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Sara Stevenson Writes to the Texas Legislature: Please Say No to Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2017 //
0

Sara Stevenson is a librarian at the O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas. She sent the following letter to members of the Legislature:

Dear senators and congressmen/women,

Please don’t add private school vouchers (ESAs) onto HB 21. House Bill 21 gives school districts much needed fiscal relief. Here in Austin ISD, we had to give away $406 million of our tax dollars this year. Next year it will be over $500 million. Austin ISD, being property rich, gives away more money due to recapture than any other district in the state. Meanwhile, 60% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

If the legislature wants to pass private school vouchers, they need to do so in its own bill and not sneak it onto this bill. It needs the support of the Texas people, which it does not have. Polls show that Texans do NOT support spending public money on private school tuition. Furthermore, the Texas House recently voted almost unanimously against it. Please respect the will of the people and their representatives.

Private schools vary in quality as do public schools, but at least public schools are accountable to the state. Private schools are under no accountability measures, not even to follow IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) protections, a federal law since 1973. How does it serve special needs students to have their rights stripped?

Please take the voucher poison pill out of the legislation. Pass it on its own or wait until next session when you have a chance to garner more support.

Please help our Texas public schools. We need your support.

Best,

Sara Stevenson
Austin, Texas

Categories Accountability, Funding, Texas, Vouchers

An Urgent Appeal from Pastors for Texas Children!

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2017 //
24

Pastor Charles Foster Johnson wrote this urgent appeal on behalf of Pastors for Texas Children:

Dear PTC Friends,

What we feared all along this legislative session is now happening.

A special-needs voucher provision has been attached to the school funding bill by the Senate Education Committee.

In short, the pro-voucher Senate will not allow any increase in money for our neighborhood and community schools until and unless they get some kind of voucher policy in Texas.

The pro-voucher people are desperate. Powerful monied interests far outside the state of Texas want to profit off our children. They won’t quit until they tap into this market.

We know how wrong it is to fund the private education of a few with money dedicated to the public education of the many.

We know how unjust it is to corrupt the public trust through a subsidy for private interests.

We know how unwise it is to promote yet another government entitlement and expansion program that intrudes into our private schools.

Most important, we know how unrighteous it is to violate God’s gift of religious liberty by using government money to promote religious causes.

So, as much as our children need the increased funding, we must say NO to the privatization of God’s gift of public education.

Please call your state senator and state representative NOW and urge their opposition to this bill, CSHB21 (Committee Substitute House Bill 21). Attached is all the information you need. You can find their Austin phone numbers here: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/

Please pray for our Senate and House members. Please spread the word today to other pastoral and lay colleagues.

Do it for our children. ALL our children.

We thank God for you and your witness!

All best,

CFJ

Categories Texas, Vouchers

William Mathis on the Illusory Graduation Rate of Students in D.C. Voucher Schools

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2017 //
36

Trump recently told a group of students attending voucher schools in D.C. that they were very lucky because the graduation rate of the voucher program was 98%. That was far more than the evaluation of the program, which claimed a rate of 82%. But when I re-read the final evaluation report on the program, I couldn’t understand how the evaluators arrived at 82%. Newspaper accounts regularly say that the D.C. voucher program had no effect on test scores but a higher graduation rate. But was it true? What was the attrition rate? How did the evaluators arrive at 82%?

So I asked William Mathis of the National Education Policy Center to explain what was behind the numbers. He very kindly untangled the data for me and wrote the following:


Donald Trump’s Phantom 98% Voucher Graduation Rate

William J. Mathis

​Education secretary Betsy DeVos joined Donald Trump at the White House to pitch school vouchers touting the “98% graduation rate” from the District of Columbia program. Now, a 98% graduation rate would be a superlative figure for any school but coming out of urban Washington, this would be nothing short of phenomenal. Some might claim divine intervention would be required.​​

Here’s why: For the baseline year of 2010, the federal government’s official, national, on-time graduation rate reached an “all-time high” of 80%. When the District of Columbia’s 2010 graduation rate was compared to the 50 states, it came in dead-last with 59%. It maintains the dubious last-place ranking. Thus, to reach 98%, the DC voucher program would have to leap over all 50 states including top-scoring Iowa (88%). Such a miraculous ascent rightly raises a skeptical eye.

