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New Hampshire: The GOP Legislature Refuses to Pay for Adequate Education

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2024 //
3

Garry Rayno is a veteran journalist in New Hampshire who covers the legislature for inDepthNH.org. His education reporting is excellent. In this post, he describes the Republicans’ refusal to fund public schools adequately, although they have launched a voucher program that is sure to drain the state imof hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The latest round for education funding lawsuits enters the judicial ring this week in Rockingham County Superior Court and will be argued over the next two weeks.

The second half of the Rand suit goes before judge David Ruoff and — much like the ConVal suit — hinges on whether the state is providing ample money to provide an adequate education for its students, which is essentially the same question before the courts three decades ago with the Claremont suit.

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Under the two Claremont rulings, the state is required to provide an adequate education to its students, define what constitutes an adequate education, pay for it with constitutional taxes and ensure school districts are providing  it.

That sounds pretty simple, but you have to dig a little deeper to understand why the issue has not been settled in the intervening 30 years.

As ConVal argued, the state believes currently that $4,100 per student is the cost of an adequate education, and the state largely pays that cost with the Statewide Education Property Tax, portions of existing taxes and Sweepstakes revenues.

According to the latest figures from the Department of Education the statewide average for educating a single student is $20,322, or $24,756 when all expenditures are included such as transportation, capital expenses and interest,  out-of-district tuitions, etc.

In the ConVal ruling, which is on appeal with the other half of the Rand suit to the Supreme Court, Ruoff set the state’s obligation for the cost of an adequate education at $7,356  and said it is probably closer to $9,900 per student.

In any event the lower figure is almost double what the state pays and would cost the state an additional $500 million.

In the Rand case, the plaintiffs also want the court to determine if the additional money school districts receive for higher costs for educating special education students, or from low-income households or do not speak fluent English, for example is enough to cover those costs as well.

In their suit, the plaintiffs claim the state funding is inadequate to cover those “differentiated aid” costs as well.

When the funding formula was originally developed in the late 1990s, many of the lawmakers sitting on the committee were from the state’s largest cities like Manchester, Rochester and Nashua and weighted the formula to help their communities and that has not changed much since as communities like Manchester, Nashua, Rochester and Somersworth receive a greater percentage of state aid than most other communities.

They are larger and have larger populations of children in poverty, with disabilities and children whose native language is not English, but other communities like Claremont, Berlin, Newport, Pittsfield, Franklin and Milan have problems raising money for education as well without the same percentage of state aid.

But that is not the crux of the Rand suit, which is by failing to pay all of its constitutionally obligated cost of an adequate education, city and town taxpayers have to make up the difference with local property taxes.

As most people know by now, there are property wealthy communities like Moultonborough, Tuftonboro, Wolfeboro, New Castle, Rye, Portsmouth, Hampton, Sunapee, New London, Newbury, etc. that collect more than they need through the Statewide Education Property Tax to pay for the state’s contribution of $4,100 per student and have money left over.

Ostensively all those communities and all the other communities in New Hampshire pay the same tax rate for the Statewide Education Property Tax.

But when the statewide tax receipts in a community do not cover the $4,100 per student threshold, local property taxes have to make up the difference, and those property tax rates vary from community to community.

If the communities have to pay for an adequate education, then the state is using local property taxes to satisfy its obligation, which would mean they are really state taxes.

And the constitution requires that all state taxes be proportional and reasonable and that is the problem, because widely varying tax rates do not meet the constitutional requirement.

And the other aspect of the lawsuit is that the cost of an adequate education is much higher than $4,100 and if that is true, and Ruoff has ruled once that it is, than the state has an even greater obligation, meaning most every community is using local property taxes to pay the state’s share of an adequate education.

The state aid to education totals $817.84 million for the current school year, while the total spent on public education from kindergarten to 12th grade is estimated to be about $3.8 billion for all education related costs, not just adequate education.

The federal government sends hundreds of millions of dollars to the state but there is no simple total of federal funds going to public education in New Hampshire to be found on the Department of Education’s website.

But if the state paid even half the cost of the total amount spent on public education, its obligation, given federal funds, is considerably more than what it currently pays and may be nearly double that amount.

The stakes are extremely high for the state at a time when state revenues are declining, exacerbated by years of rate cuts and repeals.

The state has steadfastly refused to approve any new money source for education outside the statewide property tax which was moving the same dollar from the local side of the property tax ledger to the state’s side although making it more proportional across the state.

However, that did little to reduce property taxes in property poor communities or increase the educational opportunities for students in the property poor districts.

The state has argued since the two Claremont decisions were written 30 years ago that the definition of an adequate education and how to fund it is up to the legislative and executive branches, which it is, except when fundamental rights are being violated.

Recently, the Attorney General’s Office spent a great deal of time arguing what the plaintiffs seek would violate the constitutional separation of powers provision.

The question is where do you draw the line?
Does the legislature in failing to address the inequities for property taxpayers and students exercising its rights to control the purse and set policies, or is it contempt of court?

Or does the court have the final say when fundamental constitutional rights are violated?

