Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska all have voucher votes on the ballot.
Peter Greene reminds us:
These are three different approaches to the question of taxpayer-funded school vouchers, but they share the unusual feature of putting voucher programs to a public vote. All school voucher programs in the U. S. were passed into law by legislatures, sometimes over strong objections of the taxpayers. No taxpayer-funded school voucher program has ever survived a public vote.
The third issue that the U.S. Supreme Court must address is that it needs to determine whether those who run charter schools are state or private actors. This is because the vast majority of people who run charter schools are private groups. However, these charters are defined by law as public schools and are supported by tax-payer dollars. If the Court rules that those who operate the charter schools are state actors, then because they must be non-sectarian, religious charter schools will be ruled unconstitutional. However, if the Court rules that charter schools are private actors, then religious charter schools will be ruled constitutional.
In Kentucky, the Commonwealth’s highest court found that because charter schools are operated by private actors, they are essentially private schools. In other states, that has not been the case. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. Supreme Court sorts this out.
Education has been a hot topic in Nebraska for months because of school choice legislation, now there is a microscope on it nationally, with the Trump/Vance campaign calling for the closure of the Department of Education. Teachers and education leaders in Omaha spoke out against proposed federal education cuts and elimination of the Department of Education.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton has floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting federal education spending because he’s not a fan of the strings attached to the nearly $2 billion the state receives each year to help fund public schools.
When asked to clarify, Sexton revealed that he wasn’t suggesting “doing without,” but rather that the state would simply pick up the tab.
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Vance just spoke at a Christian nationalist rally in Monroeville (a Pittsburgh suburb), and some of it was about education.
Greene notes the following remarks from Vance’s appearance:
Some of the stuff that they’re teaching in American schools in 2024, that that’s not just liberalism that is crazy and we’ve got to get it out of our schools or it’s going to poison the minds of our young people.
And, well, it’s just bizarre.
But not if you take it in the context of JD Vance and Donald Trump advancing a Christian Nationalist agenda.
Not because either of them actually care about advancing a Christian takeover of American institutions – but because acting like they are all-in helps them win the votes of the evangelicals that do.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona seems likely to move on after the election. After all, there will be a new President. And, even though Cardona is a member of the Biden-Harris team, his track record does not seem to suggest reason to keep him on should Harris win in November.
To be fair, he came in as Team Biden was leading an effort to return to normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recent piece in Politico takes a look at the challenges Cardona has faced – and notes a lack of action on what was once a bold vision for public education:
But he’s run out of time to build a post-pandemic vision that draws absent students back to classrooms, boosts lagging test scores, and reshapes American education. Despite a recent flurry of travel and fiery speeches championing Democratic issues, Cardona’s uneven tenure has clouded his prospects to influence the education industry or a potential Harris administration.
Cardona’s track record is more complicated. After pushing to reopen schools with $122 billion in expiring federal aid, the department is scrambling to recover from a botched debut of college financial aid forms that threatens to upend enrollment. Courts have scrapped affirmative action, stymied Biden’s efforts to cancel student loan debt, and blocked rules that extend campus discrimination protections to transgender students. Congressional Republicans have even called for Cardona’s resignation after he declined to condemn pro-Palestinian protest chants on college campuses.
Harris, who has close ties to teacher’s unions, seems likely to select a more vocal advocate for the concerns of educators. And, well, Trump isn’t exactly interested in education.
I took a look at teacher pay in Olympia – starting teachers there can expect to earn $60,000 with a bachelor’s degree. Pay goes up to $120,000 depending on years of experience and education level.
In other words, it doesn’t have to be this way.
As I’ve written before, Tennessee continues to make policy choices indicating that the priorities of Gov. Bill Lee and his legislative allies are NOT investing in public education or public school educators.
The state spent $500 million to help build a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans.
The state in this past legislative session passed a $1.6 billion corporate tax break.
Past legislators have eliminated the Inheritance Tax and the Hall Tax on investment income.
For just a little more of what state taxpayers (at the behest of Lee and lawmakers) gifted the Titans, we could give all teachers a 20% raise.
Making that an ongoing commitment would be simple: Just repeal the ridiculous corporate tax giveaway the legislature just passed.
Tennessee policymakers could make investing in schools a priority – but they persist in choosing not to.
Teacher pay matters – TN policymakers don’t get it
Yes, it’s about money.
Despite Gov. Bill Lee and his GOP allies claiming to invest in teachers, average teacher pay in the state is still among the lowest in the nation.
From National Education Association analysis of teacher pay
And a new report suggests the teacher pay penalty – the gap between teacher pay and the pay of other comparably-educated professionals – is at an all-time high.
The latest data says the “teacher pay penalty” – the gap between teacher compensation and the pay of other professionals – is now at an all-time high – 27%.
Of further concern:
Young people’s interest in education continues to slide as they recognize “many downsides” to teaching, including its unattractive pay.
Since 2009, Tennessee has identified shortages in the overall numbers of K-12 teachers needed for public schools as well as teachers for specific subjects. There is a critical need in the state for STEM teachers, as well as shortages in high school English, social studies, world languages, Pre-K through high school special education, and English as a second language.
In short, policymakers have been aware of this problem for a long, long time.
Now, the crisis is acute – and nothing is being done.
And then there’s the issue of “lost” learning – kids needing to catch up and rebuild skills when they return from a summer break that is 10 weeks or longer.
Another argument against summer break is that while it may not have emerged to meet the needs of the bygone agricultural era, our economic and social structures have indeed changed dramatically and made summer less practical than it once was.
And:
Brookings Institution’s Megan Kuhfeld and Karyn Lewis analyzed summer slide research in 2023, finding that “a long line of research on learning and cognition has shown that procedural skills and those that involve a number of steps tend to rapidly deteriorate in the absence of practice or other reinforcement.” They note that learning loss is especially detectable in the span from 3rd grade through 8th grade.
What do you think? Should long summer breaks be eliminated from the school calendar?
The people pushing “school choice” actually want only one choice
The same people banning books from schools and seeking to ban Pride flags are the ones pushing “school choice.”
Thing is, they don’t want actual choices. They want all schools to conform to their narrow vision.
Peter Greene offers some insight:
This is not about choice. It’s about capturing the education system so that young humans can be taught the correct way to behave and think. It’s about trying to eradicate a way of thinking and being that folks on the right disapprove of.
When someone like Ron DeSantis or Ryan Walters tells you that he favors school choice and he also favors making illegal all references to certain “divisive topics” and gender stuff, he is telling you that all his talk about school choice is bullshit.
Lee made clear his preference for Christian Nationalism as the driving force for education “reform” in Tennessee in his 2022 State of the State Address.
Since then, he’s tried to force Hillsdale College-affiliated charter schools on Tennessee communities – and thanks to his hand-picked Charter School Commission, he’s succeeded in some cases.
The challenge here is not just the transfer of public money to private school operators. It’s also the use of public money for one very specific worldview – to the exclusion of all others.
