Archives for category: Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Kansas Public School Teacher: The Benefits of Privatization

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2023 //
22

Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in Kansas. She usually testifies against vouchers and other forms of privatization, but she suddenly realized what she could do if the Kansas legislature passes a voucher bill. She would open a completely unregulated school to do what the rightwingers fear most!

She wrote in The Kansas Reflector:

      

Liz Meitl

Liz Meitl testifies Feb. 6, 2023, before the House K-12 Education Budget Committee regarding legislation that would create vouchers for unregulated, unaccreddited private schools. GOP education proposals could allow for schools to turn into indoctrination mills, Meitl writes. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Kansas Legislature YouTube channel)

Two years ago I wrote an opinion piece for the Kansas Reflector in which I argued that the Legislature should be celebrating Kansas public schools, rather than trying to tear them apart through voucher plans.

In the two years since, the fight has been ongoing, with no break in the Legislature’s efforts to destroy public education. This year’s session has brought us a tidal wave of proposed legislation that would divert hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools to private schools.

The legislation has shifted, though. Now it’s not just for low-income students, or for already established private schools.

The new legislation allows any kid to access the funds, and it allows anybody to set up a school. And so I have had an entirely serious change of heart. I am in no way taking a ridiculous idea to its logical extreme, so just put that out of your mind right now.

Let me explain.

Bills in the House and Senate that would allow families to use state money to send their kids to private schools — specifically House Bill 2218 — represent an enormous opportunity for Kansas educators. This legislation will allow Kansas to be a beacon to the rest of the country. Just as the world watched on Aug. 2nd as Kansans defeated the anti-choice agenda, the world can now watch as our liberal, woke educators are freed from the bonds of bureaucratic oversight and local, state and federal regulations.

Other educators, like me, will jump at the chance to open our own micro-schools and enact our own curricular agendas. We will be able to recruit the students we want to teach. We will no longer be asked to serve all students equitably, but instead we can create small, insular communities of learners, focused on the topics we feel are most valuable.

This is an enormous opportunity for all Kansas teachers who are tired of being subject to democratically elected school boards’ rules and out-of-touch federal lawmakers’ regulations.

When I think about opening my own school, I can’t help but be thrilled at the potential freedom. I will have the opportunity to teach English classes rooted in critical race theory. I know many legislators think we teach CRT now, but really there is so much oversight and collaboration that I am hamstrung and forced to teach lessons based on “pedagogical research” and “student data.”

This legislation will allow me to teach what many of the conservatives assumed I most want to teach: a leftist agenda focused on my Marxist, atheist ideology.

I can create a social studies class anchored in the history of white people as oppressors and colonizers. I can develop a rich, interdisciplinary course of study in which we study the benefits of recreational marijuana and psilocybin, and we can take scientific field trips to grow houses and dispensaries. My math classes will focus on the benefits of a socialist economy, and I will do my best to cultivate highly educated, intrinsically motivated radicals.

Further, work with my students will be based on a feelings-first curriculum. Their social and emotional well-being will drive instruction. I recognize legislators’ intent, that parents need to choose educational environments, so I will invite parents to provide tokens of comfort from home and I will use them to decorate our classroom.

Without the burden of state-mandated assessments weighing me down, and free from any governmental oversight, I will have the bandwidth to focus on supporting students’ identities. That will be especially rewarding for me and my LGBTQIA students.

In addition to the curricular and practical freedoms offered, this legislation creates an enormous financial opportunity. I know, without a doubt, that I can recruit 21 students to attend my little school. I have a big basement, and the materials will come from my own head (and heart), so I will have almost no overhead.

This means that I will make somewhere around $100,000 annually, based on current base state aid per student. This is substantially more than I earn now, and I will be responsible for many fewer students. It is clearly a financial windfall for any motivated adult.

In conclusion, these bills are a giant win for Kansas educators and youths. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

The total lack of oversight and regulation, combined with the financial incentives, create an almost irresistible opportunity for those of us with an agenda for our state’s future. Teachers’ dedication to Kansas’s public schools and serving every student will certainly mean almost nothing when we consider the possibilities offered via this legislation.

#############

Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in USD 500, and her two children attend Kansas public schools. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Creativity, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Freedom, Funding, Kansas, Privatization, Race, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Arkansas: “The Rich Want Vouchers,” and There’s No Stopping Them

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2023 //
7

Austin Bailey writes in The Arkansas Times about a disappearing kind of Republican: the old-timers who supported their community public schools. As they die out, they are replaced by the newcomers in the mold of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who abhor anything provided by government, no matter what the consequences.

Sanders has proposed a sweeping voucher bill that will send hundreds of millions of dollars to students already enrolled in private and religious schools. A while back, there were Republicans who would have fought her. Their numbers are dwindling.