Before pondering those questions there are two weeks of arguments by the plaintiffs and the state. The state told the court last spring the plaintiffs have failed to “meet their heavy burden of demonstrating that the current funding formula is in clear and substantial conflict with the [sic] Part II, Article 83,” in seeking a summary judgement and asked not to go forward with this week’s hearings.

The court rejected that request quickly and there will be two more weeks to parse the fundamental issue of whether the state’s children have a fundamental right to an adequate education and how the state would pay for it to be on center stage in the public arena once again.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, New Hampshire, Republicans, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: Project 2025: Politicking for Jesus

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2024 //
9

Mercedes Schneider is a high school teacher in Louisiana who holds a doctorate in statistics and research methodology. It’s no secret that she is also a devout Christian who takes her faith seriously, so seriously that she doesn’t try to impose it on anyone else. As a veteran teacher, she writes with authority and keen intellect about education.

The following essay by Schneider was posted by the Network for Public Education. To read the full essay, please open the link.

Teacher and scholar Mercedes Schneider takes a look at Project 2025. Reposted with permission.

Schneider writes:

Project 2025 identifies itself as “The Presidential Transition Project,” further described as “an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country”:

The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work, but as our dozens of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire conservative movement.

The next conservative President will enter office on January 20, 2025, with a simple choice: greatness or failure.  It will be a daunting test, but no more so than every other generation of Americans has faced and passed. The Conservative Promise represents the best effort of the conservative movement in 2023—and the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.

Though the 900+-page document is clearly meant for “the next conservative President,” former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has publicly attempted to distance himself from the far-right, Heritage-Foundation-steeped governing plan.

In the opening pages of the document, numerous contributors include in their bio sketches connection to the Trump administration. So there’s that.

But one issue that has my attention is that the July 17, 2024, Intercept reports that “Conservative Groups Are Quietly Scurrying Away from Project 2025”:

THE MORE PEOPLE learn about it, the more unpopular and politically toxic Project 2025 has proven to be. This has led the Trump and Vance campaign to attempt to distance itself from the effort. Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller now says he had “zero involvement with Project 2025,” despite appearing in a promotional video. And just today, The Intercept discovered two more conservative groups that have quietly bowed out from the controversial 900-page manifesto — including a national anti-abortion organization.

Miller’s group, America First Legal Foundation, was one of the first organizations to jump ship from the Project 2025 advisory board. Last week, America First Legal asked to be removed from the Project 2025 advisory board webpage. The organization was part of Project 2025 since at least June 2022, when the Heritage Foundation first announced the advisory board’s formation.

America First Legal staff were deeply involved in writing and editing the Project 2025 playbook. Its vice president and general counsel, Gene Hamilton, drafted an entire chapter about the Justice Department, which proposes launching a “campaign” to criminalize mailing abortion pills. In a footnote, Hamilton thanked “the staff at America First Legal Foundation,” who he wrote deserved “special mention for their assistance while juggling other responsibilities.” …

America First Legal did not respond to questions about why it asked to be removed from the Project 2025 advisory board despite its prior participation.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, were among the more than 100 groups listed on the Project 2025 website as part of its advisory board. By Wednesday, Americans United for Life and the Mackinac Center had vanished.

Both organizations were relatively recent additions to the Project 2025 coalition. The Heritage Foundation announced they had joined in February 2024, several months after the massive playbook was released.

Neither organization would elaborate as to why it had joined the Project 2025 board in the first place or why it was exiting it now.

The distancing of conservative groups from a plan that has clearly been brought into the public eye reminds me of the 2011 exposure of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by the nonprofit watchdog, Common Cause, and subsequent corporate member exodus.

Seems like far-right conservatives have a history of not really wanting the public aware of those conservative plans and schemes.

It should come as no surprise that ALEC is a Project 2025 advisory board member:

Project 2025 is the conservative, American white Evangelical Christian plan for operating government. Below is a “note” from Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 director, Paul Dans:

Let me offer some excerpts. Not many, for it does not take much reading to realize that the Project 2025 overarching goal is to force all of America into a white Evangelical Christian mold.

A smidge from Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts’, foreword:

PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. The next conservative President must get to work pursuing the true priority of politics-the well-being of the American family. In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu- ral ones. You see this in the popular left-wing aphorism, “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” But in real life, most of the things people “do together” have nothing to do with government. These are
the mediating institutions that serve as the building blocks of any healthy society. Marriage. Family. Work. Church. School. Volunteering. The name real people give to the things we do together is community, not government. Our lives are full of interwoven, overlapping communities, and our individual and collective happiness depends upon them. But the most important community in each of our lives-and
the life of the nation— is the family. Today, the American family is in crisis. Forty percent of all children are born to unmarried mothers, including more than 70 percent of black children. There is no government program that can replace the hole in a child’s soul cut out by the absence of a father. Fatherlessness is one of the principal sources of Ameri- can poverty, crime, mental illness, teen suicide, substance abuse, rejection of the church, and high school dropouts. So many of the problems government programs are designed to solve-but can’t-are ultimately problems created by the crisis of marriage and the family. The world has never seen a thriving, healthy, free, and
prosperous society where most children grow up without their married parents.
If current trends continue, we are heading toward social implosion. Furthermore, the next conservative President must understand that using gov- ernment alone to respond to symptoms of the family crisis is a dead end. Federal power must instead be wielded to reverse the crisis and rescue America’s kids from familial breakdown. The Conservative Promise includes dozens of specific policies
to accomplish this existential task. Some are obvious and long-standing goals like eliminating marriage penalties in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps. But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government
power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family. Today the Left is threatening the tax-exempt status of churches and charities that reject woke progressivism. They will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs with the same totalitarian intent. The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi- tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists. Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered. In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course, the best argument for universal school choice-a goal all conservatives and con- servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal, parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds. The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison our children, who are being taught on the one hand to affirm that the color of their skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women.