To sort this out, inquiring minds would first go to the source of the numbers. The president’s remarks were based on a 2010 University of Arkansas study of Washington DC which estimated the actual graduation rate of 70% for traditional public schools and 82% for voucher schools. This would be pretty good given DC’s official rate of 59% for that year. But this is a long way from Trump’s imaginative 98%.

​So what’s the difference between the researchers’ rate and the real rate? The University of Arkansas’ numbers were based on a telephone survey of parents which had a response rate of only 63% despite some aggressive follow-up. For students who had not yet graduated, they asked the parents to forecast whether their student would, in fact, graduate. Since the control group had a response rate similar to the voucher students, the researchers concluded they could compare the groups. But this quickly runs into problems. The first of which is the low response rate to the telephone survey. It is reasonable to infer that respondents would differ from non-respondents. The second problem is relying on the parents’ forecast that their child would graduate rather than using the actual school district count of drop-outs and non-graduates. These errors would result in inflated numbers.​

​The third problem is selection effects. That is, the parents who elected to participate in the voucher program are parents who are more likely to be involved and motivated to advance their children’s education. As is clearly known, parental involvement is a key to educational success. Parents must register for the program and the on-line application program requires the parent to establish an account with email address and password. Then, social security numbers, date of birth, proof of income, proof of DC residence and tax ID numbers are required. This suggests a multitude of selection problems including non-computer literate parents, computer availability, privacy protection and any number of other reasons that people may not want to be in a government data base.

​Mystifying to the reader, only 351 out of 1293 students used their voucher for all years (27%). The remaining 73% dropped out of the program but whether they graduated is unclear. We just don’t know what happened to these students.
Trump and DeVos failed to mention that this same study showed test scores for the voucher students remained flat. They also overlooked a newer DC study with even less positive findings. In this federally sponsored 2017 study, test scores dropped for both experimental and control groups. But voucher program students dropped more than the traditional students in both reading and mathematics. Further, 82% of the voucher group changed schools after the first year. All in all, there are no transcendent intercessions here. It’s just a weak design garnished with exaggeration.

While Trump argues for billions in new tax breaks for voucher schemes, there is no evidence that they are an effective reform strategy. To the contrary, the segregative effects could be quite harmful. Large-scale voucher studies in Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio also show negative numbers. So in light of these facts, what did the federal government do? They prohibited further studies of the program and called for greater federal support of voucher programs.

Categories District of Columbia, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Vouchers

Texas: Republicans in State Senate Try Again to Push Through a Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
19

You know about the camel’s nose under the tent? That’s the game that Texas Republicans are playing in an effort to establish a foothold for vouchers. They have copied this tactic from other states. It goes like this: We don’t want vouchers for everyone; we want them just for this very small, very needy, very deserving group of children. If they get that bill passed, within a year or two, another group is added, then another, then another, until vouchers are available for everyone.

Just weeks ago, the Texas House of Representatives, firmly in the hands of Republicans, defeated the Senate’s voucher bill. It was widely assumed that vouchers were dead for this year. But, no, Senate Republicans added a voucher program only for children with disabilities to an important school finance proposal. Its advocates choose to ignore the fact that children with disabilities are protected by federal law in public schools, but not in private schools. They also ignore the fact that private schools for children with disabilities are far more expensive than the voucher they will offer.

The Senate’s version of the bill does not not yet have a legislative fiscal note. The Center for Public Policy Priorities estimates that it could mean about $8,300 for students to use with about $450 going back to the district.

With no income qualification cutoffs attached, the group estimates that Texas schools could lose about $37 million annually after the first year of ESAs if just 1 percent of eligible students used them.

Supporters of public education were happy about the school finance proposal, but they had to backtrack on their support when they saw that the Senate had added vouchers to the bill. For the public school supporters, this is a poison pill. Given the strong opposition to vouchers in the House, there is a good chance that the Senate voucher provision will not survive.

The members of the House must decide if they want the camel’s nose to enter the tent, knowing what will come next.

