Archives for category: Vouchers
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Who Is Promoting Vouchers in Pennsylvania?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2012 //
9

An astonishing $6 million plus has been pumped into the voucher campaign in Pennsylvania in the last year alone.

As this article notes, Tea Party activists were getting cold feet about vouchers because they objected that vouchers might be too generous to poor children.

Not to worry: Governor Tom Corbett and his allies in the Legislature changed the formula to make sure that some of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars will be spread to more affluent districts.

All this money for vouchers will be extracted from public school budgets at the same time that Corbett & Co. are cutting those same budgets.

It seems as though the Republican conservatives want to decimate public education.

Who are these people?

In little more than a year, activists like Michigan’s Betsy DeVos, of the Amway fortune; the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton; and three wealthy Main Line hedge-fund traders have doled out an astonishing $6-million-plus in campaign cash to top Harrisburg pols, while they and allies have spent millions more on rallies, inflammatory mailers and lobbyists.

Betsy DeVos’s group, the American Federation for Children, pushes for vouchers under the guise of it being a “civil rights” issue. Just trust the rightwing to protect the civil rights of poor children. And then there is the Walton family, which gives generously to anyone who promotes vouchers and charters (as well as TFA and KIPP and Rhee). And of course, the hedge fund managers. These are the 1%. They don’t have any use for public education. They use their vast resources to undermine the public sector and to advance the cause of privatization.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

More on Voucher Schools with No Standards

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
16

So now we know what true education reform looks like.

It means sending kids to schools that are no better or worse than their local public school.

It means sending kids to schools that teach them that the Bible has all you need to know about the origin of the universe.

It means sending kids to schools where anyone can teach, without any credentials.

It means sending taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools with no standards and no accountability.

Read this letter by a school board member in Louisiana.

Categories Accountability, Louisiana, Vouchers

Romney’s Education Agenda

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2012 //
30

I read Romney’s education agenda carefully.

You should do the same.

It’s pro-privatization.

It repeats the myth of “failing” public schools.

There is not a good word in it for public education.

Romney is avid for charter schools and vouchers.

Here is the analysis of his agenda that I wrote for the New York Review of Books.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization, Romney, Mitt, Vouchers

The Reformers’ Game Plan

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
7

This reader offers a succinct summary of the reformers’ game plan. He might have added additional elements: a) budget cuts to disable public schools; and b) laws that remove accountability and transparency with privately managed charters; c) evaluating teachers on a bell curve, so that half will always be “below average,” thus creating a “crisis”; d) demanding 100% perfection, 100% proficiency and saying that anything less proves failure.

You can see it played out in state after state, especially in those with Republican governors, and in the pronouncements of the U.S. Department of Education, and it is fully developed in the Romney education agenda. They think that that private management of public education is the wave of the future, preferably it is generates profits for investors, and they are doing their best to make it happen:

First, the reformers have yet another scapegoat [to blame]  for poverty.  Now it’s the schools that are at fault, not the destruction of our social safety net, not the elimination of worker protections, not the imposition of fair taxation that enables the government to maintain our national infrastructure, and certainly not the actions of the 1% to extract all of the wealth of the U.S. economy for themselves alone.  We don’t need to fix the failed and irrational policies of the past thirty years.  No!  We just have to reform the schools with for-profit charters, voucher plans and virtual “distance learning” that just happens to divert more tax money to … wait for it … the 1%!

And of course, never mind how all of these reforms are failures.  By the time the public is fully aware of that fact, it will be too late to change and we’ll be on to the next scapegoat.

Second, this is just another impossible goal against which to conclude our schools are failures.  The logic here is brilliant:  Set the standard so impossibly high that the schools will be failures by default.  Keep the focus on the unions and test scores, so the public won’t make the real connections between the economics policies of the past three decades but instead will follow the reformers in blind rage.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers

Who Else Is Rolling Over in His Grave?

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2012 //
48

A reader, noting the plan to privatize 40% of the schools in Philadelphia, had this to say:

WILLIAM PENN is rolling over in his grave, I’m sure.

It occurred to me that :

John Dewey must be rolling over in his grave as he sees our national leaders using standardized tests to impose rankings and ratings on students, teachers, principals, and schools, while many abandon the arts to reach their targets.

Horace Mann must be rolling over in his grave as he sees corporations descending on the schools to make a profit and to privatize as many as possible.

Henry Barnard must be rolling over in his grave as he sees a Democratic governor in his home state of Connecticut handing public schools over to private managers and calling it “reform.”

Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in his grave as he sees Bobby Jindal giving public funds to voucher students to attend religious schools in Louisiana.

Lyndon B. Johnson must be ruling over in his grave as he sees his beloved Elementary and Secondary Education Act, meant to equalize resources and help poor kids, turned into a club to impose testing and privately managed schools.

Martin Luther King, Jr. must be rolling over in his grave as he sees Wall Street hedge fund managers and billionaires say that they are leading the civil rights movement of our day, as they attack unions and privatize public schools.

Who else is rolling in their grave?

Categories Connecticut, Philadelphia, Poverty, Privatization, Race to the Top, US Education, Vouchers

Do Parents Always Know What Is Best?

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2012 //
181

This post turned out to be controversial.

It is the view of one teacher.

Other teachers disagreed, and i printed their views too.

