Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools?

Bill Phillis is a retired state education official who writes frequently about the Republican war against public schools and against the education provisions of the state constitution. He created the Ohio Coalion for Equity and Advocacy of School Funding to publicize his campaign for equitable funding and his opposition to privatization.

He writes:

SENATE PRESIDENT HUFFMAN: THE EDUCATION IN OHIO NEEDS TO BE STUDENT-OR USER-BASED, NOT INSTITUTION-BASED

The Senate President, in response to the Universal Voucher bill (HB 290), is quoted in the May 9 Gongwer, as saying:

“The education in Ohio needs to be student-or user-based, not institution-based.” The Ohio constitution (Article VI, section 2) requires the legislature to secure and fund a thorough and efficient system of common CONTINUE READING: Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed

CURMUDGUCATION: GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed

GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed

I live in Northwester Pennsylvania, and this is Trump country. We've got a GOP controlled legislature and a Democratic governor, and a great deal of contentiousness stemming from that situation. And in the recent primary election, voters passed a constitutional amendment that de-powered the governor in the case of, say, a massive pandemic and gave emergency powers to the legislature instead.

Though we don't have many votes to offer up here, we make a good place for conservative candidates for state office to try out their road show, because lots of folks are gunning for the governor's seat.

As with most states, there are peculiarities that apply only to this state (e.g. the ongoing feud between Philadelphia and the entire rest of the state). But it's still a good place to spot some of the upcoming arguments that the GOP will use in their next election bid. 

Lou Barletta just announced his run and swung through my neighborhood. Barletta was mayor of Hazleton, PA, where, teamed up with the infamous Kris Kobach, he spearheaded anti-immigrant rules that were declared unconstitutional. He then was a Us Representative for almost a decade, before having his ass handed to him by Bob Casey, Jr., in 2018. He went into private consulting, including helping boost Brexit, and he has maintained his Trumpist credentials--he was one of the "electors" who met up in 2020 to vote for Trump, just to, you know, keep options open.

Barletta stopped just up the road from me this week, and the local paper covered the visit (paywall--sorry). Some of his talking CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed

Education Matters: Republicans create solutions where there weren't any problems: go after trans children and teacher's unions.

Education Matters: Republicans create solutions where there weren't any problems: go after trans children and teacher's unions.

Republicans create solutions where there weren't any problems: go after trans children and teacher's unions.

 In this session, the Republicans in the Florida Legislature have found one solution after another for problems that don't exist. Still, in doing so, they have caused problems, hardships, and grief. Last week they went after Trans children, and this week they are going after teacher's unions.

Last week the Florida House passed HB 1475, dubbed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, and it passed 77-40, with all but one Democrat voting against it. This is a solution without a problem, as the Orlando Sentinel reported only a handful of trans children have played high school sports in Florida. Furthermore, when asked the bill's sponsor, Kaylee Tuck couldn't point to where this was a problem in Florida.

So what's the Florida Legislatures' solution? It is to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls' sports and to inspect children's genitalia should there be any doubt. Let me say that again. The Florida legislature has passed a bill that calls for the inspection of children's genitalia. Whether they play sports or not, our most vulnerable children have heard loud and clear that they are not worthy.

Then this week, a little closer to home Cord Byrd's anti-teacher union bill comes up for a vote. The bill would CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Republicans create solutions where there weren't any problems: go after trans children and teacher's unions.

Education Matters: DCPS's @#&$ teachers attitude continues daily - https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2021/04/dcpss-teachers-attitude-continues-daily.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/iYxgC+(Education+Matters)

LOLGOP: The entire GOP is fixated on kids’ genitalia | Eclectablog

The entire GOP is fixated on kids’ genitalia | Eclectablog

The entire GOP is fixated on kids’ genitalia

It’s not just Matt Gaetz

The GOP’s failure when it comes to Covid-19 — which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to a Lancet commission— is even more unforgivable when you realize how effective and focused Republicans can be when it comes to something they care about, like stopping Black people from voting or bullying trans kids.

Arkansas has become the latest GOP-led state to frantically confront what the right sees as the most pressing problem in the midst of a pandemic that has killed almost 600,000 Americans and put almost 10 million out of work. That problem? Some trans kids possibly not feeling suicidal.

A bill signed into law on Tuesday by Governor Asa Hutchinson denies trans teens gender-affirming care and is the “the single most extreme anti-trans law to ever pass through a state legislature,” according to Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

This is the most extreme poke of the spear from the GOP’s war on trans kids, which is generally fixated on “preserving” girls’ and women’s sports and stomping out the fictional scourge of trans competitors showing up and dominating the landscape. This scourge is so immense and urgent that Republicans either can’t produce any significant examples of it occurring.

Why is America’s right so concerned about the “fairness” of sports they’d never watch?