Bailey writes:

It’s a different era at the Arkansas Capitol these days, with emboldened and Trumpy Republicans unafraid to mislead, obfuscate and say the quiet parts out loud.

Innocent and harmless trans kids get crammed into metaphorical lockers over there all the time now, a convenient scapegoat for white evangelical bullies virtue signalling their Aryan heteronormativity. Poor people who need housing and food are also sitting ducks, powerless to punch back at upper-middle-class legislators chastising them to get a job already.

But the most deafening quiet part blaring in our ears this week was the message that providing a solid education to all children in Arkansas is kind of a drag, so the state should give up on that idea altogether and let the free market handle it. Sure, we will be leaving families who lack the cash, resources or elitism required to bail on democracy’s greatest invention to languish in public schools whose funding bases shrink as taxpayer money goes to private schools. But for those who stay put in those starving public schools — either because they love them, or because there are no other options close by, or because a $7,000 voucher covers only part of the tuition and other expenses required for a private education — well, that’s their “choice.”BRIAN CHILSONRep. Bruce Cozart is plumb worn out.

Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs), former chair of the House Education Committee and a 10-year Capitol veteran, all but admitted this week that the fight for equity in education is lost. Cozart met with a cluster of public school teachers who came to Little Rock from across the state to try to figure out what the hell is going on. Gov. Sarah Sanders continues to dangle foreboding sound bytes about “bold, conservative reform,” “education freedom accounts” and merit pay, but there’s nothing yet on paper and teachers are understandably desperate for details.

A veteran in the fight against school vouchers, Cozart is laying down his sword.

“I know you are disappointed in me, but I have been fighting vouchers for eight years and I am just tired. There is nothing I can do,” he told teachers Wednesday.

Did he really say this stuff? Yes! Reached by phone Friday morning, Cozart gave some lip service to what he said were the good intentions of his Republican colleagues, but confirmed the conversations.

There are other Republican advocates of public schools in the Arkansas Legislature, but they’re seemingly a dying breed. Sen. James Sturch, an educator and reliable public school champion, got primaried and lost his seat in 2022 to pro-voucher candidate John Payton. Republican Rep. Jim Wooten of Beebe is still hard at work trying to push bills to keep vouchers from widening the gap between “haves and have-nots.” A couple of Republicans recently went along with Wooten’s bill to require private schools that accept public money in the form of vouchers to issue standardized tests and admit all comers, but most Republicans in the House Education hearing did not. The bill died in committee.

Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS is expected to drop any day now, and it’s going to whip the rug out from under all the educators, families and students who believe in the ideals of community and collective opportunity our public schools still embody.

It’s absolutely true that many Arkansas public school students struggle in the classroom. That’s because they struggle outside the classroom, too. Arkansas kids face more than their share of poverty, food insecurity and trauma, and without fixing those external factors, these students won’t have the energy and focus they need to excel in the three Rs.

But ending hunger and poverty is hard; shitting on public schools is easy. The governor and her compliant stairwell full of cheering white conservatives know it’s much easier to blame poor showings on national standardized test dashboards on bleeding heart teachers and their crumbly old schools.

Arkansas LEARNS, this looming assault on the children who need help the most, will literally send hundreds of millions of public dollars to families already paying private school tuitions without taxpayers’ help, and we need to talk about it.

“The rich want vouchers. That’s who this legislation is for. The rich. They want it and they are going to get it. I am sorry but that’s just the truth,” Cozart said. Sometimes saying the quiet part out loud isn’t a bad thing

Categories Arkansas, Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Trump, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Vouchers, “Choice,” and the End of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2023 //
13

Peter Greene takes a hard look at the real goals of the voucher crowd: to kill public education. Not by offering better choices but by defunding it, step by step.

Doug Mastriano was not out of step with the movement; he was just a bit early.

Mastriano ran for governor of Pennsylvania with the idea that he could end real estate taxes entirely and cut state funding for public schools to $0.00. Just give everyone a tiny voucher and send them on their way. The idea was far enough out there that the campaigntried to back away from it (without entirely disowning it) and even other GOP politicians raised eyebrows and said, “No, not that.”You slice them off at the knees, right here–

The thing is, this is not a new idea. It has been the fondest dream of some choicers all along. Nancy MacLean, professor of history and public policy at Duke University, offered a succinct digest in the Washington Post of what Milton Friedman, granddaddy of the not-overtly-racist wing of the school choice movement, thought about the movement and its ultimate goals.Friedman, too, was interested in far more than school choice. He and his libertarian allies saw vouchers as a temporary first step on the path to school privatization. He didn’t intend for governments to subsidize private education forever. Rather, once the public schools were gone, Friedman envisioned parents eventually shouldering the full cost of private schooling without support from taxpayers. Only in some “charity” cases might governments still provide funding for tuition.