Categories Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Special Education, Texas, Vouchers

Weaponized Philanthropy: A Report on the Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
16

What do you know about the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation? Likely, not much. While Gates, Broad, and Walton go public with their eagerness to privatize public schools, Bradley has the same goals but stays under the media radar.

The Center for Media and Democracy now reveals what everyone needs to know about the Bradley Foundation.

It has more assets than the Koch family foundations. It was the driving force behind the voucher movement in Wisconsin. It funds anti-union organizations. For a 501(c)3 charity, the Bradley Foundation is deeply involved in partisan activities.

The report says (the links are on the site):

“Documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) expose a national effort funded by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation to assess and expand right-wing “infrastructure” to influence policies and politicians in statehouses nationwide.

“The documents were made public in October 2016 on two Twitter accounts that cyber security analysts have linked to one of the Russian hackers alleged to have breached the Democratic National Committee. The Bradley Foundation confirmed in a statement that the hack had taken place and was reported to the FBI. More information about how the Bradley files became public is available here.

“The documents open a window to the behind-the-scenes workings of one of America’s largest right-wing foundations. With $835 million in assets as of June 2016, the Bradley Foundation is as large as the three Koch family foundations combined, yet receives much less attention as a significant funder of the right.

“CMD has examined thousands of these documents, including Bradley board documents between 2013-2016. The documents indicate that Bradley has a new stream of funding to build this “conservative infrastructure” and is using a metric to assess the strength and depth of that infrastructure in individual states — including “receptive” politicians, right-wing “think tanks,” symbiotic “grassroots” groups, friendly media, litigation centers, and opposition research — to guide Bradley’s strategic funding initiatives.

“Bradley ranks states into four “tiers” of investment opportunities and prioritizes funding the top tier states. A re-creation of Bradley’s master chart listing all U.S. states and scoring their infrastructure needs can be found here and below.

“The documents also reveal that Bradley is bankrolling groups across the nation that are working to defund and dismantle unions. The political nature of this attack is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like the Daily Signal that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle…”

“The documents reveal that a key Bradley partner in this effort is the discredited Berman and Co. public relations firm and the many front groups it has spawned. Berman and Co. is run by Richard Berman, an aggressive propagator of industry spin and disinformation, profiled by “60 Minutes” as a “hired gun” for corporate America. Berman is best known for propping up propagandistic websites and launching public relations and social media campaigns to smear non-profit environmental, worker rights, consumer, and animal welfare organizations. The Center for Media and Democracy has specifically been targeted by Berman over the years.

“Representing clients in the restaurant industry, Berman has long campaigned against any rise in the minimum wage or tipped minimum wage, which has stood at $2.13 for 30 years. He has battled efforts at the state and federal level that make joining a union easier, has attacked organized workers and their leaders, and has been a primary opponent of labor-backed campaigns to raise the minimum wage.

“The documents reveal that Bradley is funding a new Berman project called the “Interstate Policy Alliance” to target its strategic infrastructure investments, as a “discrete channel” for cookie-cutter reports for member groups to publish to “maximize credibility,” and to train Bradley-funded groups in “crisis communication” and opposition research. Bradley cites the case of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was “caught flatfooted,” the documents say, after the Center for Media and Democracy published ALEC’s secret library of “model bills” — voted on behind closed doors with corporate lobbyists — and launched ALECexposed.org in 2011.

“The documents show that Bradley has funded ALEC to aid with “proactive reputation management,” and the “larger plan” includes “aggressive opposition research.” Bradley wants Berman to develop an “off-the-shelf public-relations strategy” for “conservative outfits caught in the media crosshairs.” The key to success, the documents say, is “well sourced opposition research already prepared and ready to deploy” against opponents (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 8/21/12).

“Berman engages in aggressive PR campaigns attacking teachers unions, a significant opponent of Bradley’s long-term agenda to advance taxpayer vouchers for private and religious schools, while other Bradley-funded institutions are funded to “defund teachers unions and achieve real education reform” (Barder Fund, 8/18/15). Bradley is so anxious to silence the organized voice of public school teachers it has pumped $1.77 million into a substitute, the Association of American Educators Foundation. “The NEA and AFT have already been substantially weakened by Wisconsin Act 10. AAE thinks it is well-positioned to help further weaken the unions and their political goals,” say the documents (AAEF, Grant Proposal Record, 8/19/2014).

“While I have not yet seen all of the documents, this appears to be more evidence that a few powerful private foundations are weaponizing philanthropy for their own private political purposes. The government gives charitable foundations tax breaks in exchange for furthering the public good. Instead, it sounds as if the Bradley Foundation has been furthering the good of its own political agenda. It really begs some serious legal questions,” said author Jane Mayer.”

Berman has run anti-teachers union campaigns in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere. His “Union Facts” website regularly attacks unions.

Why does this highly partisan Foundation qualify for tax-exempt status?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

An Urgent Message to the Citizens of North Carolina

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
6

Public education is in jeopardy in North Carolina.

Please take action now!

The North Carolina Senate introduced SB 603, a bill creating a new voucher program that would give $9,000 a year to students with disabilities going to non-public schools.

Send an email to tell your house member to vote NO for SB 603.

SB 603 is a bill that:

Expands opportunities for fraud

Costs more to administer than traditional voucher programs

Takes funding from our public schools, with particularly negative impacts for public school programs for students with disabilities

Drains the state budget

Lacks accountability

If passed, parents of eligible students get a debit card loaded with approximately $9,000 per year that they can spend on private school costs, tutoring, technology and even account fees!

In addition, SB 603 would allow parents to double- or triple-dip into North Carolina’s already existing voucher programs. Parents could also receive $4,200 from the Opportunity Scholarship program (for students meeting certain income requirements), an additional $8,000 via the Disabilities Grant Program and $9,000 from this program the new proposed program.

Like the Arizona ESA program on which it is modeled, it is ripe for fraud. Arizona’s program has resulted in parents buying televisions, groceries, cell phones and family planning services. Vendors have also been caught overcharging parents. Monitoring of purchases would rely on self-reporting.

Under the proposed bill, even if an audit uncovers fraud, there is no requirement that the parent be forced to repay the taxpayers.

Worst of all, when a parent misuses these debit cards, their children go undereducated.

This is, in our opinion, just one more attempt to defund and attack public education. And it is shameful.

Send this email today to your representative telling them to oppose SB 603.

We make it easy. Just click here.

Then pick up the phone and call on Monday. You can find their number here.

Then post this link on your Facebook page and share it will all of your friends and family in North Carolina.

https://npeaction.org/2017/05/12/north-carolina-alert-stop-super-voucher/

Thanks for all you do!

Carol Burris

Executive Director

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Vouchers

Great News! Missouri Does Not Pass Voucher Plan

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
20

The Missouri legislature ended their legislative session without passing legislation that would authorize “education savings accounts,” a form of voucher that parents could use to spend anywhere for anything. It is a path to allowing parents to spend public money on anything regardless of quality. Where ESAs exist, many children are getting a subpar education or none at all.

Other countries must think we have gone crazy or turned against educating our young.

Good work, Missouri!

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/missouri-lawmakers-target-st-louis-minimum-wage-hike-hectic-last-day-session#stream/0

Categories Missouri, Vouchers

Why Republicans Blocked Vouchers in Texas

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
14

Gary VanDeaver is a conservative member of the House of Representatives in Texas. On most of the hot-button social issues, he is a hardline conservative.

But Representative VanDeaver of New Boston, Texas, opposes vouchers.

He is well informed and he is looking out for the best interests of his constituents. What the story does not mention is that Rep. VanDeaver, before he ran for office, was a teacher, a principal, and superintendent of schools in his home town, New Boston. He understands what it means to offer “school choice” in a small rural community.

“When it comes to one centerpiece conservative initiative – allowing tax-subsidized vouchers for students to enroll in private schools – VanDeaver says absolutely no way.

“In my district, public school is the community,” said VanDeaver, of New Boston, a town about 25 miles from the Arkansas border where the Lions high school football stadium has 3,500 seats, nearly enough for every resident.

“If we do anything to pull those students away, then we’re harming those communities,” said VanDeaver, 58, after joining an overwhelming majority of the GOP-dominated state House this month to reject school vouchers…”

Rural Republicans have helped to sink vouchers in every legislative session, despite the support they get from the Governor, Greg Abbott, and the Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick.

The combination of rural Republicans and urban Democrats has blocked vouchers again and again. They get passed in the state Senate, and they never come to a vote in the House.

That, plus the vigorous activity of Pastors for Texas Children, has prevented the voucher movement from succeeding in Texas.

Categories Rural Schools, Texas, Vouchers

The Great Retreat Now Begins: Choice is No Longer About “Saving Poor Children from Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2017 //
18

Do you remember back in the old days when the privatization movement began that choice was going to “save poor children from failing schools”?

Well, that slogan is now obsolete. Now the advocates say that the purpose of choice is choice, regardless of results.

That subtle shift has happened because of the many recent studies and evaluations showing that charters and vouchers do not necessarily get better results, and that they may even have a negative effect, as we learned from recent evaluations of voucher programs in D.C., Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos sounded the bugle call for retreat after learning of the poor results of the latest evaluation of the D.C. voucher program, funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

In the past, she had said that choice would “save poor kids from failing schools.” Now, however, she says, “When school choice policies are fully implemented, there should not be differences in achievement among the various types of schools.” Parents are satisfied, and that is good enough for her, even if the children’s test scores are falling. If you parse this sentence, what she is saying is that when everyone chooses, none of the schools will be better than any others. They will all get the same results, even if they are dismal. The purpose of choice is choice.

Results don’t matter. Only parent satisfaction matters. If poor kids are moved from a “failing public school” to a “failing charter school” or “failing religious school,” that’s fine. An opinion piece in a D.C. paper suggested that we should not pay attention to those studies, because critics of school choice twist their findings anyway, especially if their findings are negative.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Testing, Vouchers

DeVos Will Visit Christian School Today

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
33

Politico Education reports that Betsy DeVos will visit a Christian school today.

DEVOS TO VISIT PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN D.C. THIS MORNING: The Trump administration’s campaign to promote D.C.’s voucher program continues this morning as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visits Cornerstone, a private school that says on its website it provides a “Christ-centered” education. President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted the program at an event with DeVos and Vice President Mike Pence. Trump said it makes an “extraordinary difference” to students in the nation’s capital, though a recent study found that it had a negative impact on children’s reading and math scores.

Valerie Strauss wrote about Trump’s remarks to a group of D.C. students, in which he told flat-out whoppers to them.

President Trump on Wednesday surprised a group of young D.C. students who were at the White House to meet the vice president and education secretary, and he touted the “winning” federally funded school voucher program in Washington. He failed to mention a new Education Department study that found that students in the program get lower standardized test scores than those in what he called “failing” public schools.

Trump called the event, scheduled during National Charter Schools Week, “beautiful” and “very exciting.” Students from public and private schools and family members were there to meet Vice President Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Both DeVos and Trump have criticized traditional public schools while praising alternatives, including charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, and voucher/voucher-like programs that allow public money to be used for private and religious school. Their support for the latter is in contrast with the Obama administration, which backed charters but not vouchers.

Trump’s schedule did not include a stop in the Roosevelt Room, where the event was being held, but he joked that when he heard DeVos was there, he thought he would come to interrupt her, and “maybe I’ll be allowed to say a few words.”

In his remarks, he took the opportunity to slam D.C. public schools while talking up the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, the only federally funded school voucher program in the country. He said to the kids, according to a White House transcript:

So yesterday I said that our spending bill was a win for the American people, which is exactly what it was — an amazing day. And this is what winning for young children and kids from all over the country looks like. The Opportunity Scholarship program that we’re funding allows families in the inner city of our nation’s capital to leave failing public schools and attend a private school, making an extraordinary difference in these incredible young lives. You’re so lucky. Great. You’re happy about it? Huh? That’s great.

The results speak for themselves. Ninety-eight percent of scholarship recipients represent their high school diplomas, and they’re really very, very special. They go into tremendous successes. So I think you’re going to all be very, very successful. You have a big start, right? Great start.

No study has ever found a 98% graduation rate from voucher schools. The latest study showed students in D.C. voucher schools losing ground.

Boasting comes naturally to him, it seems, even to little children. They didn’t have to hear any negative remarks, but they didn’t need to hear flat-out lies.

Categories Education Reform, Trump, Vouchers
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