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Ohio: Voucher Students Are Not Required to Take State Exams

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2021 //
24

Apparently, the voucher schools were embarrassed by the Ohio study showing that kids who use vouchers lose ground academically.

There were two ways to respond to that finding: 1) improve instruction in the voucher schools by requiring them to hire certified teachers; 2) obscure the data.

The voucher lobby chose the second route.

The Republican-dominated legislature is now vastly expanding the state’s failing voucher program. But a few years ago, it decided that voucher schools would no longer be required to give the same exams that students in public schools are required to take. The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute worried about the change, because it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to draw comparisons between students in public schools and their peers in private and religious schools.

That’s the goal.

Many other states that offer vouchers allow those schools not to take the state exams. Some, like Florida, expect no accountability from voucher schools. Others ask those schools to administer an “equivalent” standardized test, which makes it impossible to compare voucher schools to public schools.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, Ohio, Religion, Separation of church and state, Testing, Vouchers

Andrea Gabor: How Big Philanthropy Captured Media Coverage of Their Education Investments

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2021 //
37

Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College, which is part of the City University of New York. Gabor has written insightful articles about education in the New York Times and at Bloomberg.com. She is the author of After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Education Reform.

The following is a summary of a chapter in her forthcoming book, MEDIA CAPTURE: HOW MONEY, DIGITAL PLATFORMS, AND GOVERNMENTS CONTROL THE NEWS, which will be published by Columbia University Press in June. She prepared this excerpt for this blog.

She writes:

For the past twenty years, American K-12 education has been on the receiving end of Big Philanthropy’s efforts to reengineer public schools based on free-market ideas, with foundation-funded private operators taking over large swaths of school districts in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans.

Between 2000 and 2005 alone, three foundations—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation—quadrupled their spending on K–12 education to $400 million. By 2010, the top 15 foundations had spent $844 million on public education.

Moreover, these Big Philanthropies coordinated their spending, investing in what Harvard’s Jal Mehta and Johns Hopkins’s Steven Teles call “jurisdictional challengers”—efforts aimed atupending traditional educational institutions, in particular public schools and school boards. Instead, the foundations funded a range of private and public institutions, including charter-management organizations and alternative teacher-development institutions such as Teach for America, as well as school-board candidates who would back the philanthropists’ reform agenda and help break the “monopoly” of public-school districts.

Diane Ravitch and a slew of other academics, bloggers and writers have documented the growing influence of Big Philanthropy and its convergence with federal education policies, especially under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, creating what the political scientist Sarah Reckhow calls “a perfect storm.”

As part of its soup-to-nuts strategy designed to maximize the impact of its gifts and expand its influence, Big Philanthropy has expanded its reach to universities, think tanks, government institutions, and the news media.

My chapter, “Media Capture and the Corporate Education-Reform Philanthropies,” in Media Capture, explores the efforts of the Big Philanthropy to shape public opinion by ratcheting up its spending on advocacy and, in particular, by investing in local news organizations. The philanthropies have supported education coverage at a range of mainstream publications—investments that often helped promote the foundations’ education-reform agenda. In addition, they have founded publications specifically dedicated to selling their market-oriented approach to education.

For the news media, battered by internet companies such as Craigslist and Facebook, which have siphoned off advertising revenue, funding from philanthropies comes at an opportune time. Nor can private foundations be faulted for supporting the news media, especially given the rise of “alternative facts” and demagoguery during the Trump era. Foundation funding has long been important to a range of respected news organizations such as The New York Times and National Public Radio, as well as established education publications, such as Education Week.This is not to say that this funding has unleashed a spate of pro-reform coverage. Indeed, I have published essays critical of the education-reform philanthropies in many foundation-funded publications. However, logic suggests that publications desirous of repeat tranches of funding will at least moderate their critical coverage.

What is particularly troubling are the large contributions to local news organizations—many of them earmarked specifically for education coverage—by foundations that explicitly support the takeover of local schools and districts by private operators. My chapter explores how philanthropic support of news organizations—including new publications founded and run by education-reform advocates—is aimed at creating a receptive audience for the foundations’ education-reform agenda.

The Gates Foundation’s effort to influence local and national policy via the news media is a case in point.

The Gates Foundation alone devoted $1 billion in the decade from 2000 to 2010 to so-called policy and advocacy, a tenth of the foundation’s $3 billion-a-year spending, according to an investigation by The Seattle Times.

Although much of that money went to analyze policy questions—such as the efficacy of vaccine-funding strategies—“the ‘advocacy’ side of the equation is essentially public relations: an attempt to influence decision-makers and sway public opinion.”

In 2011, The Seattle Times published an exhaustive article about its leading hometown philanthropic organization and asked: “Does Gates funding of media taint objectivity?” (At the time, the Gates Foundation also was bankrolling a slew of education policies, including the common core, and building political support for “one of the swiftest and most remarkable shifts in education policy in U.S. history.”)

The Seattle Times showed how the Gates Foundation funding goes far beyond providing general support for cash-strapped news organizations:

“To garner attention for the issues it cares about, the foundation has invested millions in training programs for journalists. It funds research on the most effective ways to craft media messages. Gates-backed think tanks turn out media fact sheets and newspaper opinion pieces. Magazines and scientific journals get Gates money to publish research and articles. Experts coached in Gates-funded programs write columns that appear in media outlets from The New York Times to The Huffington Post, while digital portals blur the line between journalism and spin.”

Indeed, Gates usually “stipulates” that its funding be used for reporting on issues the philanthropy supports—whether curing diseases such as HIV or improving U.S. education. And although Gates does not appear to dictate specific stories, the Seattle Times noted: “Few of the news organizations that get Gates money have produced any critical coverage of foundation programs.”

The Seattle Times story was written before the newspaper accepted a $530,000 grant, in 2013, the bulk of it from the Gates Foundation, to launch the Education Lab. The paper described the venture as “a partnership between The Seattle Times and Solutions Journalism Network” that will explore “promising programs and innovations inside early-education programs, K–12 schools and colleges that are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing public education.” The Gates Foundation contributed $450,000, with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation funding the rest.

In a blog post, the newspaper addressed the potential conflict of interest posed by the grant: “The Seattle Times would neither seek nor accept a grant that did not give us full editorial control over what is published. Generally, when a grant is made, there is agreement on a specific project or a broad area of reporting it will support.” The newspaper earmarked its funding for so-called “solutions journalism.”

It may be laudable for a publication to focus on “solutions” to societal problems. But almost by definition, a mission that effectively targets “success stories” diminishes journalism’s vital watchdog role.

Then too, Gates’s influence extends well beyond Seattle. The Associated Press documented the Gates foundation’s soup-to-nuts effort, in 2015, to influence education policy in Tennessee.