Friedman first articulated this outlook in his 1955 manifesto, but he clung to it for half a century, explaining in 2004, “In my ideal world, government would not be responsible for providing education any more than it is for providing food and clothing.” Four months before his death in 2006, when he spoke to a meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), he was especially frank. Addressing how to give parents control of their children’s education, Friedman said, “The ideal way would be to abolish the public school system and eliminate all the taxes that pay for it.”

You don’t have to set the wayback machine to find folks saying this quiet part out loud. Utah is one of several red states racing to ram through a voucher bill. Here’s Allison Sorenson, executive director of Utah Fits For All, an outfit marketing the voucher plan like crazy; in this clip, she’s explaining that the folks who back Utah’s plan can’t come right out and say they’re going to defund public education entirely, that admitting the goal is to destroy public education would be too politically touchy.

Vouchers are not about choice. Just look at Florida, which has worked to disrupt, defund and dismantle public schools for years, while simultaneously shutting down and limiting what choices schools are allowed to offer. Look at every state’s voucher law; they all enshrine a private “education provider’s” right to deny and discriminate as they wish, thereby denying choice to any students they wish to deny choice to. One of the biggest limiters of school choice is not the public system, but the private system’s unwillingness to open their doors to all these students who, we hear, are just thirsting for choices.

We know what a free market education system looks like–it looks like the US post-secondary education system. Occasional attempts at free-to-all schools are beaten down by racist and classist arguments, along with charges of socialist indoctrination. You get as much choice as you can afford, the private schools only accept (and keep) the students they want, and those who aspire to certain levels of schooling have to sink themselves in debt to get it. Meanwhile, state’s slowly but surely withdraw financial support from the few “public” universities left.

Please open the link and finish his article.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, History, Hoax, Pennsylvania, School Choice, Vouchers

Lisa Graves and Alyssa Bowen: Dark Money Funding Astroturf “Parent” Groups, Based on Tax Returns

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2023 //
4

Lisa Graves and Alyssa Bowen recently reviewed the tax returns of some well-known “parent” groups and discovered what we suspected to be true. They are funded by Dark Money, specifically by billionaire Charles Koch, who longs to eliminate public education.

They write in Truthout:

Right-wing operatives are increasing their attacks on U.S. public education with an expanding number of legal complaints to censor books and target teachers on an array of issues —preventing them from teaching U.S. history accurately, treating LGBTQ+ students with the respect they deserve, and forming support groups for kids and teachers of color. These attacks will likely continue to escalate through 2024 as wedge issues intended to feed the right-wing voting base and lay the groundwork for redirecting funds from public schools to private recipients.

One of the main players in these attacks is Parents Defending Education (PDE), a dark money nonprofit group launched in 2021 in the midst of the Virginia state election cycle. Over the past two years, PDE has become a central actor in the right-wing assault on public schools across the nation. The group has trained local agitators to grab media attention, sued school districts for supposed anti-white discrimination, and railed against the teaching of social emotional learning, accurate U.S. history, and even ethnic studiesin schools.

Lawyers affiliated with PDE filed at least four complaints in January with the U.S. Department of Education claiming affinity groups for kids or teachers are illegal. These are just a few of the many complaints the group has filed over the past two years.

As dark money in education expert Maurice Cunningham has written, PDE’s “real goal” in filing lawsuits and complaints appears to be to “create media attention and promote chaos and disruption.” Then groups like PDE can claim the solution to the chaos is increased right-wing “parental supervision” over school boards. That supervision appears to involve a minority of vocal, politically motivated parents dictating what other people’s kids are taught or what they can read, based on whether such lessons or books are consistent with their right-wing religious beliefs and political opinions.

Illustration of Leonard Leo and a rain of judge's gavels

Groups Connected With Leonard Leo Have Funneled $31 Million to State Court Races

PDE’s speakers are often portrayed in the media as simply “concerned parents,” despite the group’s ties to the network of oil billionaire Charles Koch, far right politicians and school privatization efforts. Due to the timetables for the filing of nonprofit IRS forms, the amount PDE had raised to mount these attacks was unknown — until now.

PDE’s 2021 990 nonprofit IRS form shows that the group raised more than $3.1 million in its first year, even though many genuinely local grassroots efforts take years to raise that much money. That form does not reveal how much money PDE raised in 2022, during the congressional midterm elections; the amount it received to fuel its operations last year is likely even higher than 2021. The $3.1 million disclosed for 2021 also does not include any money raised that year by PDE Action, its (c)(4) advocacy arm.

