Archives for category: Vouchers
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Anthony Cody: Why Do “Reformers” Hate Democracy?

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2014 //
40

Anthony Cody wonders why corporate education reformers hate democracy. They love mayoral control, but only if the mayor agrees with their privatization agenda. They hate local school boards, because they are elected and can be removed.

They love private corporate control. They work to enact ALEC’s goal of removing local control from communities.

Democracy is too messy. The reformers know how to buy mayors and legislatures. Campaign contributions do the job. But the problem with democracy is that voters are unpredictable. The “reformers” can’t buy them, although the reformers can spend millions to flood the airwaves with attack ads, and they own most of the mainstream media. Think Murdoch. Think Education Nation.

Think Reed Hastings, the billionaire who owns Netflix. He let the cat out of the bag in a recent speech, which Cody quotes and links to.

Cody asks:

“Reed Hastings was right about one thing. If you go to the American public and actually tell them you want to eliminate elected school boards, or completely disempower them, no one’s going to go for that. So instead, these billionaires conspire. Yes, conspire, behind closed doors, and we only find out when someone surreptitiously shoots a video of the bald-faced attempt to steal our democracy right out from under us.

“The question nobody asks is “why do they hate our freedom”? The answer is obvious. Occasionally it gets in the way of what they want to do. And when that happens, the solution is to destroy democracy. Take power away from the elected offices that are there to ensure accountability to the people. Make sure that it goes wherever your grip is strongest. And spend millions on TV ads to cover up the real game under way. “

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, New York City, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: The New Extremist Attack on Democracy

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2014 //
23

Jeff Bryant here
describes the rise of an anti-democratic worldview that
threatens not only public education but democracy itself.

 

Under the fraudulent guise of “education reform,” extremists seek to
destroy public education and turn it over to private entrepreneurs.
They trust the marketplace, not the public. They are true believers
in the doctrines of free-market economist Milton Friedman, not
those of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Horace Mann.

 

He quotes an Ohio legislator who says that public schools–which are a
cornerstone of our democracy–are “socialist.” If so, then we have
been a “socialist” nation for over 150 years. At least 90% of our
population was educated in those “socialist” schools and created
the greatest, most powerful nation in the world.

 

Then he quotes the founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, who longs to see an end to
locally elected school boards, to be replaced by privately managed
charters. Democracy, Hastings seems to think, is too inefficient,
too messy. Are there enough billionaires like Hastings to run the
nation’s schools? Why do these people have such contempt for
democracy? Why do they like to replace democratic control with
mayoral control, governor control, anything but elected school
boards? Several districts in New Jersey have been under state
control for 20 years, with no results. Mayoral control has done
nothing for Cleveland or Chicago other than to increase
undemocratic decision making.

 

Bryant concludes: “The idea of democratic governance of schools as a principal means for ensuring
the quality of schools has never worked perfectly for sure. “It’s
true that too few people bother to vote in school board elections.
The electoral system is often prone to manipulation from powerful
individuals and self-interested groups. Elected boards are often
overly contentious to the point of dysfunction. And the country’s
history is replete with examples of local boards that perpetuated
widespread mistreatment of minorities to the point where outside
intervention was necessary. “But where else has democratic
governance achieved perfection? There are democratic solutions to
these problems: Do more to increase voter education and turnout,
limit the influence of money and factional interests, and ensure
checks and balances from outside authorities that are also
democratically elected. “If we want to give ordinary people more of
a voice in determining the education destinies of their children
and their communities, the solution is more democracy, not
less.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, New Orleans, New York City, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Ohio: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
23

A reader in Ohio writes:   This is one
of the people who is making law on public schools in
Ohio: “Powell legislator stirs controversy
over views on public schools Two weeks after
calling public education “socialism” and saying it should be
privatized, state Rep. Andrew Brenner said of those criticizing him
with vulgarities: “I’m guessing those people had a public
education.” The Powell Republican and vice chairman of the House
Education Committee wrote another column this week on his wife’s
website, Brenner Brief News, criticizing those who took issue with
his previous column.” He’s the new vice-chair
on the education committee. His goal is to get rid of our 150 year
old system of public schools, because it’s “socialism”.
When he’s called on it, he responds by attacking every
person in the state who attended public schools, which of course is
the vast majority of people in the state. You
really can’t make this stuff up. It’s like open season on public
ed.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Vouchers

