The rich get richer…

Former Secretary of Education Mrs. Betsy DeVos started the American Federation for Children, which recently has spent $2.5 million in getting school choice policies passed into law in at least three states, and introducing laws in several others. Mrs. DeVos has advocated for financially supporting families who want to move their children from public schools to private ones, calling these policies “school choice,” and arguing that they would help poor children get a better education (NBCnews.com).

School choice programs began decades ago, and were meant to assist low-income families seen to be trapped in failing local public schools and students with disabilities. But the new vouchers in many cases lift — or even eliminate — household income caps, giving wealthier families state cash to send their kids to private schools (Politico.com).

Where is the money going?

In Arkansas, under Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 95% of vouchers were claimed by students who never attended public schools. For Arkansas, 75% of voucher recipients came from the most populated areas of the state, the central region including Little Rock and northwest encompassing Fayetteville. The GOP-controlled Legislature acknowledged that upping the supply of schooling options, “particularly in currently underrepresented geographies,” is a key goal as the program expands to all students by 2025 (Politico.com).

In Florida, 84,505, or 69%, of new voucher recipients were already enrolled in private school. Also in Florida, where the American Federation for Children’s state political action committee spent $1.7 million during last year’s elections, Gov. (and pres. candidate) Ron DeSantis already signed a law that will allow more families to receive public funds to pay for private education, regardless of their financial need (NBCnews.com). DeSantis has vowed, if elected, to create a national school choice program modeled after Florida.

Meanwhile, in Arizona more than 50% of vouchers are going to students previously enrolled in private school, homeshooling, or other non-public options. A study from the Grand Canyon Institute (2022), Universal Voucher Applications Analysis found nearly half of universal voucher applicants from wealthier communities as total state private school subsidies reaches $600 million. Key findings in this study include:

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs claims school choice “threatens to decimate” Arizona’s budget due to the program being “unaccountable and unsustainable.” Yet Republican leaders disagree, contending the program is actually saving Arizona money because it’s cheaper to educate students in private schools — even though more students are added to state enrollments (Politico.com). Hobbs said she wants to “roll back this expansion because too much money otherwise reserved for public schools has gone toward wealthy families. But that will be a hard sell in the Arizona Legislature, where the American Federation for Children’s state PAC spent $512,000 to help Republicans hold slim majorities” (NBCnews.com).

Maybe the tide is turning. In a Des Moines Register poll this month , 62% of Iowans said that they disapprove of voucher programs, including 51% of Republicans.

In Democrat-controlled Illinois, lawmakers declined to keep paying for vouchers that served almost 10,000 low-income students as the state’s legislative session wrapped up in November (Politico.com).

Texas lawmakers AGAIN rejected Gov. Abbott’s voucher proposal last week by an 84-63 vote in the House, the latest time the Legislature has rebuffed the governor’s top education priority. Abbott in turn warned lawmakers that he would order them back to the Capitol next year to try again (Politico.com).

What we are seeing across the country is a political push from the wealthiest among us to control (or blow up) public education. They are using their own money to advance their own agendas. They claim to support school choice to help those stuck in underperforming schools. But according to the data, that is absolutely not the case. We see where the money is going and it is, in most cases, not going to those who need it the most. Public funds supporting private, parochial, and homeshooling education, at the cost of everyone.

The rich get richer…

Horace Mann, known as the Father of American Education once said,

In our country and in our times no man is worthy the honored name of statesman who does not include the highest practicable education of the people in all his plans of administration. He may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence; and by these he might claim, in other countries, the elevated rank of a statesman: but unless he speaks, plans, labors, at all times and in all places, for the culture and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot be, an American statesman.

https://hmleague.org/quotes-by-horace-mann/

These are my reflections for today.

December 1, 2023

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Cardona and the debt relief

For at least a decade, for-profit colleges have been accused of deceiving students and leaving them with a legacy of student debt. As a result, more than 300,000 student borrowers have applied to the Department of Education for loan relief. based on school misconduct. The collapse of large chains of for-profit schools such as Corinthian Colleges, ITT, and the Art Institutes have highlighted allegations of false job placement statistics, misleading accreditation claims, deceptive claims about financial aid, costs of attendance, and more.