Please open the link and keep reading this deep dive into astroturf parent groups funded by the far right billionaires.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Dark Money, Education Industry, Hoax, Koch Brothers, Lies, Parent Groups, Privatization, Propaganda, Vouchers

New Hampshire: Vouchers Cheat Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2023 //
2

Jacob Goodwin is a sixth-grade teacher in New Hampshire, where the State Commissioner (who home-schooled his own children) is pushing a vastly expanded voucher plan. Parents should be aware that federal anti-discrimination statutes do not apply to private and religious schools. You may think you are exercising your “choice,” but it’s the school that chooses its students.

Goodwin writes in The Progressive:

A new lawsuit is challenging the voucher scheme of Frank Edelblut, New Hampshire’s commissioner of education. Edelblut, formerly an accountant, lacks meaningful experience in the field of education outside his politically appointed post. He is being sued by the American Federation of Teachers for allegedly misusing funds that were meant solely for public schools in the state.

The statutory requirement for the disbursement of public money prohibits all other financial transactions, which the plaintiffs argue extends to providing public money to private and religious schools—something that the voucher law has done.

The current voucher expenditures have ballooned to over $20 million, despite the commissioner having promised that the cost of the program would be nearly one-tenth the current taxpayer obligation. Funneling dollars to the voucher program is detrimental to public schools and the students they serve.

This diversion of public money away from public schools came at a time when schools in New Hampshire—and across the country—were having difficulty retaining staff, especially support staff who work with children with special needs. While there are education support professionals making less than $15 per hour, the commissioner has spent lavishly on schools that are not even required to fulfill Individualized Education Plans, which are designed to meet students’ special needs and backed by Federal law. In other words, the ill-devised voucher scheme both makes it more difficult for public districts to fill the positions to help students currently qualifying for legally mandated services and gives that money away to places that can ignore documented disabilities…

Students deserve our support, and vouchers aimed at helping the well-to-do at the cost of providing support to the most vulnerable is simply unjustifiable. This includes regressive voucher laws that send public money to schools with no public accountability and with no requirement to aid special needs students. Still, states like New Hampshire are considering expanding such programs, effectively defunding established and regulated professional public services for special education. The thought of this is a travesty. The impact: a devastating blow to disability rights.

Categories Education Industry, New Hampshire, Privatization, Propaganda, Special Education, Students, Vouchers

Researchers: Vouchers Swindle Taxpayers, Students, and Families

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2023 //
4

David DeMatthews of the University of Texas and David S. Knight of the University of Washington wrote this article, which appeared in The Hill, a D.C. site. It’s by now well-established that students who take vouchers suffer academically; that vouchers will sudsidize the students already enrolled in private and religious schools; and that states will pay huge sums to underwrite affluent families. The Texas Observer, for example, estimated that if the 309,000 students currently in private schools get vouchers, the state’s public schools will lose $3 billion in the first year alone. What is more, voucher schools are free to discriminate on any basis, and they are exempt from any accountability.

They write:

School vouchers are a taxpayer swindle that fails to raise achievement while eroding public schools and the principle of equal protection under the law outlined in the U.S. Constitution. If more states adopt school voucher systems, most parents will find their top choice — a neighborhood public school — largely defunded and unable to recruit and retain high-quality teachers due to a transfer of funds into unregulated private schools.

Americans from all backgrounds have fought to gain access to public schools, including freed slaves, immigrants and people with disabilities. These struggles have led to a free universal public education system that propels each child into our democracy, communities and economy. Public schools also serve as community hubs where neighborhoods gather to vote, watch sports, participate in townhalls, among many other public events.

Vouchers jeopardize all of this because they transfer money from public schools to individual parents through grants, savings accounts or scholarships to pay private school tuition. It is a system where self-interest replaces the common good, culminating in separate education systems for children living on the same street in the same community.

Voucher supporters say parents know what is best for their children, but that is not necessarily the case. As education researchers, we know that voucher systems have led to significant declines in student achievement for voucher users in Louisiana, Indiana, New York City and Washington, D.C., especially for low-income students. In a study on the effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program — a large voucher program established in 2008 and expanded in 2012 — researchers found that students participating in the voucher program were significantly behind their peers in reading and mathematics after four years.

There should also be concern that despite these well-documented failures, billionaires such as Betsy DeVos of Michigan and Charles Koch of Kansas use their fortunes to reportedly subvert state elections from thousands of miles away. This is not about parent choice or student achievement. It is political. null

Sadly, some state policymakers adopt equally hypocritical policy positions as they support vouchers. For example, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has become a vocal voucher supporter, yet he’s also a supporter of high-stakes accountability. Texas battled in court for years to take control of the Houston Independent School District due to low performance. So, on one hand, the state is supporting accountability for public school performance, and on the other hand, there is support for vouchers — a policy where taxpayer dollars are transferred to private schools that do not follow state accountability standards and where the state has virtually no oversight.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is also a voucher supporter. In 2022, DeSantis signed legislation dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity — yet, his state’s voucher program has no oversight over private school curricula. This means a private school receiving taxpayer dollars can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity without any legal recourse from the state.

