Tell ya what I’m gonna do
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School voucher salesmen. This is getting to be like an old “I Love Lucy” episode. The facts don’t matter. Taxpayers are lining up to be sheared.
Friends like Jeff Byant (N.C.) and acquaintances like Jess Piper (Mo.) have hammered on efforts to privatize public schools for years. No matter what they’re called — school vouchers, charter schools, opportunity scholarships — they are schemes for separating public funding from public education and resegregating schools under the rubric of “choice.” For investors and wealthy parents, it’s about the money, either in profits or in tax breaks.
Piper is right, BTW:
So is Bryant. Charters that were once local and parent-organized are being squeezed out by the big-money boyz:
The aim is to bust school budgets and, in the words of Grover Norquist, drown public education in the bathtub so the mandated not-for-profit spending can wind up in the for-profit world.
This from Arizona in 2023:
Arizona’s universal school voucher program that was estimated to cost only $65 million is now poised to cost the state $900 million over the next year, exceeding its available funding by hundreds of millions of dollars.
John Ward, chief auditor for the Arizona Department of Education, said Wednesday the skyrocketing price tag is due to a projected spike in applicants to the voucher program. Ward estimates that the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, as it’s officially known, will reach 100,000 applicants by July 2024, far outstripping initial estimates and surpassing the $500 million dollar cushion provided in the budget passed last month.
Don’t believe this is not by design. The scheme is a scam, writes Thomas Mills at PoliticsNC:
When Moore says “ALL families,” he’s referring to wealthy families since the legislature eliminated the income cap for the vouchers. The site crashed because North Carolina has so many people already in private schools who now are eligible for state subsidized education. Rich folks who send their children to private schools are about to get a windfall while poor schools are going to lose funding. It’s Robin Hood in reverse.
The whole program is a scam, the epitome of a bait-and-switch. Republicans pushed through their voucher program as a way to level the playing field, offering poor families a way to send their children to private schools when public schools weren’t working for them. Now, they’re saying that families that don’t send their children to public schools shouldn’t have to pay for them. They have dropped any pretense of helping struggling families and moved straight to subsidizing rich people. According to Republicans, rich people have no community obligations.
Let’s be clear. The name “Opportunity Scholarship” is pure propaganda. There are two types of scholarships, need-based and merit-based. Giving vouchers to rich people just because they decide not to send their kids to public schools is a tax break, not a scholarship. And it’s a tax break designed for wealthy people at the expense of poor people.
Republicans are working hard to damage public schools. They fundamentally don’t believe in the responsibility of the state to provide a sound, basic education. They have cut per pupil spending, let teacher pay lag, and reduced support staff in schools. They’ve tried to dictate curriculum to indoctrinate students in a conservative philosophy, all while claiming public schools are brainwashing our kids with left wing ideas. They’ve left us with demoralized teachers and overworked staff and our children are paying the price.
And the GOP will subvert state constitutions to do it. You may have noticed that sort of thing is in fashion among MAGA Republicans.
If the Republicans win, they will have essentially reinterpreted the constitution. Article 9, Section 2 of the constitution reads, “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” Traditionally, the court has interpreted the “uniform system” of “equal opportunities” to mean the quality of education should be as good in poor counties as it is in rich ones. The GOP would render the clause either aspirational or maybe just a suggestion, despite the word “shall.”
“Are you tired of paying high taxes, or any taxes? Tell ya what I’m gonna do.”