Schneider continues:

Free the churches, imprison the librarians.

Roberts was in the news for stating that an “ongoing American Revolution” will “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” According to The Hill, that comment caused “blowback” for Roberts and the Heritage Foundation.

None of Jesus’ ministry involved any political agenda, much less the government-driven denigration of “other” or the imposing of His will on any human being.

Yet here we are.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Inequality, Injustice, Privatization, Propaganda, Religion, Republicans, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Brookings Institution: A View of Education in the Republican and Democratic Platforms

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2024 //
25

Jon Valant, head of the Brown Center at the Brookings Institution, reviewed the education sections of both parties.

He writes:

K-12 education has captured its share of headlines over the last few years. Schools—and, specifically, local school boards—became a lightning rod for anger about the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. From the first weeks of the pandemic, Republicans accused Democratic leaders of being too slow to reopen schools. That accusation gained potency as evidence mounted that schools hadn’t been the vectors of COVID-19 transmission that experts initially feared. Sensing vulnerability, Democrats became reluctant to engage on K-12 issues, and Republicans such as Glenn Youngkin showed that Democrats wouldn’t put up much of a fight if education became a battlefield for culture war conflicts. The result was a dizzying, maddening stretch where schools were embroiled in controversies over critical race theory and transgender students’ rights when education leaders needed to focus on pandemic recovery.

Now, as memories of the pandemic recede, the politics of education are changing. Democrats are talking more about schools, emboldened by the selection of a former schoolteacher, Tim Walz, as Vice President Harris’s running mate. Republicans, for their part, have harnessed discontent with public schools into an aggressive push for private school voucher programs that threaten America’s public education systems.

The platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties, along with the education-related portions of Project 2025, provide a glimpse of where K-12 education might be headed.

The Democratic platform

The Democrats’ 2024 platform is light on specifics, with more attention to the current administration’s accomplishments and the would-be Harris administration’s support for some broadly defined goals (e.g., reducing chronic absenteeism). To some extent, the lack of specifics stands in contrast to both the Democrats’ 2020 platform—which, for example, pledged a tripling of Title I funds for high-needs schools—and more detailed 2024 proposals for early childhood education (e.g., free, universal pre-K) and higher education (e.g., free community college). 

The 2024 platform does contain relevant, specific ideas outside of its “Education” section. For example, Democrats propose rebates for school districts that purchase electric school buses—an idea grounded in research on the harms of students’ exposure to toxins. They also offer specific proposals to reduce gun violence (amid a scourge of school shootings) and to strengthen civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ children and students of color (frequent targets of culture war attacks).

Notably, some of the platform’s clearest statements on education describe what Democrats oppose. That includes private-school voucher plans and policies hostile to transgender youth that have become increasingly popular among Republican leaders.  

The Republican platform

Republicans’ 2024 platform is also light on policy specifics. The platform has a few ideas that have long been cornerstones of GOP education politics. That includes ending teacher tenure—an idea that would require local or state action and confront fierce opposition from teachers’ unions.

The platform has language about resisting political indoctrination in schools—while seeming to propose some indoctrination of its own. This includes proposals to “support schools that teach America’s Founding Principles and Western Civilization” and “promote Fair and Patriotic Civics Education.” Along similar lines, former President Trump recently described a bewildering plan to create a credentialing body to “certify teachers who embrace patriotic values, support our way of life, and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children.”

Substantively, the most important part of the Republican education platform might be its support for universal school choice. In about a dozen states, Republicans have recently created or expanded education savings account (ESA) programs that make public funds available to pay for private school or other educational expenses. Critics of these programs—myself included—argue that they violate our basic traditions, benefit the wealthy at the expense of others, and are not well supported by research.

Project 2025

If the Republican platform is light on policy proposals, Project 2025 certainly is not.

Along with my colleagues Rachel Perera and Katharine Meyer, I recently wrote a more detailed piece that analyzes Project 2025’s education proposals. Project 2025 proposes severe cuts to the resources and protections available to the country’s poorest, most marginalized children. For example, it proposes to eliminate the Head Start program (for young children in poverty), discontinue federal Title I funding (for schools that serve low-income children), and kneecap IDEA (federal legislation that supports students with disabilities). It’s especially harsh on transgender children, with proposals aimed at reorienting civil rights enforcement around “rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory” and stripping Title IX protections from transgender students.

In other words, Project 2025 sets its sights on the programs that serve America’s neediest students. It would essentially terminate the federal government’s long-running role in addressing inequities that arise in locally governed school systems.

