While everyone is distracted by the pandemic... legislation to unmake public education is being rolled out across the U.S.
[Thread]
Arizona: Senate Bill 1041 will expand state spending on vouchers.
This is in a state that already has a massive and terrifying neo-voucher.
Florida: Senate Bill 48 to expand vouchers.
Like Arizona, Florida has been a leader in channeling taxpayer funds to private schools. Many of these schools discriminate against students (though there are other reasons to dislike such a plan).
Georgia: House Bill 60 would allow students to take their local public school dollars with them to a private school.
Schools will be financially kneecapped by this. To say nothing of how the public good will be undercut.
Indiana: House Bill 1005 will expand the state's existing voucher program to higher-income earners.
This could cost $100 million in the first year alone. All at the expense of public schools.
Iowa: As my co-author and podcasting partner @BisforBerkshire has been pointing out, SSB 1065 is being fast-tracked.
Over $5,000 per student would be awarded for "state scholarships" (aka vouchers). Public education would never look the same there.
Kansas: House Bill 2068 and Senate Bill 61 will expand vouchers. This is in a state that @SchlFinance101 has done lots of work on, and if you want more Kansas info you should go to him.
Kentucky: House Bill 149 would do the same thing we're seeing lots of places -- divert public dollars to private schools.
Missouri: Senate Bill 55 creates $100 million in neo-vouchers.
Why "neo"? Because it's a money laundering scheme. State dollars don't flow directly to private (often religious) schools. Instead, a corporation "gives" the money, and then they get "reimbursed" by the state. Yikes.
New Hampshire: House Bill 20 is the scariest of all...
"Education Freedom Accounts" would create a universal voucher for all families in the state to withdraw funds from public schools and divert them to...basically anything "education-related."
Finally, you may be left with questions...questions like:
- What's motivating this massive state-by-state effort?
- Who's behind all of this?
- What other scary edu-policies are being rolled-out?
- What will schools look like if these policies succeed?
Well...if you've got questions...@BisforBerkshire and I have answers.
Quick thread on race, class, and "accountability" in public education.
1/
Educational accountability systems are designed to never challenge the value of high-income, white schools (because it would "invalidate" the rankings).
2/
Instead, they are designed in a manner that persistently identifies the "weakness" of schools serving low-income and racially-marginalized populations. (This aligns with "common sense.")
3/
But as long as school ratings are created by a private corporation *unaccountable* to the public...and as long as those ratings are baked into real estate websites...we have a problem.
[2/n] washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sh…
This encourages shallow, competitive school-shopping.
Moreover, I have very serious doubts that a racist and classist understanding of school quality will be overturned.
[3/n] integratedschools.org/the-problem-wi…
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