This is my view of the role of parents: .https://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/16/what-i-think-about-parents/

The State Commissioner of Education John White memorably said in defense of school vouchers: “To me, it’s a moral outrage that the government would say, ‘We know what’s best for your child,’” White said. “Who are we to tell parents we know better?” 

This Louisiana teacher disagrees. She says that parents should expect professionals to know what’s best when it comes to education. She says that parents and teachers should work together, but that it is irresponsible to assume that parents always know what’s best for their child.

I am  tired of this attitude about parents knowing what is best for their children. Parents are easily swayed by politicians, talk show hosts and preachers.  They rarely understand how schools work unless they are teachers themselves or have relatives who are teachers.   If their child broke his leg they would not try to fix it themselves even if they did not have health insurance. They would take the child to a health care professional.  So what in God’s name is wrong with taking your child to an Education Professional?  This debasement of teachers and deprofessionalization of of K-12 education has got to go before we get a whole generation of uneducated, dysfunctional adults.

Certainly they should  have a say and be part of the decision making about the child’s education  but parents also starve, beat, tie up, and rape their children.  They also spoil them rotten and don’t expect them to do anything and teach them that they are “entitled”.You have to have a license to drive a car, for your dog, and to practice most professions.  No license is required to be a parent.  I have also seen parents demand inappropriate programs for their child and not accept the truth that a child with a 30 IQ should not be mainstreamed into a college prep program.  I had a parent swear that her multihandicapped son could rollerskate when he could not even turn over on his own.  But I had to clean dried feces off the little boy’s butt.

I agree that some school programs are bad.  They have no vision for the children’s success. They think poor kids are in a pipeline to prison. I have known some bad teachers, some lazy, some incompetent, some functionally illiterate, two drunks and some just not bright enough to teach.  But at least 95% of teachers do their best and are competent and do better as they get experience.  Some of the best teachers I have known started as paraprofessionals.

Programs may be inadequate or inappropriate for some students but that is not the fault of the teachers but of the politicians and upper administrators.  That is part of why I stayed in Severe/Profound.  I could pretty much do what I wanted because most people thought my children could not learn anything.  I could keep away from the politics pretty well until I came to Louisiana.  But this place is a mess from hell.

Categories Louisiana, Parents, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Why the Koch Brothers Are Disappointed with Corbett

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2012 //
4

A columnist in Pennsylvania reports that the billionaire Koch brothers are disappointed by Governor Tom Corbett.

They feel that he didn’t push his voucher bill hard enough, so they are planning a major advertising campaign to put pressure on legislators.

There is no reason for them to pay attention to the unimpressive results of twenty-one years of vouchers in Milwaukee, where kids in voucher schools got no better test scores than their peers in public schools. And no reason to pay attention to vouchers in D.C., where there were no test scores gains in either math or reading.

What matters most is to break the public education system.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Pennsylvania, Vouchers

Jindal Administration Will Not Release Voucher Records

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
5

The Jindal administration will not release any public records explaining its decisions about which schools will get vouchers and which will not.

Considering that the voucher program has made the state of Louisiana into an international laughing stock, that might be the best they can do.

Best not to let the world hear or read those discussions about whether to let children leave a failing public school in kindergarten (how is that even possible?) and enter a school where they will learn that slavery wasn’t all bad and the KKK had some positive features and evolution is a hoax.

The more people learn about the Louisiana voucher program, the more it will embarrass Mitt Romney, who is pushing to bring vouchers to every state and even wants federal funding for vouchers.

So the state has decided that the best course of action is to shroud all this nonsense in mystery.

You know, when the foreign press starts making fun of your education reforms and laughs because you are putting kids in schools where they take the Loch Ness monster seriously, it is best to keep quiet.

Louisiana is giving us a laugh a day with this voucher program.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

Voucher Carnival Gets Even Wilder in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
18

This one takes the cake.

John White has approved the Light City Church School of the Prophets to get vouchers, nearly $700,000 a year.

The man who runs it describes himself as an apostle or a prophet.

Whatever. People can call themselves whatever they like.

Please read the linked article to see how low the bar is for getting taxpayer dollars from the state of Louisiana.

The state will have no standards for voucher schools. There will be no accountability for voucher schools.

A few months ago, John White told a Reuters reporter: “To me, it’s a moral outrage that the government would say, ‘We know what’s best for your child,’” White said. “Who are we to tell parents we know better?”

Well, he is the state commissioner of education, and he is the one who is supposed to know better. If he doesn’t, why is he in that job?

But John White has no problem setting standards for public schools and holding their teachers accountable.

He thinks that once you leave the public system, no standards or accountability are necessary.

In Bobby Jindal’s world, that’s called reform.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

Maybe Jindal Is Right: UPDATE!!!!

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
8

This post had a hilarious excerpt from a film. It showed a scantily clad man and woman, living in what presumably was prehistoric times. They were hiding and running as to huge dinosaurs fought one another. A reader sent the clip as “proof that dinosaurs ad humans co-existed,” thus proving that evolution never happened. He was joking, of course.

I posted it, readers thought it was funny,p. but now the YouTube video of this segment from the 1950s has been taken down.

Too bad. It was really funny!

Here is the original post. If you ever find the clip, send it to me and I will post it again.

Here is proof that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.

This could help to support Louisiana’s voucher plan and could even be useful for revisions of the state curriculum.

Be sure to send this to John White, Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers
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