Governor Gregg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick expressed optimism about getting a voucher bill passed by the third special session of the Texas legislature, but it’s looking unlikely. The session ends Tuesday, and there is no House bill. Rural Republicans know that vouchers will hurt their schools, and they have with Democrats against them.
Hours after Gov. Greg Abbott said he believed the Legislature could pass a school vouchers bill before the end of the special legislative session, the House all but killed any deal.
The House met briefly Wednesday evening and recessed likely until Monday or Tuesday, pending the Senate’s approval of bills related to border security.
The special session ends Tuesday, and the House has not so much as considered a voucher bill in committee, an early step in the lawmaking process.
Abbott is ready to call a fourth special session. That’s likely to annoy the holdouts, who are tired of his pressure campaign.
Texas clergy spoke out against Governor Gregg Abbott’s plan to promote voucher legislation. Governor Abbott has vowed to keep convening special sessions of the legislature until he wins vouchers, which will benefit students already in private and religious schools. Abbott has campaigned for vouchers by visiting private schools, which stand to benefit from his plan. Meanwhile the state has a budget surplus of nearly $33 billion. The governor has blocked any increase in teachers’ salaries until he gets vouchers. To date, rural Republicans have stood strong against vouchers, which would hurt their communities and turn off the “Friday night lights” (the football games).
The Network for Public Educatuon distributed their statement. In addition to the three who wrote the statement, it was co-signed by more than 100 other members of the clergy.
Three Texas religious leaders say that Abbot’s voucher plan is not what schools need. Dr. Michael Evans, Re. Dr. Mary Spradlin, and Rabbi Brian Zimmerman wrote this op-ed for the Star-Telegram, and over 100 other clergy signaled their agreement.
We are Fort Worth- area clergy and advocates for public education, driven by our faith to support the well-being of our state’s children. Our belief in community responsibility to provide the best possible education for every child is unwavering. The sad truth, however, is that we are falling short of this commitment.
Across Texas, our schools grapple with underfunding, overcrowded classrooms and overworked teachers. Educators face numerous challenges, including the disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most are disheartened by the increasingly politicized environment that undermines their abilities and integrity without a factual basis.
Some argue that the main issue in public education is teachers promoting controversial ideologies, undermining traditional values and neglecting core subjects such as reading and math.
This is a false narrative. As pastors, many of us regularly convene with school leaders to assess students’ progress. Our teachers are driven to improve education for their kids in the classroom. Elementary teachers aim to help early readers move toward goals set by people with little understanding of the life of families who, for example, may have already had to move many times in their young child’s life.
The claim that “public schools are failing” is overly simplistic and diverts attention from our collective responsibility. We fail our kids when we buy into this hysteria — part of a national playbook determined to undermine public education. We fail our kids when we have a historic $32.7 billion state budget surplus but refuse to raise the basic allotment to fund schools.
We fail our kids when we blame school districts and teachers for campus ratings without speaking against a system that prioritizes one STAAR test score. We fail our kids when we refuse to acknowledge the correlation between poverty and school performance. We fail our kids when we buy into the claim that the best thing to do is to “pull kids out” of public schools.
Some argue that vouchers or education savings accounts, known as ESAs, would provide options for all students, but the numbers reveal otherwise. Texas has more than 347,000 kids in private schools and more than 5.5 million in public schools. An ESA allotment of $8,000 for a child from the projected $500 million the Legislature is considering would help only 57,500 students after administrative costs. The cost/benefit analysis of this plan doesn’t add up.
Thomas Ultican of California has become a regular attendee at the annual meetings of the Network for Public Education. He attended every keynote and many panels, and he reports here on what he heard.
Ultican wrote:
NPE met at the Capitol Hilton for a weekend conference beginning on Friday, October 27. The old hotel seemed well maintained. That first evening, Diane Ravitch interviewed James Harvey who was a key contributor to “A Nation at Risk.”We gathered in a large conference room which caused Mr. Harvey to comment, “I remember being at a meeting in this room fifty years ago when we heard that Alexander Butterfield had just testified that there were tapes of the oval office.” With that historical reference, the conference was off to a wonderful start.
“A Nation at Risk” is seen as an unfair turning point that undermined public education. Mr. Harvey’s job was to synthesize the input from members of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which was created by Secretary of Education Terrence Bell to produce the report. He shared with us that two famous academics on the panel, Nobel Prize winner Glen Seaborg and physicist Gerald Holton, were the driving forces for politicizing public education.