Notably, many key Project 2025 proposals would require an unlikely degree of congressional cooperation. This includes some of the highest-profile proposals, such as eliminating the U.S. Department of Education (a vaguely defined idea that’s unlikely to materialize in its most extreme form). Still, a second Trump administration couldenact some Project 2025 proposals unilaterally. That includes rolling back civil rights protections and replacing civil servants in the U.S. Department of Education with political appointees after reinstating Schedule F.

Taking stock

It’s fair to say that Democrats’ plans for federal education policy are modest. Democrats aren’t proposing a markedly stronger role for the federal government. On K-12 education, Democrats remain in a mostly defensive posture as they offer a more “conservative” agenda that protects against the GOP’s increasingly radical efforts.

Just what those GOP plans might be—and just how radical they are—depends on whether the true Trumps X administration plan is the Republican platform, Project 2025, or some combination of the two. That remains to be seen

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Privatization, Republicans, School Choice, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Will Colorado Voters Be Wise Enough to Oppose This Ballot Measure?

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2024 //
6

Peter Greene examines a proposed amendment to the state constitution in Colorado and its whacko implications. He urges voters to say NO.

He writes:

While other states are stumbling over constitutional language that aims public dollars at public schools (e.g. South Carolina and Kentucky), voucher fans in Colorado have proposed a constitutional amendment that comes up for a vote soon. And it is a ridiculously ill-conceived and hastily crafted mess.

The language is simple enough– here’s the whole text, originally known as Initiative 138 and now as Amendment 40. 

SECTION 1. In the constitution of the state of Colorado, add section, 18 to article IX as follows: Section 18. Education – School Choice

(1) PURPOSE AND FINDINGS. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF COLORADO HEREBY FIND AND DECLARE THAT ALL CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS A QUALITY EDUCATION; THAT PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIRECT THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN; AND THAT SCHOOL CHOICE INCLUDES NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARTER, PRIVATE, AND HOME SCHOOLS, OPEN ENROLLMENT OPTIONS, AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION.

(2) EACH K-12 CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO SCHOOL CHOICE.

The proposal comes from Advance Colorado, a right wing anti-tax, let’s shrink government until we can drown it in the kitchen sink, kind of outfit. They’re headed up by Michael Fields, who previously headed up the Colorado chapter of the right wing Koch brothers astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, then became AFP’s national education policy leader. Then on to Colorado Rising Action where he kept his interest in education. Back in 2012-14 he spent two whole years as a Teacher For America product in a charter school. 

Advance Colorado was founded in 2020. Their leadership team also includes former state GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown.

The amendment has also drawn support from House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who is also a “fellow” with Advance Colorado. The actual filing came from Fields and Suzanne Taheri, a former official with the Secretary of State’s Office, a former candidate, and former Arapahoe County GOP chair.

Why does Colorado, a state that has long offered many forms of school choice, even need this? Supporters of the amendment are arguing that they are trying to enshrine and protect choice, just in case those naughty Democrats tried to roll it back some day (Colorado’s Dems once tossed out the pro-choice, not-really-Democrats Democrats for Education Reform). And though they aren’t saying this part out loud, the amendment would be a great set-up for school vouchers.

The language proposed is, however, strictly bananapants. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who would most regret passing this amendment would be those who support it.

Let’s say I want to send my low-achieving, non-Christian child to a top-level Christian school. Let’s further presume that I can’t afford even a fraction of the tuition cost. Does this amendment mean that the school has to accept them, and that the state has to foot the entire tuition bill? Wouldn’t any answer other than yes be denying my constitutional to equal opportunity to access a quality education and my constitutional right to direct my child’s education? Does this mean that to have full access the state must also transport my child anywhere I want them to go to school?

What if East Egg Academy has far more applicants than it has capacity? Must it scratch its entire admissions policy and use a lottery instead? 

The major obstacles to school choice are not state policies. The major obstacles are, and have always been, cost, location, and the school’s own discriminatory policies. Virtually all voucher policies are set up to protect those discriminatory policies. Wouldn’t an amendment like this require those to be wiped out? 

Wouldn’t this language amount to a state takeover of all charter and private schools? 

And that’s not all. Wouldn’t this amendment also allow parents to intrude into every classroom. If I have a constitutional right to direct my child’s education, does that not mean that I can tell my child’s science teacher to stop teaching evolution? Or start teaching evolution? Can I demand a different approach to teaching American history? How about prepositions? And how will a classroom teacher even function if every child in the classroom comes with a parent who has a constitutional right to direct their education?

You can say that’s silly, that “obviously” that’s not what the amendment means. But that’s what it says, at least until some series of bureaucrats and courts decide what exactly “direct the education of their children” means.

Kevin Welner (National Education Policy Center)has it exactly right— “It’s really a ‘full employment for lawyers’ act.”

Supporters say this doesn’t establish a right to public funding of private schools, and I suppose they’re sort of correct in the sense that this does not so much establish a right to public funding of private schools so much as it establishes an obligation for public funding of private schools as well as obliterating private school autonomy. Unless, of course, some judge steps in to find that the language doesn’t mean what it says, which is, I suppose, not impossible.