“In Tennessee, a Gates-funded advocacy group had a say in the state’s new education plan, with its leader sitting on an important advising committee. A media outlet given money by Gates to cover the new law then published a story about research funded by Gates. And many Gates-funded groups have become the de facto experts who lead the conversation in local communities. Gates also dedicated millions of dollars to protect Common Core as the new law unfolded.”

Meanwhile, the same year in Los Angeles, fellow philanthropist,Eli Broad, identified Gates as a key potential investor in his $490 million plan to dramatically grow the city’s charter-school sector. The plan included a six-year $21.4 million “investment” in “organizing and advocacy,” including “engaging the media”and “strategic messaging.” (The charter-expansion plan itself followed an $800,000 investment by a Broad-led group of philanthropists to fund an initiative at The Los Angeles Times to expand the paper’s coverage of K–12 education.) In 2016, Gates invested close to $25 million in Broad’s charter-expansion plan.

The Gates Foundation also served as a junior partner in one of the most audacious, coordinated efforts by Big Philanthropy to influence coverage of the education-reform story—the establishment, in 2015, of The 74 Million, which has become the house organ of the education-reform movement. The 74 has been a reliable voice in favor of the charter-school movement, and against teachers’ unions. In 2016, it published The Founders, a hagiography of the education-reform movement. And it has served as a Greek chorus of praise for the education reforms in New Orleans, the nation’s first all-charter district, while ignoring the experiment’s considerable failings.

Key contributors to the publication, which boasts a $4 million-annual budget, were the Walton Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation. Soon after it’s founding, The 74 acquired a local education publication, the L.A. School Report, which itself had been heavily funded by Broad. In 2016, Gatescontributed, albeit a relatively modest $26,000, to The 74.

.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Failure, Hoax, Philanthropy, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Karen Francisco: Why I Fight to Save Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2021 //
14

Karen Francisco is the editorial page editor of the The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette in Indiana. She is one of the few journalists who are outspoken supporters of public education. I met her when I visited Fort Wayne in 2010 after the publication of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. She offered the following post to help me get through the period when I am in the hospital and unable to write. She is brave, thoughtful, and relentless in standing up to the powerful elites in Indiana who are dismantling a once much-admired public school system.

Why I fight to save public schools

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor, The Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette

There’s an episode of “The Twilight Zone” in which an airplane passenger looks out the window to see a monster dismantling the aircraft engine. His terror escalates when he realizes he’s the only one who can see it happening.

There have been many occasions over the past two decades where I have felt like William Shatner’s character in that classic episode: Why don’t people realize public education is being dismantled in front of their own eyes?  

That’s my motivation for fighting for public schools.  People must understand what’s at risk.

It was as a parent that I had my first glimpse of the destruction underway. On a back-to-school night in September of 2000, I listened as a middle school math teacher complained that he would not be introducing any new material until the state’s standardized tests were administered.  He had been instructed by the administration to spend the first six weeks of the school year reviewing fifth-grade math lessons to bolster performance on the tests.  I instantly knew why my then-sixth-grader was, for the first time ever, complaining he was bored in school.

As an opinion journalist, I have opportunities other parents don’t have to question elected officials. When our editorial board met the next week with the Indiana superintendent of public instruction, I recounted how my children were spending so much time reviewing past lessons, and I asked Dr. Suellen Reed why so much emphasis was being placed on standardized testing.  

She launched into the accountability talking points I could eventually recite by heart. It was my first clue that not everyone saw the damage I sensed was beginning to occur. A costly scheme to label public schools with failing grades would help convince taxpayers and parents that children from low-income households needed vouchers to escape those schools. 

To her credit, Reed would be among the first of Indiana’s elected officials to acknowledge where high-stakes testing was headed, but her resistance cost her the position she held for four terms.  The governor wanted a superintendent supportive of his privatization agenda, so he tapped Tony Bennett, an affable high school basketball coach with a newly earned superintendent’s license. Together, they pushed through massive charter school expansion and a voucher school program. When he signed the bill, Gov. Mitch Daniels literally gave it a kiss.

I am fortunate to work for a publisher who is a strong supporter of public education, so our editorial pages became a persistent voice challenging Indiana’s unbridled rush to privatization, and I was eager to write editorials and bylined columns about what was happening all around us. The governor’s press secretary called my editor to complain after I served on a panel at a public education advocacy event. On a visit to our newsroom, Bennett told me he thought of me as one of those angry parents screaming at the coach from the stands. 

Unfortunately, our editorial voice was about as effective as one of those basketball parents. The vast majority of our readers and area lawmakers were either supportive of the far-ranging privatization effort or silent.  It would have been easy to give in to the complaints from some readers that our editorial board was wrong to oppose school vouchers, if not for the voices of educators and academics.  

“The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” by the esteemed proprietor of this blog, was a revelation. I had the opportunity to interview Diane about the book and later to meet with her when she delivered a lecture at our regional university campus. Her address energized a growing community of ed reform critics. including Phyllis Bush, a retired Fort Wayne teacher who galvanized a group of educators under the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education. In West Lafayette, Indiana, Superintendent Rocky Killion teamed with Steve Klink, a staunch public education supporter, to produce  “Rise Above the Mark,” a 2014 documentary that was an early warning cry about the growing obsession with testing and its detrimental effects on education. The Indiana Coalition for Public Education joined the fight. Its board now includes three of the four former Indiana state superintendents, with Bennett being the exception.

I wish I could say Indiana has seen some success in fighting off the privatization monster, but that’s far from the truth. More than $1 billion has now flowed to private and parochial schools through the voucher program, with no accountability.  A scandal involving a virtual charter school cost taxpayers at least $85 million, with seemingly no concern from lawmakers or taxpayers. In the current legislative session, the Republican supermajority is throwing everything at school choice: income limits that make vouchers available to wealthy families, ESAs, full funding for online-only schools and more.

There was a time when newspaper editorial boards could move mountains. As my industry has withered, that is no longer the case. But I’m taking heart this year in a growing number of voices questioning the support of private and parochial schools at the expense of Indiana public schools. It seems like there are now many of us aware of the destruction and determined to stop the monster before it sends public education crashing to the ground. 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Deregulation, Disruption, Indiana, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

West Virginia Passes Sweeping Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2021 //
33

Republicans in West Virginia passed a dramatic voucher bill that allows people to spend public education funds on almost anything. Governor Jim Justice, a billionaire, signed the bill into law.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Saturday signed into law the bill that school-choice advocates say will implement the nation’s broadest nonpublic school vouchers program.

Programs in other states are limited to low-income, special-needs or other subsets of students, or have caps on the number of recipients in general. But West Virginia’s program will be open to all K-12 students, including by offering public money to families who already don’t use the public school system.

Effective beginning in the 2022-23 school year, families who withdraw their children from public schools can receive a currently estimated $4,600 per-student, per-year for private- and home-schooling expenses. Families also may receive the money for newly school-aged children whom they never want to go to public schools.

Republican supermajorities passed this legislation (House Bill 2013) without a single Democrat vote.

Democrats raised concern about its effect on public schools, which have been losing students annually since 2012, dropping from about 282,300 children that year to 261,600 in fall 2019 and, after the coronavirus pandemic hit, 252,400 in fall 2020.

State funding for public schools is largely based on enrollment, and children leaving them take that money with them to home- and private-schooling in the form of these vouchers.

The West Virginia Department of Education’s operations officer has said she expects public schools to retain most of their federal funds, plus any local excess levy property tax revenue, regardless. Some counties don’t have school excess levies.

Parents could use these vouchers for a nearly unlimited list of educational expenses, including online education programs, tutoring, books and private schooling, whether religious or secular. The vast majority of West Virginia private schools are Christian, but the bill doesn’t prohibit using the money for out-of-state boarding schools or other private, out-of-state education providers.

The legislation (House Bill 2013) has a trigger that will automatically be pulled if participation in the program isn’t above 5% of the statewide public school enrollment within the program’s first two years. If that’s the case, then, starting July 1, 2026, parents of all current nonpublic school children will be able to get the vouchers.

But whether that is triggered or not, the fact that the program offers the vouchers to parents of rising kindergarteners so they can avoid public schools in the first place means it eventually will be open to all who intended to avoid public schools all along.

Estimates from two state agencies projected that — aside from the roughly $22 million to $24 million in annual funding the program will shift from public schools to fund vouchers for students who are anticipated to leave public schools — the program’s biggest financial effect will be about $103 million annually in new state funding that will be required to subsidize those who weren’t going to public schools anyway.

There are an estimated 22,300 private- and home-school students in West Virginia.

Comparable private-/home-school voucher programs in other states, dubbed “education savings accounts” (ESAs) despite them generally being funded by the state instead of a family’s own investments, are far more limited than West Virginia’s program.

Read the rest of the story. Voucher zealots are thrilled.
West Virginia is hurtling rapidly backward into the nineteenth century.

Categories Accountability, Vouchers, West Virginia

Idaho: Vouchers Violate the State Constitution

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2021 //
6

Two prominent Idaho citizens, Jim Jones and Rod Gramer, warned that proposed voucher legislation violates the clear language of the Idaho state constitution and threatens the future of public schools.

Jim Jones is the former Chief Justice of the Idaho Supreme Court and former Idaho Attorney General and Rod Gramer is president of Idaho Business for Education.

They wrote:


Supporters of privatizing education are about to change the Idaho Constitution and 130 years of education policy without going to a vote of the people. Instead, those who want taxpayers to fund private schools should take their case to the people and let them decide as the Constitution requires.

Idaho’s founders were clear when they adopted the Constitution that the Legislature should support public schools. In Article IX, Section 1 they wrote: “The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free common schools.”

The Founders did not say the Legislature should fund private schools. They did not say the Legislature should fund religious schools. In fact, in two other sections of Article IX they specifically said no taxpayer monies should go to fund religious schools.

Yet on page two, line (b), House Bill 294 says that state funds can be used for “tuition or fees at private schools.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that if a state spends funds on private schools it must also provide funding to religious schools, thus allowing House Bill 294 to undermine both the letter and spirit of the Idaho Constitution.

This attempt to undermine the Constitution is piggybacked on the popular Strong Families, Strong Students program Governor Little created last year to provide computers, internet service and tutoring to students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If that’s all the bill did, we would support it. But the bill’s sponsors slipped in the private school tuition provision and made it sound like the bill was a harmless continuation of the Governor’s program. Several lawmakers and veteran reporters missed the bill’s real impact.

Supporters of House Bill 294 have some powerful allies like the Idaho Freedom Foundation which advocates for the abolishment of public schools. Another backer is “Yes. Every Kid” which is funded by the Koch Network, created by the billionaire Koch brothers. It is buying time on Idaho TV stations proclaiming how the bill benefits families. Of course, they don’t mention that it threatens the future of our public schools and violates the Idaho Constitution.

Instead of listening to out-of-state billionaires, legislators should listen to our founders and generations of lawmakers who clearly believed that the state’s responsibility is to fund public schools, not private or religious schools.

There is another reason lawmakers should listen to our founders. Idaho ranks last in the nation in spending per student and is already out of compliance with the Constitution’s mandate to fund a uniform and thorough public school system.

This shortage of state funding has caused local communities to raise their own property taxes by millions of dollars to ensure that their schools can operate. If the state cannot fund our public schools adequately, it makes no sense to divert badly needed state funds to support a private education system too.

Ultimately, the people of Idaho should decide whether to change the Constitution and fund private schools. That’s what our state’s founders intended, that’s what the Constitution says, and that’s what we should do. Not have the Legislature make an end run around the Constitution – or the people of Idaho.

Categories Dark Money, Idaho, Privatization, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Florida: Inside the Dark, Dirty Secrets of Florida’s Jeb Crow Schools of “Choice”

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2021 //
31

Billy Townsend was a school board member in Polk County, Florida. He saw up close and personal how charters were sucking the high-scoring students out of public schools and excluding the students with disabilities. He saw up close and personal how the state’s voucher program was serving as a refuge from high-stakes testing and enabling the restoration of racial segregation. Billy believes, as I do, that if the day ever comes when so-called reformers see the harm they are doing to kids and to our democratic institution of public education, they might repent. Will shame move them more than the pursuit of profit and power? Perhaps we are naive to think it might. But hope springs eternal that even the profiteers and entrepreneurs and shady fly-by-night grifters might someday see the light.

Billy has written a powerful series about the Jeb Crow school industry and how its sole purpose is to destroy public education without helping kids. All of the articles are referenced in this post, the last of the series. He has demonstrated how the voucher schools are highly segregated and low-quality. He refers to the choice schools as “failure factories” but now calls them “Jeb Crow” schools to credit former Governor Jeb Bush for creating the Big Lie that school choice saves children. It doesn’t.

Townsend throws out a challenge to reformers who are sincere, if there are any, about equity and helping kids:

Serious “reformers” — those who actually mean it when they use the moral, racialized language of equity in justifying punitive policies that destroy public education capacity — know today that their entire life’s work is bullshit that failed on its own terms. 

They know it. Every single one of them. Some of them will cry about America’s super awesome graduation rate; but they know that’s manipulated data bullshit, too. Mostly, they’ve just gone silent while think tanks beg to keep getting useless test data and grifters use the language and weaponry “reformers” provided them to demolish public education capacity for everyone. 

The question now: if, when, and how will “reformers” ever break their shamed silence about their failures and decide to help us fix them?

Jeb Crow means wealthier, whiter kids get high capital charters; more vulnerable, less white kids get no capital vouchers; and we kill/privatize public schools altogether.

The grifting and cheating by state education officials is breath-taking. They know that school choice is a cynical ploy to shift money from taxpayers to private corporations. They know that the corporation that handles the voucher funding now has assets of nearly $700 million. They know where power lies in Florida. They know how corrupt the Legislature is. But everyone goes along to get along.

If you read one thing today, read Billy Townsend’s reports on Florida’s massive crime against children and the state’s own future.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Racism, Scandals, School Choice, Segregation, Shame, Vouchers

Florida: League of Women Voters Exposes Voucher Boondoggle As Big Business

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2021 //
18

The Florida League of Women Voters has long been wary about the state’s rush to privatize public school funding through charters and vouchers. It has previously published reports on the conflicts of interests, the politics, and the money in the charter sector. In this report, it investigates the organization created to hand out money for vouchers, called “Step Up for Students.” I am posting only the introduction. To read the body of the report, please open the attached PDF file.

Step Up for Students

 Preliminary Investigative Report

League of Women Voters Education Task Force

Contact: Dr. Sarah (Sally) Butzin

President, League of Women Voters of Tallahassee

sally.butzin@gmail.com

850-728-1097

March 2021

Introduction

For the past 20 years, a private organization has been growing exponentially using direct and indirect public funds largely out of public view. This organization is the conduit for an unregulated school system without standards being created by the Florida Legislature.

The organization is called Step Up for Students (StepUpForStudents.org), an SFO (Scholarship Funding Organization) that awards and manages tax credit scholarships for the state of Florida, as well as in Alabama.  According to Forbes, Step Up is the 21st largest charity in the United States. To put that in perspective, the American Cancer Society is 18th. In 2019 Step Up and Subsidiaries had $697,363,075 in total assets. 

Step Up began with a mission to award vouchers to low-income students to attend private schools. It has grown to include vouchers, now known as scholarships, for students with special needs, students who have been bullied, students who are homeschooled, and students with reading difficulties. The income threshold has been raised through the years to at least 300% of the poverty level, with no income threshold for homeschool or special needs students.

Step Up receives donations from corporations who receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on corporate and certain sales taxes owed to the state of Florida. Billions of dollars have been diverted to Step Up instead of having been deposited into General Revenue to operate state government, including public schools. These tax diversions have been cleverly labeled as “donations”.

This report is the work of a team of volunteer members of the League of Women Voters of Florida. The League’s mission is to Empower Voters and Defend Democracy. Voters become empowered through information, while democracy requires transparency. An equitable and high-quality public education system is also essential for a vibrant democracy.

We hope to bring the shadowy operations of Step Up for Students into the sunshine through this report. The growing and unaccountable privately-controlled school system, while ostensibly under the Dept. of Education, should concern every Florida taxpayer. We hope that what we have learned will encourage an investigative reporter or organization to uncover more of what is unknown by the public. It’s a matter of fairness and justice. There’s more to the story.

A money management/marketing firm operating as a charity

Step Up for Students was created by venture capitalist John Kirtley in 2002, one year after then Governor Jeb Bush’s administration established the first (FTC) Florida Tax Credit voucher program, now called a “scholarship.” By 2020, Step Up had total net assets of over a half billion dollars. It is headquartered in Jacksonville at 4655 Salisbury Road. There is an affiliate office in Clearwater.

Step Up has approximately 265 employees with an $18 million payroll. The current President is Doug Tuthill, with a salary of $286,847. Eleven key employees have six-figure salaries with a total of $1.2 million in compensation. 

Founder John Kirtley remains the unpaid Chairman of Step Up. He, and his wife, have numerous board affiliations. Kirtley is co-chairman of the Florida Federation for Children, a PAC (Political Action Committee) that donated $1.4M during the 2020 election cycle.

The Board consists of 8 members, many with corporate ties. John Legg is a former state legislator and chairman of the Senate Ed Committee, and Al Lawson is a United States Congressman. Step Up also works for the state of Alabama through its subsidiary ASOF (Alabama Scholarship Opportunity Fund). Four of the Step Up board members are also on the ASOF board.

Step Up is one of two SFO’s authorized to administer five school choice scholarship programs in Florida. Step Up administers 99% of the contributions, while AAA Scholarship Foundation handles the remaining 1%. Step Up takes an administration fee of 2.5-3% of contributions. The cap on corporate contributions in 2020 was $874M, which means a 2.5% fee would be nearly $21M for Step Up.

This leaves plenty of funds for Step Up to promote the tax credit scholarship programs to corporations and car dealers, as well as to market the program to parents. Step Up offers webinars and support systems to recruit parents and assist them in applying for scholarships. Through the years, Step Up has organized large rallies in Tallahassee to bring thousands of students and parents to Tallahassee to lobby legislators to expand the program.

The fox guarding the henhouse

The Florida Department of Education’s Office of School Choice cannot supervise a program of this magnitude.  The task of supervising over 1,800 private schools and tracking individual vouchers given to parents is huge and varied.  Where students enroll must be verified.  Some schools report vouchers for students who are not enrolled. Some vouchers are awarded to students who do not meet the family income requirement for their voucher.  In addition, some vouchers allow parents to purchase supplies and services for students.  These individual purchases must be tracked.  

This is where Step Up has stepped in. The DOE (Department of Education) has outsourced oversight functions to the same private agency that also awards the scholarships. Since its inception, Step Up has awarded over one million scholarships.

What Step Up financials tell us about their size and growth

Income – Form 990 – 2018 & 2019:

$714,828,892 in “contributions and grants” – 2018

$614,153,616 in “contributions and grants” – 2019

Two Year Total: $1,332,982,508

Expenses – Form 990 – 2018 & 2019:

scholarships totaling $624,325,270 – 2018

scholarships totaling $667,545,702 – 2019

Two Year Total: $1,291,870,972

Payroll & Benefits & Outsourcing

2018 Payroll & Benefits: $19,899,245 

2019 Payroll & Benefits: $22,110,485 (Including $1,164,052 for “management & key employees) 

   $1,120,016 of the 2019 total listed as “fundraising expense”, so as of the last public report, they’re paying over $1 million just to fundraising professionals

Two Year Payroll Total: $42,009,730

What Step Up financials DON’T tell us

  • What is the source of the “contributions and grants”? Donor names are not listed. 
  • 2019 Audit Report listed $683,370 in functional expenses for “recruiting and advertising”. This included (according to the 990) a total of $592,698 paid to two employment agencies. Why? This is very unusual in a non-profit financial report. Who are they recruiting? What is their function?
  • More questions about payroll expenses are raised in Finding 2 of the 2019 audit (below).

What Step Up Audit Reports tell us about their program monitoring function

Findings from August 2019 Audit:

  • Finding 1: Step Up did not always properly evaluate the household income of FTC Program scholarship applicants to ensure that scholarships were only awarded to eligible students. A similar finding was noted in our report No. 2019-012. 
  • Finding 2: As similarly noted in our report No. 2019-012, Step Up procedures do not require and ensure that records of attendance and time worked by exempt employees, reviewed and approved by applicable supervisors, be maintained. 
  • Finding 3: Step Up did not notify employees and students of the purpose for collecting social security numbers. In addition, some unnecessary information technology (IT) user access privileges existed that increased the risk that unauthorized disclosure of the sensitive personal student information may occur. 
  • Finding 4: Application processing errors caused a delay in funding for certain students eligible for the Gardiner Scholarship Program. 
  • Finding 5: Step Up procedures did not always identify private schools receiving more than $250,000 in scholarship funds in a fiscal year to verify that those schools contract with an independent certified public accountant for an agreed-upon procedures engagement pursuant to State law. 
  • Finding 6: Step Up expended $280,000 in FTC Program earnings for non-FTC programs.

Other audits have revealed that Step Up has financial irregularities that require further investigation. For example, Step Up earned $1.4M in interest on tax-credit dollars from 2016-18, which could have been used on up to 237 scholarships. Step Up President Tuthill defended using the interest money for non-program expenses by pointing to “start-up costs.” 

What Step Up Audit Reports DON’T tell us

  • With respect to Finding 1: Failure to properly evaluate household income (multi-year finding) – What is the remedy if a student/family has been awarded a scholarship for which they do not qualify?
  • With respect to Finding 2: This finding says that Step UP has 29 exempt employees, including the Senior Director of Development, Development Officers, Director of Marketing, and Managers of Community Outreach, who worked from home in Florida, Georgia, or Pennsylvania. Who are these employees and what work are they doing on behalf of Florida’s students? Why are they living and working out of state? How much are they being paid? 

NOTE: Proposed legislation under SB48 is changing the SFO audit requirement from annually to every three years.

What School Financial Reports Tell Us about Step Up compliance monitoring 

  • In 2019, there were 1,209 schools that received more than $250,000 of scholarship funds. Of the 1,107 who actually submitted the required reports, 28% contained material exceptions that ranged from inadequate segregation of duties to not utilizing an operating budget.
  • There were 78 schools that did not submit reports and 48 that submitted incomplete reports.

What School Financial Reports DON’T tell us

  • Which schools are in compliance and which are not? Is this information available to parents?
  • Who is monitoring the quality and appropriateness of the educational materials and services that are eligible for purchase using scholarship funds?
  • Who is monitoring the quality and academic outcomes for students attending private and religious schools?
  • Who is monitoring compliance with DOE regulations that require to qualify for scholarship money, schools must “comply with the anti-discrimination provisions of 42 U.S.C. s. 2000?” That statute is part of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, and says “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Charitable donations as a means to avoid taxes

Per the Florida Department of Revenue, “The (Florida Tax Credit) program allows taxpayers to make private, voluntary contributions to eligible nonprofit scholarship-funding organizations and receive a dollar-for-dollar credit against the following Florida taxes;”

  • Corporate income tax;
  • Excise tax on liquor, wine, and malt beverages;
  • Gas and oil production tax;
  • Insurance premiums tax; and
  • Sales and use tax due under a direct pay permit

What this means is that “donations” made to Step Up are not coming from the company’s assets, but by diverting taxes owed that would have gone into the state’s general revenue fund to pay for government services, including public schools. Since its inception, over $3 billion has been diverted, primarily to Step Up. In 2019 Step Up received $618 million from 250 donors. To date, 1,799 private schools participate in the tax credit scholarship program, 66% of which have a religious affiliation.

The “donations” appear to come primarily from the following since 2010:

  • Alcohol Distribution Industry ($1.3B)
  • Insurance Industry ($75M)
  • Healthcare Industry ($104.5M)
  • Financial Services Industry ($45.5M)
  • Banking Industry ($14.2M)

Notable donor/tax credit companies include:

  • Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits (largest single donor at $615M thru 2019), 
  • Geico Insurance, 
  • AutoNation Insurance, 
  • Humana Insurance, 
  • Iberiabank
  • Continental National Bank, 
  • United Healthcare, 
  • HCA Healthcare, 
  • HMS Host Restauranteur, 
  • Raymond James Financial, 
  • Waste Management, 
  • Skechers USA, and 
  • Circle K Stores. 

It is interesting to note that the Step Up website has not listed its corporate donors since 2018. Why have they gone dark? Perhaps due to negative publicity when it was revealed that many of the religious schools receiving scholarships had policies discriminating against LBGTQ students, employees, and families.  Some corporations withdrew their tax credit donations, including Wells Fargo, Fifth Third Bank, and Wyndham Destinations.

An expanded voucher program marches on

Using the tax credit donations, Step Up awards scholarships to qualified families, based upon ever-changing criteria. What started as a program to assist low-income families obtain funds to attend private schools (Florida Tax Credit Scholarship), has morphed into four additional programs for students with special needs (Gardner Scholarship), students who have been bullied (Hope Scholarship), students who attend a low-performing public school (Family Empowerment Scholarship), and students with low reading scores (Reading Scholarship).

The income eligibility threshold continues to rise, with pending legislation in 2021 rising to 300% of poverty level ($78,600 for a family of four), with annual increases going forward. There is no income threshold for students with disabilities or homeschooled students. And once a child qualifies for a scholarship, they keep it through 12th grade regardless of whether the family income grows.

New proposals through Senate Bill 48 will convert the five current scholarship programs into two ESA’s (Educational Savings Accounts) where recipients have full choice of spending on an array of approved goods and services and/or private school tuition. Leftover ESA funds can be banked for future college funds. The proposed ESA’s will be funded from a Trust Fund using general revenue funds as well as tax credit donations, which raises interesting constitutional questions.

During the Senate Education Committee debate during the 2021 Legislative Session, Senator Manny Diaz, Jr., the chief proponent of the new ESA program, assured the Committee that the program had ample guardrails to prevent fraud and abuse. However, what our Task Force has learned about Step Up makes us wonder if these guardrails are made of toothpicks.

Follow the money: Step Up and politics

This is an area that needs deeper delving, as it is difficult to trace the various PAC’s  (Political Action Committee) and entities that make campaign contributions under the radar. One place to start would be with Miami Senator Manny Diaz, Jr. (not to be confused with Manny Diaz who heads the Florida Democratic Party). 

Senator Diaz is the driving force with expanding charter and scholarship programs. He has inherent conflicts with his employment with Academica, a for-profit charter school management company. Senator Diaz also operates a PAC called Better Florida Education PC, which reported $1,152,070 in donations in 2021.Step Up President Doug Tuthil was quoted in 2011 on YouTube saying, “One of the primary reasons we’ve been so successful (is) we spend about $1 million every other cycle in local political races, which in Florida is a lot of money. In House races and Senate races, we’re probably the biggest spender in local races.” Is Step Up still making campaign contributions as a 501-c-3 non-profit organization?

We attempted to connect the dots to find connections between Step Up and campaign contributions to key legislators, as well as from corporations receiving tax exempt benefits. This again proved difficult given the practice of bundling individual contributions into groups with vague names such as Floridians for Good Government.

A driving force behind the ESA expansion is to create a cottage industry of start-ups and business ventures. In a presentation to the Florida Senate Education Committee, Tuthill was enthusiastically promoting opportunities for business to offer goods and services to growing numbers of parents who can choose what to purchase.

Step Up has conveniently created a portal on their website called “My Scholarshop” with direct links to vendors. It would be interesting to discover any links between the vendors and legislators, Step Up board members, or staff? 

Constitutional issues

The Tax Credit Scholarship program is an ingenious way to skirt constitutional issues such as the separation of church and state. By using Step Up, a non-profit entity, as a pass-through, the state is not directly funding the vouchers to religious schools.

In 2017 the Florida Supreme Court dismissed a law suit filed by the Florida Education Association for “lack of taxpayer standing” since the scholarships were funded from donations rather than tax revenue. The question remains whether the expanded ESA program will have the same protections.

Separate and unequal

In their book A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, authors Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider ask, “Where does this end?” Some have suggested the ultimate goal is to create a completely parent-driven system where scholarships are available to all. Others have pointed out the cost-savings of privatizing the education system, eliminating the state’s responsibility to monitor the quality of educational programs, certify professional teachers, build safe school buildings, and provide annual assessments of learning progress.

When asked about quality control and learning outcomes, voucher proponents always revert to “parent choice.” It is up to the parents to make those determinations about “what is best for their child.” This assumes that all parents are up to the task.Are we on the road back 200 years ago when schooling was solely a parent’s responsibility? Parents back then cobbled together clusters of one-room schoolhouses and private tutoring. 

Parents with means had access to private schools with qualified teachers, while the Catholic Church created a system of parochial schools.

As the industrial age approached, it was clear that this parent-driven school system was inadequate for a modern society. In 1838, Horace Mann founded and edited The Common School Journal. Mann is considered the father of public education. His six main principles for creating public schools were:

  1. the public should no longer remain ignorant;
  2. that such education should be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public;
  3. that this education will be best provided in schools that embrace children from a variety of backgrounds;
  4. that this education must be non-sectarian;
  5. that this education must be taught using the tenets of a free society; and
  6. that education should be provided by well-trained, professional teachers.

It is ironic that in the post-industrial information age, the Florida Legislature is promoting a system that was abandoned years ago. The Covid Pandemic has laid bare the importance of being highly educated to survive and thrive in a technological age. A high-quality education is more important than ever. This means highly trained teachers and a curriculum based on research and science. 

Reverting back to a cobbled-together system of home schools and religious schools in church basements will leave more children behind, and will lead to re-segregated schools based on race and income. Is this where Florida is headed?

Resources

This is a preliminary list of resources we found during our investigation. Others may find them helpful in uncovering more about the operations and conflicts with Step Up for Students.

John Kirtley: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article235210632.html

John Kirtley: http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResults?InquiryType=OfficerRegisteredAgentName&inquiryDirectionType=PreviousList&searchNameOrder=KIRTLEYJOHNF%20L040000768592&SearchTerm=Kirtley%20John&entityId=L04000076859&listNameOrder=KIRTLEYJOHNF%20L040000768592

Step Up For Students, Creation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Step_Up_For_Students

Step Up For Students, Promotion: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/11/new-us-education-secretary-has-ties-to-florida-voucher-fight-107601

Step Up For Students & Donors: https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/search?q=Step+up+for+students+takes+down+their+annual+reports+to+hide+their+donors

Step Up For Students, Audit: https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190905/audit-finds-problems-at-floridas-step-up-for-students#:~:text=The%20audit%2C%20issued%20last%20week,students%20before%20it%20was%20fixed

Step Up For Students, Our Leadership Team: https://www.stepupforstudents.org/about-us/our-leadership-team/

Step Up For Student, Equal Opportunity: https://www.stepupforstudents.org/equal-opportunity-education/

Step Up For Students, Anti-gay policies: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-vouchers-gay-students-updates-20200214-kprtbtsjfjbnhlsfat2asjfvle-story.html

Step Up For Students, Financial Reports: https://32n7ya2og9cc2147lx4e0my6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019-2020-990-Form.pdf

Manny Diaz: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article235210632.html

SB48, Bill Analysis: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/48/Analyses/2021s00048.aed.PDF

Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund, School Requirements: https://revenue.alabama.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Non-Public_School_Notice_of_Intent_to_Participate.pdf

Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund, Jeb Bush: https://yellowhammernews.com/bush-visits-alabama-raise-awareness-school-choice-low-income-scholarships/

POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS SUMMARY

Step up:  https://www.stepupforstudents.org/office-of-student-learning-2/teaching-learning/

Step up Advocacy: Voices for Choices.  https://www.stepupforstudents.org/step-up-voices-for-choices/

Step up Regional Councils:  https://www.stepupforstudents.org/office-of-student-learning-2/school-support/

Employee Giving:  https://www.stepupforstudents.org/donor-resources/employee-giving/

Kirtley vs AAA 

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/04/18/school-choice-advocates-face-off-even-as-vouchers-win-support-972612

KEY LEGISLATOR PACs

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20191228/florida-legislatorsrsquo-pacs-amass-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars/1

Sen. Wilton Simpson:  Pasco County, Trilby: Senate President

PACs:  Future Florida and Florida Green PAC, Jobs for Florida, Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee $68,934,933.44

Senate Education Committee Republicans

Sen. Jennifer Bradley: District 5, Marion County; Education.  Husband is Rob Bradley, 

Chair of Senate Appropriations Committee

PAC:  Working for Florida’s Families https://www.opensecrets.org/campaign-expenditures/vendor?cycle=2020&vendor=Working+for+Florida%27s+Families

Sen. Doug Broxson: District 1, Okaloosa County; Pensacola Appropriations Subcommittee on Sen. Education, Appropriations

PAC:  none

Sen. Manny Diaz Jr:  District 36, Hialeah, Miami-Dade; Education, Appropriations, Appropriations Subcommittee on Education

PAC: Better Florida Education: http://www.betterfleducationpc.org/contributions.php

Manny Diaz Jr: https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/candidate/manny-diaz-jr-can?cycle=2018-election-cycle

Sen. Joe Gruters: District 23, Sarasota; Education, Governmental Oversight and Accountability, Appropriations

PAC:  Republican Party of Florida $605,925,807.52

Sen. Travis Hutson District 7, Volusia County; Palm Coast Appropriations and Appropriations Subcommittee on Education

PAC:  First Coast Business Foundation $762,575

https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/pac/first-coast-business-foundation-69922-pac/donors

Sen. Kathleen Passidomo: District 28, Lee County;   Appropriations, Appropriations Subcommittee on Education

PAC: Working Together for Florida

https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/payee/working-together-for-florida-pac

Other School Choice Supporters 

Sen. Kelli Stargel: District 22 Lake; Appropriations Chair

PAC: None

Sen. Aaron Bean: District 4 Duval 

PAC: Florida Conservative Alliance $751,742.60 

https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/pac/florida-conservative-alliance-60710-pac/donors?page=5

Lizbeth Benacquisto, District 27, Lee County: 

PAC:  Protect Florida Families $666,536.02

https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl/pac/protect-florida-families-fund-74099-pac

POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES 

American Federation for Children: Advocates for School Choice/Alliance for School Choice-Walton Foundation, Betsy DeVos https://www.politicalresearch.org/2012/08/01/rights-school-choice-scheme

Conservatives for Principled Leadership http://conservativesforprincipledleadership.com/

Conservative Solutions for Jacksonville http://conservativesolutionsforjax.com/

FAPSC-PAC https://www.fapsc.org/page/33

Federalist Society Members:  National group of conservative attorneys 

Fl Education Empowerment: Kirtley (closed)

Florida Federation for Children (Kirtley):  https://www.federationforchildren.org/about/

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-florida-voucher-schools-20210202-t7eunnz47vcezlzqys4ex6dfq4-story.html

*Victorious candidates supported by FFC:

https://www.federationforchildren.org/school-choice-supporters-victorious-florida-elections/

Floridian’s United for Our Children’s Future:  FP&L; U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals Corp (aff. with Associated Industries of Florida). https://unitedforflchildren.com/

Contributions Reporting

Florida Elections Commission Campaign Finance Database https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/

Center for Responsive Politics runs the Open Secrets https://www.opensecrets.org/

National Institute on Money in State Politics runs Followthemoney https://www.followthemoney.org/

Campaign Finance Database: https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/#both

Florida Transparency USA https://www.transparencyusa.org/fl

NSPRA describes major funders of educational reform https://www.nspra.org/our_mission

Download the pdf here:

step-up-preliminary-report-finalDownload
Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Vouchers

Kentucky Governor Vetoes Voucher Bill and Pension Bill

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2021 //
7

Democrat Andy Beshear vetoed school bills passed by the Republican-dominated legislature of Kentucky. Beshear campaigned as a friend of public schools, and he came through for students, parents, teachers, and communities in Kentucky.

Blogger Fred Klonsky has the story from the Louisville Courier Journal by Olivia Krauth:

Calling them a “direct attack” on Kentucky’s public schools, Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a set of controversial education bills Wednesday. 

Chief among the vetoed bills is House Bill 563, which would allow state funding to follow students who attend a public school outside of their home district and create a form of scholarship tax credits that would siphon millions from Kentucky’s general fund.

“Can we expect more from public education? Absolutely,” Beshear said Wednesday. “But the way to do that is not to defund it.”

The measure is “unconstitutional” on multiple fronts, Beshear said, and he expects it to face a legal challenge should his veto be overriden. 

The legislation landed on his desk after passing through the House on the slimmest of margins — 48-47 — raising questions if the Republican-led House will get the 51 votes needed to override Beshear’s veto when they reconvene Monday for the final two days of the 2021 legislative session.

Beshear, a Democrat who made public education a cornerstone of his administration, also rejected legislation placing new teachers on “hybrid” pension plans.

In an education-focused press conference, Beshear signed a bill allowing Kentucky students a “do-over” year after the pandemic disrupted classes and milestones for thousands of kids. 

VETO OVERRIDE OF SCHOOL CHOICE BILL QUESTIONABLE

A provision to create tax credits to rally donations that would go to private school tuition in Kentucky’s largest areas was the main sticking point in HB 563.

Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, a former educator, said the piece of legislation is “unconstitutional” and “unethical.”

A piece of the bill requiring districts to create open enrollment policies with each other was less controversial, with Beshear acknowledging the struggles some leaders of small, independent school districts face and offering to help find a solution outside of this bill.

“Governor Beshear is wrong to veto House Bill 563,” EdChoice KY President Charles Leis said in a statement. “By doing so, he chose to listen to special interests like the KEA (Kentucky Education Association) over the voice of Kentucky parents who are begging for help.”

Leis, whose group backs school choice measures, asked lawmakers to “put students first” and override Beshear’s veto next week. 

Beshear expects the legislation to be challenged in court if his veto is overriden, but clarified that he is not threatening legal action himself.

He believes the bill could be challenged on the grounds of sending public money to private schools, he said Wednesday.

It also could be challenged due to Kentucky’s larger public school funding system, which has increasingly placed the funding burden on local school districts. 

Kentucky’s Constitution requires the legislature to run an “efficient system of common schools throughout the state,” which several in public education contend lawmakers are not doing due to underfunding...

Beshear also vetoed legislation that previously sparked “sickouts” and the creation of large teacher activism groups in Kentucky. 

House Bill 258 would place new teachers on a “hybrid” pension plan that combines aspects of defined contribution and defined benefit plans, rather than the defined benefit plan teachers have currently.

Beshear said previously the “hybrid” plan could push away prospective teachers when states face a shortage of educators. 

Categories Accountability, Kentucky, Pensions, Privatization, Vouchers

Florida Voucher School Hires Unqualified Teachers, Ex-Con, State Doesn’t Care

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2021 //

The Orlando Sentinel has been covering scandal after scandal in the voucher schools of Florida, but the Legislature doesn’t care about their scandals and is planning to take even more money from public schools to fund more private voucher schools. The Sentinel published a story about one troubled voucher school that has received over $5 million from the state since 2015 despite the fact that it hires teachers without college degrees.

Leslie Postal and Annie Martin wrote about Winners Primary School in Orange County, which recently changed its name to Providence Christian Preparatory School:

The job applicant hoped to teach fourth grade at Winners Primary School, a small private school in west Orange County. She didn’t have a college degree and her last job was at a child care center, which fired her.

“Terminated would not rehire,” read the reference check form from the daycare.

Since 2018, the school, dependent on state scholarships for most of its income, has hired at least three other teachers with red flags in their employment backgrounds and at least 10 other instructors who lacked college degrees, an Orlando Sentinel investigation found.

One Winners teacher — whose only academic credential was his high school diploma — was arrested in November, accused of soliciting sexually explicit videos from a boy in his class. Others have criminal backgrounds or histories of being fired for incompetence in other jobs, the records show. Despite that, the Florida Department of Education recently opened and closed an investigation into the school without taking any action.

The school is constantly hiring because many teachers work there only briefly. With about a dozen teachers on staff, Winners had a teacher turnover rate of 83% between 2019 and 2020. The turnover and the questionable teaching credentials raise doubts about the quality of education offered to the school’s 250 students in pre-K through eighth grade.

“The kids should’ve been in public schools,” said Evan McKelvey, who taught math at Winners for six months, leaving in January after getting hired at Bishop Moore Catholic High School. “All of the public schools around here are leagues better than that place.”

Almost all the students attend because Florida’s scholarships, often called school vouchers, cover their tuition. Since 2015, Winners, a for-profit school run by a married couple with a history of financial problems, has received more than $5.1 million in state scholarship money.

The school’s students use the state scholarships — Family Empowerment and Florida Tax Credit — that aim to help children from low-income families attend private schools...

Typically, the nearly 2,000 private schools that take state scholarships do not need to make public information on their operations or their employees. Despite state support, taxpayers have no right to see who is hired or what is taught at these schools.

Because of the teacher’s arrest at Winners, however, the department opened an investigation, telling the principal it was worried the school could be in violation of state scholarship laws because “proper vetting during the hiring process is not occurring,” according to a letter sent to the school Nov. 19.

“When we’re made aware of situations like this, our team thoroughly investigates,” said Eric Hall, senior chancellor at the education department, when asked about Winners at a January meeting of the Florida Senate’s education committee. ”We take these things very seriously. We would make sure that we hold those institutions or those individuals accountable.”

Less than two months later, however, the department closed its investigation without taking any action against the school, despite a file depicting a shoddy employee vetting process and a history of questionable teacher hires. The school faced similar state inquiries in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and was cleared to remain a scholarship school then, too.

That is because the Republican-led Legislature has written the scholarship program laws to give the state only limited power to oversee participating private schools. As the Sentinel reported in its 2017 “Schools Without Rules” series, some of the schools have hired teachers with criminal backgrounds, been evicted, set up in rundown facilities and falsified fire and health reports but still remained in the voucher programs.

This year, the Florida Senate is considering a bill to expand the scholarship programs that already serve more than 181,000 students and cost nearly $1 billion, so that more children could use them and more state money would be spent.

The Legislature also has turned down requests to stiffen the rules that govern participating private schools. In 2018, for example, a proposal to require private schools’ teachers to have bachelor’s degrees — as the state demands of its public school teachers — was rejected. Advocates say the scholarships, some of which go to children with disabilities, give parents options outside public schools, and if parents aren’t happy with the private school they pick, they can move their child to another campus...

The education department investigated the school previously after a complaint from a parent who wrote the state to say the campus was dirty and “children of all ages are running out of the classroom screaming and hitting each other,” as well as after a report from the Florida Department of Children and Families that a teacher had hurt a student and the Sentinel’s report in 2018 that the school had hired a felon as a teacher.

A custodian at the school served time in prison for a firearms violation.

The story goes on with more details about the checkered past and present of a “school without rules” and a legislature that happily hands out millions to anyone who asks for them, all in the name of “school choice.” Even bad choices are fine in Florida.

Subscribe to the Orlando Sentinel to read the full story.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Disruption, Failure, Florida, Teachers, Vouchers

New Hampshire: Republicans Move Forward with Largest Voucher Program in Nation

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2021 //
18

New Hampshire Republicans are determined to use their new majority in both houses to jam through a generous voucher bill that would offer public money for students to attend any school they wanted, including religious schools, private schools, and homeschooling.

Down party lines, the Senate approved an expansive school voucher bill Thursday that would allow parents to use state education aid for a wide range of alternative educational opportunities for their children. The bill was then immediately tabled on another 14-10 party line vote – a move that enables the body to consider bills with a fiscal impact during the budget process.

Opponents have called Senate Bill 130 the most expansive voucher bill in the country with little accountability and say it would increase local property taxes, not reduce them as supporters claim.

They said the bill is the latest attempt to privatize education at the expense of the children remaining in the public school system.“Public education should be treasured, we should treasure the public education that all of us went through,” said Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, D-Manchester. “All this legislation does is carve public education apart and that is not a good thing.”

Supporters said the bill seeks to help those students left behind and those who do not perform well in the public education setting.

They said the program would not only help students it would save state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, said the current situation in public education is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.“The opposition centers on the preservation of an institution even if it is at the expense of the children who attend,” Giuda said. “This bill attempts to care for the children whom our schools don’t work for.”

He said the top reason parents apply to the current business tax credit school scholarship fund are for bullying and discrimination.

The program allows parents who best know their children to find the best fit for their children’s needs, Giuda maintained.

Under the bill, a parent seeking to establish an account would receive between $4,500 to $8,500 per pupil to spend on tuition to any private, religious, or alternative school and on other related educational costs including home schooling, computers, books etc.

The student’s parents would receive the basic state adequacy grant of about $3,700 as well as additional money if the student qualified for free or reduced lunches, special education services, English as a Second Language instruction, or failed to reach English proficiency.

The average grant is estimated to be $4,600.

The program is open to the parents of a student in public —traditional and charter — private or religious school, home schooling, or other alternative educational programs.

New Hampshire has some excellent private schools, some are day schools, some are boarding schools.

The most elite is Phillips Exeter, a boarding school, where the tuition is $55,402. Not likely to accept a single voucher student.

Then there is Brewster Academy, tuition $64,950.

The Dublin School has day students who pay $38,450 and boarding students who pay $66,800.

But if a parent can raise the difference, they might sent their child to Portsmouth Christian Academy, for $15,945 or Concord Christian Academy for $11,200. However, these schools have very small student bodies and are unlikely to find space for a student who is failing in their public school. (Concord Christian Academy has 216 students, perhaps they can make room for one more.)

The state grants will instead underwrite the tuition of students already enrolled in religious schools or being home-schooled. And perhaps a few who are able to find low-quality religious schools with uncertified staff and meager facilities, typically inferior to the public school that the students left.

The Republican legislators don’t care about the experience of other states, where vouchers attract small numbers of students but lead to budget cuts in public schools across the state. If they care to make up for the loss of revenue to public schools, the Legislature will have to raise property taxes. There is no way that vouchers for students currently paying their own way or leave public schools for private schools will reduce the cost of schooling.

It is a shame that none of the legislators consider the research on vouchers. It is not promising. Independent evaluator Mark Dynarski has reviewed many voucher studies and conducted the official evaluation of the D.C. voucher program. He finds that students who use vouchers fall behind their peers in public schools. Voucher schools typically have high attrition rates because the students or their parents realize that the miracles promised never happened. Reviewers at the Center for American Progress described the harm that vouchers do to students. CAP also warned of the dangers that vouchers pose to the civil rights of students. And they warned of the racist origins of school choice and the segregating impact of vouchers.

The Republican legislators are ignorant of the research. They keep repeating Betsy DeVos’s weary cliches, none of which have proven true.

How sad for the children of New Hampshire! How sad for the future of the state.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, New Hampshire, Republicans, Vouchers
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