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Blackwell Ignoring Ohio Voters’ 37 Percent Solution

Submitted by Anonymous on April 6, 2007 - 1:08pm

Former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell may have decided to get back into public life, but he does not seem to have learned much from his devastating loss in last year’s election. Blackwell ran for governor of Ohio last year with an education policy platform based solely on his support for school defunding, the “65% Deception,” and vouchers. Blackwell’s opponent – now Governor Ted Strickland - expressed his principled opposition to vouchers throughout the campaign.

Blackwell’s full-throated advocacy of publicly funded private school vouchers earned him praise from some of the nation’s most ardent advocates of school privatization.

For instance, voucher warrior and affirmative action foe Clint Bolick said the voucher movement “has no greater friend than Ken Blackwell.” And voucher pusher Patrick Byrne, also the impresario of the “65% Deception,” praised Blackwell’s “passion” for vouchers. Voucher backers made sure that the money kept rolling in.  Blackwell’s campaign received at least $100, 000 from voucher groups such as Bolick’s Advocates for School Choice

But on Election Day, Blackwell received just under 37% of the vote.

In spite of that dramatic evidence that vouchers and other privatization schemes do not enjoy wide-spread public support in Ohio, and research showing the same nationally, Blackwell soldiers on.  In his first published column since joining the staff of the Family Research Council, Blackwell attacks Governor Strickland’s groundbreaking plan to eliminate the EdChoice voucher program and redirect the money back to Ohio’s public schools:

Calling school vouchers "undemocratic" and charter schools a "dismal failure," Gov. Strickland, in his first major public policy address, slammed the door of educational opportunity on thousands of poor children and crushed the hopes of their parents.

By denying these children the equal access to a quality education that choice programs offer, he also denied that the bloated public education bureaucracy and its entrenched unions have failed our children.

Despite Blackwell’s assertion that voucher programs offer students “equal access,” private schools can choose who to accept – many deny admission to all students with special needs – and students who currently receive vouchers do not have the ‘choice’ to attend any school they wish.  Last year, Ohio voters had a choice, and elected a governor openly committed to funding and strengthening Ohio’s public schools – and focusing on proven reforms – as the best way to ensure that all children have access to a quality education.

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Clint Bolick Urges 'Judicial Activism' against 'Big Government'

Submitted by Anonymous on April 3, 2007 - 10:59pm

In WSJ op-ed (temp link).

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Vouchers and the Art of Ardent Lovemaking

Submitted by Anonymous on December 12, 2006 - 5:10pm

Bolick's BookMonths ago, voucher warrior Clint Bolick announced he would leave his position as head of the Alliance for School Choice. It may have been more of a career change than we realized -- writing romance novels. Bolick has decided to release his first self-proclaimed work of fiction, Nicki’s Girl, just in time for the holiday shopping season: One on-line book seller offers the following description:

When talented young architect Kevin Gibbons meets Nicole Petri, he is quickly swept away. Nicki's otherworldly beauty, sweet disposition, and ardent lovemaking seem almost too good to be true. Even after she reveals alarming personality traits, Kevin marries her.

Eventually Nicki bears the daughter she desperately desires. But despite the fact that Alexandria is the spitting image of her mother, her arrival does little to purge Nicki's demons. Alex's behavior in turn veers between angelic and terrifying, forcing Kevin to struggle furiously to save both his little girl's life and his own sanity.

Along with this brief synopsis, one can find several stellar reviews. Alliance for School Choice communications director calls her boss’s book a “page turner.” Libertarian lawyer and Goldwater Institute staffer Jordan K. Rose says Bolick’s “foray into fiction” is a “must read.” And "Diane Bolick" objectively opines that she “can’t put it down.”

The voucher movement has suffered a number of setbacks recently, but it remains to be seen if the public will appreciate Bolick’s fiction any more than they support school vouchers.

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A Voucher Warrior Steps off the Battlefield?

Submitted by Anonymous on October 6, 2006 - 12:33pm

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The voucher movement has been dealt some serious set-backs in recent months. In July, a study by the Department of Education found that public school students outperform their private school peers – undercutting the right-wing’s basic argument that private schools are better. In August, a similar study found that public school students also learn more than students in charter schools. Last month, a survey released by Gallup and the non-partisan education organization Phi Delta Kappa found that public support for vouchers is in a free-fall. A poll of Indiana residents by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy came up with similar results. And recently major fractures have occurred between different factions of the Right over the proposed national voucher program and the Bush administration’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act.

All this may have proven to be too much for one of the privatization movement’s biggest stars. An Arizona paper announced yesterday that Clint Bolick, president and general counsel for the pro-voucher Alliance for School Choice has taken a position with a Scottsdale law firm. In recent years, Bolick has committed himself to fighting against public education, he first rose to prominence a crusader against affirmative action as a disciple of Clarence Thomas. He was co-founder of the right-wing legal group called the Institute for Justice and a prominent player in the conservative libertarian community.

This news may not indicate Bolick’s outright surrender in the Voucher Wars, but could it be the beginning of a strategic retreat and reorganization at the highest levels of the right-wing coalition against public education?

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Voucher Group Defends Coulson’s Deception

Submitted by Anonymous on September 21, 2006 - 12:31pm

UPDATE: Within hours of this post, Cato removed the offending article from its website.

A few days ago Right Wing Watch noted that Cato’s Andrew Coulson was caught falsely casting aspersions on an academic research center in Indiana. The Center for Evaluation and Education Policy recently released a survey that found falling public support for vouchers. Unwilling to believe the results, Coulson launched an untruthful ad hominem attack on CEEP claiming that their study couldn’t be trusted. Now, Clint Bolick’s Alliance for School Choice has stepped up to defend Coulson.

