Glenn Sacks: Why the L.A. Strike Is Good for Workers and Students

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2023 //
8

Glenn Sacks teaches social studies at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is one of the UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles) representatives for his school and also a strike captain in both 2019 and 2023. I was pleased to join the 2019 strike and walk the picket line with UTLA. Wish I could have been in L.A. for this one too.

The public schools of Los Angeles were closed this past week by a three-day strike, led by the low-wage staff represented by SEIU 99—about 30,000 workers, including bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, cafeteria workers, gardeners, and special education assistants. The UTLA struck in support of the SEIU; UTLA’s 35,000 members include teachers, counselors, therapists, nurses and librarians.

A tentative settlement was reached after Mayor Karen Bass intervened to mediate. The SEIU was seeking a 30% wage increase, and they won it. The agreement must be approved by the membership.

Glenn Sacks reported the unions’ victory directly to me:

Friday afternoon SEIU and LAUSD reached an agreement which addresses SEIU’s central demands. The agreement includes:

• a 30% wage increase

• Retroactive pay of $4000-$8000, depending on job classification, including a $1000 bonus for all
• Increase to average annual salary from $25,000 to $33,000
• 7 hours of work guaranteed for Special Education Assistants
• Fully paid health care benefits, including family coverage, for Teacher Assistants, Community Representatives, After School Program Workers and others)

The average pay for SEIU workers went from $15.00 an hour to $22.52 an hour.

As the UTLA often says: “When we fight, we win.”

Sacks wrote this article for FOX News. Good for him for getting published in a place usually dominated by anti-union views!

I don’t blame our bosses for being surprised.

For decades Los Angeles Unified School District’s workforce has been divided into eight different unions. Our contracts expire at different times and labor law often ties our hands, so LAUSD plays us off against each other, to the detriment of all employees.

Service Employees International Union Local 99 represents 30,000 LAUSD bus drivers, teaching assistants, maintenance workers and cafeteria staff. Recently SEIU announced a three-day “Unfair Practice Charge” strike based on its well-founded accusations that LAUSD’s mistreatment of SEIU workers violates California labor law.

LAUSD probably expected that with teachers coming in to work, along with personnel brought in from LAUSD headquarters on an emergency basis, they could roll right over SEIU, as school districts often do to campus workers in similar situations.

Except this week, Los Angeles teachers said “No.”

Over half of LAUSD’s SEIU workers have children in LAUSD. Many of our students have aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and older siblings who work at LAUSD.

There is only one way UTLA educators could keep faith with our students, their families and the workers whose labor enables us to educate our students — by honoring SEIU’s picket lines.

Our sympathy strike (aka “solidarity strike”) is very much in line with the traditions of American labor. American labor unions were built through labor solidarity, and in recent decades, unions have been undermined because union leaders have abjured sympathy strikes.

On this issue, recently one publication often critical of teachers unions unwittingly paid UTLA a complement:

“State law allows one bargaining unit to go on a sympathy strike with another union, but
Bradley Marianno, an assistant education professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said it’s ‘highly unusual,’ for a teachers union to join a walkout with non-teaching employees.

“‘They may issue statements of support, but to join in strike is a different, and relatively rare, matter.’”

SEIU has historically been a much weaker union than UTLA. Their membership is divided into many different job classifications, they are often on campus at different times, and their heavily minority, immigrant and female membership is at a much lower socioeconomic level.

Despite this, SEIU’s performance this week was remarkably strong, reflecting the raw anger of its members over low wages and LAUSD abuses, which were well-documented by the national media this week.

UTLA has its own contract battle with LAUSD, but its robust showing this week also reflects our sympathy for our SEIU colleagues and the fact that UTLA has become a strong, disciplined labor union.

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has found himself increasingly isolated, as many key players in Los Angeles education, including Austin Beutner, LAUSD superintendent from 2018 to 2021, school board Member Kelly Gonez, who served as president of the LAUSD Board of Education from 2020 until earlier this year, and LAUSD school board President Jackie Goldberg have all made statements undermining Carvalho in his battle against SEIU.

Earlier this week dozens of CA Legislators signed a letter backing SEIU, telling Carvalho to “resolve this.”

As in 2019, many of LAUSD’s own school administrators made it clear their hearts aren’t in this battle either, with some walking early morning picket lines with us or bringing us coffee and donuts.

Carvalho, humbled by the firestorm he foolishly ignited, has pivoted, shifting from stonewalling and even mocking SEIU workers towards a humble, “I feel your pain” posture.

Some of our critics claim our strike hurts our students, yet meeting SEIU demands will improve our schools.

To pick one example among many, each day special education students are deprived of two hours of their special education assistants’ time. Why?

LAUSD keeps these paraprofessionals at only six hours a day, so they won’t be considered full-time employees. This petty chiseling at the expense of our students typifies the way LAUSD mistreats its SEIU employees.

Other critics assert that parents have turned against teachers unions. These people are kidding themselves.

Polls show LAUSD parents support educators. A Loyola Marymount University poll taken earlier this year asked “LAUSD teachers requested an increase in salary. If labor negotiations cannot reach an agreement, would you support or oppose LAUSD teachers going on strike to meet their demands?”

Among those living within LAUSD’s boundaries, 76% supported teachers. Among those aged 18-29 — people who most likely attended LAUSD schools not long ago — 88% supported teachers.

Moreover, throughout this week of picket lines and massive rallies, the public showed they were behind us with continual honking horns, raised fists and shouts of approval.

As we walk to and from rallies in our union colors, we’ve had truck drivers and firefighters walk up to us, pat us on the back, and tell us, “Good luck.”

Leaving one rally a construction worker walked up to me, shook my hand, and said, “Give ’em hell!”

We did.

Categories California, Inequity, Injustice, Los Angeles, Students, Teachers, Unions

Misinformation Kills: Dark Money and the Creeping Takeover of U.S. Public Education

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2023 //
26

Dr. Allison Neitzel writes a blog called “MisinformationKills,” where she exposes charlatans promoting fake cures for COVID. I recommend that you follow her blog. She knows who the fakers and grifters are and calls them out.

She recently discovered that Dark Money was deeply invested in the privatization of education. She posted this link on Twitter and wrote the following commentary on her blog.

Leonard Leo, the former VP of the Federalist Society and current member of the Council for National Policy, was recently outed for his funneling of dark money to a conservative parents group fighting the “woke-ification” of the US school system. While such groups need their “concerned parents” to voice their messages, groups like this do not hold the political power they think they do. They are granted the illusion of grassroots power that actually comes from the astroturfing campaigns of the shadowy, far-right Council for National Policy. These parents are lower level marks recruited into a GOP multi-level marketing scheme that benefits from counting Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s parents of Amway wealth as CNP members.

Like his CNP colleague Charles Koch, Leo has been active in covertly controlling our government for some time. He was instrumental in the halting of Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court where his old friend Clarence Thomas serves as an extremely controversial justice on a rogue court. The organizing efforts of the CNP and Federalist Society since the late 70s/early 80s were successful in overturning Roe v. Wade, despite the majority of the nation supporting abortion.

MisinformationKills’s Newsletter

Roe overturned in win for Council for National Policy

The Supreme Court of the United States voted today to overturn Roe v. Wade. This was a long time coming thanks to “most pro-life president ever” Donald J. Trump’s digital strategist Steve Bannon’s political efforts and influence. Source: Slate Bannon is a former member of the Council for National Policy, part of a shady network of Christian extremist pol…

The CNP brought us the fall of Roe as well as the rise of America’s Frontline Doctors. Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s QAnon wife, served as CNP Action Committee Chair when the pro-Trump, pro-hydroxychloroquine group was created in concert with the Tea Party Patriots for Dr. Simone Gold. The future insurrectionist’s organization appears to have been staffed by the existing far-right American Association of Physicians & Surgeons. Gold, now being sued for embezzling AFLDS’s dirty money, has shown herself to be completely corrupted by proximity to this powerful network. Without her MD or her JD, Gold’s quest for self-importance could have easily led her to Moms for Liberty. She’s now a member of the CNP, naturally.

