Archives for category: Vouchers
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School Choice is Not Good for American Education

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
41

I wrote this article, which was posted just online by the Washington Post.

Charters are not “progressive.” They pave the way for vouchers. They divert funding from public schools, which enroll 85% of American students. They are more segregated than public schools. Ninety percent are non-union. The far-right Walton Foundation is spending $200 million a year on charters and Betsy DeVos is currently spending $400 million, which may soon increase to $500 million. The vaunted “high performance” charters have either higher attrition or cherry pick their students.

Our nation is evolving a new dual school system, with one system choosing its students and the other required to find a place for all who apply.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Segregation, Supporting public schools, Unions, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

NPE and Schott Foundation Release Report Card for the States on Privatization of Public School Funds

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2018 //
21

Today, the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education released the first ever state-by-state report card on privatization of public funds intended for public schools.

It is titled: “Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation’s Commitment to Public Schools.”

Where does your state rank?

Is your state diverting public funds for privately managed charter schools?

Does your state offer vouchers for unregulated, unaccountable religious and private schools?

Does your state have neovoucher schools that encourage corporations and wealthy individuals to underwrite the cost of religious and private education instead of paying taxes to support public schools?

Billions of dollars are being diverted from public schools to pay for tuition in nonpublic schools, some of which hire uncertified teachers and some of which enroll students who were previously enrolled in private schools.

The big takeaway from this report is that every dollar that goes to a charter school or a religious or private school is a dollar taken away from public schools whose doors are open to all, regardless of race, religion, gender, language. Disability, or LGBT status.

In reading the report, you will notice that the overwhelming majority of parents choose public schools in every state.

No matter how many programs are created to promote private alternatives, the public chooses their democratically controlled public schools.

This is a landmark report that identifies the states that fully support their public schools. Inform yourself so you are prepared to fight privatization and defend public education—of, by, and for the people. Not the billionaires. Not the hedge fund managers. Not the entrepreneurs. Not the religious zealots. Not the profiteers. Not Betsy DeVos.

For the people.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Network for Public Education, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

North Carolina and the Hypocrisy of Test Scores

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2018 //
9

The North Carolina General Assembly believes that the only thing that matters in judging the quality of a school is its test scores. As teacher Justin Parmenter explains here, public schools are graded solely by their test scores. The grades accurately reflect the income level of the families enrolled. The state could save money by just checking family income instead of giving tests.

But wait! For voucher schools, test scores don’t matter. Voucher schools, most of which are evangelical, are not required to take the state tests.

Why? The General Assembly is afraid of seeing the results.

Maybe if the scores showed that the voucher schools are failing, they would have to send the kids back to public schools, where they would have certified teachers who have passed criminal background checks.

Hypocrites.

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Pennsylvania Bows to Pressure from Religious Schools to Allow Discrimination

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2018 //
92

Pennsylvania bowed to pressure from religious schools that are beneficiaries of public funding via tax credit programs and removed language from the state law that bars discrimination.

Should private schools that benefit from Pennsylvania’s tax credit programs adhere to the rules of the public system?

That debate often revolves around school accountability because the state does not require private schools to administer and publish the results of standardized tests.
But the question has also cropped up in recent weeks around an entirely different issue — employee discrimination.

In May, Governor Tom Wolf’s administration removed nondiscrimination language from guidelines governing private schools that receive money through state tax credits.

The removal came soon after a coalition of private schools and lawmakers complained the language violated state law, prompting administration officials to acknowledge that the clause was inserted by accident.

The eliminated language would have barred private schools that benefit from the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) from discriminating against their employees on the basis of “gender, creed, color, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.”

The inclusion of “sexual orientation, gender identity or expression” irked several religiously-affiliated private schools around the state. One school, Dayspring Christian Academy in Lancaster County, called the language a “direct violation of our Christian conscience,” and encouraged parents to contact their legislators.

This skirmish highlights, for some, a lack of state oversight for religious and private schools that benefit from state policy. With some lawmakers pushing to create new avenues for private schools to receive state funds, that tension will likely grow.

Religious schools receiving public money through these programs will not be required to report standardized test scores and will be permitted to discriminate against students and staff on grounds that would not be permissible in public schools.

This is a terrible precedent. Where public money goes, so must public laws and accountability. Why should the public subsidize discrimination?

This will likely be a template for DeVos’s voucher plans at the federal level.

Categories Accountability, Pennsylvania, Religion, Vouchers

Joanne Barkan: Who and What Are Behind the Privatization Movement?

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2018 //
11

Joanne Barkan has been writing brilliant articles about the billionaire assault on public education for several years. Her first was “Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools.”

Her latest is this article, which appeared on Valerie Strauss’s “The Answer Sheet.” She calls it “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” It will ring true for everyone who is fighting the massive money and power of the privatizers.

