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Monday, April 12, 2021

Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1

Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1
Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study
A "Sparrow Academy" experience demonstrates why the Step Up for Students voucher school "marketplace" needs a grand jury, a Grady Judd task force, and fundamental reform -- not an expansion.



I’ll be referring to the mother in this article by her initials, CS. And I’m using the pseudonym “Terry” for her son.

On April 1, CS received a strange note about her son’s “McKay” special needs voucher from the school secretary of Lakeland’s Sparrow Academy. Sparrow is a voucher school with 100 percent special needs/ESE enrollment that Terry had formerly attended. You can see some of Sparrow’s marketing content above.

Good morning, I was about to put [Terry’s] packet in the mail when the scholarship checks arrived. If it would be OK when you come to sign the check can I give you his packet?  There isn't school tomorrow, Good Friday.

Sparrow principal Vance Linholm had kicked Terry out of school via text on March 16, two weeks before that email. I’ll show you that text in a second. Since that day, CS had been struggling to get any documentation of Terry’s performance and discipline record for his 18 months or so with the school. She had been going back and forth with the secretary. Now, the school was saying it would give her a packet of his work “when you come to sign the check” — weeks after the school had dismissed Terry.

The money follows the student. LOL

“The money follows the child” is a well-worn cliche of voucher grifters like Jeb Bush and Kelli Stargel and Richard Corcoran and basically all Republican and a few Democratic CONTINUE READING: Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1