Diane Ravitch and James Harvey
That first night’s presentation was actually an added event for the benefit of us coming in on Friday afternoon. The conference had three keynote addresses, two panel discussions and seven breakout sessions. The difficult problem was choosing which of the six offerings in the breakout sessions to attend.
Pastors for Children
For session one, I attended “Mobilizing Faith Leaders as Public Education Allies.” The amazing founder of Pastors for Children, Charles Foster Johnson, and his two cohorts were well reasoned and did not proselytize us. Their movement really does seem to be about helping communities and not building their church. Among Johnson’s points were,
“Privatized religion teachers believe “God likes my tribe best.”
“We are the reason there is not a voucher program in Texas.”
“Conservatives and liberals come together over education.”
“Faith leaders have a different effect when lobbying politicians.”
“We are making social justice warriors out of fundamentalist Baptist preachers.”
Houston School Takeover
I have no intention of writing about each of the 7 sessions I attended, but the session on the Houston School District takeover needs mention.
Texas took-over Houston Independent School District (ISD) on June 1, 2023. It is the largest school district in the state and eighth largest in the country with more than 180,000 students attending 274 schools. The student demographics are 62% Hispanic, 22% African-American, 10% White and 4% Asian with 79% identified as economically disadvantaged.
In 2021, Millard House II was selected by a unanimous vote of the Houston ISD school board to be Superintendent. Under his leadership, Houston ISD was rated a B+ district and the school in one of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods that was used to excuse the takeover received a passing grade on Texas’s latest STAR testing. The take-over board replaced House with Mike Miles, a charter school operator from Colorado who previously only lasted 2 years of his five year contract to lead the Dallas ISD.
Ruth Kravetz talked at some length about the how angry Houstonians are and their effective grassroots organizing. Kravetz stated, “We want Mike Miles gone.” She noted that the local media started turning against the takeover when citizens were locked out of the first takeover board meetings. Kravetz intoned,
“Teachers no longer need a certificate or college degree to teach in Houston ISD.”
“Seven year-olds are not allowed to use restrooms during instructional times. They must wait.”
“People are being fired for ridiculous reasons. Five people were fired last week over a made up story.”
Expect more student action against the takeover.
“Rolling sickouts are coming.”
Jessica Campos is a mother in one of Houston’s poorest communities. She said her school is made up of 98% Mexicans with 68% of them being Spanish speakers. Jessica claims, “Our school community has been destroyed” and reported that all teachers were removed with many being replaced by uncertified teachers.
Daniel Santos (High School social studies teacher) said,
“It is all about dismantling our school district. We wear red-for-Ed every Wednesday and Mayor Turner lights up city hall in red.”
The Keynote Addresses
Gloria Ladson-Billings from the University of Wisconsin Madison delivered the first Keynote address on Saturday morning.
She mentioned that we were really dealing with 4 pandemics:
Covid-19
George Floyd murder
“Economic Shesession” (Large numbers of women were forced to leave the workforce.)
Climate catastrophe
Professor Ladson-Billings claims the larger agenda is the complete eradication of public education in what she sees as an evolving effort.
The evacuation of the public spaces which are being privatized.
Affordable, Reliable and Dependable (public space keys) is being undermined.
Public housing is closing.
The last domino is public education!
Ladson-Billings says, “choice is a synonym for privatization.” There is money in the public and wealthy elites do not think the public should have it.
She noted, “We are in the business of citizen making.” We do not want to go back to normal because it was not that great.
Ladson-Billings ended on a positive note about the attack on public education in Florida, “All is not lost – people on the ground in Florida are working hard to reverse it.”
History ProfessorMarvin Dunn from Florida was our lunch time keynote speaker. Professor Dunn has been working hard to educate the children of Florida about the states racist past including giving guided tours of the site of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre of an African American community.
He noted that “Racism is in our national DNA” and shared that George Washington owned 500+ slaves. When he was 11 years-old, Washington was given his first slave. Still, 500 black soldiers were with him at the crossing of the Delaware river.
Another American icon mentioned by Professor Dunn was Thomas Jefferson. The third president of the United States was 41 years-old when first having sexual relations with Sally Hemings; she was 14.
Julian Vasquez Heilig, Josh Cowen and Jon Hale held a public discussion late in the afternoon on Saturday. The moderator, Heilig, made the point that instead of funding one system, now many states are funding three systems with the same amount of dollars.
Josh Cowen, from Michigan State University, noted that using evidence based data, since 2013, vouchers have been catastrophic. If we were using evidence informed education policy, vouchers would have died 5 years ago. Test score losses from voucher students are greater than those experienced in either Katrina or Covid-19. He also noted that 20% – 30% of children give up their voucher each year.
Cowen added don’t believe a word coming out of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’ mouth. She has instituted vouchers, opposed abortion and supported child labor. Reynolds is pushing Christian nationalism.
Jon Hale, from the University of Illinois says white architects of choice have a 70 year history. He says it was never about improving schools. The white supremacist movement sprung up after Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954…
What I Found
Several participants showed up kind of down in the mouth. However, by the end of the conference they were heading back home with new energy and resolve. Billionaires are spending vast sums of money trying to end public school because if public education goes then all of the commons will follow. Their big problem is that vast wealth and spending is not a match for the grassroots organizing that is happening throughout America.
Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris and the members of NPE have become a bulwark for democracy and public education.
As the Texas Legislature debates school vouchers, one of the staunchest supporters of the initiative has been the Catholic Church.
Texas Catholic leaders have been among the longest-running advocates for Gov. Greg Abbott’s top current legislative priority, which would allow parents to use taxpayer money for private education expenses. That’s true even as some other religious leaders have firmly opposed the legislation.
Why are they divided? Catholic leaders say other religious leaders don’t fully appreciate the voucher program’s benefits, particularly its potential to expand access to private education. Voucher critics say Catholic leaders are acting in the interest of their own schools, which have experienced declining enrollment for decades, while promoting a program that could harm public schools.
A voucher program would give parents the opportunity to choose a religious education regardless of their income level, said Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, which oversees all 254 Catholic schools in Texas.
“It’ll take a few years, but our primary hope is that it will open the doors of our schools to even more low-income families and provide even greater access for those who wish to use Catholic schools for the education of their children,” Allmon said.
Julie Vassilatos, public school parent, is shocked that Governor J.B. Pritzker has reversed course on his campaign pledge to let the state’s voucher program die. Vouchers are a zombie policy. They were sold over the past 30 years as a surefire way to “save poor kids from failing schools,” but poor kids do worse in voucher schools, and the primary beneficiaries are kids who never attended public schools, families who get a break on their private school tuition. Vouchers have failed. They are nothing more than a trick to fund families whose children attend private and religious schools.
She writes:
Just in time for Halloween, Illinois Gov. Pritzker says he’ll sign whatever “Invest in Kids” legislation crosses his desk.
Hearing this news gave me a crickly, creepy feeling up the back of my neck. I honestly thought legislators had decided to allow this thing to die its timely death, reach its expected and planned demise. The legislation was originally supposed to sunset in 2023. But it sounds like it’s creeping back from wherever bad policy goes to die. Crawling back from the mostly dead, only to be reanimated, dressed up in a new school uniform, all its awful secrets covered up.
Catastrophically bad results. I’m not being hysterical about this, either—these are results drawn from long term research by universities all over the country. Anyone concerned with education outcomes for children—for our most vulnerable children—should care about this data. Because offering children “choice” through vouchers does not help them. It looks like this:
— In Milwaukee, one of the longest running voucher programs in the country has failed to yield positive outcomes. “Among black eighth-graders in 13 urban school districts, Milwaukee—where black students make up more than 70 percent of all voucher recipients—ranked last in reading and second-to-last in math.” In 25 years we should be seeing something better than this—especially given the cost of these programs, both in tax dollars and in the financial hit taken by public schools. In 25 years, more importantly, the vulnerable children subjected to these programs should be flourishing, not failing.
Ignoring the damning data, proponents of tax credit scholarships depend on emotional rhetoric to support their cause—who could possibly be against “saving our scholarships”? They also depend on your tax dollars. Up to 5% of donations to the scholarship funds are used for lobbying and marketing purposes. So when you read about busloads and busloads of people wearing matching t-shirts arriving in Springfield, and fancy lobbyists flooding the zone, know that that’s your tax dollars at work.