In Arizona, former Gov. Doug Ducey (R) supported voucher legislation based on his belief that it would “offer all families the option to choose the school setting that works best for them.” Nevertheless, Arizona’s voucher system has been overwhelmingly used by wealthy families that were already sending their children to private schools before voucher legislation. Few low-income families could afford private school tuition and transportation with the voucher — a predictable policy shortcoming.

To make matters worse, current and pending voucher legislation could even reportedly fund racist curricula. Recently, a Nazi homeschooling group in Ohio stated they were creating “Nazi-approved homeschool material.” Under Ohio state law and many current and proposed voucher laws, states would be left powerless to intervene if a private school adopted such a curriculum.

Vouchers just do not make sense, and we should recognize that vouchers offer a false choice. What parent wants the choice to defund public education while transferring taxpayer money to unaccountable private schools that do not improve student achievement but can deny admission, discriminate against children and develop ineffective or harmful curriculum without any recourse?

David DeMatthews is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin.

David S. Knight is an associate professor of education finance and policy at the University of Washington.

Categories Accountability, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Privatization, Propaganda, Religion, Republicans, Segregation, Students, Vouchers

Wisconsin: The Most Important Election of 2023

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2023 //
6

Here is the most important election of 2023: Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The election is April 4, 2023.

The current Court is 4-3, with a Republican majority. A win by Democrats will reverse the balance and be crucial on issues of abortion, gerrymandering, and schools. It is also a chance to reverse the damage done by Republican Scott Walker.

Charlie Sykes writes in The Bulwark, a site established by Never-Trumpers:

The election that the media has dubbed “the most important election nobody’s ever heard of,” is just weeks away, and has already drawn international attention.

The “Stakes are monstrous,” declared Britain’s Guardian. “Wisconsin judicial race is 2023’s key election.”

Voting is under way in an under-the-radar race that could wind up being the most important election in America this year.

The NYT headlined: “2023’s Biggest, Most Unusual Race Centers on Abortion and Democracy.” Within weeks, the Times reported, “Wisconsin will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023.”

The state’s high court now has a 4-3 conservative majority, but one of the conservative members is retiring, which has created an opening for progressives to flip the high court for the first time in decades.

And everything is on the line: from Act 10, which limited public employee collective bargaining rights, to gerrymandering, abortion, and the way presidential elections are decided.

“If you change control of the Supreme Court from relatively conservative to fairly liberal, that will be a big, big change and that would last for quite a while,” said David T. Prosser Jr., a conservative former justice who retired from the court in 2016.

The contest will almost certainly shatter spending records for a judicial election in any state, and could even double the current most expensive race. Wisconsinites are set to be inundated by a barrage of advertising, turning a typically sleepy spring election into the latest marker in the state’s nonstop political season.

The Wapo reports that the election “will have sweeping consequences, as the court in the coming years is likely to decide whether to uphold the state’s near-total ban on abortion. It also could wade into disputes over gerrymandering and the outcome of the next presidential election.”

The Bulwark’s headline also captured the stakes “Wisconsin Supreme Court Race a Test for Democracy.”

On paper, the contest is non-partisan, but nobody even bothers to pretend anymore. Next Tuesday’s free-for-all primary includes four candidates: two progressives: Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell; and two conservatives: Dan Kelly and Jennifer Dorow.

The conventional wisdom (which is likely correct) is that the primary will set up a contest between left and right. The same conventional wisdom (on both sides of aisle) thinks that Protasiewicz is the strongest progressive candidate, while Dorow — who achieved a sort of media stardom for presiding over a high-profile criminal case — is the most electable conservative. Kelly, who was named to the Court by former Governor Scott Walker at the urging of the Federalist Society, has already lost a statewide election — a rare defeat for an incumbent justice.

**

But now we get to the strangest twist in this high-stakes story: After decades of ignoring or downplaying crucial judicial elections like this one, Democrats and their allies are very much focused on the Wisconsin contest.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin conservatives have chosen this moment to crack up.

While progressive dollars pour into the state, Republicans have launched a bitter, high-stakes, and often quite personal, civil war that seems designed to take out the candidate who may give them the best chance to hold onto control of the state’s high court…

To finish the article, subscribe to The Bulwark.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections, Republicans, Unions, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Schneider & Berkshire: A Reverse Robin Hood Plan: Stealing from the Poor to Pay the Tuition of the Rich

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2023 //
11

Historian Jack Schneider and journalist Jennifer Berkshire call out the hidden secret of vouchers: they steal from the public schools of the poor to fund the private and religious schools of the affluent. In state after state, 75-80% of the kids who use voucher money are already enrolled in nonpublic schools.