Back in 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was involved in a standoff with Democrats over why she refused to forgive the debts of tens of thousands of borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges.

DeVos made it harder for borrowers to get relief in many ways. One critical change was that the department could no longer handle similar claims in batches, for example providing relief to everyone who entered a program after the school lied about employment statistics rather than each individual borrower applying on their own.

Moreover, those individual borrowers had to prove that the school made misrepresentation with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth. An individual borrower usually was not able to prove a school’s state of mind — the rules did not say how borrowers can get evidence on the point — so opponents of the new rules described them as imposing a “near-impossible” standard of proof (The Hill). Trump, ignoring veterans and consumer groups against the change in the law, vetoed a resolution that would have stopped them. So the change went through.

In one of his first acts as Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona this week scrapped a plan to give partial debt relief to students defrauded by their colleges, ending DeVos’ controversial policy. This will amount to $1 billion in debt relief. However, this only addresses a small percentage of the nearly 200,000 people who filed claims in the last six years under a statute known as “borrower defense to repayment” (FSA.gov).

In a statement, Cardona said, “Borrowers deserve a simplified and fair path to relief when they have been harmed by their institution’s misconduct.” A close review of these claims and the associated evidence showed these borrowers have been harmed and we will grant them a fresh start from their debt” (Washington Post).

Under Cardona’s leadership, the department will revive the Obama-era policy, whereby borrowers whose claims have been approved will have a path to a full loan discharge. The department will reimburse any amounts paid on the loans, request credit bureaus to remove negative reporting tied to the debt and reinstate federal aid eligibility.

While I commend this first big move in the new Education Department, and I am happy to hear that so many students will have their debt erased, I still contend this administration needs to come up with their own plan, and not spend the next four years simply undoing what’s already been done. I am also not saying undoing isn’t necessary, but we need a grander vision and a long- term plan.

These are my reflections for today.

3/19/21

Recent publication: William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

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The truth about vouchers

To understand the truth about vouchers, it’s important to understand their discriminatory past and the impact COVID 19 has had on the support of vouchers today.

What are school vouchers? Simply put, Rebecca Klein of HuffPost wrote; “School voucher programs take taxpayer money and directly funnel it to scholarships for families to help them afford private schools. Tax credit programs provide individuals or corporations with tax credits if they donate to organizations that dole out scholarships for private schools.” Every school district has a per-pupil spending amount, so if students leave their local public school, a voucher program would allow them to take that money to the new school. Keep in mind, private schools do not have to hire licensed teachers, teach an approved curriculum, or take standardized tests.

The majority of private schools that participate in voucher programs are religious, with many of them using fundamentalist Christian, anti-science curriculum. “Of religious schools that participate in these programs, at least 14% have explicit policies discriminating against LGBTQ students and staff. At least several schools push LGBTQ children to attend conversion therapy, a medically discredited practice that is illegal in over a dozen states”, a HuffPost investigation found (HuffPost).

Vouchers have a long history in public education but more for iniquitous reasons, like to keep public schools segregated. After Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, White families were scrambling to get their children out of schools that were enforcing the new desegregation laws. The way this was done in many states was to provide White students with private school vouchers. Between 1954 and 1969, over 200 private segregation academies were set up in states across the South. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—”maintained tuition grant programs that offered vouchers to students in an effort to incentivize white students to leave desegregated public school districts” (Time).

Trump and DeVos provided federal funding for private school voucher systems nationwide, which funneled millions of taxpayer dollars out of public schools and into unaccountable private schools. They said a voucher system was a school reform policy that would provide better options for low-income students trapped in failing schools (Sargrad, 2017). Their original budget proposal slashed the Education Department’s budget by more than 13 percent or $9 billion, while providing $1.25 billion for school choice, including $250 million for private school vouchers (Sargrad, 2017).

Private schools, especially in the South, more than likely have the largest overrepresentation of White students (Southern Education). In fact, research has shown that the strongest predictor of White private school enrollment is the proportion of Black students in the local public schools (The Century Foundation).

Supporters of vouchers say choice is good, though many private schools have questionable academic gains and less accountability. Advocates for public schools watch already underfunded budgets diminish with every student who leaves. Well-funded suburban districts in higher income areas basically can use their taxes to pay for their children to attend private schools. Urban districts in low income communities, already underfunded, are looking for alternatives for their children who are attending under-performing schools and see private schools as an option.

While the push to privatize public education has been supported by the last few administrations, a new push for voucher programs has risen during the pandemic. Many private schools have opened for in-person instruction, and parents are looking for options beyond home instruction. This has given vouchers a gain in popularity.

• In Iowa, a bill that would directly give families over $5,000 to help finance the cost of private school is quickly making its way through the legislature (KWWL).
• In Georgia, lawmakers introduced a bill that would give families savings accounts with money to use on private school tuition (HuffPost).
• In Florida, Republicans are set to push new legislation that would expand the state’s already-vast network of publicly funded private school scholarships (HuffPost). A parent in Florida recently wrote of her experience with vouchers. She said, what many parents need to know: “Scholarship voucher programs never fund educational expenses entirely, unfairly shifting the educational expenses to parents (Pitman).
• In New Hampshire, a bill was presented this week to create “education freedom accounts”. Advocates of school choice believe that the struggles of public education systems and parents during the pandemic have created this opportunity (WMUR).

“Policymakers must consider the origins of vouchers and their impact on segregation and support for public education. No matter how well-intentioned, widespread voucher programs risk exacerbating segregation in schools and leaving the most vulnerable students and the public schools they attend behind” (Center for American Progress).

Parents, teachers, and students want very much to return to the classroom – and should -when it is safe to do so. The rush to provide vouchers has incredibly negative long-term implications to public schools, it should not be an option. It wasn’t a good idea 60 years ago, and it isn’t a good idea today.

There needs to be a much greater awareness of what vouchers are and the discriminatory and segregated practices they support. If you live in a state that is looking to increase funding for voucher programs, it is important you know the truth about vouchers.

If you are interested in more information on vouchers and charters and the role they played in segregation, I encourage you to read William Frantz Public School; A story of race, resistance, resiliency, and recovery in New Orleans. See link below.

These are my reflections for today.

2/5/21

William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

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Another door closes

If there was any chance Betsy DeVos was going to spend her remaining days as secretary of education pushing through additional failed or unsupported programs, or divert public funding for private interests, a judge struck down any attempt with a permanent injunction.

The lawsuit against DeVos was led by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court Northern District of California approved a permanent injunction in favor of all plaintiffs. The plaintiffs included attorneys general of Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as the City School District for the City of New York, Chicago Board of Education, Cleveland Municipal School District Board of Education and the San Francisco Unified School District (WZZM13.com). The decision to boost the amount of emergency pandemic relief that flows to private school students is illegal.

“This pandemic has greatly impacted students across the country. The CARES Act is imperative as it provides critical funding for our public schools and the resources teachers need to continue safely teaching our youth,” Nessel said. “This permanent injunction sends a clear message that the publicly funded CARES Act dollars should be used as Congress intended – to educate our public students, and not to serve the political agendas of a select few.” (WZZM13.com).

The injunction prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from doing the following:

• Requiring states and local education agencies (LEAs) to calculate the share of CARES Act funds for private schools in a manner inconsistent with Title I’s calculation for equitable services to private schools;
• Requiring that CARES Act funds supplement, rather than supplant, other fund sources;
• Restricting the distribution of CARES Act funds to only those public schools that participate in or are eligible for Title I; and
• Taking any adverse action against districts or schools that relied on the original guidance or interim final rule before the preliminary injunction entered (WZZM13.com).

While education groups, teachers’ unions, and civil rights organizations expressed concern over the distribution of CARES funds, DeVos insisted her strategy was a way to treat students equitably regardless of the type of school they attend. Public school advocates and some congressional Democrats argue that private schools have access to funding that cash-strapped public school districts don’t. Recent reports show that private schools as well as public charter schools received billions of dollars in PPP small business loans — which school districts were unable to access (Politico.com).