Barkan supplies a brief history of neoliberalism, as well as the federal efforts to introduce competition and privatization into the schools.

She begins:

When champions of market-based reform in the United States look at public education, they see two separate activities — government funding education and government running schools. The first is okay with them; the second is not. Reformers want to replace their bête noire — what they call the “monopoly of government-run schools” — with freedom of choice in a competitive market dominated by privately run schools that get government subsidies.

Public funding, private management — these four words sum up American-style privatization whether applied to airports, prisons, or elementary and secondary schools. In the last 20 years, the “ed-reform” movement has assembled a mixed bag of players and policies, complicated by alliances of convenience and half-hidden agendas. Donald Trump’s election and his choice of zealot privatizer Betsy DeVos as U.S. secretary of education bolstered reformers but has also made more Americans wary.

What follows is a survey of the controversial movement — where it came from, how it grew, and what it has delivered so far to a nation deeply divided by race and class.

Print it out and take the time to read it. An informed citizenry can stop this behemoth. All that money and power and the privatizers have achieved exactly nothing other than destruction.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Everything You Need to Know But Were Afraid to Ask about Pennsylvania’s Super Duper Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2018 //
12

Peter Greene has read the legislative language of SB 2 in the Pennsylvania State Senate so we don’t have to, and he spells out what is in it. You can be sure that there is nothing good for public schools.

An astonishing 15% of the lowest scoring schools are eligible, which is way larger than most states. As Peter points out, even if every school were doing a good or great or awesome job, there will always be a bottom 15% to thrown into the pool of eligible-for-a-voucher.

He writes:

What’s Super-Duper About It?

Vouchers are a policy idea that will not die; let’s just give every student a check and let them enroll at whatever school they want to (and let’s not talk about the fact that they don’t really get to decide because top private schools are expensive and all private schools are free to accept students or not for whatever reason).

But many reformsters see another end game. Why bother with school at all? Let students purchase an English class from one vendor and a math class from another. Get history lessons on line paid for by your educational voucher card account.

ESAs make that splintered version of “education” possible. Instead of saying, “Here’s a tuition voucher to pay your way to the school of your choice,” the state says, “Here’s a card pre-loaded with your education account money. Spend your special edu-bucks however you want to.”

Do you think that legislators in Pennsylvania care that voucher studies for the past few years have consistently shown that kids do worse than the ones who stayed behind in public schools?

Guess not.

Categories Pennsylvania, Vouchers

Julian Vasquez Heilig: One More Study on Vouchers, and They Still Don’t Work

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2018 //
3

Julian Vasquez Heilig reports on the latest study of vouchers in D.C., which showed that students who used vouchers lost ground in math compared to their peers who did not.

This time with song and dance and disappointed voucher cheerleaders.

Categories Failure, Vouchers

DeVos: State Bans on Funding Religious Schools Should Go to “Ash Heaps of History”

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2018 //
64

Betsy DeVos is opposed to separation of church and state. She thinks that state bans that prohibit the funding of religious schools should be ended. In a speech yesterday in New York City to the Alfred E. Smith Society, which is allied with the Archdiocese of New York, she said that such bans originated in anti-Catholic bigotry and should be eliminated.

DeVos noted that these amendments are still on the books in 37 states. And though she didn’t get into this in her speech, that includes her home state of Michigan. Back in 2000, DeVos helped lead an effort to change the state’s constitution to allow for school vouchers. It failed.

She said that “there’s hope that Blaine amendments won’t be around much longer.” She noted that last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a state-funded playground restoration program in Columbia, Mo., to exclude a facility on the grounds of a church. (That case is Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo. v. Comer . More about it here.) School choice advocates are hoping that ruling will prod state lawmakers to re-examine Blaine amendments.

“These amendments should be assigned to the ash heap of history and this ‘last acceptable prejudice’ should be stamped out once and for all,” DeVos said.

But Maggie Garrett, the legislative director at Americans United for the Separation of Church, a nonprofit organization in Washington, has a different take on the state constituional amendments, which she referred to as “no aid” clauses.

“Like with many things, Betsy Devos has her facts wrong,” Garrett said. “It’s a simplistic and inaccurate view of the history. There were many reasons why people support no-aid causes, many of them were legitimate.” And she noted that states continue to support such amendments. Recenty, for instance, Oklahoma tried to strike its clause through a state referendum, but the effort was resoundingly defeated

And she said that DeVos is “overstating” the impact of the Trinity Lutheran decision, which, in Garrett’s view, applied narrowly to playground resurfacing.

Federal Role in School Choice

DeVos also gave a shout-out to states—including , Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania—that have created so-called “tax credit scholarship programs,” in which individuals and corporations can get a tax break for donating to scholarship granting organizations.

DeVos worked behind the scenes last year to get a similar, federal program included in a tax overhaul bill, but was ultimately unsuccessful, sources say. Still, school choice advocates haven’t given up on the idea.

In her speech, though, DeVos acknowledged that a new, federal school choice program might be tough to enact, and even undesirable.

“A top-down solution emanating from Washington would only grow government … a new federal office to oversee your private schools and your scholarship organizations. An office staffed with more unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats tasked to make decisions families should be free to make for themselves. Just imagine for a moment how that might impact you under an administration hostile to your faith! ” she said. “So, when it comes to education, no solution—not even ones we like—should be dictated by Washington, D.C.”

She also conceded that Congress isn’t too keen on the idea. “In addition, leaders on both sides of the aisle in Congress—friend and foe alike—have made it abundantly clear that any bill mandating choice to every state would never reach the president’s desk,” DeVos added.

DeVos is right that the Blaine amendments were created at a time of anti-Catholic bigotry, but they have grown popular over time because most Americans do not want their tax dollars used to support religious schools. Whenever Blaine amendments have been taken to the public in state referenda, they are overwhelmingly defeated. As the nation has grown more diverse in religious practice, Americans have repeatedly rejected efforts to subsidize religious schools.

The best protection of religious liberty, as the Founders understood, is to keep it separate from government. When religious institutions take government money, government regulation will in time follow.

In the nearly two dozen state referenda intended to repeal prohibitions on public funding of religious schools, none has passed. The rejections have been overwhelming. In Michigan, when Dick and Betsy DeVos paid for a repeal effort, the public said no by a margin of 69-31%. Betsy learned nothing from that defeat.

In Florida, Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee campaigned for a “Religious Liberty amendment” to allow public funding of religious schools, and it went down 55-45%. If they had called it a referendum to permit public funding of religious schools, it probably would have gone down by 70-30%.

The only way that voucher supporters get their way is by concealing what they want, calling vouchers by euphemisms. In Florida, the state circumvented the state constitution and the results of referendum by calling their voucher program “Education Savings Accounts” or “Tuition Tax Credits.” Only by lying can they push vouchers. The public said no, and they did it anyway.

The fact is that the American people do not support vouchers–not for Evangelicals, not for Orthodox Jews, not for Muslims, and not for any other religious group.

The issue in New York State is whether the public should pay for Orthodox Jewish schools where children do not learn English, or science, or mathematics, but take instruction in Yiddish.

The public doesn’t want to pay for it.

Let’s see what happens in November in Arizona, where the Koch brothers and the DeVos family are scrambling to persuade the public to pay for vouchers.

In every state, let the issue go to the public. When they did it in Florida, the public said no, and the Bush-DeVos crowd ignored the public. How much longer must be deal with their subterfuge, obstinacy, arrogance, and lies?

Categories Florida, Lies, Michigan, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Puerto Rico: Privatizing Public Schools in Puerto Rico

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2018 //
17

Puerto Rico is part of the United States. You would not know that if you paid attention to the neglect of the Island’s needs since Hurricane Maria. Just as the privateers took advantage of Hurricane Katrina to wipe out public schools in New Orleans, they are now moving swiftly to replace public schools in Puerto Rico with charter schools and vouchers. The privatizers are using their familiar tactics of disruption and chaos to shatter communities and displace students and families. The rationale is unexplained.

The austerity measures imposed on the residents have led to violent clashes and tear-gassing of resistors. 

Consider the following information, compiled by the AFT:

Consider the following:

Puerto Rico School Closings: Background

On April 5, Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Education Julia Keleher announced that Puerto Rico would be shuttering 283 schools by September 2018. Those closings would affect nearly 60,000 students and 6,000 teachers and could cause thousands of educators to leave their jobs. This would have a devastating impact on families and communities in Puerto Rico as the island works to recover and grow. Economists have been arguing that the single most important group to keep on the island to stabilize the economic outlook of Puerto Rico are families whose plans for returning or reestablishing normalcy are thrown into chaos.

A small group in the Puerto Rico Education Department proposed the school closing with no input from stakeholders, no visits to schools and using an database that was never shared with the public.

The education secretary for Puerto Rico has admitted that at no time did they do an analysis of any of the school being closed or the impact on students at the closed schools.

The latest round of closings comes less than a year after Puerto Rico closed 167 schools, bringing the total number of schools closed within one year to 450. This represents more than a third of its public schools, though the island’s population has decreased by only 9 percent over the past seven years.

The latest closings also come on the heels of an earlier, smaller round of school closings that occurred due to population loss. Between 2010 and 2015, Puerto Rico closed another 150 public schools in order to deal with population loss.

In addition to the school closings, the U.S. Secretaryof Education Betsy DeVos has been working with Puerto Rico closely to pass legislation to introduce charter schools and vouchers in Puerto Rico. The bill was drafted by a team from Betsy DeVos’s U.S. Education Department, with very little or no input from stakeholders in Puerto Rico.