Those folks will tell you that “the teacher’s union” is against this good wonderful policy and everyone else supports it. They don’t tell you that 65 organizations are united against this legislation, including Access Living, Illinois PTA, the Network for Public Education, the League of Women Voters, and the American Association of University Women Illinois.
People. We have gone over this. This is not confusing, complicated, or even a close call. “Invest in Kids” should be called “Disinvest in Kids,” or, according to the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “Invest in Inequality.” (I strongly encourage you to click that link and read a short, elegant explanation of how this “peculiar tax policy” works and what its impact is.)
“Invest in Kids” should not, under any circumstances, be extended past its already-extended expiration date of January 2024. But in Eric Zorn’s recent clear, precise column about the drawbacks of “Invest in Kids,” he notes that Gov. Pritzker has “gone squishy” on this issue, which he opposed in 2018. Squishy, maybe. Scary, certainly. That he’ll sign whatever “Invest in Kids” legislation might come crawling back across his desk should frighten us all.
Tell your legislator you want this program to end here.
James Talarico is a state legislator in Texas who stands up for public schools. He is a Democrat who supports gun control and expanded health care (he calls it “health care for y’all)”). He graduated from public schools in Round Rock, Texas, then earned his BA at the University of Texas and his MA in education policy at Harvard. He joined Teach for America and taught at a middle school in San Antonio, where his class had 45 students.
I’m usually skeptical about TFA teachers, but knowing Gary Rubinstein—an early TFA corps member—has taught me not to be so judgmental.
Talarico is a phenomenon. He’s an effective, outspoken opponent of vouchers. If you are still on Twitter (aka X), watch his powerful debunking of voucher myths. Vouchers are not “school choice,” because schools choose, and they can discriminate against anyone they want, for any reason.
Talarico recently co-sponsored a bill called “Fully Fund Our Schools,” which increases funding for the state’s public schools and provides a $15,000 raise for every teacher. Texas can afford it; the state has a $33 billion budget surplus.
Politico wrote about Talarico a few months ago and suggested that he might be the Democrat who is able to win a statewide office. He might run against Greg Abbott for governor in 2026. Talarico Represents a better future for Texas.
Talarico is a devout Christian. As the Politico story explains, he is taking classes at a seminary and hopes to be ordained as a pastor. He is steeped in Biblical knowledge, and he can respond to bigoted evangelicals and fundamentalists with the sense of love, hope, kindness, and charity that represents progressive Christian thought.
For his leadership, for his determined support for the public schools attended by 5 million students, for his enlightened support for progressive values, I am pleased to add James Talarico to the honor roll of this blog.
The state commissioner of education in New Hampshire, Frank Edelblut, homeschooled his 10 children. He knows nothing about public schools and the role they play in communities. Appointed by Governor Chris Sununu, Edelblut has devoted his time in office to promoting anything but public schools.
He pushed voucher legislation and projected it would cost $3.3 million in its first two years. The actual cost was $22.7 million. The vast majority of children who use vouchers never attended public schools.
New Hampshire has about 160.000 students who attend public schools. In the first year of the voucher program, 90% of the students who claimed vouchers were already enrolled in religious and private schools. The proportion now remains over 80%. Vouchers are now claimed by about 2.6% of the state’s students. About 1/2 of 1% of the voucher users previously were enrolled in public schools.
Vouchers are a subsidy for private school students.
CONCORD — In three years, the enrollment in the Education Freedom Account program has grown 158 percent, while the cost has increased 174 percent in figures released this week by the Department of Education.
For the current school year, 4,211 students are in the program, up from 3,025 at the same point last year, and from 1,635 for the 2021-2022 school year.
The costs have grown from $8.1 million the first year, to $14.7 million the second year and $22.1 million this school year.
This year the financial threshold to participate in the program was raised from 300 percent of the federal poverty level to 350 percent.
That increases the threshold for the current school year from $59,160 for a family of two, to $69,020, and for a family of four from $90,000 to $105,000 annually.
Once a family qualifies for the program there are no future financial limits on earnings.
Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, who championed the program before the legislature, was pleased more and more students are participating in the EFA program
“It has been three years since the launch of New Hampshire’s successful Education Freedom Account program, and it is apparent that New Hampshire families are taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity that provides them with different options and significant flexibility for learning,” said Edelblut. “With three years of data under our belt, we know that students are coming and going from the program, which is exactly how it was designed – to allow various options for personal learning needs that may fluctuate from year-to-year based on whatever path is appropriate in the moment.”
The program was sold by Edelblut and others as an opportunity for lower-income parents to find the best educational fit for their children if they have problems within the public school system.
However the vast majority of the money spent through the expansive voucher program has gone to pay the religious and private school tuition of students in those schools prior to the EFA program’s creation. [Emphasis added]…
A larger number of EFA students this year left public schools to go into private or parochial schools, 444 students, compared to 282 last school year, and 286 in the 2021-2022 school year.
Overall there are 1,577 new students to the EFA program this school year, while 109 students left the program due to graduation, 75 returned to public schools, and 524 students left the program for other reasons.
The 1,577 new students are 128 more students than the previous year.
When the program first began, the Department of Education projected its first two years would cost about $3.3 million and instead the state paid $22.71 million.
The advocacy group Illinois Families for Public Schools were shocked by Governor Pritzker’s decision to extend the state voucher program. They were shocked because of his campaign promises not to support schools that discriminate, and they were shocked by the data showing that discrimination against students with disabilities and LGBT students is widespread among voucher schools. Most voucher schools are religious, and they are free to exclude any student they don’t want.
Illinois Families for Public Schools’ Statement on Gov. Pritzker’s Vow to Sign an Extension of the Illinois Voucher Program
Friday October 20, 2023
Illinois Families for Public Schools is profoundly disappointed at Governor Pritzker’s statement yesterday that he is committed to signing any bill sent to him that would extend the Invest in Kids voucher program.
“I oppose Bruce Rauner’s backdoor voucher program that was inserted into the school funding reform bill last year. As governor, I will work to repeal that measure.”
Since 2018, the Invest in Kids voucher program has diverted more than $250 million in state funds to private schools, 95% of which are religious. Religious schools, even those getting public dollars, can and do legally discriminate against nearly any protected category of student, family or staff:
At least 85 schools in the Invest in Kids program, nearly 1 in 5, have anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
Only 13% of private schools in the Invest in Kids program last year reported to the Illinois State Board of Education that they served any special education students. The majority of schools in the program are Catholic schools, and four of six Catholic dioceses in Illinois have policies that say schools may refuse to accommodate students with disabilities.
Policies that discriminate against pregnant and parenting students, students who have had an abortion, English-language learners, students with disabilities, undocumented students, and more are widespread in Illinois voucher schools as well.
Due to recent Supreme Court decisions, there is essentially no way to have a state voucher program that only funds non-religious schools or alternatively prohibits religious schools from discriminating based on religious belief. As such, there is no way to end discrimination in voucher schools in Illinois short of ending the program altogether.
Extending the voucher program is supported by anti-public good extremist groups, including Betsy DeVos-funded Illinois Federation for Children, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, Awake Illinois, and Moms for Liberty Lake County.
Public dollars must be for used public schools that welcome and educate all children, as well as protect their civil rights. Strong public schools are the foundation of a healthy, pluralistic democracy and are a public good that benefits everyone in Illinois.
It is unacceptable to continue the Invest in Kids program in any form.
Why is Governor Pritzker thinking so small when it comes to our public schools?
Illinois Families for Public Schools (IL-FPS) is a grassroots advocacy group that represents the interests of families who want to defend and improve Illinois public schools. Founded in 2016, IL-FPS’ efforts are key to giving public ed parents and families a real voice in Springfield on issues like standardized testing, student data privacy, school funding and more. IL-FPS connects families and public school supporters in more than 100 IL House districts. More at ilfps.org.
The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado invited scholar Chris Lubienski of Indiana University to review a recent publication of EdChoice (the new name of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation), which summarizes what voucher advocates believe about the efficacy of vouchers. The publication is titled “The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice Programs, 2023 Edition.”
Not surprisingly, EdChoice concludes that vouchers are effective. Lubienski, however, is critical of the studies they include and those they exclude. In short, EdChoice engages in cherry-picking to bolster its cause.
While the report confidently asserts that school choice works, Lubienski says that the authors ignore recent studies that show the opposite to be true. For many students, vouchers are harmful.
If your district or state is under pressure to endorse vouchers, be sure to read this review.