The folks over at PFAW's blog must have at least pulled a muscle when they stretched to take a swipe at Cato's Andrew Coulson. Here's PFAW's account: Earlier this month, Andrew wrote a column in the Indianapolis Star critical of Indiana University's Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. CEEP periodically polls Indianans on school choice, and recent poll results have shown declining support for school choice among respondents. Andrew's principal complaints: CEEP's financial ties to IU's Department of Education make the group biased against school choice, and the question design was flawed.

CEEP's Jonathan Plucker fired back that CEEP is financially independent of IUDOE; that the costs of the poll are likewise paid by CEEP to prevent any hint of bias; and that CEEP works with outside polling experts to make sure the results are accurate and reliable.

Bolick’s group , does not dispute that “Andrew” was lying. Instead, they praise him for issuing a purported retraction, to which they provide a link.

However, PFAW oddly fails to mention that, five days after the column ran in the Indy Star, Coulson subsequently posted this on Cato's blog.

Sure enough, there is a post on Cato’s blog, dated 9/8, in which Coulson acknowledges his error:

In a recent op-ed for the Indianapolis Star, I wrote that Indiana University’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) had a vested interest in finding school choice to be unpopular with voters — because it was a part of the University’s Department of Education, and that department could well be rendered obsolete under a large scale school choice program. As it turns out, the Center is largely financially independent of the Department, and so would not likely go down with the ship under a voucher or education tax credit program.

But on that same day, Coulson’s column, including the passage he admits is false, was posted on Cato’s website, where it still appeared without the correction nearly two weeks later.

Coulson himself may have apologized, but Cato and the Alliance for School Choice don’t seem to have a problem perpetuating his false allegations.

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Uh Oh – Fractures developing in the Right-Wing Coalition against Public Education

Submitted by Anonymous on September 7, 2006 - 11:15am

In today’s Wall Street Journal, voucher warrior Clint Bolick takes aim at Bush Administration Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. It seems Bolick doesn’t think the No Child Left Behind Act is destroying public schools fast enough and Spellings is to blame. Bolick is upset that not enough parents have yanked their children out of LA public schools.

The question is whether Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings--whose administration has made NCLB the centerpiece of its education agenda--will do anything about it. She has the power to withhold federal funds from districts that fail to comply with NCLB, and has threatened to do just that. Rhetoric, so far, has exceeded action.

Incredulous that parents would actually prefer to keep their children in public schools, Bolick laments that “as of yet private school choice is not an option under NCLB.” Bolick reminds us that right-wingers in Congress have proposed a national voucher bill, but until then, he says, the battle against public schools must be led by Secretary Spellings.

In response, Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and John Ensign and Reps. Buck McKeon and Sam Johnson have proposed adding private options under NCLB for children in chronically failing schools. But for now, the only hope for these kids is for Secretary Spellings to hold the districts' feet to the fire.

For her part Spellings, thinks NCLB is a nearly perfect law, but Bolick is not appeased. Pleading with her to withhold funding from LA public schools, Bolick issues a final warning to Spellings.

Will she or won't she? Margaret Spellings's actions in the coming days will determine far more than the Bush administration's education legacy.

Ouch.

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Dialing for Vouchers

Submitted by Anonymous on September 6, 2006 - 10:29am

A group headed by voucher pusher and civil rights foe Clint Bolick has created a telephone hotline to help Arizona parents get information on the state’s new pro-privatization laws. Right now callers to the hotline are simply asked to leave a message, but Arizona Republic columnist Richard Ruelas offers Bolick’s group some helpful suggestions to make the hotline a better source of honest information:

"Hello and thank you for calling the School Choice hotline. For English, please stay on the line. Para Español, press '2' to be disconnected since no Arizona private schools offer programs for English learners.


"If you are poor, please press '3.'


"If you are not sure if you are 'poor,' know that Arizona's new corporate tax-credit law defines 'poor' as being nearly 3.5 times the poverty level, or $68,450 for a family of four. Press '4' for more instructions, or have your servants figure it out.


"If you wish to make a campaign donation to Representative Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, the man who pushed for this bill and will benefit from it since he heads up one of Arizona's largest tuition tax-credit organizations, press '5.'


"If you wish to just laugh hysterically over the fact that Arizona passed a law that defines a $68,000 household as 'poor,' press '6.' One of us school-choice types will be on the line to gladly laugh along with you."

No doubt the ‘school choice types’ Ruelas refers to are having a good laugh. As People For the American Way Foundation research has shown, the so-called ‘tuition tax credits’ in Arizona, which overwhelmingly benefit wealthy parents and private, religious schools, are nothing more than vouchers in disguise. Though voucher pushers like Bolick claim to support public education, corporate tax credit schemes divert millions of dollars of public money to unaccountable private schools - millions of dollars that could be spent on public school reforms that work.

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Under the Rubric of Education Rights, Lawsuit Seeks to Undermine Schools

Submitted by Anonymous on August 14, 2006 - 8:13pm

Right-wing activist Clint Bolick is pushing a lawsuit in New Jersey, claiming that schools in cities like Newark are not meeting the state’s constitutional standards for quality education. But instead of demanding that the state improve its public school system, the longtime school voucher advocate wants to force the state to fund private schools with public money—leaving even less resources for struggling schools. PFAW education analyst Kevin Franck has more about Bolick’s strategy in a commentary on EducationNews.org.

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