The closure of schools was built on misleading information.

Initially the Puerto Rican government promised cost savings from closing schools.

o The Government of Puerto Rico has been unable to sell any previously closed schools and is leasing 50 schools out of more than 300 available schools for $1 annually.

o The Governor subsequently acknowledged that there is very little cost savings from closing schools.

o The Governor’s latest statement tracks with studies about school closing in other states that found like one from Pew research that found municipalities get a fraction of the savings they budget for, when they close schools.

o Meanwhile the government just passed voucher and charter school legislation written by DeVos that would cost the Puerto Rico up to $400 million a year.

o As the plan to close schools, the fiscal plan approved by the fiscal oversight board includes more than $7 billion in debt service over five years to vulture funds at the expense of schools and recovery.

The Puerto Rico Secretary of Education had previously argued that school closing were driven by the fiscal board required it. In a recent interview with Telemundo, Jose Carrion, Chairman of the Fiscal Control Board, said the Fiscal Board did not require the closing of schools.

There’s not a transparent and coherent process for why schools are being closed. Various arguments have been made that are sometimes at odds with each other.

On Friday April 20th, the Department of Education indicated that it had not conducted an updated analysis of which schools were being closed, their impact on the education of kids in the schools or whether receiving schools had the resources to help the incoming kids. The Department also indicated that despite protests from mayors, parents and teachers that the list of 283 would not change under any circumstance.

o On Saturday April 21st, The Department of Education sent out a press release that they would make changes to the number of schools being closed.

o Two days later the education department removed six schools from the list and added three new schools to the list.

The schools on the closure list were not selected using an understandable and transparent process. In fact, a quick review of the latest school performance and demographic data shows a number of troubling facts. It is critical that education officials explain how these schools were selected.

Of the 50 poorest schools (at least 95 percent poverty), 21 are slated to close.

Of the 50 least poor schools (56 percent poverty or less), all are expected to remain open.

Among the 50 schools with the lowest proficiency (9 percent proficient or less), 11 schools are slated for closure.

Among the 50 schools with the highest proficiency (90 percent proficient or better), 22 schools are slated for closure.

58 of the 283 schools scheduled to be closed are rated good or excellent by the Department of education

40 percent of the children in the schools slated to closed are special needs students, including children with autism.

There was no consultation with teachers, parents and community leaders before the school closure list was finalized.

There was no transparency to the school closure process other than what we read in the press.
There is real human and economic impact to the school closures that has not been considered. No one has performed an economic impact on school closure in Puerto Rico.

A department of education offical visited a recently built modern school with air conditioning and computer labs slated for closing and told teachers that the school would be perfect for a charter school operator.

The Secretary of Education went on the record to confirm that she is closing a Montessori school because administrators refused to allow the school to become a charter.

Local mayors find the school closings so disruptive that they’ve petitioned the government to take over operations of the schools.

In Lares a school closing will impact four communities in the surrounding area forcing students to commute for an extra hour to 2 hours a day.

Mercedes is a beloved neighborhood school in San Juan where teachers have invested hundreds of dollars for supplies and the school where they are supposed to go has a lower rating and is located in a violent area.

Manuel Caves is a school slated for closing that had a waiting list last year.

In Arecibo, the only bilingual school is being closed.
A school closing in Barceloneta offers pre-vocational courses, and there is no indication that the new school will continue the program.

A school closing in Bayamon, Papa Juan XXIII High School, specializes in mathematics and science. It has an enrollment of 346, and its honor roll is made up of 320 students. These students receive multiple math, science and English classes during the year. Last year, five students in grade 11 went directly to college.

A school being closed in Humacao, Su Luciano Rios, won a robotics championship in 2017.

A school that specializes in baseball is slated to close in Comerío. Keleher argued that the closing was due to poor conditions, but reporters found the school to be in great physical conditions, with the municipality providing maintenance services for the school.

There are dozens of receiving schools that are too far from the closing school. Teachers feel that some receiving schools are too dangerous for students.
In multiple instances, receiving schools have facility problems that can’t accommodate incoming students, or problems with bathrooms or clean water.

All in all, the department of education under Keleher has made no effort to reach out to and work with teachers and parents about what closing their school would mean for students. There are no indications that any thought has been put into the logistics of disrupting the lives of 60,000 students by talking to the adult guardians or teachers of these kids.

New stories emerge daily about communities and schools impacted because there has been no analysis. The list above is just a sample of problems.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Puerto Rico, Vouchers

Teachers of the Year Confront DeVos about Choice

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2018 //
85

 

Betsy DeVos has spent decades advocating for school choice.

What a shock for her when she met the teachers of the year and they told her that charters and vouchers were defunding their schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Courage, School Choice, Teachers, Vouchers
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