“This decision sends a clear signal that Secretary DeVos cannot use illegal means to advance her agenda of funneling scarce public resources to private education, to the detriment of our highest need students in public schools across the country,” said Tamerlin Godley, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, who represented the plaintiffs along with the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center (Politico.com).

Earlier this summer, Senate Republicans included in their GOP stimulus bill a requirement that 10% of the $105 billion in relief money proposed for K-12 schools flow to private schools. Democrats blasted those plans accusing Republicans of seeking to privatize public education (Politico.com). That’s been her agenda all along.

You know what they say about the opera… 61 days.

These are my reflections for today.

11/20/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

Hope

On January 20, 2021 Betsy DeVos and her hypocritical Christian ‘reform’ policies will be exiting The DOE and Washington DC.

As we consider life in the Department of Education beyond the disastrous Mrs. DeVos, there is much to rejoice. In his first speech, President-elect Biden said, “Jill’s a military mom, an educator. She’s dedicated her life to education, but teaching isn’t just what she does. It’s who she is. For American educators, this is a great day for you all. You going to have one of your own in the White House. And Jill will make a great first lady. I’m so proud of her,” (CNN). I still well-up when I read this. I have hope…

The failed, discriminatory, racist policies of DeVos are done. The $25 million dollars of taxpayers money over almost four years for her security detail are also done. Bleeding public schools who need more funding to be successful to open unaccountable charter schools, or diverting public funding to private, religious schools is done. I have written about DeVos’ time in Washington -frequently and honestly.

The front-runner for secretary of education is believed to be Lily Eskeslin Garcia, former president of the NEA, the nation’s largest teacher’s union. Ms. Garcia has actual experience teaching fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. In 1989, she was named Utah Teacher of the Year. While in union leadership positions, she taught homeless children in a single classroom at Salt Lake City’s homeless Shelter, and the Christmas Box House Children’s Shelter, a kindergarten through 6th grade one-room public school serving hard-to-place foster children in Salt Lake City.

In complete contrast, Mrs. DeVos did not attend a public school, nor did her children. She never studied education in college -she holds a BA in business economics and she never taught in a classroom.

Garcia responded to the growth of charter schools under the Obama administration by issuing a new policy statement in 2016 that drew a line between unaccountable privately owned charter schools and charter schools that have benefited public school education, calling them a “failed and damaging experiment” (NEA.org).

Garcia is an ardent supporter of increasing charter school accountability while limiting the number of schools available to ensure that funding for public schools is not negatively impacted.

While president of the NEA, Garcia said, “Charter schools were started by educators who dreamed of schools in which they would be free to innovate, unfettered by bureaucratic obstacles. Handing over students’ education to privately managed, unaccountable charters jeopardizes student success, undermines public education and harms communities” (NEA.org).

I have hope…

These are my reflections for today.

11/13/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

A Year of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education

Here is a recap of a year of failed, discriminatory, elitist, segregated practices in Betsy DeVos’ term as secretary of education.

COVID-19

July 2020 – Mrs. DeVos pressured schools to open, saying students needed in-person instruction and then threatened to cut off funds to public schools that didn’t do so. She even went so far as to say that those funds could be diverted to private and religious schools. When asked for her plan for safely reopening schools, DeVos was unable to answer.

May 2020 – DeVos diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in public money away from public schools into private businesses and corporations by using federal coronavirus relief funds to create a $180 million voucher program for private and religious schools. Additionally she ordered states to redistribute CARES Act funds to private schools.

May 2020 – The secretary blocked emergency COVID-19 aid to DACA students, specifically excluding many immigrant children who desperately needed that money for food, rent, childcare.

Privatizing public education

June 2020 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue, that removed the last constitutional barrier to state school voucher programs and the diversion of taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools that are unaccountable to the public.

Title IX

May 2020- DeVos is instrumental in a change in the due process that will allow accused rapists on college campuses to cross-examine their victims, a provision that will now further deter victims from coming forward. An estimated 90% of sexual assault victims do not come forward. This will likely make that number higher.

July 2019 – According to a report by the Center for American Progress, under DeVos, the Education Department is nine times less likely than the Obama administration to take action on Title IX complaints related to sexual orientation or gender. The Obama plan interpreted Title IX of the Higher Education Act as protecting all students on the basis of their gender identity, including by guaranteeing access to sex-segregated activities and facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

Cut in aid to rural schools

March 2020 – The Department of Education changed how districts report the number of students who live in poverty, which could result in funding cuts for more than 800 of the “poorest” and “most geographically isolated” schools (NY Times).

Education budget cuts

February 2020 – In testimony before a House subcommittee, the secretary struggled to defend her proposal to cut $7 billion from education programs. These programs included cutting all $18 million in federal funding for the Special Olympics. She said “students may be better served by being in larger classes.” (Her proposal includes a 26% reduction to state grants for special education and millions of dollars in cuts to programs for students who are blind.) Additionally, she could not confirm nor deny she would prevent the use of federal education money to arm and train teachers (CTmirror).

The administration’s proposed 2021 budget cuts educational funding by 8.4%—compared to the amount Congress provided the previous year. Tax credits could divert up to $5 billion in taxpayer money to private schools.

Phil Hands, Wisconsin State Journal

This proposal asks for a collective $9 billion in cuts to education, including after-school programs, career and technical education, and programs to hire and train teachers.

In her tenure so far, DeVos and and the DOE have been the target of more than 455 lawsuits — equivalent to being sued once every three days. The suits reflect the extent to which DeVos’s core agenda — including issues related to civil rights, special education and for-profit colleges — has played out in the courtroom (Detroit Free Press).

By comparison, there were 356 lawsuits against the department during the entire eight year Obama administration.

Pete Greene writes to DeVos in his blog, “I suppose it should be clear after all these years that we can’t expect any help from you for public education. And it’s a sign of the times that it makes sense to type a sentence like “the United States secretary of education cannot be expected to support public education in the United States.” So sure– no guidance, no assistance, not even a sympathetic pat on the shoulder or a half-hearted attaboy. Certainly not a “These are really difficult times– what can we on the federal level do to help you?”

What could the federal government do to help? Let’s start with a new secretary who actually advocates for public education. No, wait… let’s start with a secretary who has experience in public education, like an educator. There’s an idea.

These are my reflections for today.

10/30/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

The teachers I know

This week, Betsy DeVos hit the nail on the head with just how out of touch she is when it comes to public education. Speaking in California, the Secretary of Education said, home-schooling was “a wonderful option” that she thinks the virus has put a positive light on. Clearly Mrs. DeVos has no idea how many working parents are struggling to accommodate at-home learning during the pandemic as they cannot work from home (Politico.com).

DeVos went on to say, “The reality is all families had to school at home out of necessity and many of them have found that this is actually a really good answer and a really good solution for their kids going forward” (Politico.com).

DeVos insisted that those families who need and want in-person learning for their children, there’s no substitute for learning in person. DeVos said Wednesday. “We have continued to urge states and districts to make sure they’re offering this as an option to families. Of course, these are state and local decisions, but we will continue to use the bully pulpit to urge this to happen”(Politico.com).

DeVos’ statements lack consideration of the health risks to students, teachers, staff, and administrators being exposed to the virus, and disregard the lack of funding from the federal government for school districts to prepare for the return of students/faculty with PPE, and other safety measures.

The teachers I know want to be back in the classroom, but only when it’s safe to do so.

The teachers I know have families, children, aging parents to care for and are concerned about the risk of exposing them to the virus.

The teachers I know were trained for in-class, hands-on pedagogical strategies, and are frustrated with the criticism that in a short period of time, and without training or professional development were expected to completely flip everything they knew about the delivery of instruction to online learning.

The teachers I know are spending even more time trying to plan, prepare, and teach their students with the limited resources they’ve been given, while still focusing on the individual academic learning needs of their students.

The teachers I know work in districts that don’t have parents at home to facilitate learning, struggle with connectivity and computers for all the children, don’t have the ability to ensure students are online and learning-yet they’re blamed for it.

The teachers I know would do anything for their students, yet take the criticism from parents and outsiders that they’re not doing enough.

DeVos is oblivious to any of the problems families are now faced with, like childcare, food deprivation, lack of technology. Yet she continues to promote charter schools and voucher programs and use taxpayer money to fund these programs as the solution. First she needs to understand the problem and she is so out of touch with reality, that’s not likely to happen.

Please vote.

These are my reflections for today.

10/09/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

Save our School Buildings

courtesy of NHPR

In 1995, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported one in three public school students (14 million) was learning in a building in need of extensive repair. In New Orleans, that meant rotting buildings with no air conditioning. In rural California, that meant poorly maintained portable classrooms. America’s school facilities, one observer said, were a “national crisis” (GAO.gov).

Earlier this year, the GAO determined that over half (54%) of the school buildings in the US are in need of repair. An estimated 41% of districts need to update or replace heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in at least half of their schools, This number represents about 36,000 schools nationwide that need HVAC updates (GAO.gov).

According to the most recent GAO survey, school districts identified the highest priorities for their school facilities to be improving security (92%), expanding student access to technology (87%), and monitoring health hazards (78%) (GAO.gov).

Schools in disrepair, with unhealthy and outdated HVAC systems, are using their funding on security and technology. Add to that, the need for districts to also use funding to prepare schools to meet CDC and state requirements for learning through the pandemic. Improving ventilation is seen as crucial to minimizing the spread of COVID-19 indoors. Additionally, studies have confirmed that improved ventilation and other building improvements are linked to gains in student learning (Chalkbeat.org).

Roughly 50% of districts nationwide, get funding for school facilities from property taxes. High-poverty districts rely on state funding and use property taxes less commonly than low-poverty districts. High-poverty schools were also more likely to report that their buildings were in fair or poor condition (Chalkbeat.org). According to GAO’s state survey, 36 states provided capital funding to school districts for school construction or renovations (GAO.gov). While other districts don’t spend their money on capital improvements because they have to keep up with providing up-to-date technology.

The cost to repair old HVAC systems exceeds $46 billion. In response to the need to provide cleaner air in the schools, Toni Jones, the superintendent of Greenwich schools (one of the most affluent areas in the country) said replacing HVAC systems is costly and time consuming. “We have many other safety protocols in place, including social distancing [and] mandatory face masks” (Chalkbeat.org).

Over half of school buildings in this country are in need of repair. Where’s the funding? Annual per-student spending on capital projects fell sharply starting in 2009 and hadn’t recovered by 2016. The GAO report found that while affluent districts could spend over $1,000 per student annually on capital construction, high-poverty districts could only spend $700 per student (GAO.gov).

Money for capital improvements is not enough to do everything, so schools choose technology over ventilation systems. Low-income district have to rely on property taxes to fray the cost of improvements, and receive less capital gains funding. And most disturbing, studies have show a direct correlation with students learning and the air quality in schools. One recent study found that low-achieving students, made greater gains on math and reading tests in Texas districts where voters agreed to spend more on school facilities. Another study found that high school students scored lower on the PSAT when they took the exam in hot classrooms.

How do so many schools prioritize the need for improvements in their building with the need to keep children safe during the pandemic, and provide technology and other service needs when they don’t have enough money?

The House recently passed a bill with $130 billion to help schools improve their buildings and reopen safely, though it hasn’t gone anywhere in the Senate.

Betsy DeVos has allowed for $1-2 billion to go to charter schools during the pandemic. The Washington Post reported in July that DeVos was allowing charters to apply for PPP funding. “More than 1,300 charter schools and their nonprofit or for-profits or management companies secured between $925 million and $2.2 billion through the PPP (Washington Post).

How many public school buildings could that have helped pay for much needed repairs? School districts should have enough money to make their buildings safe for all children and up to date with the latest technology. No funding should go to charter schools. Sign the petition.

These are my reflections for today.

10/02/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator. Peter Lang Publishing. Available on amazon.com

No Win for Schools, Teachers, Parents, or Students

As most school districts across the country began some form of instruction over the last few weeks, what that instruction looks like varies greatly. Parents, teachers, and students are becoming more familiar with terms like hybrid, virtual, and hyflex to explain the delivery of instruction during the pandemic. Here’s a funny video.

To open, or not to open? Every district had to consider its population, the levels of increasing/decreasing cases of COVID-19, and the cost of cleaning, disinfecting, and otherwise preparing, for in-person instruction.

After announcing face-to-face instruction, school districts experienced high numbers of teachers striking, walking out, applying for early retirement, or applying for FMLA to work from home – all in response to the hard decisions school districts had to make.

As I have alluded to in previous blogs, one thing very clearly exposed during this pandemic is the widening disparity that exists between urban and suburban communities. Suburban communities may have been better prepared for a pandemic with fewer families experiencing food insecurities and plenty of home computers and Internet access for children to be prepared for remote-learning.

For a moment, consider the impact of the pandemic on many urban families in the US, already facing a great inequity when it comes to education. In last week’s blog, Food insecurity during the pandemic I wrote about millions of US children relying on the USDA’s free and reduced meals. What about children in homes with no computers, or no connectivity, or only one computer to share with multiple children, and no adults at home to facilitate online learning? Granted, many suburban families have two working parents, but still may be in a better position to feed and equip their children with the necessary technology.

Unfortunately we have an administration in Washington that has not made this a priority. In another recent blog about schools being forced to reopen, bullying and intimidation were used to coerce states to reopen schools. Just this week, the president alerted FEMA to stop allowing funding to be used to clean public spaces- including… public schools. And in another blow, the secretary of education announced there will be no waivers for standardized testing this year, as were allowed last spring when the pandemic hit.

I am sympathetic to administrators, teachers, and students. None of us asked for this, we have no playbook to study to know how to best handle it. But the most important thing, which has been emphasized over the past two weeks is this is truly a no-win situation. Administrators, teachers, parents, students are right in their thinking and wrong in their thinking. It’s a good idea to open schools, it’s a bad idea to open schools. My children should be in school. My children should not be in school. I can work from home. I cannot work from home. My children can learn virtually. My children cannot learn virtually.

What’s the right answer? I have no idea. While I am grateful my children are in college which alleviates most of the home/school issues, I am also a college professor who went back to face-to-face instruction (until such time as we are no longer able to provide face-to-face instruction) with much hesitation. I miss my students, I know they miss being in class, so I agreed to hold classes on campus.

Most governors (Florida excluded), and district administrators did not come to this decision lightly. You may be happy with it, you may be furious with it. Many of you have the wherewithal to make your own arrangements. Many of you will drain whatever savings you had to pay for daycare, homeschooling, private school, and tutoring. And an alarming number of children will be left home unattended because that is the only option. In the meantime, congress enjoyed a long Labor Day weekend with no decision on the extension for unemployment benefits, and the secretary of education continues to toss grenades at public education.

These are my reflections for today.

9/11/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator (September 2020 release) Peter Lang Publishing. Available for pre-order on amazon.com

Pandemic capitalism

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he wanted to spend $32 million in federal coronavirus aid to fund vouchers to help parents afford private school tuition in the upcoming school year. This is what advocates have tried to push through the Legislature for 16 years. All it took was a supportive secretary of education and a pandemic. In New Orleans, it took a hurricane.

Governor McMaster seen here at a press conference without a mask. (postandcourier.com)

One judge in the state was not having it. On Wednesday, a judge temporarily blocked McMaster’s decision to use $32 million of federal coronavirus aid to fund the vouchers. Orangeburg County Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson granted a request for a temporary restraining order until arguments can be heard next week.

Attorney Skyler Hutto argued in a court filing that McMaster’s plan violates a portion of the state constitution preventing the government from funding private or religious education.

In response to the decision, McMaster’s spokesman Brian Symmes said, “Working families in South Carolina are struggling to make ends meet during this pandemic and every parent should have the opportunity to choose the educational instruction that best suits their child’s needs” (postandcourier.com).

To me, that’s like saying Today is Friday and I like pizza.  I do not see the connection between struggling families trying to make ends meet and providing opportunities for families to choose educational instruction.

Maria Aselage, The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston’s spokeswoman argued the court order “hurts low- and middle-income parents who want to continue sending their children to the school of their choice. Every child deserves the opportunity to learn in the educational environment that best suits his or her needs, whether it is a public, private, or religious school,” Aselage said (postandcourier.com).

Every child does deserve the opportunity to learn in an environment that best suits his/her needs but NOT at the expense of public funding for public education. Taking money away from children who need it the most is wrong. Funding private and parochial schools with federal funding is wrong. If parents/students/politicians are not happy with the quality of education, then fix it.

In a study ranking states by the quality of their public schools, South Carolina ranked 40th overall and only slightly higher than states such as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana (thestate.com).

South Carolina is not alone in a scam to use federal funding to pay for vouchers. Nationwide, charter schools received as much as $2 billion in PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans, says Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education. That number is likely a low estimate, as loans in lower amounts are not made public, she says (npe.org).

The PPP funds were intended to support small businesses and organizations that could not make payroll after a loss in revenue due to Covid-19. Charter schools never lost their revenue. According to Burris, “We know of no other organizations that are fully funded by taxpayer dollars, that are also receiving PPP funding. Charter schools did not have the interruption in income that prevented them from meeting payroll.” (npe.org).

Burris acknowledged, “To our way of thinking, this is really unethical. The PPP is designed to support paycheck protection. Not bonds, not adding a wing to a charter school. One purpose—to prevent the nonprofits from laying people off because they are no longer getting the income” (npe.org).

Arizona Charter Schools received nearly $100 million in PPP, and their academic ranking is 49 (wallethub.com).

North Carolina charter schools and/or their management organizations have received between $21.1 million and $53.6 million in PPP funds. North Carolina is ranked 43 (wallethub.com).

Charters seem to be good at spending money on non-academic expenses; scandal after scandal after scandal of overpaid administrators, no accountability, misappropriation of funding,… the list goes on. Many might read this and think MORE money is needed for charters, but with no accountability, there’s no measure of their academic success (which in most cases doesn’t exist). And the bottom line on charters is that they are funneling taxpayers money away from urban public schools.

And now, charter schools and charter management organizations are taking PPP money meant to help struggling small businesses.

According to a recent report from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, “…initial disclosures from the Small Business Administration of PPP loans approved between the amounts of $150,000 and $10 million are disturbing. Private schools — both religious and secular — received between $2.67 billion and $6.47 billion in forgivable PPP loans” (Hawks, Baptist News Global).

This, of course, has the secretary of education written all over it. Private schools have benefited from the federal assistance through PPP, along with the DOE regulations to assist them. The CARES Act created two funding streams for public K-12 schools: the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (Hawks, Baptist News Global).

In order to create new funding streams for private schools, DeVos and her department have misinterpreted the law by setting aside millions of dollars earmarked for public schools to create a new federal voucher program to pay for education outside the public schools and specified the CARES Act to ensure that nonpublic schools were included in the funds (ed.gov).

Charter schools claim to be public schools when they want tax dollars, but now they can be private and take money meant to keep employees in struggling small businesses. Isn’t that double dipping?  This is a clear example of pandemic capitalism- trying to get something during a pandemic that would, under normal circumstances, not be attainable – taking full advantage of the pandemic for self-serving purposes. DeVos is fulfilling one of the education policy goals of this administration; the privatization of public schools. Look at what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Here’s a link if  you would like to write to Congress to tell them to stop charter schools from getting SBA funds intended to help small businesses. I encourage you to do so.

These are my reflections for today.

8/7/20

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William Frantz Public School:  A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator (August 2020 release) Peter Lang Publishing.