Betsy DeVos founded and funded the American Federation for Children, which advocates for vouchers. AFC issued this statement today: AFC Statement on Weingarten-Edelman Op-Ed The American Federation for Children, the nation’s
Randi Weingarten and Jonah Edelman co-wrote an article in today’s Los Angeles Times, standing strong against vouchers. I still remember Jonah Edelman as the guy who bragged at the Aspen Ideas Festival that he had crushed the teachers’
The currently popular means of establishing vouchers in the states where the state constitution forbids them is called an “education savings account.” The way it works is otherwise known as money laundering. Suppose Daddy Warbucks owes the state $200,000 in taxes. He gives the money to an independent organization that gives out money for private and religious schools. He gets a state tax credit a
Jeff Bryant is trying to figure out what the purpose of school choice is. “Another week, another round of evidence that providing parents with more “school choice,” especially the kind that lets them opt out of public schools, is not a very effective vehicle for ensuring students improve academically or that taxpayer dollars are spent more wisely. “The latest evidence comes from a study of the vo
Jersey Jazzman, aka Mark Weber, experienced teacher and doctoral student at Rutgers, follows the claims of charter promoters in New Jersey, especially Newark. His latest post is simply “ Facts About Newark Charter Schools .” Bottom line: the charters do not enroll the same students as public schools. Why is that so hard for the media to understand?
I wasn’t going to refer to this article by Kyle Specer in Politico magazine. It reads so much like promotional literature massaged by Eva’s public relations department that I thought it best to ignore its it. But several people sent it to me, so I couldn’t overlook it. It is called “ Paul Ryan’s Favorite Charter School.” It presents Eva Moskowhitz as a “liberal Democrat” whose no-excuses charters
Rochester Academy Charter School in New York boasts impressive test scores, as do most schools that select their students. But is it a Gulen School connected to Fethullah Gulen’s national network? One thing it is not is a neighborhood school or a community school. Although three of the board’s seven members are Turkish, that is not conclusive evidence that the school is funneling money to Gulen f
There are many reasons to object to diverting public dollars to religious and private schools. One reason is that every dollar that goes to a nonpublic school is subtracted from a public school. A vote for vouchers is a vote to defund public schools and impose budget cuts on them. One of our readers is an avid supporter of school choice. When he asked why anyone objects to school choice, this was
A few years back, I went to Michigan to speak to a large group of superintendents, whose schools collectively enrolled half the students in the state. I learned from them about the pernicious effects of school choice. The state wiped out all district lines for purposes of enrollment. Students can enroll in any public school without regard to district lines, and schools are paid by the state based
Lina Lyons is president-elect of the Arizona School Boards Association. She writes here about the spurious claim that school choice is the answer to all problems. She says that the nevitable result of school choice will not be better education, but segregation by race, class, ethnicity, and socioeconomic. Yet DeVos continues to evade any federal responsibility for promoting desegregation and evad
William Mathis explores the lies at the heart of Trump’s education budget. He writes: Trump’s Education Budget: A Paradise Lost? “But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp’d manna and could make the worse appear the better reason.” ■ John Milton, Paradise Lost, II.I.112 We had a vision of a more
