Over at The Education Report, I note that vouchers are not just a problem in Tennessee, they may soon be a national disaster:
From Arizona to DC, the agenda is becoming increasingly clear: privatizers are after our public schools, and they’re aiming to totally dismantle public education, replacing it with an unaccountable, voucherized, for-profit free-for-all that will undermine quality education for generations.
House Republicans are not only busy cutting Medicaid, but also working on dismantling American public education while giving the very wealthy a nice tax break.
Yes, a national school voucher scam – supported by President Trump and backed by his former Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos – is taking shape as part of the current budget wrangling.
Here’s what one group that analyzed the bill said:
“. . . we estimate that this tax avoidance maneuver would deprive the federal government and state governments of more than $2 billion in capital gains tax revenue over the next decade. This would come on top of the roughly $21.5 billion cost of the tax credit itself, bringing the net total revenue loss to over $23.6 billion.“
If you wanted to undermine public education – even in states like Kentucky with no vouchers or charter schools – this would be the way to do it.
As an example, Tennessee public school districts are estimated to lose more than $50 million in state investment in year one of the state’s new, universal school voucher scheme.
Gov. Bill Lee spent significant time and energy during his term attempting to pass a universal school voucher scheme that would provide coupons for discounted admission to private schools.
He finally convinced the legislature to pass this plan during a special legislative session early this year. In 2019, lawmakers passed a limited voucher plan – for only Memphis and Nashville – and then expanded that to Chattanooga.
The early results from that plan suggest it isn’t “working” – if by working one means helping students improve academic outcomes.
Results from other states show vouchers consistently cost a ton of money and fail to produce results.
No matter, Tennessee lawmakers are all-in.
So, here we are.
And some lawmakers are issuing a final warning about the dangerous territory Tennessee is about to enter:
Tennessee Senate Democrats said school vouchers will cost state taxpayers more than $1 billion. They also warned the plan could lead to less state funds for public schools. As a result, the Democrats are calling the plan a “billion-dollar boondoggle.”
The plan calls for 20,000 vouchers worth $7295 each to be available for students in grades K-12 to use at the private school of their family’s choice.
Yes, getting rid of or partially dismantling or otherwise destroying the core functions of the U.S. Department of Education is bad.
Also bad: A national school voucher scam. But, of course, that’s just what Donald Trump wants:
Josh Cowen, in his newsletter for Public Funds for Public Schools, highlighted the voucher threat:
Finally, we’re all still waiting to see what happens with the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA)—aka the tax shelter for the wealthy that’s also a federal voucher scheme intended to ram vouchers into every state—even those that don’t want it. Those of us with our ear to the ground have heard conflicting things: maybe it will make it into the federal reconciliation process (where it would need only a simple GOP majority to pass) or maybe it’ll come up for a vote later in the year. One thing we know is that Betsy DeVos’s group is continuing to make this a top priority, so it’s something to keep monitoring closely.
Legislators in North Dakota soundly rejected an attempt to provide private school discount coupons – school vouchers – to families already using private schools.
The North Dakota Monitor reports:
The North Dakota House overwhelmingly rejected an Education Savings Account bill Thursday night, a day after the governor vetoed a similar bill.
House members voted 78-14 against Senate Bill 2400, which sought to provide private school vouchers plus Education Savings Accounts for public school and homeschooled students.
The effort to divert public funds to unaccountable private schools ran into roadblocks in Missouri and Utah last week.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s plan to rapidly enlarge a scholarship program for private and religious schools with an infusion of state tax funds was cut out of the budget Wednesday as the Senate Appropriations Committee finished revising spending plans for the coming year.
The Republican Senator who stripped the voucher funding said public schools should be the state’s top funding priority.
In Utah, a judge came to the rescue of the state’s students:
Utah’s $100 million school voucher program violates the state’s constitution, a judge ruled Friday.
“[Because] the Program is a legislatively created, publicly funded education program aimed at elementary and secondary education, it must satisfy the constitutional requirements applicable to the ‘public education system’ set forth in the Utah Constitution,” Third District Judge Laura Scott wrote in her ruling. “The Program is not ‘open to all children of the state.’”
The judge said public education funds in Utah must be used to support schools that accept all students – and that private schools may restrict admission, so cannot be recipients of public education dollars.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced the newest recipients of their Hall of Fame honor.
Janet Miller, this year’s Nelson C. Andrews Distinguished Service Award honoree. Janet has served as a real estate and development leader in Nashville for over 30 years. She is currently the CEO and Market Leader as well as the incoming Vice Chairman of Colliers Nashville. Janet proudly declares the foundation for her success is the public education she received in Nashville, which has guided and inspired her service to our community throughout her career
We are also excited to announce this year’s Distinguished Alumni honorees. These individuals have shown exemplary leadership and service in our community and are inspiring examples of the incredible talent cultivated by Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Martesha Johnson Moore, a graduate of Whites Creek High School, is the Nashville Metropolitan Chief Public Defender.
Marlene Eskind Moses, a graduate of Hillsboro High School, is an internationally recognized family law attorney at GSRM Law.
Tom Parrish, a graduate of Hillwood High School, now known as James Lawson High School, is the Chief Operating Officer at the Scarlett Family Foundation where he manages the day-to-day operations and relationships with grant seekers, recipients, and key business partners.
Over at The Education Report I wrote about a new policy analysis exploring how vouchers impact local public schools.
The answer: It’s not good.
As if we needed even more evidence that vouchers are a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad policy idea – Public Funds for Public Schools is out with a new policy brief that includes case studies focused on the financial impact of school voucher schemes.
The bottom line: Voucher budgets suck limited funds out of education funding allocations and the result leaves public schools behind.
Gov. Bill Lee’s top legislative priority since his election in 2018 has been a statewide school voucher scheme.
During a special legislative session in January, Lee’s dream was realized. While existing evidence suggested this plan would be both bad for taxpayers and harmful to kids, Lee persisted. Now, new data out of Ohio confirms that those warning of the harms of vouchers were onto something.
Let’s be clear: The data over more than a decade shows that vouchers are both very expensive and ineffective at improving academic achievement.
On all proficiency tests, students getting a voucher for one year or less overall are about 75% proficient. Three years later, they’re 54% proficient.
That’s a drop of nearly 1/3!
The Ohio numbers show that students did not improve in any subject – in fact, their scores declined!
Vouchers are bad.
They hurt kids.
And taxpayers will be on the hook for a program that doesn’t just “not work” it actually has negative impacts.
Bill Lee’s signature legislative achievement is a multi-billion dollar program that will hurt Tennessee kids.
Elon Musks Takes Food from Schools and Food Banks
Bill Lee Also Doesn’t Want to Feed Kids
A look at the voucher scheme in Florida offers a preview of where Tennessee is heading – and it’s not good.
An analyst in the state notes:
Peter Greene explores the Florida situation further, digging in with information from a professor from Florida State:
Cottle also wants to point out another factor. Florida used to run a huge budget surplus, but now it’s running a deficit. Cottle and others are trying to raise an alarm about math instruction and the need to improve math instruction, particularly by recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers. But the “still-growing budget for school choice vouchers is surely competing for money with ideas for initiatives to improve student learning, and the voucher budget is winning.”
In Tennessee, we should be alarmed:
Over the course of the next five years, as state funding is gobbled up by a privatization scheme and local taxes increase even as services offered remain the same or decrease, we can look back on this moment as the nail in the coffin of Tennessee public education.
Gov. Bill Lee won – and a generation of Tennessee students will lose as a result.
The End of the Department of Education