Their foray into making bathrooms the wedge issue they could nail trans people to has generally failed, thanks to effective activism that engineered a backlash to these sick laws that exist simply as a way to humiliate people Republicans have decided to bully for fun and profit.

The game here is obvious. Pretending concern for kids, especially the poor, “helpless” young female athletes of America, reinforces the “strict father” worldview that the right is built upon. It CONTINUE READING: The entire GOP is fixated on kids’ genitalia | Eclectablog

Florida: Republicans Plan to Eviscerate Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Florida: Republicans Plan to Eviscerate Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Florida: Republicans Plan to Eviscerate Public Schools

Kathleen Oropeza, parent activist in Florida, explains in The Progressive how Republicans intend to destroy public schools and turn the state into a publicly-funded voucher haven. Governor Ron DeSantis is accomplishing Betsy DeVos’s dream while tossing aside the future of the state’s children. In Florida, public schools are held accountable for students and teachers but in private and religious schools, no accountability or standards are required.

Oropeza writes:

In what state Senator Perry Thurston calls a “death knell,” the 2021 Florida House and Senate are fast-tracking the passage of SB 48. This bill will convert the state’s five vouchers into two Education Savings Account/Debit Cards paid, for the first time, with public school tax dollars and a spending flexibility so wide that parents are not even required to pay for teachers or tuition.

Vouchers provide parents with public money to pay for private, often religious schools, with little accountability or guarantee of quality, in eighteen states. Florida leads the way, ahead of other states like Arizona, in how to “choice” parents out of public education and into private school CONTINUE READING: Florida: Republicans Plan to Eviscerate Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Matters: Tallahassee Republicans continue to attack schools, students and teachers

Education Matters: Tallahassee Republicans continue to attack schools, students and teachers

Tallahassee Republicans continue to attack schools, students and teachers

Representative Dennis Baxley out of Ocala, whose day job is that of a mortician has proposed radically changing the Bright Futures scholarship program, a program that annually pays the college tuition for tens of thousands of high school graduates that attend Florida schools.  

He says some college degrees do not lead to employment and went as far as calling it an entitlement program, failing to understand the benefit that it provides to the many families that use is that is then paid forward by having students attend local schools and with them then in turn living and working in Florida. Bright Futures is also heavily financed by the Lottery, not the general fund. 

Teachers, colleges, parents, and as you can imagine student groups have fiercely opposed the proposed changes, but they do have one group that seems to overwhelmingly support it and that is republican legislators in Tallahassee. Which begs the question why? I believe it is because they do not understand the value of education and have a pathological dislike of public education and everything that comes from it. You see it is not just students and their scholarships that they are seeking to cripple but teachers and public education itself. 

There is currently a half dozen anti-teacher union bills working their way through Tallahassee including one by local representative Cord Byrd. He wants to make it more difficult to join and stay in unions by stopping automatic reduction withdraws. His proposal would only affect teachers, not police or firefighters which are also heavily unionized. He says it is because he wants to narrowly focus on education, but the reality is Byrd like his fellow local republican politicians, Yarbrough, and Fischer, routinely do all they can to marginalize and CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Tallahassee Republicans continue to attack schools, students and teachers

Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Schools are MAGA Targets

By Thomas Ultican – 3/15/2021

One of America’s wealthiest public school districts typifies the damage MAGA Republicans are doing to public schools. San Diego County’s San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) serves just over 13,000 students in five middle schools and five high schools. With former Republican congressional candidate Mike Allman’s narrow school board victory, a MAGA coalition has achieved a 3 to 2 majority.

This election result advances using school reopening as a political wedge issue. Normally nonpartisan school board elections have been turned into partisan political battle grounds.

May 25, 2020, the former President Tweeted,

“Schools in our country should be opened ASAP. Much very good information now available. @SteveHiltonx @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020”

In July, the former Secretary of Education declared,

“School leaders across the country need to be making plans’ to have students in the classroom. There will be exceptions to the rule, but the rule should be kids go back to school this fall. And where there are little flare-ups or hot spots, that can be dealt with school by school or a case-by-case basis. There’s ample opportunity to have kids in school.”

Carl Hulse’s Feb. 12, 2021 New York Times article ran under the banner, CONTINUE READING: Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Republicans look to "Q" UP Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings

Republicans are pummeling Democrats on school reopenings, believing it will be a potent wedge issue in the midterm elections and offer the GOP a path back to winning suburban voters.

Explosive battles are playing out in Democratic-led cities and states over how quickly public schools should reopen and Republicans are picking at divisions between elected officials and teachers unions.

The GOP’s House and Senate campaign arms are tracking union donations to Democratic members and accusing them of putting special interests ahead of student education.

In a floor speech this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) railed against what he described as Democratic “goalpoast-moving,” pointing to districts that refuse to return to in-person learning until all teachers have been vaccinated. 

GOP members of the House and Senate have introduced resolutions to restrict government funds for public schools that have not reopened.

“There could not be a more potent issue out there right now and it fits a perfect need for the Republican Party,” said a GOP Senate aide. “A lot of CONTINUE READING: Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

How Are the Children? U.S. Senate Republicans Don’t Worry About That. | janresseger

How Are the Children? U.S. Senate Republicans Don’t Worry About That. | janresseger

How Are the Children? U.S. Senate Republicans Don’t Worry About That.

This week a group of so-called moderate U.S. Senate Republicans proposed to negotiate with President Joe Biden about his proposed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus bill.  But even the ten senators, who profess themselves to be moderates and who came forward with a $618 billion alternative proposal, proved themselves willing to neglect the needs of America’s children. The United States, the world’s richest nation, posts an alarming child poverty rate, but, apart from the voices of a handful of social justice advocates, any level of concern about child poverty is inaudible. Hardly anybody seems to have noticed that one of the great strengths of Biden’s American Rescue Plan is the President’s inclusion of funding for programs that would significantly ameliorate suffering among America’s poorest children.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Chuck Marr did recently recognize the significance of the pro-child provisions in Biden’s new American Rescue Plan: “President Biden’s $1.9 trillion emergency relief plan includes a Child Tax Credit expansion that would lift 9.9 million children above or closer to the poverty line, including 2.3 million Black children, 4.1 million Latino children, and 441,000 Asian American children. It also would lift 1.1 million children out of ‘deep poverty,’ raising their family incomes above 50 percent of the poverty line. To do that, the Biden plan would make the credit fully available to 27 million children—including roughly half of all Black and Latino children—whose families now don’t get the full credit because their parents don’t earn enough….”

On Monday, VOX‘s Li Zhou and Emily Stewart reported on the alternative, $618 billion plan CONTINUE READING: How Are the Children? U.S. Senate Republicans Don’t Worry About That. | janresseger

As Trump Era Ends, “School Choice Movement” Must Confront Its Conservative Roots | Diane Ravitch's blog

As Trump Era Ends, “School Choice Movement” Must Confront Its Conservative Roots | Diane Ravitch's blog

As Trump Era Ends, “School Choice Movement” Must Confront Its Conservative Roots

Avi Wolfman-Arent writes at the Philadelphia PBS website WHYY about the uncomfortable dilemma of the “school choice movement.” At least some of the choice champions had not come to grips with the fact that their movement was funded by Trump supporters. Perhaps the reckoning might have caused them to wonder if they were being used. It’s easy to forget–or perhaps never realize–that the school choice movement was created by Southern segregationists, borrowing the rhetoric of libertarian economist Milton Friedman. It i worth pondering why and how the Democratic Party abandoned its longstanding belief in equitable, well-resourced public schools as a common good.

He begins:

When Philadelphia-area mega-donors Jeff and Janine Yass made headlines recently for their contributions to Republican politicians — some of whom tried to overturn the presidential election — it stirred up a familiar debate CONTINUE READING: As Trump Era Ends, “School Choice Movement” Must Confront Its Conservative Roots | Diane Ravitch's blog

Republicans Want to Slash Funding for Schools in COVID Relief Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Republicans Want to Slash Funding for Schools in COVID Relief Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Republicans Want to Slash Funding for Schools in COVID Relief Bill

Politico reports that Republicans have come up with a “compromise” COVID relief bill that slashes funding for schools. President Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion relief bill, that includes $170 billion for schools. Republicans have offered a COVID relief bill of $600 billion with a dramatic cut for schools, reducing the school aid to $20 billion. In the previous COVID relief (the CARES Act), charter schools, private schools, and religious schools received far more funding per-pupil than public schools. Republicans want public schools to reopen without the resources to reopen safely.

SENATE GOP PLAN WOULD SLASH BIDEN’S REQUEST FOR SCHOOL FUNDING: A group of 10 Republican senators is set to unveil the details today of a $600 billion counterproposal to Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief plan, and Biden plans to hear them out. White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on Sunday evening that Biden had invited the group to the White House early this week. Her statement also touted the “substantial investment in fighting COIVD and reopening schools” in the administration’s original proposal. 

— The GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), requested the meeting to make the case for a bipartisan deal — even as Democratic congressional CONTINUE READING: Republicans Want to Slash Funding for Schools in COVID Relief Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Meet the New Republican Members of the House Ed and Labor Committee | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Meet the New Republican Members of the House Ed and Labor Committee | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Meet the New Republican Members of the House Ed and Labor Committee

The big news of late is that Q Anon-espousing, school-shooting-conspiracy-spewing, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been assigned to (of all things) the House Education and Labor Committee for the 117th Congress.

I was curious about the other new members of Ed and Labor, so I thought I’d do some light investigating.

Here are the 11 new Republican members:

• Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) is seated for now, but her seat is being contested by her Democratic challenger, Rita Hart. After a recount, Miller-Meeks won by only 6 votes. Hart has appealed to the US House regarding 22 votes that were tossed out; Miller-Meeks has filed with the US House to have Hart’s petition dismissed. Miller-Meeks holds a bachelors in nursing, a masters in education, and an M.D. Her background includes being a director of public health. According to her campaign site, it seems Miller-Meeks did not have a section for education among her platform issues.
• Former NFL player (1973-82), Burgess Owens (R-UT) was in the news as he acknowledged Biden as president and publicly apologized to Democrats for (as the January 28, 2021, Salt Lake Tribune puts it) “lumping liberals in with Marxists and socialists in the past.” Burgess voted against certifying the 2020 election, saying in January 2021 that he was ony objecting to Pennsylvania’s votes, which would not have affected Biden’s win. In December 2020, Owens stated that there was “no question”  CONTINUE READING: Meet the New Republican Members of the House Ed and Labor Committee | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Mitchell Robinson: How do you spell “hypocrisy”? “G-O-P.” | Eclectablog

How do you spell “hypocrisy”? “G-O-P.” | Eclectablog

How do you spell “hypocrisy”? “G-O-P.”

Republicans would like you to believe they are the party of “national security”–except when it’s the security of the nation’s Capitol…

Storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021

“House Charges Donald Trump With Impeachment for ‘Inciting an Insurrection'”

Republicans would like you to believe they are the party of “fiscal responsibility”–just don’t look at the national debt too closely…

“Trump Will Create More Debt Than Obama”

Republicans would like you to believe they are the party of “personal responsibility”–but don’t ask their leader to take any responsibility for his words or actions…

“Defiant Trump denounces violence but takes no responsibility for inciting deadly riot”

Republicans would like you to believe they are the party of “family values”–unless you think the president pardoning his son-in-law’s father for hiring “a CONTINUE READING: How do you spell “hypocrisy”? “G-O-P.” | Eclectablog

Republicans | Teacher in a strange land

Republicans | Teacher in a strange land

Republicans

I was tempted to begin this reflection by saying ‘some of my best friends are Republicans’—but that’s not true, these days. I myself voted for years in the Republican primary, because it was the only way to have some say in who would be representing me, in my ruby-red district. My friends and family run the gamut from fire-breathing leftists to what we in Michigan call Milliken Republicans, after our longest serving, environmentally progressive governor.

Unlike the classic maturation template–moving from idealistic liberalism as a young person toward pragmatism, security and conservatism while aging– I seem to be going in the opposite direction. Fewer and fewer people in my inner circle cop to the label ‘Republican’—with or without qualifying adjectives.

Perhaps what is most true is this: Republicans used to be different.

Eisenhower built the interstate highway system, signed a major Civil Rights bill and promoted peace at critical foreign policy junctures, saying that war was ‘brutal, futile and stupid.’ My kinda guy. Unfortunately, he left office when I was in the fourth grade.

Whereas, last week, MY Congressman (Jack Bergman (R), MI District One) and MY Representative in the Michigan House (Jack O’Malley (R), District 101) demonstrated CONTINUE READING: Republicans | Teacher in a strange land

Jennifer Berkshire: Will Education Cause The GOP to Lose Arizona? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jennifer Berkshire: Will Education Cause The GOP to Lose Arizona? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jennifer Berkshire: Will Education Cause The GOP to Lose Arizona?

Jennifer Berkshire writes in this post about the educational awakening in Arizona, the result of #red4ed and the teachers’ revolt of 2018.

Proposition 208 is on the ballot. It calls for a 3.5% tax increase on people earning over $250,000 a year, to be used to raise teachers’ salaries and hire more teachers. Surprisingly, 60% of voters appear to favor the measure, including a sizable number of Republicans.

She writes:

That taxing the rich to pay for schools would emerge as a cause with bipartisan support in 2020 is not a complete surprise. More Arizonans now identify education, not immigration, as the top priority facing the state, reflecting mounting concern with schools that are notoriously underfunded, teachers who are poorly paid, and a teacher shortage crisis so severe that 28 percent of the state’s classrooms lack a permanent teacher.

Education has become a potent political issue since #RedforEd protests shone a harsh light on the condition of Arizona’s schools in 2018. After a historic teacher strike, educators doubled down on electoral organizing. Democrats gained four seats in the state House of CONTINUE READING: Jennifer Berkshire: Will Education Cause The GOP to Lose Arizona? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Big Education Ape: 100th Episode: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door – Have You Heard - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/10/100th-episode-wolf-at-schoolhouse-door.html