Are you prey to a "choice" stealth campaign

Think public-school teachers are bad and vouchers are good? You may be prey to a well-funded stealth campaign.

In June 1995, the economist Milton Friedman wrote an article for the Washington Post promoting the use of public education funds for private schools as a way to transfer the nation’s public school systems to the private sector. “Vouchers,” he wrote, “are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a market system.” The article was republished by “free market” think tanks, including the Cato Institute and the Hoover Institution, with the title “Public Schools: Make Them Private.”

While Friedman has promoted vouchers for decades, most famously in his masterwork Free to Choose, the story of how public funds are actually being transferred to private, often religious, schools is a study in the ability of a few wealthy families, along with a network of right-wing think tanks, to create one of the most successful “astroturf” campaigns money could buy. Rather than openly championing dismantling the public school system, they promote bringing market incentives and competition into education as a way to fix failing schools, particularly in low-income Black and Latino communities.

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling deregulated campaign finance and unleashed millions in political donations, concentrated wealth has played a role in politics. Now in the limelight for its attacks on unions and the exposure of 800 model bills and documents, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has produced model bills favorable to its corporate and right-wing funders behind closed doors for decades (as In These Times uncovered in 2011)– including school vouchers and tax credit bills.

This concentrated wealth is reaching into America's classrooms state by state, promoting the transfer of public funds to private education through vouchers that allow parents to pay for tuition at private schools with public money. Promoting “school choice” through privately run charter schools doesn’t go far enough for these billionaires. Today, “private school choice” programs, as vouchers are called in the annual report of the Alliance for School Choice, are in place in 13 states and the District of Columbia. In 2011, a year when states across the nation slashed their education budgets, 41 states introduced 145 pieces of private school choice legislation.

[readon2 url="http://inthesetimes.com/article/13849/the_right_wing_machine_behind_school_choice"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Romney education policy aligns with ALEC agenda

As its inner workings have been revealed over the past few months, one thing is clear about the American Legislative Exchange Council, the radical conservative “bill mill” that gives powerful corporations access to lawmakers: The group makes no apologies for putting the needs of Corporate America, and the wealthy citizens it comprises, before those of middle class America.

The same could be said of presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Earlier this week, Romney finally got around to introducing some details of his education policy —and much of what he said might as well have been churned out at a meeting of ALEC’s education task force.

Here are top priorities they share:

• Promote a nationwide voucher program. Funneling public funds to private schools and for-profit charters through voucher schemes has been an ALEC priority for decades—and they’ve been successful in states like Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia to name only a few. In his education policy speech, Romney said that if he were president, federal education funds would be linked to students, with parents deciding where their child goes to school, be it a public, charter or private school.
• Eliminate teacher certification requirements. ALEC’s Alternative Certification Act asserts that any professional can teach K-12 classes with virtually no preparation, and it’s a theme woven into its other education bills. Romney similarly believes there is too much “unnecessary certification” getting in the way of professionals from other fields might want to give the teaching thing a go.
• Make it more difficult for middle class families to afford higher education. Their tactics may differ, but the result would be the same: More and more, college would become a luxury of the upper class. Romney would repeal the law signed by President Obama that eliminates banks as middle men on federally guaranteed student loans and uses those savings to increase Pell Grants, strengthen community colleges and make it easier for students to repay their federal student loans. (Romney revealed his lack of perspective on college affordability earlier on the campaign trail, suggesting that borrowing money from parents or attending outrageously priced for-profit colleges might be solutions for those who cannot easily afford higher education.)

ALEC has generated model legislation that would give tax breaks to families wealthy enough to have college savings accounts—which many middle class families cannot afford. Other model bills would direct public funds to private universities through higher education vouchers.

• Upend educator unions. Union busting is high on ALEC’s overall agenda (a favorite topic of conversation at its economic task force meetings), and language attempting to limit educator unions’ ability to negotiate crops up in several K-12 education bills. Romney, meanwhile, says standing up to organized labor and taking so-called “right to work law” national is a day-one priority.

So what’s it like for educators when top decision makers sign off on anti-public education legislation? Just ask a teacher from a state where ALEC-friendly lawmakers and governors have already had their way.

“Wisconsin has been slowly going private for years,” says Milwaukee kindergarten teacher Tiffanie Lawson. “And these for-profit charters are not held to the same standards that we are–we’re talking about teachers who don’t have teaching degrees. We’ve seen so much corruption with money going to the choice and charter schools that should be going to the public schools.” (Read more about ALEC’s shocking degree of influence in Wisconsin in the Center for Media and Democracy’s recently released “Wisconsin: The Hijacking of a State.”)

“We see students who leave our schools to go to these charters come back to us,” said Lawson, “because they realize they’re not getting the education they deserve and that the public schools offer what they need: the support, the services. And we need the resources to keep all of that going for our kids.”

Find out more, and get involved, here.

Education News for 12-28-2011

Statewide Education News

• Charter schools get win in White Hat suit – Columbus Dispatch

The 19-month fight over whether Ohio’s largest for-profit manager of charter schools must share detailed financial records could be coming to a close.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge John F. Bender has decided he can rule on the case, and he reiterated an order he made in August that White Hat Management release records showing how the charter-school operator spends the millions of tax dollars it gets each year. Read More…

• Six Ohio Education Stories to Watch in 2012 – State Impact Ohio

Here’s our take on the six education stories to watch in 2012:

1. School funding.
2. College-readiness.
3. The feds.
4. “School choice.”
5. Charter school accountability.
6. Teachers rising.
Read More…

Local Issues

• Energy conservation at schools benefitting taxpayers – Oxford Press

Efficient new buildings save Hamilton thousands of dollars. While utility bills for homes have been increasing, many area school districts have seen their bills drop thanks to a variety of energy conservation programs.

And thanks to those bills dropping, the districts can put money back into their general fund, creating less drain on taxpayer dollars. And in at least one case, that has enabled a district to delay putting a levy on the ballot. Read More…

• Yardsticks for local students are analyzed – Marietta Times

By one measure, Washington County's school districts are ranked in the middle to bottom third in the state.

But another ranking assembled by a nonprofit education organization dramatically changes some of those positions. Read More…

Editorial & Opinion

• School reform takes time – Youngstown Vindicator

Steubenville Herald-Star: Allocating funds among hundreds of school districts to ensure all provide the “thorough and efficient” education required by the state constitution is easier said than done, as Ohio Gov. John Kasich is learning.

Soon after taking office less than a year ago, Kasich pledged to overhaul the state formula for funding public schools. By January a plan would be in place, the governor thought.

He was wrong. His advisers say the January deadline was a self-imposed one that won’t be met. Better to get it right than to get it on time, they add.

They are right, of course. Public education reform is among the chief concerns of many Buckeye State residents. Read More…