Category Archives: Vouchers

Posted on by

A Map to Vouchers

The right-wing plot to privatize public schools runs through Tennessee

Peter Greene reports on efforts by right-wing bill mill ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council – to implement vouchers in 25 states by 2025.

No surprise, Tennessee is on the map.

ALEC’s map of school privatization targets

As Greene notes:

ALEC has set a new goal– 25 by 2025. That means having 25 states adopt school voucher programs by the end of next year. To push that goal, ALEC has a new initiative called the Education Freedom Alliance, and it is a scary crew.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee pushed an effort for universal vouchers this past legislative session – despite his past promises that he wanted to see results from the state’s pilot program before making the scheme universal.

Freedom from Vouchers

The effort failed in 2024, but as you can see, Tennessee is a 2025 target. Lee and his legislative allies have pledged to push vouchers again next session.

Of course, Lee has long sought to extract public funds for the benefit of school privatizers.

SHOCKING!
Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

MORE Education News

Vouchers Killed in South Carolina

Kentucky’s Voucher Dilemma

MORE Tennessee News

Behn, Oliver Continue Push to Stop Price Gouging

“With a grocery store executive recently admitting that their company gouged shoppers on select items above inflation, it’s clear we need accountability measures to address corporate greed and protect working families from undue financial strain, especially in Tennessee where families are the hardest hit,” Rep. Behn added.

Project 2025 Would Harm Environment

Posted on by

Shot Down in Flames

Vouchers killed by South Carolina Supreme Court

You can’t use public money to fund private or religious schools.

By a 3-2 margin, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the words in the South Carolina Constitution actually mean what they say.

The words in question?

No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.

Yep. That’s it.

The surprise is not that the majority agreed with the plain language. Rather, it’s surprising that these word could be read in such a way as to allow state money to flow to anything other than public schools in South Carolina.

exterior of school building in daytime
Photo by Mary Taylor on Pexels.com

MORE Education News

Indiana’s Budget-Busting Voucher Scheme

On the Perils of Teacher Burnout

MORE Tennessee News

Oliver, Behn Keep Pressing on Price Gouging

A Warning on Project 2025

Posted on by

Stark Contrast

Trump is “all in” on school privatization, Harris stands with public schools

As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris prepare to debate tonight, the education agenda of each candidate deserves a look.

NPR digs in to some key issues, and the differences are stark.

School privatization, for example:

First, he’s [Trump] calling for universal school choice. This would, in theory, take public dollars normally spent on a child’s public education and give them directly to parents to spend at whatever school they want, whether it’s public, private or homeschooling at the kitchen table.

By contrast:

Harris has been an outspoken supporter of public education and has been courting educators’ support.

Democrats, on the other hand, made clear in their 2024 platform that they’re against any effort that could weaken the nation’s public schools. “We oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education. Public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate.”

MORE Education News

Is Teaching Still Worth It?

Vouchers Blow a Hole in Indiana Budget

MORE Tennessee News

Taking on Project 2025

Grocery Price Gouging Harms TN Families

Posted on by

Indiana Voucher Madness

A warning about expanding school voucher schemes

As Gov. Bill Lee and his legislative allies continue to push expansion of Tennessee’s school voucher program, warnings come pouring in from other states.

The latest bad news about vouchers comes from Indiana, where the costs of that state’s program have ballooned by 263% over a period of five years.

” . . . the cost is projected to grow 263 percent in just five years. This expansion is predicted to force public school districts to either make severe cuts or ask taxpayers for more money through public referendums.”

This was warned about long ago:

The Voucher School District
Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

MORE Education News

Teacher Burnout: The Crisis Continues

Unlikely Marriage: Christian Nationalists and Free Market Ideologues

MORE Tennessee News

Condemning Project 2025

Taking on Grocery Price Gouging

Posted on by

A Cabal of Privatizers

By voucher and charter and other means, profiteers want access to public school funds

In a recent story in The Education Report, I note that privatizing profiteers are using the rhetoric of the culture wars to gain ground in the quest to access funds meant for public schools.

