Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them?

While the Republican Party announced the themes of the Republican Convention—“Monday is ‘Land of Promise,’ Tuesday is ‘Land of Opportunity,’ Wednesday is ‘Land of Heroes’ and Thursday is ‘Land of Greatness.'”—the Convention instead dramatized a very old theme: the difference between appearance and reality.  Producers, including people from The Apprentice, put together a spectacular show draped in flags. Their purpose: to distract, distort, and dissemble.

The Convention hardly touched on education policy. But last night in his acceptance speech, the President claimed he will “expand charter schools and provide school choice for every family in America.” Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Tim Scott, (R-SC) also extolled school choice as the future of education, even as, ironically, President Trump himself and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are demanding that the nation’s 90,000 public schools reopen as the only path to getting America’s parents back to work. Trump and DeVos certainly haven’t been counting on their favorite patchwork of charter schools and private schools to accomplish their systemic goal. The convention’s primary education speaker, Rebecca Friedrichs, the lead plaintiff in an anti-teachers union case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, not surprisingly, attacked teachers unions. Although she claimed that the unions “are subverting our republic, so they undermine educational excellence, morality, law and order,” you will remember that instead a wave of #Red4Ed strikes during 2018-2019 pushed states like West Virginia and Oklahoma to increase school funding at least a little bit and forced Los Angeles, Oakland, and Chicago to address unreasonable conditions including class sizes of 40 students and a dearth of school counselors in public schools serving concentrations of our nation’s poorest students.

While the Republicans held their convention, Betsy DeVos herself wasn’t having such a good week. She was left off the Convention agenda, and on Tuesday, the Savannah Morning News reported that she visited a reopened public school in Forsyth County, Georgia, where she made CONTINUE READING: Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Education Matters: Why today's court decision means little for Duval County

Education Matters: Why today's court decision means little for Duval County

Why today's court decision means little for Duval County

Finally, some sanity and good news today as the Tallahassee circuit court said the state exceeded it's authority when it threatened to take away district's funding unless it bowed to their will and opened schools and risked lives. Sadly this momentous decision will have little impact on Duval.

First about the decision, from the Tampa Times,

Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson ruled in favor of Florida’s statewide teachers union Monday, saying Department of Education officials “essentially ignored the requirement of school safety” when they ordered campuses to reopen for face-to-face classes this month.

In his decision, Dodson also found that the department’s order, issued July 6, essentially overrode school boards’ constitutional authority to operate their own school systems.

“The districts have no meaningful alternative,” Dodson wrote. “If an individual school district chooses safety, that is, delaying the start of schools until it individually determines it is safe to do so for its county, it risks losing state funding, even though every student is being taught.”

https://www.tampabay.com/news/gradebook/2020/08/24/school-reopening-lawsuit-judge-rules-in-favor-of-florida-teachers/

Weeks ago, I wrote I wish the board would have held up the constitution and said this trump's the state executive order, but instead, they decided to go the path of least resistance and gave.

So this decision will be appealed, and I am not optimistic the court packed Florida Supreme Court is capable CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Why today's court decision means little for Duval County

Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case | Diane Ravitch's blog

Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case | Diane Ravitch's blog

Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case

This news just in from the Education Law Center about resistance to vouchers in Tennessee. Vouchers are a huge waste of public money. Studies in recent years have converged on the conclusion that students who use vouchers fall behind their peers who remain in public school. Meanwhile, the public schools lose money that is diverted to subpar voucher schools. Why do politicians like Governor Lee of Tennessee want to spend public dollars on low-quality religious schools?

Here is a press release from the Education Law Center:

The plaintiffs in McEwen v. Lee, a case challenging Tennessee’s unconstitutional Education Savings Account voucher law passed in 2019, have filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in an appeal of a companion challenge to the law.

In Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County v. Tennessee Department of Education, Shelby and Davidson Counties – the two counties targeted by the voucher law – obtained an injunction blocking the voucher program while the case is on appeal. Because the law applies only to students in those counties, the CONTINUE READING: Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case | Diane Ravitch's blog