Florida Set to Waste Hundreds of Millions on Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2014 //
6

UPDATE: the sponsor of this legislation withdrew it because of parent opposition and reluctance to hold voucher schools accountable

*********

Jeb Bush has his eye on the Presidency. He will boast of
his education record, but it is a record of smashing public
education and diverting public funding to charters, for-profit
charter chains, vouchers, corporate vendors, anything but our basic
public schools. His antipathy to public education will haunt him.
Here
is the latest scheme pushed by Jeb and friends: more
money for vouchers but please don’t call them vouchers. And lots of
cash for all the helpers. Millions of dollars for facilitators of
vouchers.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida, Vouchers

Florida: Parents and Teachers Stopped the Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2014 //
8

Kathleen McGrory of the Miami Herald shows how parents and teachers stopped the voucher bill in Florida.

““We really saw this as an attack on public education,” said Mindy Gould legislative affairs for the PTA.

“The testing issue had become a sticking point.

“John Kirtley, who helped craft the original voucher legislation in 2001 and is chair of the Step Up board, said it would have been “a very difficult task to quickly remake the academic accountability for this program.”

The sticking point was the lack of accountability for voucher schools.

The legislation would have transferred $874 million in public funds to nonpublic schools.

The organization overseeing it (Step Up) was very disappointed, as it collects a commission, which would have grown from $8 million to $24 million.

Categories Florida, Vouchers

Breaking News! Florida Voucher Expansion Bill Withdrawn!

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2014 //
16

Great news! The sponsor of the Florida voucher bill withdrew it, as it sailed through the Florida House, after the State Senate insisted that voucher schools would have to take state tests.

“After promising a “massive expansion” of school choice options this session, House Speaker Will Weatherford retooled his rhetoric Thursday after the Senate dropped plans to take up a proposed build-up of the state’s private school voucher program.

“Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said he was withdrawing his version (SB 1620) of the voucher bill advancing in the House. At least part of the dispute is rooted in Senate President Don Gaetz’s demand that students taking part in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program undergo testing in private schools similar to that in public schools.

“It’s a shame. A terrible shame,” Weatherford said. “Thousands of children seeking more opportunities for a better life will be denied. I cannot see any reason why we’d quit on these kids.”

“The bill (HB 7099) sailing through the House would make the scholarship program eligible for sales tax money for the first time in its 12-year history. With the new cash, the 60,000 students now getting private-school scholarships could double in four years, rivaling the size of larger public school districts in Florida.”

There was also criticism of the political payola that the expansion would bestow on the voucher program’s administrators:

“The Palm Beach Post also reported that there was rising criticism of what the legislation would mean to the politically connected nonprofit that oversees the scholarship program, created under former Gov. Jeb Bush.

“Step Up for Students could more than triple the amount of money it collects under the voucher legislation. The 3 percent fee it collects now brings in $8.6 million but could more than triple to $26.2 million when the program reached its full capacity envisioned under the legislation.”

Categories Florida, Vouchers

Florida Voucher Bill Advances, $1 Billion Boondoggle

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2014 //
39

Florida Republicans are rushing through a voucher bill with no accountability for state tests. Even with state tests, it would be a terrible bill as its purpose is to destroy public education.

One leading voucher advocate bluntly told an audience in California that the game plan was to sell the bill as being a benefit to poor minority kids. Of course, that’s a scam. The main goal is to break public education, crush the unions, and fund every backwoods church school where kids can learn 17th century STEM skills.

Critics say it will divert up to $1 billion from community public schools.

Florida is rapidly racing to the bottom. Will Arne Duncan speak out to stop this unconstitutional diversion of public funds to religious schools? Will President Obama?

Categories Accountability, Florida, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: Why Democrats Erred by Embracing the GOP Agenda

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2014 //
54

Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network writes in Salon that voters are increasingly disenchanted with the bipartisan Bush-Obama education policies of high-stakes testing, Common Core, and privatization.

He points out that the attacks on public education are not playing well at all in the political arena. The overwhelming majority of parents are very happy with their local public schools and respect their teachers. The public is beginning to see through the lies they have been told about their schools. So much of the rhetoric of the “reformers” sounds appealing and benign, if not downright inspirational, but it ends up as nonstop testing, the closing of local public schools, merit pay, union-busting, the enrichment of multinational corporations, and standardization.

Bryant predicts that Democrats will suffer at the polls for their slavish espousal of hard-right GOP doctrine.

He writes:

“The only overriding constants? People generally like their local schools, trust their children’s teachers and think public school and teachers should get more money. Wonder when a politician will back that!

“Many observers, including journalists at The Wall Street Journal, have accurately surmised that the American public is currently deeply divided on education policy. But that analysis barely scratches the surface.

“Go much deeper and you find that the “new liberal consensus” that Adam Serwer wrote about in Mother Jones, which propelled Obama into a second term, believes in funding the nation’s public schools but has little to no allegiance to Obama’s education reform policies.

“Outside of the elite circles of the Beltway and the very rich, who continue to be the main proponents of these education policies, it is getting harder and harder to discern who exactly is the constituency being served by the reform agenda.

“Most Americans do not see any evidence that punitive measures aimed at their local schools are in any way beneficial to their children and grandchildren. In fact, there’s some reasonable doubt whether the president himself understands it.

So is Arne Duncan making education policy on his own? Or is the policy agenda of the Obama administration indistinguishable from that of rightwing Republicans like Bobby Jindal, Rick Scott, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Mike Pence, and Tom Corbett?

Categories Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing, Unions, Vouchers

When I Spoke at the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
25

This is a video of my speech at the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina, on February 11, 2014.

This was an important challenge because I strongly believe that the state is on the wrong path. Its governor and legislature are far to the right of the Tea Party. They are a government that doesn’t like public education or teachers. They seem to want to drive teachers away. They don’t want good public schools. They want charters–where only half the teachers are certified. And they passed voucher legislation, for schools with no accountability.

I was fortunate in the day’s agenda, because my keynote followed directly after a very interesting panel of teachers who quit teaching because the salaries were so low that they could not afford to teach. Yet all of them loved teaching. North Carolina, once a bastion of forward-looking education, now ranks 46th in the nation in teacher pay. John Merrow moderated the panel and brought out the best in this wonderful group of teachers, whose departure was a loss to the state.

Categories Charter Schools, North Carolina, Teachers, Vouchers

Julian Vasquez Heilig: How Billionaires Co-Opt Minorities to Promote Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
14

Half a century ago, as the civil rights movement grew in strength and intensity, “school choice” was understood to e a synonym for segregation. Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for a democratic and equitable public school system. But, oh, how times have changed. Now there are organizations led by African Americans who want vouchers and charters to escape the public schools. No matter that such schools promote segregation. These 21st century leaders want school choice.

Why?

Julian Vasquez Heilig explains here how billionaires have co-opted minority groups to join their campaign to fight unions, fight teachers, and demand privatization.

The answer will not surprise you.

”

“Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates and the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using venture philanthropy and the political process to press for school reforms in the United States.

“The ongoing Vergara law case in California in which nine students are suing the state over teacher tenure laws, is backed by Student Matters, a non-profit that has received donations from the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation, run by the Walton family that founded supermarket chain Wal-Mart.

“The driver behind the case is a campaign to loosen labour rules in order to make it easier to fire “bad” teachers, under the argument that their presence discriminates against disadvantaged children. Opponents of the case argue that it is a blatant attempt to change the conversation from the realities of California’s divestment in education — the state is 46th in the nation in spending per student in 2010-11, and 50th in the number of students per teacher.

“What these organisations and other others such as the the Koch brothers, Bradley Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Students First and Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education – all supposedly supporters of school reform – have as a common denominator is a vision of a profit-based market approach to education.

“School vouchers are one of the primary education reform policy approaches pressed by the billionaires and the business lobby. Voucher programs, which provide public funding for students to attend private schools, have become more popular in the US in the past several decades.”

He adds:

“….these special interests are supporting vouchers and other neoliberal reforms contrary to the interests of students of colour. In doing so they will shift the US education system to maximise corporate profits, while limiting democratic control of public schools.

“These same billionaire “reformers” have co-opted the equity discourse by offering a carrot to minority groups. This can sometimes be in the form of millions of dollars as in the case of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina. But all this hides the inequity that profit-based approaches to education foment.”

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Vouchers, Walton Foundation
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