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Thursday, October 18, 2018

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Organization Issues School Choice Guidebook

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Organization Issues School Choice Guidebook

DeVos Organization Issues School Choice Guidebook


The American Federation for Children is a dark money group that advocates for school choice in general, and vouchers in particular. It was founded and funded by the DeVos family (Betsy was chair right up through the summer of 2016), and is well-connected via ALEC, that special organization in which corporate sponsors get to write bills for legislative members. The AFC Growth Fund is another wing of the group, and they produce an annual School Choice Guidebook. This year's book is out, and I've looked at it, but you probably should anyway.

The report is 88 pages of reform chatter, so this trip will be neither quick nor easy, but if you stick with me, you'll get to see some stunning reform logic at work, gather some fun factoids along the way, and see exactly what their idea of a perfect voucher program would be.

It's Not All Awful

Okay, it is kind of awful, but it's worth noting that the guidebook contains a ton of information, much of it arranged in handy charts. If you have questions about, say, which states have which kinds of voucher programs, and how the details of those programs vary from state to state, this guidebook has answers, often arranged so that they can be viewed easily at a glance. I doubt that it's all perfectly accurate, but honestly, this is a resource I'll probably return to for answers to certain questions about the state of voucherdom.

So let's dig in and see what the report has to offer.

Types of Private School Choice Programs and $$$

A whole page of the different flavors of choice, though oddly they lump magnet schools and Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Organization Issues School Choice Guidebook