Nobody on any side of the school choice debate should be voting for this amendment. It’s exactly the kind of lawmaking you get from people who have wrapped meaning in particular rhetoric for so long that they have forgotten that the words of their rhetoric have actual meanings outside the meanings that they have habitually assigned them. Here’s hoping the people of Colorado avoid this really bad idea. 

Categories Colorado, Education Industry, Elections, Parents, Privatization, Propaganda, Republicans, Vouchers

Ohio Is Funding the Construction and Renovation of Religious Schools

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2024 //
4

In an unprecedented move that shatters the historic wall of separation between church and state, Ohio has passed legislation to fund the construction and renovation of religious schools. It also directly violates the explicit language of the Ohio state constitution.

ProPublica reports on the latest move to defund public schools and divert money to religious schools.

The state of Ohio is giving taxpayer money to private, religious schools to help them build new buildings and expand their campuses, which is nearly unprecedented in modern U.S. history.

While many states have recently enacted sweeping school voucher programs that give parents taxpayer money to spend on private school tuition for their kids, Ohio has cut out the middleman. Under a bill passed by its Legislature this summer, the state is now providing millions of dollars in grants directly to religious schools, most of them Catholic, to renovate buildings, build classrooms, improve playgrounds and more.

The goal in providing the grants, according to the measure’s chief architect, Matt Huffman, is to increase the capacity of private schools in part so that they can sooner absorb more voucher students.

“The capacity issue is the next big issue on the horizon” for voucher efforts, Huffman, the Ohio Senate president and a Republican, told the Columbus Dispatch.

Huffman did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.

Following Hurricane Katrina and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some federal taxpayer dollars went toward repairing and improving private K-12 schools in multiple states. Churches that operate schools often receive government funding for the social services that they offer; some orthodox Jewish schools in New York have relied on significant financial support from the city, The New York Times has found.

But national experts on education funding emphasized that what Ohio is doing is categorically different.

“This is new, dangerous ground, funding new voucher schools,” said Josh Cowen, a senior fellow at the Education Law Center and the author of a new book on the history of billionaire-led voucher efforts. For decades, churches have relied on conservative philanthropy to be able to build their schools, Cowen said, or they’ve held fundraising drives or asked their diocese for help.

They’ve never, until now, been able to build schools expressly on the public dime.

“This breaks through the myth,” said David Pepper, a political writer and the former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. Pepper said that courts have long given voucher programs a pass, ruling that they don’t violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state because a publicly funded voucher technically passes through the conduit of a parent on the way to a religious school.

With this latest move, though, Ohio is funding the construction of a separate, religious system of education, Pepper said, adding that if no one takes notice, “This will happen in other states — they all learn from each other like laboratories.”

The Ohio Constitution says that the General Assembly “will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”

Yet Troy McIntosh, executive director of the Ohio Christian Education Network — several of whose schools received the new grants — recently told the Lima News that part of the reason for spending these public dollars on the expansion of private schools is that “we want to make sure that from our perspective, Christian school options are available to any kid who chooses that in the state.”

Ohio started funding vouchers in Cleveland only. They were supposed to “help poor kids escape failing public schools.” Initially, vouchers were only for kids already enrolled in public schools and only for kids from low-income families.

When they were implemented in the 1990s, vouchers in Ohio, like in many places, were limited in scope; they were available only to parents whose children were attending (often underfunded) public schools in Cleveland. The idea was to give those families money that they could then spend on tuition at a hopefully better private school, thus empowering them with what was called school choice.

Over the decades, the state incrementally expanded voucher programs to a wider and wider range of applicants. And last year, legislators and Gov. Mike DeWine extended the most prominent of those programs, called EdChoice, to all Ohio families.

Now, vouchers subsidize the children of families who never attended public schools, including affluent families. They have become a welfare program for families who previously paid their full tuition. As in every other voucher state, most students who take vouchers were already enrolled in private and religious schools.

Encouraged by Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers political advocacy group, the Ohio legislature added the religious school funding bill to the state budget.

Led by Huffman, Republicans slipped at least $4 million in grants to private schools into a larger budget bill. There was little debate, in part because budget bills across the country have become too large to deliberate over every detail and, also, Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers in Ohio.

According to an Ohio Legislative Service Commission report, the grants, some of them over a million dollars, then went out to various Catholic schools around the state. ProPublica contacted administrators at each of these schools to ask what they will be using their new taxpayer money on, but they either didn’t answer or said that they didn’t immediately know. (One of the many differences between public and private schools is that the latter do not have to answer questions from the public about their budgets, even if they’re now publicly funded.)

The total grant amount of roughly $4 million this year may seem small, said William L. Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding. But, he noted, Ohio’s voucher program itself started out very small three decades ago, and today it’s a billion-dollar system.

“They get their foot in the door with a few million dollars in infrastructure funding,” Phillis said. “It sets a precedent, and eventually hundreds of millions will be going to private school construction.”

The total grant amount of roughly $4 million this year may seem small, said William L. Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding. But, he noted, Ohio’s voucher program itself started out very small three decades ago, and today it’s a billion-dollar system.

“They get their foot in the door with a few million dollars in infrastructure funding,” Phillis said. “It sets a precedent, and eventually hundreds of millions will be going to private school construction.”

The only statewide evaluation of Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program was published in 2016. The evaluation was funded by the choice advocacy group, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. TBF has a special relationship to Ohio Republicans in the legislature because it originated in Ohio and maintains an office in Ohio. It also authorizes charter schools in Ohio.

The evaluation concluded that students who left to use vouchers in a private school performed worse than their peers who remained in public schools.

So, the Republican supermajority has known for at least eight years that vouchers don’t “save” poor kids; in fact, those kids are likely to fall farther behind. Now that the Republicans have adopted universal choice, they know that they are helping kids who are already enrolled in private and religious schools. So now, it’s a logical step to throw in millions more for construction and renovation of voucher schools.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

NCPE: Voucher Costs Are Rising Dramatically Above Budget Projections

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2024 //
5

The National Coalition for Public Education published valuable information contrasting the actual cost of vouchers to overly optimistic projections by their advocates. In every state that has adopted vouchers, most vouchers are used by students already enrolled in private schools. In states such as Florida and Arizona, vouchers are “universal,” meaning there are no income limitations or other restrictions on their accessibility. In essence, vouchers provide public dollars to subsidize the tuition of students in private and religious schools. They are a welfare program for the affluent.

The NCPE concluded:

When lawmakers consider expanding or creating private school voucher programs, their projections often drastically underestimate the actual costs. They sell a false promise that vouchers will save money, do not budget adequate funds, and then wind up with million dollar shortfalls, necessitating cuts from public education and even tax increases. 

Some voucher advocates incorrectly claim that if the amount of the voucher is less than the average expenditure spent to educate a student in public school, the state will save money. Existing voucher programs prove this false.  

First, it costs less than the average expenditure to educate some students, and much more to educate others who need additional support and services–like those with disabilities, English language learners, and low-income students. The students who are most expensive to educate, however, tend to remain in public schools  because they cannot find a private voucher school willing to accept them. Yet, because of the voucher program, the public schools are left with fewer resources. Furthermore, in a voucher program, the state now pays tuition for private school students who never attended public schools, which is an altogether new cost for taxpayers.

This all adds up to more, not less, spending.

Here are several examples of the skyrocketing costs of voucher programs:

ARIZONA’S VOUCHER IS COSTING 1,346% MORE THAN PROJECTED, CONTRIBUTING TO A $400 MILLION BUDGET DEFICIT.

  • The fiscal note attached to Arizona’s universal voucher program projected the program would cost the state about $65 million in 2024 and $125 million in 2025. But once students’ applications started to come in, state leaders realized these estimates were woefully inadequate. The Arizona Governor’s Office now estimates that the price tag is more than 1,346% higher at a cost of $940 million per year. This is one of the main causes of a $400 million budget shortfall in the state’s general fund, which funds the state’s public schools, transportation, fire, police, and prisons.

THE FLORIDA VOUCHER IS ALREADY MORE THAN $2 BILLION OVER BUDGET IN YEAR ONE.

  • The Florida Senate projected that its voucher expansion would cost $646 million. But independent researchers estimated that the program would actually cost almost $4 billion, and actual costs are already approaching that amount—$3.35 billion in the first year. In just one county, Duval, school officials report a $17 million budget shortage due to funds lost to the vouchers.

WEST VIRGINIA’S VOUCHER DRAINS MORE THAN $20 MILLION FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS PER YEAR.

  • During the 2024 – 2025 school year, the West Virginia voucher program is expected to funnel $21.6 million away from the state’s public schools–enough to pay the salaries for 301 professional teachers and 63 school service workers. As a result of the voucher and other declines in enrollment, multiple school districts are already warning residents that they need to impose property tax increases in order to continue to pay current teachers’ salaries.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

North Carolina: Republicans Pass “Massive” Voucher Expansion

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2024 //
12

Public Schools First NC posted the following statement about the passage of additional funding for the state’s voucher program. The General Assembly has a veto-proof majority in both houses, thanks to the defection of one Tricia Cotham, who ran as a Democrat who opposed abortion and vouchers, then changed parties. The bill raises voucher spending to over $600 million this year and to nearly $1 billion annually in a decade.

Here is the statement:

This week the House and Senate majority passed House Bill 10 “Require ICE Cooperation & Budget Adjustments” in a process that allowed no adjustments to any part of the bill. The new bill added a number of budget items to the previous bill, including massive increases in North Carolina’s voucher programs. 

The bill added millions in OS vouchers and ESA+ vouchers, bringing the total for 2024-25 to $616.1 million. The new appropriations were made to ensure that all voucher applicants this year received a voucher regardless of their income. As described in our September 7 newsletter, the majority of OS applicants on the waitlist have incomes too high to have been eligible for vouchers before the income cap was removed this year. 

In 2024-25, the OS vouchers pay up to $7,468 toward the private school tuition for each student. The voucher amount is tied to state per-pupil funding and increases each year. 

The wealthiest applicants—those making more than $260,000/year for a family of four—will receive $3,360 per child from the state. 

The bill does not increase teacher pay, so veteran teachers in their 15th through 24th years of teaching will receive a raise of only $820 in 2024-25.

The bill also sets out additional increases for both voucher programs through 2032-33 and establishes spending “for each fiscal year thereafter.” The result, as shown in the chart, is a whopping $937.6 million scheduled to be spent in 2033-34 alone. This is stunning and a total disregard for our underfunded public schools.

North Carolina will have spent a total of nearly $9 billion on private school vouchers by 2033-34. Those dollars would have fully funded the Comprehensive Remedial Plan (Leandro) to provide a sound basic education for all public school students—and much more. In November 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered the legislature to appropriate funds according to the Leandro plan, but legislative leaders are still fighting the ruling. 

Taxpayers may wonder whether the billions spent on private schools are helping students learn. We do know, based on national data, that private schools do not outperform public schools. Taxpayers won’t get answers—at least not yet – about NC students since private schools are not required to publicly report information on student achievement, unlike traditional public schools and charter schools.

Last year’s budget bill required private schools to administer the ACT to 11th grade students whose tuition was at least partially funded by vouchers starting this school year (public school 11th graders already take the ACT). It also required the Superintendent of Public Instruction to recommend a test to be administered in 3rd and 8th grade to both public school students and private school voucher students. There has been no word yet on what test Superintendent Truitt recommended and whether it will be administered this spring. 

Governor Cooper has signaled that he will veto House Bill 10 this week due to the massive voucher increases and other provisions in the bill that he has previously come out against such as the ICE requirement. 

It’s NOT TOO LATE to take action to STOP HB 10!

Legislators will be back in session on October 9. Governor Cooper is expected to veto the bill this week. Legislators will then be asked to vote to override his veto. What can you do to make sure the veto holds?

  • Contact legislators to urge them to reject this voucher expansion.
  • Contact all other elected officials and local business leaders to let them know how harmful the voucher expansion is to communities. They should contact legislators too. 
  • Encourage your local school board to submit a resolution rejecting vouchers (see examples here).
  • Support your local PTA as they advocate for public schools.
  • Sign our petition urging legislators to reject HB 10 and support the VETO.

PSFNC’s Statement on Voucher Expansion

Legislators, when sworn in, pledge to uphold the NC state constitution to provide a free public education. They should not be sending nearly a billion dollars of our tax money to private school vouchers while starving our public schools as they ignore the NC Supreme Court’s ruling to fully fund Leandro. By adding school voucher funding to clear the voucher waitlist of mostly wealthy families, this bill gives our hard earned tax dollars to wealthy families who can afford to pay their own tuition bills. In contrast, salary increases for teachers with 5 or more years of experience were less than $950, which amounts to pay cuts given cost of living increases. 

This bill prioritizes private schools over public schools, urban families over rural families, and wealthy families over our teachers and the nearly 1.4 million children who attend our public schools. Now, with no income limits to determine eligibility and no prior public school attendance required, it has become a handout to wealthy families to underwrite their private school tuition. This is the wrong path for our state. It undermines the social and economic fabric of our state–a state that used to be known nationwide for putting our public schools first- we need to do it again.

Categories Education Industry, Extremism, North Carolina, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

North Carolina Alert! GOP Plans to Slip in $248 Million for Vouchers on Monday

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
6

Public Schools First, North Carolina’s premier parent-advocacy group, warns that the GOP-controlled legislature plans to expand the state’s voucher program on Monday. It asks parents and concerned citizens to sign a petition and get active to stop the ongoing campaign to defund public schools.

Public Schools First NC writes:

In a familiar move, voucher supporters in the legislature are adding a $248M voucher expansion to an existing bill instead of proposing a stand-alone bill that can be debated and voted on separately. 

House Bill 10 “Require Sheriffs to Cooperate with ICE” has been newly branded “Require ICE Cooperation & Budget Adjustments.” This is where they have included an additional $248 million for private school vouchers in 2024-25.

With the school year underway, parents have already had to make schooling decisions for their children. This means that the $248 million is primarily for private school tuition for students who are already enrolled in a private school this year. In other words, families that can already afford private school will simply receive a tax-funded tuition rebate. 

Left out of the ICE/Budget Adjustments bill are any additional funds for teacher pay, which leaves the average pay increase at 3% for teachers this year. Due to inflation increases, the 3% raise is effectively a pay cut unless local communities add salary supplements large enough to make up the difference. Even worse, teachers with more than 4 years of experience received increases of less than 2% this year.  

Why aren’t legislators spending the $248 million boosting teacher salaries so they’re not getting a pay cut?

Put into specific dollar amounts, the proposed voucher expansion would give $4,480 to families (of 4) making up to $259,740 per year and $3,360 to millionaires, while teachers with 10 years of experience make just $49,350 per year and are stuck with a skimpy $920 salary increase. Is this fair? Is this how we strengthen and support our public schools?

Also missing are dollars to support early childhood education or fund North Carolina Pre-K. Currently just 53% of eligible children are enrolled in NC Pre-K, leaving nearly 24,000 low-income children without an adequate pre-k option. 

Instead of clearing the private school voucher waitlist to fund wealthy families, perhaps the legislature should spend the $248 million to clear the NC Pre-K waitlist and support low-income families.

There are many, many more important issues the legislature should be addressing during their time in Raleigh than adding dollars to a program that harms public schools and sends dollars to private schools that are completely unaccountable to the public.

It is critical that you act now! The NC Senate will open their session at noon. Join us if you can.

Please sign our petition to let legislators know you want them to OPPOSE THIS THREAT TO OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS – TELL THEM VOTE NO TO ANY PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHER EXPANSION!Sign the Petition

Need help explaining this to your neighbors and friends? Public Schools First NC just released a short video explaining vouchers in NC. Please share it widely!

video

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Extremism, North Carolina, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: The Great Arizona Dune Buggy Fiasco

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
6

Readers know that the State Board of education in Arizona actually turned down a parent’s request to use voucher money to buy three dune buggies. Amazing!

Mercedes Schneider digs deeper. In this post, she transcribes the discussion about the vote at the State Board meeting. She includes a list of eight dune buggies at different price points, from about $600 to $$18,000 each. Which did the parent choose?

And she closes with this pertinent question:

If the state of Arizona approves an educational program that involves riding a dune buggy purchased with state money, does the state then open itself up to liability if something happens to the child while operating that state-purchased dune buggy?

Categories Arizona, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding, Vouchers

Arizona: Should Taxpayers Pay for Trampolines, LEGO Sets, and Dune Buggies?

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2024 //
0

Laurie Roberts, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, asks a sensible question that has probably occurred to most voters in Arizona, but not to Republican legislators. What expenditures should be disallowed with state voucher money? Until recently, the sky was the limit. But then the state board turned down a parent who paid for three dune buggies (each of which costs thousands of dollars).

Under former Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, the legislature kept expanding the state’s voucher program. Parents and educators organized a state referendum on voucher expansion in 2018, and the voters overwhelmingly opposed it. But the Republicans pushed forward and made vouchers universal, available to every student in the state. And of course, the state board was extremely lax in allowing dubious expenditures.

Roberts wrote:

Good news for taxpayers, especially the ones who think public money ought to go to public schools.

The state is drawing the line at paying for dune buggies.

Kayaks, apparently, still are allowed as an acceptable educational expense under the state’s universal school voucher program, as are $900 Lego sets, trampoline sessions, Broadway tickets and espresso machines.

But isn’t it nice to know we absolutely are digging in our heels at the ridiculous notion of taxpayers shelling out for dune buggies?

So far, anyway.

Dune buggies fail the ‘reasonableness’ test

The Arizona State Board of Education on Monday rejected a parent’s appeal to use her kids’ state school Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to buy three dune buggies.

“At some point, I think the question of reasonableness comes to mind,” Board President Daniel Corr said, in voting to order the woman to pay for her own darn dune buggies.

If you’re inclined to reply, “duh,” know that Monday’s vote overturns the ruling of an appeal hearing officer who recommended that we foot the bill for the buggies.

And the Department of Education, which at first denied the expense then approved it — “mistakenly,” it claims.

DOE in March suspended the family’s school voucher accounts and requested reimbursement for the dune buggies, prompting the mother to appeal and decry “crass incompetence.”

“Telling us months later that we have to pay back something that was approved by the department has to be illegal in 50 states and a few territories,” she wrote in the appeal.

Yeah, and trying to sucker the state into paying for dune buggies ought to be galling in 50 states and more than a few territories.

In this case, the system worked … so far. Though I’ve got to wonder how a dune buggy ever got approved in the first place.

And how the state plans to recover our money.

According to The Arizona Republic’s Nick Sullivan, the parent got an occupational therapist to testify that her kids learn better after a trek through the desert, allowing them “to engage in movement before returning to more traditional learning environments.”

So, buy kids some bikes. With your own funds, not ours.

Or take them to the park.

Save Our Schools Arizona has been sounding the alarm about the state’s runaway ESA program all year, pointing to more than $100 million in non-educational spending approved without any academic justification.

Curiously, those fiscal hawks over at the Legislature had no concerns.

Vouchers shouldn’t leave taxpayers high and dry

Fortunately, Attorney General Kris Mayes does.

In July, she opened an investigation into the ESA program. Specifically, into Superintendent Tom Horne’s well-used rubber stamp — the one his department employs to approve “supplemental” educational expenses like $900 Lego sets and ninja training and ski passes.

Jenny Clark, an ESA parent who runs an organization to help parents get vouchers and was appointed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey to the state Board of Education, cast the only vote Monday to approve the dune buggy boondoggle. She noted that it’s the first time since she joined the board in 2022 that it has rejected a hearing officer’s recommendation in a voucher appeal.

Corr, meanwhile, indicated the parent could appeal the board’s decision.

If ever there was a case that illustrates the need for better oversight of ESAs — something the Republican-run Legislature refuses to consider — surely, this is it.

It shouldn’t have taken a trip all the way to the state Board of Education to declare that you don’t need a recreational vehicle to chase down a good education.

Categories Arizona, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding, Vouchers
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