Gold’s anti-vax movement ties into a larger GOP anti-science movement that includes anti-abortion (for the Christians) and anti-climate science (for the Kochs). Beyond that it is part of a larger anti-truth, anti-regulation movement for an attempted Christo-fascism takeover of the country by the GOP overlords at the CNP. To keep a propaganda machine like this going, they must continue to recruit talent and make sure younger generations don’t wise up to what they are doing. While New Jersey starts implementing media literacy in their curriculums, less progressive states like Florida are banning books and waging war on the culture of the American classroom. Trump’s 2024 CNP heir apparent Ron DeSantis has an AFLDS member as his Florida Surgeon General and has recruited more talent from the existing Koch Network for his own public health “accountability” committee. This is not coincidence.

The CNP has made power grabs for control of the courts, public health, media, and now the classroom. They won’t stop until they have complete control over the American people and our way of life. This is not small government, but rather silent large government. Unfortunately for the CNP ideologue oligarchs, younger generations – including those in medicine – are paying attention and forming real grassroots opposition. Fighting this network requires understanding of the inter-connectedness of their various efforts to take down the many pillars that uphold this decades old house of cards. It requires educating the public about the CNP’s forty year reign and the risk in allowing it to continue. Somewhere in those banned history books are the stories of empires that have fallen before them.

It is time to wake up from our postmodern nightmare of never-ending information warfare, epistemological conflicts/divides, incoherent narratives, and existential despair. We must embrace the hard realities of our complicated and complex world to stop falling prey to the comfort and convenience of simplicity. First and foremost, we need to dispel the myth that an individual can survive independently without responsibilities to others or in a world devoid of trust. It is simple to believe that a person’s success is theirs and theirs alone or even simpler to blame their failures on the distrusted others.

Unlike their attempted coup on January 6th, 2021, this revolution does not require violence – just education, some of that Trump sunlight on the issues, active citizenship, and a great deal of spine from our many American institutions under attack.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Dark Money, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Hoax, Koch Brothers

Tennessee: How to Make Critical Race Theory Relevant and Useful

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2023 //
28

I read this story with a sense of incredulity and impotence. Could this be happening in Tennessee in 2023?

A couple were driving through rural Tennessee on their way to a funeral in Chicago. They had with them in the car their children, one of who was breastfeeding. A police car pulled them over for a minor traffic violation. They had tinted windows and were driving in the left lane on the highway.

Instead of giving them a warning or a ticket, the couple was detained. Both were given drug tests, then hair follicle tests. The authorities decided they were unfit parents. Their children were taken away, including the breast-feeding baby.

A Black family from Georgia is fighting for the return of their five young children from the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services after a traffic stop in Manchester, Tenn. last month.

Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams were on Interstate 24 heading to a family funeral in Chicago — kids asleep in the back of the car — when a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer pulled them over for “dark tint and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing,” according to Feb. 17 citations issued to the couple.

The trooper searched the family’s Dodge Durango then arrested Williams for possession of five grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. Clayborne was cited but not arrested.

Clayborne said she was told she was free to leave with the children, but could follow a THP car to find her way to the Coffee County Justice Center in order to bond Williams out.

Six hours after the traffic stop, as Clayborne sat on a bench in the criminal justice center waiting for Williams’ release, the five children — a breast-feeding baby now four months old along with 2-, 3-, 5- and 7-year-olds — were forcibly removed from her side while an officer restrained her from reaching for her crying baby, she said….

Inside, “the process seemed slow,” Clayborne said. She waited on benches with her children until about 3 p.m. — nearly six hours after the 9:40 a.m. stop. It was then, according to court records, the children were taken from her.

Uniformed police officers approached Clayborne and her children and “circled me,” she said.

“Then my baby started crying so I reached for my son, and as I’m reaching, a man held me and told me, ‘don’t touch him. He’s getting taken away from you,’” Clayborne said.

One woman was walking her five year old son out the door; another picked her daughter and walked away. Someone else took the stroller with her baby inside.

“I just sat there crying, crying, crying,” she said, her voice shaking as she recounted the events via a Zoom meeting from Georgia.

Clayborne said no one asked her for any information – her phone number, the children’s health or nutritional needs and no one immediately provided her contact information so she could learn where they were or a court order showing why they were taken.

“My kids – they have asthma and you’re not asking about nothing,” she said. “I breastfeed.They didn’t give me anything. They just ran off with my kids.”

When the hearing concluded, the court decided to retain custody of the five children and ordered the parents to take additional drug tests, including hair follicle tests, which are not reliable but might show drug use months ago.

Your Critical Race Theory quiz: Please read the articles in full and respond to these questions:

If the couple were white, do you think the police would have acted differently? How? Why? Why not?

If the couple were white, would they have been subject to search to arrest and detainment? Why or why not?

If the couple were white, would they have lost custody of their children? Why and why not.

NOTICE: this post should not be read or shared in Florida, as it is illegal to discuss these questions.

Categories Bigotry, Injustice, Tennessee

Florida: Where Art, History, Books, and Freedom Go to Die

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2023 //
36

The principal of the Classical Charter School in Tallahassee was told to resign or be fired after a parent complained that a sixth grade art class saw a “pornographic” photograph of a sculpture. It was a picture of Michelangelo’s masterpiece “David.” Considered one of the greatest sculptures in the world, “David” is a massive piece of marble that is the centerpiece of the Accademia Gallery of Florence (Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze) in Florence, Italy.

The Tallahassee Classical Charter School follows the Hillsdale College curriculum, supposedly based on the classics. The “David” is certainly a great classical work of art.

Dan Kois of Slate interviewed the chairman of the school’s board, Barney Bishop III. This is a small excerpt. Kois’s questions are in bold.

I tend to think of a classical education as being the mode in the 17th, 18th century, where you study the Greeks and Romans, and Western civilization is central. A tutor or teacher is the expert, and that teacher drives the curriculum. You’re describing something where it seems the parents drive the curriculum. How does your classical education differ from the classical education as I think of it?

What kind of question is that, Dan? I don’t know how they taught in the 17th, 18th century, and neither do you. You live in New York?

Virginia.

You’ve got a 212 number. That’s New York.

I lived in New York when I got the cellphone, many years ago. Now I live in Virginia.

Well, we’re Florida, OK? Parents will decide. Parents are the ones who are going to drive the education system here in Florida. The governor said that, and we’re with the governor. Parents don’t decide what is taught. But parents know what that curriculum is. And parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture.

Parents choose this school because they want a certain kind of education. We’re not gonna have courses from the College Board. We’re not gonna teach 1619 or CRT crap. I know they do all that up in Virginia. The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids. Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities, you’re on better drugs than me.

Please read the full interview.

I would like to give credit for the meme below. I found it on the Twitter feed of “Trump is Putin’s Puppet.” The person who posted it said was time to add Art to the list of bans.

Categories Academic Freedom, Art, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, DeSantis, Education Reform, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Higher Education, Literature, Privatization, Racism, Vouchers

NYC: Success Academy Buys New Properties While Planning to Charge Rent to NYC Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2023 //
6

Crain’s New York reported that New York City’s high-flying super-wealthy high-test-scoring Succes Academy charter chain bought up 11 plots in Jamaica, Querns, for $30 million as part of its expansion plans.

The charter chain previously bought property in the South Bronx for $105 million, to build a K-12 school.

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters wrote about these purchases:

Class Size Matters issued reports in 2019 and 2021 that showed the following:

  • In FY 2019, DOE overspent on charter lease subsidies by over $21 million compared to their legal obligation.
  • In several cases, the charter school rents charged to DOE appeared to be greatly inflated, including in cases where the CMO owned the buildings.
  • As of FY 2023, 81 charter schools are housed in 103 buildings owned or subleased by their CMO or other affiliated organization, charging DOE about $125 million per year.
  • For at least 34 of these schools in 39 buildings, DOE is paying entire cost of the lease rather than per pupil amount, totaling nearly $43 million in FY 2023 – and in these cases, it is unclear if the rent charged to DOE is inflated or assessed at fair market value.
  • More than a year ago, March 15, 2022, Senator John Liu, Senator Robert Jackson and CM Rita Joseph, sent a letter to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander asking him to audit the issue of charter rent as well as millions of dollars in missing matching funds for facility enhancements, supposed to be provided to public schools co-located with charters as required by law. Yet to our knowledge, no such audit has yet happened.

 

The issues mentioned below re New Markets Credits for charter school land acquisition and construction is another issue that the Comptroller should look into. I see New Markets Credits were used to convert a theater into the Brownsville Ascend Charter School Middle School as explained here.

 

We have a charter schools briefing here, that we’d be happy to provide to any CEC or other parent organization.We also drafted a charter resolution in opposition to raising the cap and for amending the charter law in many ways, including eliminating the obligation that DOE pay for charter rent or provide them with space in a public school, the only district in the country with this onerous obligation, as well as touching on many other issues.

Noah Gotbaum, a community activist, responded to Leonie’s post. He cited another article in Crain’s about a 70,000 square foot lease for Brooklyn Prospect Charter School,

…showing that the City’s obligation to pay rent for Charters with taxpayer dollars has become a boondoggle for private investors. “Investor appetite for charter school development has also grown, due to the long-term nature of their occupancy,” he added, citing the length of Brooklyn Prospect’s lease. Re Success, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are structuring the land purchase as a private investment, so beyond using city rent dollars to pay its private investors a healthy return, Success likely is also selling the New Markets’ Tax Credits to make even more money for its friends. Also could be getting the State on the hook to float tax exempt bond funding to pay for the construction. All while paying Eva Moskowitz over a million dollars a year through various different entities. Nice work if you can get it.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, New York, New York City

Florida: Legislature Endorses Universal Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
21

Under legislation endorsed today by the Republican supermajority in the Florida legislature, the state will underwrite vouchers for every student in the state, regardless of income. Students in private schools, students who never attended public schools will get a subsidy from the state.

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Senate gave final approval Thursday to a bill creating universal school vouchers, and sent it to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his expected approval.


The Senate voted 26-12 along party lines to approve the bill (HB 1).


Republican state lawmakers, who hold a supermajority in the Legislature, want to open state voucher programs that currently provide scholarships to more than 252,000 children with disabilities or from low-income families to all of the 2.9 million school-age children in Florida, with an estimated cost ranging from $210 million to $4 billion in the first year.


Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples called it “one of the most transformative bills the Legislature has ever dealt with….”

But opponents raised concerns about sweeping money out of the public school system and subsidizing private education, in some cases for children of wealthy parents.

“There is no money following the child like we hear over and over again because they were never in public school,” said Sen. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville. “You can’t ever follow something that was never in public school.”

Private schools don’t follow the same academic standards as public schools and can set their own curriculum, they said, pointing out that they could be teaching neo-Nazism and the state couldn’t do anything to stop them.

Nor do they have to meet the same safety requirements as charter and public schools must do.

The state does not generally regulate private schools, so there are no requirements that teachers have college degrees or for standardized testing to grade the quality of the schools.

Private schools also don’t have to follow the same safety requirements as charter and public schools.
Democrats also objected to taxpayer dollars being sent to religious schools. About three out of four schools that receive vouchers are religious in nature.

“House Bill 1 further erodes the separation of church and state. Taxpayers are paying for Floridians to discriminate,” the League of Women Voters of Florida tweeted.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Florida, Funding, Home Schooling, Privatization, Vouchers

Trump Speaks Out Against DeSantis

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
32

We have been waiting for Trump to begin attacking DeSantis. Trump released a statement today in which he tore down DeSantis, hitting him from the left and the right.

Trump’s line of attack:

DeSantis is an “average governor,” with no big accomplishments.

DeSantis has proposed “massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare.”

DeSantis was terrible on COVID, including lockdowns. Yet Florida had high rates of COVID and COVID deaths.

On crime, Florida is one of the worst in the nation.

On education, Florida compares poorly to other states.

DeSantis leads the nation in Public Relations.

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Elections, Republicans, Trump

Bloomberg Gives Gov. Hochul $5 Million to Keep Taxes on Rich Low and Promote Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
6

The New York Times dug into financial records of a new group lobbying in support of Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed $33 billion budget. The group is called American Opportunity. It’s biggest funder is billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Its biggest goals: no new taxes on the rich and more charter schools.

The slick campaign-style ads have been running on repeat during telecasts of “Jeopardy!” and March Madness basketball. They trumpet, at great expense, the agenda of New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul. And at the end of each, a tiny message says they are paid for by a vanilla-sounding group, American Opportunity.

But beneath a maze of shell groups and indirection, the real source of most of the funding for the mysterious new multimillion-dollar campaign to shape the state’s gargantuan budget is a familiar billionaire who once ran New York City and had all but disappeared from state politics: Michael R. Bloomberg.

The emerging alliance between Mr. Bloomberg, a business leader and three-term mayor, and Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat still struggling to forge a connection with New York voters, could be as significant as it is unforeseen. Though he has become one of the Democrats’ most prolific donors nationally, Mr. Bloomberg did not open his wallet for Ms. Hochul’s 2022 campaign, and sat out some of the state’s most pressing recent policy disputes.

Now, he has given $5 million in seed money to help fund a blitz of television advertising, social media influence campaigns and rounds of mailers targeting individual lawmakers as they grapple with Ms. Hochul over the shape of the budget, according to two people briefed on his giving. Two more people, who also insisted on anonymity, confirmed the gift but not the amount.

Categories Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, New York

Tennessee: Drag Shows Banned and Criminalized!

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
34

Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee recently signed the most restrictive bill in the nation to ban drag shows, where men dress as women or women dress as men. Anyone who dares to do it will be charged with a felony and thrown in the clink. No drag shows in Tennessee!

Governor Bill Lee (R-TN) signed one of the country’s most restrictive anti-drag bans into law on Thursday, despite criticism and backlash from LGBTQ advocates denouncing the legislation as harmful and discriminatory.

The Republican-controlled legislature ran roughshod over the democratic process, pushing through an amendment to the previously passed anti-transgender bill, Senate Bill 3 ,which now includes drag performances under a category reserved for adult businesses like strip clubs.

This inclusion will make appearing in public, or “anywhere where a minor could view it,” dressed in drag a criminal offense.

While first offenses will be charged as misdemeanors, subsequent violations will incur felony charges that could land a performer in prison for up to six years.

I sure hope the hit Broadway show “Some Like It Hot” doesn’t plan to visit Nashville. The cast will be arrested.

The Hawkins County GOP must be pretty upset too. Some years back, the county Republicans put on a drag show, and it was their most successful fund-raiser ever. You gotta open the link and see the GOP leaders in drag!

And open this link to see Rudy Guiliani in drag, playing coy with Donald Trump.

Categories Bigotry, Extremism, Stupid, Tennessee

Texas: Teacher in Amarillo Explains the Voucher Hoax

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
11

Cecily Riesenberg, a teacher at Caprock High School in Amarillo, Texas, wrote an opinion article for the Amarillo Globe-News. She explained why vouchers will benefit the most affluent families and offer low-quality schools to most other students.

She wrote:

Both sides of the aisle agree that education needs reform. At first glance, vouchers seem like a great solution. Who wouldn’t think that parents should have “freedom,” and “choices,” and that more “competition” will make the market stronger. But that simply isn’t what the data shows.

Data shows that vouchers benefit the wealthy who need it the least, hurt the disadvantaged the most, abuse taxpayer dollars, and erase the separation between church and state. Vouchers act like a discount for wealthy students already in private schools. Picture a country club that won’t allow any new members, but now their current members get to use taxpayer money to subsidize part of their dues. Not only is everyone else stuck at the public pool, but now we’re all paying for a few people to go to the country club, and we have less money to maintain or upgrade the public pool. That’s how vouchers work in the states that have them.

There are three kinds of private schools. The first type are elite, exclusive, “country-club” schools that don’t want or need more students and won’t accept vouchers at all. These schools are able to stay elite because of their exclusivity. Then there are new private schools that pop up after states implement vouchers. New private schools don’t focus on quality education at all – they use taxpayer money to market themselves to attract more students and take more public money. After a few months, families realize these schools can’t offer what they were selling. Students withdraw, but the school keeps the money. Most of these schools close within four years, but not until after they’ve made a profit, and the students are left further behind. The third type of private schools are subprime schools that need taxpayer money just to stay afloat. These schools have a 40% failure rate.

Vouchers only offer the illusion of choice.

Many states have tried vouchers, the data shows they failed and abused public resources. Not only do charters and private schools in Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, and Louisiana, have worse educational outcomes than public schools, but when so many programs receive public money, it’s impossible to monitor where the money goes in the same way that public schools are held accountable. In Arizona, for example, an audit showed that parents were using taxpayer dollars to buy kayaks and take vacations. We can’t claim to value fiscal responsibility and support a shady cash grab for corporate charters, “service providers,” and bank fees.

Rural areas will be harmed the most by vouchers, because there aren’t enough students to make opening new schools profitable. But rural public schools would still lose enrollment and funding as some parents use vouchers for homeschooling or online schooling. Again, the quality of these options is almost always lower than public schools.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Abbott are always ready to listen to their wealthy donors and the corporations that are lined up like vultures to make a buck. Recently, Governor Abbott has been on a whirlwind tour of private Christian schools to sell his agenda. He even came to Amarillo on March 2nd to speak at San Jacinto Christian Academy, a tiny school that serves less than 400 students. But the governor refused an invitation to tour Amarillo ISD public schools and listen to the tens of thousands of teachers, students, and parents who would be harmed by vouchers. Even if San Jacinto offered a world-class education, they would never have the capacity to serve a significant number of Amarillo’s students.

There are answers on how to actually reform education. We can follow the lead of countries like Finland that consistently rank high on international measures of reading and math skills. Finland doesn’t have vouchers. They don’t even have private schools. There, every school is public and wellfunded. Every student can get a quality education from their neighborhood school, and every student has an equal opportunity to achieve. Finland attracts the best and brightest to the teaching profession by requiring a masters degree and paying them as much as doctors or lawyers. Finnish teachers are empowered, respected, and trusted – essentially the opposite of how teachers are treated in Texas.

Imagine Texas as a state that consistently ranks higher in education than other states and countries, where students excel academically and socially, and find fulfilling careers post-graduation. We can get there, but it will not be by following Governor Abbott’s orders. The governor’s orders will only lead to the wealthy donor class pocketing taxpayer money while the average student falls further behind.

We know what works. So why don’t politicians want to do it? Simple – it’s impossible to monetize and profit from this approach the way they can with vouchers.

Reach out to your state senators and representatives to let them know that public schools are the bedrock of our communities. We need to make them stronger instead of tearing them down and selling them for parts.

The right to public education is enshrined in our constitution. We have to guarantee that right to every child, regardless of race, income, or zip code, and the best way to do that is by fully funding public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Competition, Corruption, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Teacher Pay, Teachers and Teaching, Texas, Vouchers
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