In an article in The Nation, Schneider and Berkshire write:

The assault on public education currently unfolding in state legislatures across the United States stands to annually transfer tens of billions of dollars from public treasuries to the bank accounts of upper-income families. Those dollars, which otherwise would have gone to public schools, will instead reimburse parents currently paying private school tuition. It’s a reverse Robin Hood scheme that Americans would hate if they fully understood what was going on.

That’s not the sales pitch, of course. As Betsy DeVos and her allies like to put it, their cause is “education freedom.” They want American families to have “options” beyond their local public schools. And their plan for creating those options is to push various forms of school vouchers. The money that otherwise would have gone to local schools, instead, would be given to families. Families could then take those dollars—sometimes loaded on an actual debit card—and spend them at whatever kind of school, or on whatever kind of educational product, they want.

There are many reasons to dislike this plan. Public schools are open to all, meaning that they can’t turn students away on the basis of characteristics like ability or identity. And public schools serve the public good. That’s why we fund them with our tax dollars—because we expect them to serve all of us.

Private schools, by contrast, can turn students away for nearly any reason, including that they have disabilities that make them more expensive to educate. As more states adopt programs that use taxpayer dollars to fund private schools, taxpayers are increasingly footing the bill for discrimination.

In Florida, for instance, a religious school that notified families this fall that LGBTQ students were no longer welcome and would be asked to leave immediately still receives more than $1.6 million a year in public funds through the state’s private school voucher program.

But school voucher plans are a raw deal not just for public schools and the students who attend them but also for taxpayers. Programs like the one jammed through by the Republican legislature in Iowa this week stand to immediately transfer massive amounts of cash directly from state treasuries to the families that least need it.

While proponents, like Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, sold the plan as a way to give choices to poor and middle-class families, the program will chiefly subsidize the parents who already send their kids to private schools. The cost of that subsidy is significant—an estimated $340 million each year once the plan is fully phased in—and will be borne by the 500,000 students who attend the state’s underfunded public schools.

And it’s not just in Iowa that Republicans are pulling off this reverse Robin Hood maneuver. In Arizona, where lawmakers recently made all students eligible for school vouchers, 75 percent of the students who applied for the new subsidy never attended public school. The same dynamic is playing out in New Hampshire, where GOP legislators enacted an “education freedom” program over stiff public opposition. At Laconia Christian Academy, for instance, all but two families in the school took advantage of the program, pulling roughly half a million dollars out of the public treasury.

Please open the link and finish reading the entire article. It nails the essential outcome of vouchers, which may also be their purpose. They subsidize the students who never attended public schools at the expense of the public schools of the poor.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Shame, Vouchers

Texas: Don’t Make the Same Mistake as Arizona: Vouchers Are a Fraud!

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2023 //
5

The Texas Observer published a warning to the Texas legislature: Take a close look at the Arizona voucher programs. Don’t go there. Vouchers subsidize private school students while defunding the public schools that still enroll the vast majority of the state’s students.

Like many other typical teenagers, James’ favorite periods in school are P.E. and lunch. During our phone call, he turned the tables on me, politely asking about my children and work. A 15-year-old student who was born with a tumor and has autism, James actively seeks engagement with others, especially his peers. But for two years, he learned at home in isolation. Arizona’s voucher educational savings account program, called the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA), granted him $40,000 of public funds to pay private school tuition. But even with that money, private school after private school denied him admission.

“They first demanded all his files, his IEPs [Individualized Education Plan for students with special needs], but before they would grant an interview, they would give some excuse why his needs could not be met there,” James’ mom Pamela Lang said. “Some gave interviews and tours, and James would get excited. But then they would decline admittance saying they could not accommodate him.”

After every single Phoenix, Arizona Catholic school and a slew of secular private schools rejected James, Lang was finally able to find a school to address his needs. But now, she fears there won’t be enough state funds in the future to afford its costly tuition.

What started in Arizona in 2011 as a $2.5 million state voucher program for students with special needs has now ballooned to a universal voucher program for all of the state’s students, public or private.

“The state said the voucher was for kids with disabilities but it was just a way in to open the door,” Lang said. “Every single year since the state got the ESA, they just kept expanding it to more and more people, and now, it’s for everybody. We’re just hoping kids with disabilities aren’t going to have nothing left for them.”