What’s interesting is that local communities aren’t clamoring for charter schools. Instead, these schools (and also school vouchers) are being pushed by Gov. Lee and a cabal of privatizers who seek to dismantle the public education system.

In the piece, I take a look at work by Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider that seeks to illuminate the current state of the battle over public schools.

As the pair of public education defenders note, the true story of public schools is one that largely looks like success – higher test scores, for one and other outcomes that bode well for society writ large.

But, they say, this is expensive – and deprives oligarchs of an opportunity to turn a profit.

Here’s how they explain it:

It’s very common to hear that our public schools are failing. And it’s very useful rhetoric if you’re running for office, or if you’re a policy elite intent on convincing people that they need you. But it simply isn’t true. If you look at polls, a majority of Americans do believe that the nation’s schools are mediocre; yet that same percentage of people report that their own children’s schools are doing quite well. So, which one are they likely to be more informed about—the schools down the street, which their children attend, or the 98,000 schools they’ve never set foot in? The simple fact is that for the past four decades, since the Reagan administration’s “A Nation at Risk” report, we have been telling ourselves a story about failing schools that doesn’t match reality on the ground. And, by the way, if test scores are the currency that you value, scores are up across that period.

MORE Education News

Free Lunch and the Race for the White House

Tennessee’s Voucher Wars

MORE Tennessee News

Condemning Project 2025

Lawmakers Take on Grocery Price Gouging

Posted on by

A Dispatch from The Education Wars

A look at the battles raging over public education

Public education advocates Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire have a new book called The Education Wars in which they dig deep into the history of the battle over public education – should it even exist? Why do Christians and conservatives seem to be leading the attack on public schools?

The pair spoke with Jeff Hagan of In The Public Interest about the book and about the battle to save public schools:

The education wars are the conflicts over schools that flare up regularly in this country and that are burning particularly hotly right now. Right now, the conflicts are mainly centered on teaching about race and gender, the place of religion in schools, and the role that schools should play with respect to the larger story of civil rights progress in this country. If you delve beneath the surface of any specific battle that’s raging, you’ll almost always find a larger, unresolved question that we’ve been fighting about since the advent of public schools in this country. For example, a lot of your readers probably think that parents’ rights cause is new, invented by groups like Moms for Liberty. But we’ve had repeated waves of parental rights activism in this country, starting with the effort to ban child labor in the early 20th century. Those original parents’ rights activists opposed a ban on child labor because they saw it as overreach by the federal government, while the conservative industry groups that backed the parents were opposed to public education in principle because they saw inequality as not just natural but desirable. Fast forward to the present and we’re basically having the same argument again. When it comes to questions about education, who gets to call the shots? One of the themes of the book is that today’s education wars make a lot more sense when viewed through an historical lens. You also get to see how previous iterations of the education wars have ended. Hint: This is not the first time we’ve seen broad coalitions form to oppose book banning.

Read the full interview.

boy running in the hallway
Photo by Caleb Oquendo on Pexels.com

MORE Education News

Free Lunch and the Race for the White House

On Teacher Pay, Tennessee Falls Short

MORE Tennessee News

TN Faith Leader Condemns Project 2025

TN Abortion Ban Spurs Outcry

Posted on by

The True Meaning of School Vouchers

Exposing the endgame of school privatization

In a report on Florida’s experiment with full-on school privatization by way of charter schools and vouchers, Peter Greene notes that the endgame for those supporting “school choice” is getting the government completely out of the “education business.” While that may sound great in terms of “free market,” Greene highlights some pretty important implications:

Privatization is not just about privatizing the folks who get to provide education (or education-flavored products). It is about privatizing the responsibility for getting children an education.

Getting government out of education means ending the promise that every child in this country is entitled to a decent education. Regardless of zip code. Regardless of their parents’ ability to support them. Regardless of whatever challenges they bring to the process. 

End that promise. Replace it with a free(ish) market. End the community responsibility for educating future citizens. Put the whole weight of that on their parents. End the oversight and accountability to the elected representatives of the taxpayers. Replace it with a “Well, the parents will sort that out. And if they don’t, that’s their own fault and their own problem.”

This sounds a lot like what Gov. Bill Lee and his legislative allies are attempting in Tennessee.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

MORE Education News

Presidential Politics and School Lunch

Kentucky Voters Consider Budget-Busting Voucher Proposal

MORE Tennessee News

Tennessee’s Abortion Ban: Two Years In

Grocery Price Gouging in Tennessee

Posted on by

Potential VP’S VP

Josh Shapiro has a voucher problem

With some reports indicating that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is on the short list to become Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, a key problem is emerging for Shapiro: School vouchers.

Public education advocates have taken notice of Shapiro’s open support of using public money to fund unaccountable private schools.

Shapiro is often referred to as a moderate in his party, and it strikes me that a Democrat can earn the “moderate” label simply by selling out public schools and supporting privatization schemes like charter schools or vouchers.

It appears Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is now on the shortlist as well. Walz is a staunch supporter of public schools and signed a law ensuring free school meals for all kids in Minnesota schools.

Posted on by

Vaccine Lettuce and Vouchers

Cepicky protects produce, plunders public schools

One of the General Assembly’s top advocates for taking public school funds and sending them to unaccountable private schools is also the author of legislation that prohibits the government from injecting produce with vaccines.

If that sounds strange, it is.

Rep. Scott Cepicky never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t try to turn into law.

TennBeat has more on the produce protector:

Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) is either infamous or famous. His descriptor depends on who you ask. Nonetheless he’s known. During Tennessee’s last legislative session, he led the failed vanguard for school vouchers and passed a law to regulate vaccine lettuce.

He earned major media attention for both bills. In an audio recording leaked to News Channel 5, Cepicky said the state should “throw the whole freaking (school) system in the trash,” and his vaccine lettuce legislation made a cameo on Jimmy Kimmell.

Here’s the deal: Vouchers are expensive and don’t help kids.

That hasn’t stopped Bill Lee and his legislative allies (like lettuce-loving Cepicky) from setting aside some $140 million to start the process of a universal voucher program in the state.

Vouchers vs. Teachers
Photo by Kenan Kitchen via Unsplash
Posted on by

The Voucher Tax

Will Tennessee lawmakers pass a new tax next year?

A recent analysis of the potential cost of school vouchers in Kentucky shows that Bluegrass State taxpayers could be on the hook for $199 million in year one – with those costs expected to balloon in subsequent years.

Which reminds me that the year one cost of Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher scam would cost TN taxpayers $140 million with estimates suggesting the cost of the program at full operation would be above $700 million.

Vouchers vs. Teachers

Lee is actively campaigning for Republicans in primaries who support his new voucher tax. He’s also said he plans to try again next year to pass a universal voucher scheme.

In state after state, budget analysis demonstrates that vouchers essentially amount to a new tax – straining local budgets and draining state revenue previously directed toward public schools and other programs.

Arizona is one example – lawmakers there are struggling to patch a giant budget hole due to the budget drain that is vouchers.

Let’s be clear: School vouchers essentially create two school systems. Taxpayers are on the hook for both.

The public spends more, but gets less.

In the above example, Kentuckians would pay nearly $200 million more to educate the exact same number of students.

Lee’s plan would tax Tennesseans $140 million more in its first year and provide no improvement in service.

In Tennessee’s pilot voucher program – where students are required to take state tests – kids who used the vouchers LOST ground.

We’re paying more to lose.

Oh, and after nearly a decade of budget surpluses, Lee’s tax giveaways to the rich have begun to create a budget hole – some $500 million short this year.

Less state revenue, higher local taxes, and kids losing ground academically – that’s the result of the Bill Lee agenda.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization