Private Educational Choice Programs, edited by Tim Keller and published by the Institute for Justice, at:

https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/school-choice-myths-and-realities-2nd-PRINTING-FINAL.pdf
Categories Vouchers

Florida: Why Are There More than 2,000 Teaching Vacancies?

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2019 //
32

 

Writing in Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog in the Washington Post, Fed Ingram explains why Florida has a massive teacher shortage. Ingram was Miami-Dade County’s Teacher of the Year in 2006 and he is now president of the Florida Education Association.

He writes that conditions for teachers are so bad that the state is experiencing a “silent strike” as teachers leave.

Halfway through this school year, more than 2,200 vacancies hobble Florida’s public schools. In 2018, the Florida Board of Education identified critical teacher shortages in English, mathematics, reading, general science, physical science and other subjects.

Recent graduates of schools of education ignore Florida recruiters at job fairs. Many educators who began teaching careers here are leaving our classrooms with no plans to return. We’re experiencing a “silent strike.”

Children living in districts that are not fully staffed are likely to wind up in with an overworked substitute in an overcrowded classroom or with a teacher untrained in the subject she or he has been hired to teach…

The Sunshine State ranks 45th in the nation in teacher pay with salaries $10,000 less than the national average. Meanwhile the cost of living here is 10 percent higher than in the rest of the United States.

Facing high costs and low pay, Florida’s teachers often work second jobs. Many teachers with advanced degrees wait tables or drive for Uber — and some teachers sell their own plasma to make ends meet.

It’s no secret that shortsighted policies have starved Florida schools of much-needed funds for years on end. Bogus schemes to use short-term bonuses to make up for long-term deficits in salaries for Florida teachers haven’t worked either.

Money isn’t the only problem. Too many politicians treat public schools and the people who work in them as punching bags. When the profession is attacked daily; when the contribution teachers make to students and communities goes unrecognized; when bureaucrats who’ve never spent a day in a classroom tell teachers how to do their job — then it becomes difficult to attract and retain dedicated and qualified education professionals.

The state’s leaders seem dimly aware of these problems but their priority right now is expanding voucher programs and increasing charter schools. In voucher schools–most of them religious–teachers do not need a college degree or certification. The current omnibus bill, SB7070, relies on bonuses not salary increases and seeks to lower standards for teachers to boost the supply of teachers. These are all incredibly bad ideas, but Florida is run by people who really don’t care about education or teachers or the future of the state. This, after all, is the state that Betsy DeVos considers a model for the nation because of its vouchers, its charter schools, its high stakes testing, its school report cards, and….its low salaries for teachers. Education on the cheap.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Privatization, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Vouchers

Trump Budget Would Cut Education Programs by 10%, While Expanding $$ for Vouchers, Charters

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2019 //
19

Education Week describes Trump’s proposed cuts for programs in the U.S. Department of Education. Trump proposes eliminating 29 federal education programs while maintaining level funding for Title 1 and Special Education. The key quote in this article is the one from Secretary DeVos, who says the budget is about “education freedom,” by which she means, “So long, you are on your own, don’t expect the feds to help you.” The administration proposes $5 billion for vouchers and an increase in the federal charter school program to $500 million. It is not clear why the federal government needs to spend any money to start charter schools, since this project is now well covered by the Waltons, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family foundations, Michael Bloomberg, the Broad Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, the Fisher Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the NewSchools Venture, the Charter School Growth Fund, and others too numerous to mention.

 

President Donald Trump is seeking a 10 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget in his fiscal 2020 budget proposal, which would cut the department’s spending by $7.1 billion down to $64 billion starting in October.

Funding for teacher development under Title II, totaling $2.1 billion, would be eliminated, as would $1.2 billion in Title IV funding for academic supports and enrichment and $1.1 billion for 21st Century Community Learning Centers that support after-school programs. In total, funding for 29 programs would be eliminated in the federal budget. 

On the other side of the ledger, Trump’s budget blueprint calls for $500 million for federal charter school grants, a $60 million increase from current funding levels. The president also wants $200 million for the School Safety National Activities program, which would more than double the program’s $95 million in current funding—of that amount, $100 million would be used to fund a new School Safety State Formula Grant program. There are no requirements for the grant program related to firearms, according to the Education Department. And the office for civil rights would get $125 million, the same as current funding.

On the school choice front, the department says its main proposal has already been introduced: a federal tax-credit scholarship program from Republicans. The Treasury Department’s budget proposal includes $5 billion for the cost of such a program. 

Meanwhile, the Education Innovation and Research fund would be funded at $300 million, a $170 million increase from fiscal 2019. Of that amount, $200 million would “test the impact of teacher professional development vouchers,” according to a presentation from the Education Department, while $100 million would go toward innovative STEM grants. In addition, the Trump budget would provide $50 million for a pilot program under Title I to help districts create and use weighted student-funding formulas—this pilot program was created under the Every Student Succeeds Actin order to help schools focus money directly on disadvantaged students and those with special needs. Funding for the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarships Program, which provides vouchers to students in the nation’s capital, would increase to $30 million. 

Title I funding for disadvantaged students, the single-largest federal funding program for public schools, remains flat at $15.9 billion in Trump’s budget pitch. Special education grants to states would also be level-funded at $13.2 billion. Also flat-funded are the English Language Acquisition formula grants at $737.4 million. 

“This budget at its core is about education freedom—freedom for America’s students to pursue their life-long learning journeys in the ways and places that work best for them, freedom for teachers to develop their talents and pursue their passions, and freedom from the top-down ‘Washington knows best’ approach that has proven ineffective and even harmful to students,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a statement about the budget proposal.

On a Monday conference call with reporters, Jim Blew, the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development, acknowledged that Congress and the Trump administration have not been synced up in terms of education spending priorities. 

“The administration believes that we need to reduce the amount of discretionary funding for the education,” Blew said. “That is based on the desire to have some fiscal discipline and address some higher-priority needs.”

Blew indicated that the priorities should be the disadvantaged children and students with disabilities. 

For more details on Trump’s fiscal 2020 proposal for the Education Department, click here. And check out our chart below to see the effects Trump’s budget request would have on different programs.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Missouri: Stop Privatization Now!

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2019 //
6

 

The legislature in Missouri is considering bills for charters and vouchers, which will defund public schools.

if you live in Missouri, contact your legislator and express your support for yourcomm7nity’s Public s hoops.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Missouri, Privatization, Vouchers

Florida: Heads Up, Some Bad Legislation is on the Front Burner

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2019 //
1

 

Betsy DeVos touts Florida as a national model even though it spends less per pupil than most states and pays its teachers less. It has vouchers! It has charters! It violates its own state constitution!

From a reader:

We could use some help. Make a call. I Cannot stress enough how parents and teachers need to call and protest these bills. Please make a call today:

Please feel free to share this. 

On Wednesday, 3/6/19, at 10:30 AM, the Senate Education Committee will be hearing SB 7070.

This is a train bill, meaning it covers multiple education topics in one bill. Several of the components are very bad. Tell the Senator that you oppose train bills.

1. Establishes a new voucher program “Family Empowerment Scholarship”, which will provide low income children with vouchers to private, mostly religious, schools. The funding will come directly from the FEFP (Florida Education Finance Program), meaning your property taxes will pay for much of it. Please tell the senators that you are opposed to paying property taxes for vouchers to religious schools with no academic accountability.

2. Also funded in the FEFP are a series of teacher/principal bonuses. Our teachers need RAISES not bonuses. Bonuses can not be used to secure a mortgage. In the midst of a critical teacher shortage our teachers need increased salaries.

Please let these senators know you oppose SB7070 because of the above. Also, let them know that you believe PUBLIC SCHOOLS are an essential part of our community and they deserve our full support.

Senate Ed Committee
Senator Diaz 850-487-5036
Senator Baxley 850-487-5012
Senator Perry 850-487-5008
Senator Simmons 850-487-5009
Senator Stargel 850-487-5022
Senator Montford 850-487-5003
Senator Berman 850-487-5031
Senator Cruz 850-487-5018

Categories Florida, Merit pay, Vouchers

Anthony Cody: Charter Schools and Vouchers Are an Existential Threat to Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2019 //
21

Recently Education Week posted a column claiming that charters and vouchers do not threaten public schools and that concern about privatization is vastly overblown.

Anthony Cody refutes that argument for complacency in this post. 

The writer of the article, Arianna Prothero, is a staff writer for Education Week.

Cody writes:

Prothero apparently only consulted one side of this contentious issue, as all the statistics she cites are from the National Alliance for Public (sic) Charter Schools.

When she refers to “most parts of America,” she apparently means rural areas, he says.

She wondered why West Virginia teachers were willing to strike to block charter schools, when, she claims, they are no big deal in a state like West Virginia. After all, legislators only want to start small, with one itty-bitty program with only a few charters.

Cody responds:

Wow. That is quite a conclusion! It would be reassuring if this were not the way that almost every charter school and voucher program began – with just a few schools, or only targeting a limited group of students. And then within a few years, the programs are expanded to include nearly everyone. Reporters covering education should know this history.

Indiana’s voucher program started for limited income students who had attended public schools for at least a year. It expanded to the point that today many students are eligible. Take a look at all the student eligibility pathways.   This year, taxpayers will spend $153 million on vouchers for students attending private and parochial schools. Families earning as much as $91,000 a year are eligible.

Voucher programs such as “Education Savings Accounts” almost always start with one group, such as students with disabilities,  and then more groups are added every year. That is what happened in Arizona. The program in Arizona started small, and by last year had expanded to make 20% of students eligible. State lawmakers tried to make 90% of students eligible, but last year voters overturned the law. The proposal in West Virginia, for seven charter schools and vouchers for a thousand students this year, would have been a platform for further growth.

Cody shows how charters are undermining the very existence of public schools in some cities.

And he notes:

Mainstream media coverage for the past decade has, similar to this EdWeek blog post, generally downplayed the potential and real harms inflicted by the expansion of charter schools and voucher programs. The experiences of those in places like Oakland, Los Angeles and Pennsylvania serve as a warning to others — whether they are in urban, suburban or rural areas. Charter schools are a costly experiment that so far, has failed to yield much. Those in states fortunate enough to have avoided charters thus far do not need to repeat these failed experiments to learn the same lessons the hard way. Teachers in West Virginia were wise to ward off this danger.

Readers might be interested to know that blog posts in EdWeek bearing the K12 Parent Engagement logo are partly funded by contributions by the Walton Family Foundation, though EdWeek retains editorial control.

The Walton Family Foundation is anti-union, anti-public school, and pro-privatization. They expect a return on investment.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers, Walton Foundation, West Virginia

Georgia: State Senate Says NO to Vouchers!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2019 //
3

 

The Georgia State Senate, controlled by Republicans, voted not to create a private school voucher program. 

Critics said the program would eventually cost the state half a billion a year, defunding public schools.

Democrats voted as a bloc against it, joined by key Republicans including Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller of Gainesville.

Public school supporters who opposed the bill were astonished.

The fate of the bill by Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, stunned the public school lobby, which had been working overtime against it.

“Pleasantly surprised,” was how Craig Harper, executive director of the 90,000-plus member Professional Association of Georgia Educators put it.

John Zauner, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, said the legislation would have “fundamentally” changed school financing.

Categories Georgia, Vouchers

Libertarians: Cory Booker is the Champion of Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
21

 

In this article, a writer for the libertarian Reason magazine–which supports free-market solutions to all government problems–praises Cory Booker for his advocacy on behalf of charters and vouchers, and even dares to mention that he worked closely with Betsy DeVos, his ideological ally on education issues.

Booker is proud of his record as an advocate of privatization and a supporter of non-union schools.

Real Democrats don’t support charters and vouchers. These are Republican issues.

Public schools belong to the public, not to entrepreneurs or privatizers or profiteers or corporate chains or foreign entities.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Republicans Plan to Eliminate Public Schools in Florida

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2019 //
35

Peter Greene paints an ugly picture of the dominant forces of privatization in Florida and their plans to destroy public education and share the spoils.

He begins by asking these questions:

Here are two not-entirely-academic questions:

Is it possible to end public education in an entire state?

Can Florida become any more hostile to public education than it already is?

Newly-minted Governor Ron DeSantis and a wild cast of privatization cronies seem to answer a resounding “yes” to both questions.

The trick they play is to say that anything funded by the public, no matter who owns it, runs it, or uses it, is “public,” by definition.

Florida has become a playground for for-profit entrepreneurs and religious zealots, and the new governor Ron DeSantis is on their team.

He describes the leaders of a group that calls itself the “School Choice Movement,” and they are people who never give a moment’s thought to the public interest or the common good.

There is a lot of dirty politics in the Sunshine State, and a good deal of money to line someone’s pockets. Up until now, the courts have blocked the goals of the privatizers, which directly violate the state constitution. But Governor DeSantis just replaced some of those pesky judges to get the courts out of his way.

Greene writes:

Calling charter schools public creates a nice batch of smoke and mirrors, allowing DeSantis and his cronies to privatize giant chunks of Florida’s school system while still proclaiming, “No need to worry. You still have public schools!” You could completely shift the education system to privately owned and operated schools while still reassuring parents, taxpayers, and, perhaps, courts, that you haven’t done a thing because it’s still all public schools.

It’s not just marketing. It’s stealing the Mona Lisa and hanging up a Polaroid picture of the painting in its place. It’s kidnapping your spouse and replacing them with an inflatable doll. It is a gaslighting of epic proportions.

In the meantime, Florida taxpayers, you probably should not try to just stroll into the public governor’s mansion you paid for or borrow one of those public vehicles that you bought for officials to drive around in (especially don’t try to commandeer a public army tank). Instead, I would keep a close eye on your public schools while you’ve still got them. And if it’s already too late in your county, don’t be sad– your loss of public education has at least made some of your leaders really wealthy.

And the rest of us need to pay attention, too. Remember– Betsy DeVos is among the many people who think Florida is an educational exemplar.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
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