In the first quarter of this school year, Arizona already blew through $300 million, awarding 80 percent of the funds predominantly to wealthy students already enrolled in private schools. This will leave a projected $4 million debt in the state’s education budget at the end of the 2022-2023 school year, a debt that public school advocates fear will deplete public school funds further.

Critics say Arizona used vouchers for special needs students as a trojan horse for school privateers to divest, divert, and dismantle the state’s public education system, which now ranks in the bottom three among all U.S. states for per-pupil spending, teacher retention, and teacher pay.

Texas lawmakers are now poised to follow Arizona’s lead. But parents in Arizona are warning Texans to take heed. Their stories are a cautionary tale for our state, which plans during this legislative session to use special needs students to usher in multiple voucher programs.

Arizona’s voucher programs—and the Texas proposals—include both a universal education savings account and a tax-credit scholarship program, both of which would divert public education money from state coffers to enrich private schools, corporations, and wealthy families.

DIVEST

The country’s first public school education savings account started in Arizona in 2011. The ESA directly appropriates public education money and deposits it into an individual savings account or debit card for parents to use for private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling, or therapy.

In its first year, $2.5 million of Arizona’s ESA money was directed toward students with special needs. But in subsequent years, expenditures and eligibility for the ESA program expanded to include children attending public schools that received a D or F rating, children in military families, in foster care, and on Native American reservations. Then in 2017, legislators attempted to pass universal vouchers for all students. The proposal was beaten back twice by public school advocates but passed in 2022.

Since its inception, Arizona’s ESA program has stripped more than $963 million from public school funds.

Texas House Bill 557, filed by Representative Cody Vasut, is a universal voucher program from the get-go. It would enable an unlimited number of students to receive reimbursements for up to $10,000 in private school tuition, the full per-pupil allotment in Texas. If all 309,000 private school students in Texas decided to apply for a voucher under this bill, public schools could lose $3 billion in state funding after one year alone. The impact could bankrupt a system in Texas which already ranks in the bottom 10 states in per-pupil funding.

Beth Lewis, director of Save our Schools Arizona, warns Texans that such a voucher program never gives back as much as it robs from public education.

“They sell it under the guise that the money’s following the child,” Lewis said. “But if you were already in a private school or a homeschool situation, that money’s not following you. It’s never been allocated to you. So in reality, it’s a subtraction from a student in the public school. Then, you’re never going to have an equitable system where every kid can access quality education.”

Besides the education savings account program, Arizona has a second type of voucher program that directly funnels public money to private schools—the tax credit scholarship program.

Open the link and read the rest of this important article. Vouchers are a reverse Robin Hood program: they take from everyone to pay the tuition of students already enrolled in private schools. As Professor Josh Cowennof Michigan State University has shown, kids who leave public schools to use vouchers fall behind their peers who remained in public school.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Industry, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Special Education, Texas, Vouchers

Indiana: GOP Legislator Has Misgivings About Vouchers After Abrasive Meetings

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2023 //
2

State Senator Ryan Mishler is having serious misgivings about Indiana’s voucher program after trying to resolve parents’ complaints about bullying. He met with the school leadership and found them to be unresponsive to his concerns and indifferent to the parents. He had met previously with many public school leaders and had found them to be respectful and responsive. He was shaken, and he published this statement:

He began:

An Open Letter to District 9 on Voucher SchoolsI feel obligated to share my experience with a voucher school so parents are aware of the weight that has been on the families in a particular community. This buyer’s remorse is the consequence of repeated deficiencies and the effects that they are having on some of the school’s students and families. I hope that families heed my candor, but if nothing else, let this serve as a transparent record of my time with the school.

My first encounter was when the school reached out to me, wanting to “tweak” the current voucher program, which I did. Soon after, a parent contacted me stating their child had been suspended for five athletic games for consensually kissing a girl in school. At the parent’s request, I followed up about the reprimand with the principal, and voiced my opinion that the penalty did not fit the crime, and there seemed to be little due process for the student. I asked how they would have treated him if the student didn’t play a sport and was told that the school had been waiting on a response from the girl’s mother before deciding on any punishment. However, the principal made it clear that the student was held to a higher standard than his peers because he was an athlete. The suspension ended after two and a half games. When the single, minority mother and her child went in front of the school’s “disciplinary” board, they were told that he had not suffered enough.

About a year later, I ran into a parent who expressed their worry about how a student was being treated by a staff member. Over several months, many more contacted me with the same concern, regarding the same staff member and student. I discovered the staff member was previously fired for similar behavior at a public school. I felt I could go directly to this staff member in question to resolve the issue. During this meeting, I shared the information the parents brought to me, and the first comment made was, “I don’t care what parents think,” a worrisome start to the conversation. I mentioned we all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them, and correct our behavior. I was basically given the “there is nothing you can do about it” attitude.

After the unproductive confrontation, I looked to the parents who came to me to see how they wanted to proceed. Their suggestion was that I reach out to the superintendent. I made the call, and his advice was that I speak to the staff member and principal directly, which I had already done to no avail. The superintendent said in a phone conversation that he would be happy to meet with the concerned families. In a later email, he stated full confidence in the leadership at the school. They would investigate fully, give me a copy of the bullying policy, and he will be praying for me. The parents had put me in touch with a family who had previously gone to the administration for the same situation with the same staff member. Their story was that of neglect and humiliation. At that point, the Superintendent lost all credibility.

As a last resort, the parents agreed to a meeting with the principal, so I went ahead and scheduled. When we arrived, the principal met us at the door, but told us that he would not meet with us as a group, only one at a time. Each parent had to schedule their own meeting, and since I had scheduled the present one, he met with me. The others were asked to leave. I requested they stay to talk to me afterward, and the principal said they could, so long as they waited outside of the building. I petitioned for the parents, stating that they pay tuition so there was no way they were going to wait outside. After which, they were permitted to stand in the hall.

The meeting consisted of myself, the principal, and one other administrator. There, I shared the parent’s concerns again, as I had voiced them previously to the principal over the phone. They claimed it was the first they had heard of anything and that they didn’t understand why no one had come forward. When I mentioned the family that had brought forward the concerns, they admitted to meeting with them, and had some less-than-kind words to say about the family. I guess they didn’t count. I asked if they knew about the incident with the staff member in question at the previous school. The answer was yes.

I asked what procedures they had put in place so that the previous incident might not happen again. Their answer was they didn’t have to because it was public knowledge. At this point in the conversation, the other administrator in the room unloaded. I haven’t been spoken to like that in my twenty years of representing my community. Now, I did throw a few choice words back. The overall attitude seemed to be, who are you to interfere with our business. I must admit that I was very disturbed! I can see why the parents were so uncomfortable to come forward and speak with administration. This school received $2.87 million dollars in state tuition subsidy last year. That alone gave me every right to ask the questions. Plus, I had an obligation to those families I represent who turned to me when their children were being bullied and mistreated.

The parents scheduled their respective meetings, where they were told that the administration would look into the matter and meet with the students and other staff members. Several weeks passed and not a single student had a meeting. When asked why, the principal replied that they did not have the time. It was mentioned that if no action is taken, these parents will lose any trust they may have had in the school, and the response from the principal was that the school would have to take that chance. Many more weeks passed without any conversations held, which left the parents with no real answers to this urgent concern. I did receive a copy of an email sent from the principal to a parent acknowledging that the student did have an unfavorable experience at the school. During this silence, some parents reached out the Department of Education, only to be told the state agency had limited authority over voucher schools.

As this was going on, there was an altercation between another student and the staff member in question, resulting in the student leaving the school and even the student’s home. The only reason the family knew of the incident was because another staff member was so appalled, he personally reached out to the family and informed them what had taken place. Fortunately, an intervention brought the student home and back to school after a few weeks. No one from the school even bothered to reach out. Yet another minority family disregarded!


During this time frame, allegations of similar behavior emerged regarding yet another staff member. The parents discovered this employee also had a recent DUI. The school’s response for the DUI was that it occurred outside of work “on their own time.” Apparently, higher standards only applied to student athletes and not staff members. Eventually, this individual cut ties with the school, a decision that had been long overdue.

What really surprised me most is that it had been made public that some of these organizations had been abusing kids for over 50 years. One would think this kind of history would lead to these allegations being taken seriously and followed up on, but no such reform occurred. Now, I understand how they got away with that kind of behavior for so many years! Upon discovering there is no accountability for these schools, I began working with the chairman of the Senate Education Committee to help me put some procedures in place. I made a pledge to those parents that I would not support one additional dollar spent on the voucher program until there are policies put in place that protect these kids from abusive behavior and mistreatment. This is the most disgusting situation I have encountered in my 20 years in the Senate. I am appalled that this behavior continues to happen repeatedly.

I have worked with public schools from all over the state. When issues have come up, the administrators have always been proactive, looking into the matters brought into question, and responding promptly. That is the leadership that I am accustomed to and expect to see in the institutions responsible for instructing our children. When I see such blatant avoidance, I cannot help but believe that these administrators are knowingly hiding something more. I would not call that leadership!

Since this all unfolded, several of the families relocated so they could send their children to the public school of choice. I would advise families looking at voucher schools to be aware that they are on their own at this point and time. They should strongly consider an alternative to the blemished and blatantly flawed procedures of accountability when choosing a school for their child. We need to hold the schools to the same high level of accountability they expect from the students and their parents.

Categories Discipline, Indiana, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »