school voucher

Scott Walker’s Latest Pro-Voucher Gambit Exposes Dishonesty Of The Voucher Movement

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 5/13/2011 1:24 pm

Private school voucher advocates and their allies in the so-called “education reform” movement readily talk about the need for rigorous, constant testing along with the application of free market principles to education: reward high-performing schools and teachers and punish bad ones.

Over the last decade, Milwaukee has been a laboratory for private school vouchers, and the results have been poor: numerous studies have shown that vouchers failed to make any difference in student performance. Just like in Washington, DC and Cleveland, private school vouchers in Milwaukee failed to produce the gains their supporters promised as students, with students in the Milwaukee voucher program actually performing worse than comparable public school students.

But now Republican Gov. Scott Walker wants to expand the ineffective voucher program while cutting funds to public schools. And so much for the emphasis on testing -- voucher students will now be exempted from the tests that revealed the program’s failure.

The Wausau Daily Herald reports:

Milwaukee’s voucher school program would be expanded under a Republican-backed bill expected to pass the state Assembly on Tuesday.

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State Superintendent Tony Evers has questioned expanding the voucher program at the same time Walker is proposing cutting public school aid by more than $800 million over the next two years.

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Walker is also proposing eliminating in his budget that voucher students take the same statewide achievement tests that public school students must take.

This year, results were released for the first time comparing public school and voucher students. They showed voucher students lagging behind their peers in public schools.

That’s right, even though voucher students are “lagging behind their peers in public schools,” voucher programs are being rewarded with expansion while public schools are punished with cuts. With little care for accountability and testing, this move by Walker and the Wisconsin GOP demonstrates how the push for private school vouchers is really about the Right’s ideological war against public education.

The pro-voucher American Federation for Children is even launching an ad campaign to defend Wisconsin Republicans facing recall votes, and recently hosted an event where they honored Walker for his voucher advocacy. AFC was founded and funded by Betsy Devos, a Religious Right activist and wife of Dick Devos, the son of the founder of Amway and an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Michigan. Today, AFC is one of the most aggressive pro-voucher groups, and aims to fully privatize public education.

Through their advocacy for private school vouchers, the Devos family merged their anti-union and anti-public school beliefs with their mission to chip away at the separation of church and state. The Devos family is a key benefactor of Religious Right groups across the country, financing major social conservative organizations like Focus on the Family and the Council for National Policy, and provided almost the entire funding for Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

With Scott Walker admitting that the private school voucher movement’s emphasis on testing, results and accountability is hogwash, it is abundantly clear what the real goal is: privatizing public education.

Heck: DC Mayor Vince Gray Wants To Punish Kids Who "Survive The Abortion Holocaust"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 5/9/2011 4:41 pm

During the heated fight over the federal budget, Republicans won a compromise that stopped the city of Washington D.C. from using its own tax dollars to help low-income women access reproductive health services and added more funding to a DC private school voucher program opposed by local officials. Strongly objecting to the House GOP’s blatant encroachment on home rule, which included financing an ineffective voucher program while taking away crucial funding for women’s family planning, DC Mayor Vince Gray and a number of Council members were arrested during a protest. Anti-choice leaders harshly criticized Gray, deriding him a proponent of black genocide who wants to destroy the city’s African American population.

Indiana right-wing commentator Peter Heck, who called President Obama a disgrace to his ancestors over his pro-choice views, is out with a new column charging Gray with supporting the “slaughter [of] innocent children” while punishing those “who survive the abortion holocaust”:

But beyond the blatantly obvious flip-flops which the Obama-loving mainstream press find a way to excuse as just part of the president's remarkably nuanced mind, this behavior fits a much larger pattern of inconsistency that has come to define the liberal mind in America. Inconsistencies that should bring great embarrassment when exposed, and that rationality would demand be confronted and resolved, are systematically embraced and welcomed in the land of left-believe.

How else can one explain the recent protest that took place in Washington, DC? There, over 40 liberals (including the city's mayor and several councilmen) took to the streets to complain that the budget deal recently passed by Congress would deprive the nation's capital city of federal tax dollars to fund abortions. In the name of choice, these left-wing activists blocked the streets until being detained by police. On its own, seeing a group of liberals championing the right to choose to kill children in the womb is nothing new.

But that wasn't all they were protesting. Another part of the budget deal that had raised their ire was the reinstatement of the Opportunities Scholarship Program. This school-choice program provides poor families the chance to move their children from failing inner-city schools to higher performing ones, allowing future generations of predominantly minority students the opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty that engulfs them. This protest, then, is the perfect embodiment of modern liberal thought: rally in the streets to continue facilitating the choice to slaughter innocent children in the womb while simultaneously demanding that those children who survive the abortion holocaust be given no choice to break free from their deplorable surroundings.

Pro-Voucher Group Working Against Recall of Union-Busting Wisconsin Republicans

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/22/2011 12:40 pm

An organization that backs private school vouchers is campaigning against the recall of the eight Republican Wisconsin senators who backed Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union legislation. The so-called American Federation for Children (AFC) is an ardent supporter of the voucher scheme in Milwaukee, the unsuccessful voucher program which Walker and his GOP allies want to export to other parts of the state as part of bolstering the Republicans’ attacks on public schools and teachers.

Listen to their robocall defending GOP Senator Sheila Harsdorf:

At the same time that Walker and the Republicans proposed a massive $834 million cut to public schools, endangering the state’s esteemed public education system, they seek to spend more taxpayer money on a wasteful voucher program that has been unable to improve the education of Milwaukee students. A comprehensive study in 2009 found “no overall statistically significant difference between [voucher school] and [public school] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after they were carefully matched to each other,” and that fourth graders in the voucher program were actually performing worse than comparable public school students.

While the private school voucher scheme did nothing to improve education, it did funnel taxpayer dollars to religious schools: of the 120 schools receiving vouchers examined in the study, 95 were religious and 7 operate within a religious tradition.

Renowned education scholar Diane Ravitch, once a proponent of the so-called “school choice” movement, told OnMilwaukee.com that the voucher program “has not worked”:

Milwaukee is indeed the nation's laboratory for assessing the value of school choice. The advocates of school choice predicted that academic performance in choice schools would not only soar, but that the competitive pressure would cause achievement in the regular district schools to improve. None of this has happened. The latest studies show that students in voucher schools and in charter schools do not perform any differently from those in the regular public schools.

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"Reformers" in Milwaukee have been pursuing strategies that we now know are ineffective. The more time and resources devoted to ineffective strategies, the less attention there is to finding useful improvements. Choice got the support of foundations and business leaders, but it has not worked.

Even the state schools superintendent Tom Evers agreed that “choice schools have proven to be no more effective and in some cases less effective than Milwaukee Public Schools.”

But organizations like the AFC ignore and dismiss the clear findings that the Milwaukee voucher program is a wrongheaded and ill-designed effort to improve education, and instead want to expand the program to more school districts and tear down the public education system. Now, they want to make sure that Republican legislators keep their jobs and continue to support vouchers and bust unions representing public school teachers.

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 12/28/10

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 12/28/2010 10:37 am

Haley Barbour

Mississippi: Uses private jet for political and entertainment outings, state spent over $500,000 for his air travel (Politico, 12/27).

Race: Controversy over Barbour’s Citizens Council “whitewash” continues (Christian Science Monitor, 12/22).

John Bolton

Government: Says government should not cut defense spending to shrink the deficit (TPM, 12/27).

Social issues: Denounces non-binding treaty on the rights of indigenous people (Fox News, 12/25).

Mitch Daniels

Social issues: Stands by his support for a “truce” on social issues (Politico, 12/27).

Education: Details private school voucher plan (Courier Journal, 12/24).

Mike Huckabee

GOP: Think Progress investigation ties Huckabee to “a firm notorious for defrauding families facing foreclosure with false promises and predatory fees” (Think Progress, 12/27).

Health Care: Huckabee and Palin’s own 2009 speech challenge Palin’s criticism of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity efforts (The Hill, 12/27).

Sarah Palin

Language: Claims “Refudiate” was a typo, but she used the term in an earlier interview on Fox News (NY Daily News, 12/27).

Environment: Says conservationists are hypocrites for using pencils and paper (HuffPo, 12/27).

Foreign policy: Former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino says Palin’s reality show and policy role give her an “authenticity” problem (The Right Scoop, 12/26).

2012: Peggy Noonan predicts that Palin won’t run for President but will have immense clout in the primary (GOP12, 12/26).

Tim Pawlenty

2012: Upcoming book tour could serve as “a test of his appeal” to Republican voters nationwide (Gannett, 12/24).

Religious Right: Sidesteps judicial nomination process and appoints Religious Right activist and deputy chief of staff’s wife to district court (RWW, 12/23).

Mike Pence

Religious Right: Leaders of Religious Right groups believe Pence can unite social conservatives with fiscal hawks (WSJ, 12/27).

GOP: Columnist believes Pence can successfully run for the nomination by “reuniting the Reagan Coalition” (Forbes, 12/23).

Mitt Romney

Health Care: Struggles to balance his criticism of coverage mandate with his support for a mandate in Massachusetts (HuffPo, 12/27).

2012: Holiday card asks, “Guess which grandchild heard that Papa might run again?” (Politico, 12/22).

John Thune

Government: Flounders in attempt to oppose earmarks while requesting more than $100 million (AP, 12/28).

Minnesota: Headlining MN GOP’s Lincoln/Reagan Dinner (Star Tribune, 12/22).

'Patriot Pastor' Televangelist’s Voucher-Funded School Employs Uncertified Teachers

Submitted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 5/2/2007 12:23 pm

Although Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) has said he wants to eliminate the state’s troubled private-school voucher program, the Republican-controlled state House yesterday passed a budget maintaining the program, and the state Senate is apparently poised to do the same. The Columbus Dispatch reports on one parochial school that fails to meet the lowered requirements for private schools to receive state money: Harvest Preparatory Academy, operated by televangelist Rod Parsley’s World Harvest megachurch.

About 500 students attend Harvest Preparatory Academy. Thirty-six teachers and two aides educate them.

But only eight are licensed, the Ohio Department of Education says. And more than one-third of staff members hadn't had a background check more than midway through the school year.

Parsley is a major player in Ohio Republican politics. Along with Russell Johnson, another area megachurch pastor, he organized a political machine of so-called “patriot pastors” that in effect functioned as a church-based campaign arm for Kenneth Blackwell’s 2006 bid to defeat Strickland for governor. Blackwell, who once proposed eliminating all state funding of public schools, made expanding the voucher program a signature of his campaign, which lost by a wide margin.

Little-Known Group Spends $1 Million on Offensive Ads to Lure Blacks to Vote Republican

Submitted by Anonymous on Thursday, 10/19/2006 4:31 pm

A group called America’s PAC has raised almost $1 million to run highly inflammatory radio ads targeting African American voters, urging them to vote Republican in November, according to the New York Sun.

One ad, called “Don’t Go There,” features an exchange between two men. The first man says the second man has no reason to vote Republican because he is unemployed, an adulterer, and won’t serve in the military, and finally he comes to abortion:

Michael: And if you make a little mistake with one of your ho’s, you’ll want to dispose of that problem toot sweet, no questions asked, right?

Dennis: Naw, that’s too cold. I don’t snuff my own seed …

Michael: Huh. Really? (pause) Well, maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican!

Another ad on abortion accuses the “Democrat Party” of “decimating our people” by supporting abortion laws. Over the sound of a thunderstorm and a crying baby, a woman says, “Democrats say they want our votes. Why don’t they want our lives?”

In another ad, “Hazardous Dukes,” the “Michael” character says David Duke visited Syria to support terrorists in Iraq. The speaker continues,

Now, I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists. They fight voting rights in Iraq, just like he does back home. But what I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke.

Duke, the founder of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was a Republican state representative in Louisiana and ran for governor as a Republican.

Other ads blame Democrats for Hurricane Katrina and voting irregularities in Florida in 2000, call Social Security “the most discriminatory government program we have,” invoke Martin Luther King, and assert that “it’s only the Republicans who support our troops.” Unlike other right-wing efforts to reach out to African Americans by focusing on just abortion and gay marriage, the PAC’s ads range across the panoply of Republican issues, from regulation and “school choice” to Iraq and NSA wiretapping. You can listen to 24 of these radio spots on America’s PAC’s web site.

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

Submitted by Anonymous on Monday, 8/14/2006 9:13 pm
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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school voucher Posts Archive

Scott Walker’s Latest Pro-Voucher Gambit Exposes Dishonesty Of The Voucher Movement
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 05/13/2011, 1:24pm
Private school voucher advocates and their allies in the so-called “education reform” movement readily talk about the need for rigorous, constant testing along with the application of free market principles to education: reward high-performing schools and teachers and punish bad ones. Over the last decade, Milwaukee has been a laboratory for private school vouchers, and the results have been poor: numerous studies have shown that vouchers failed to make any difference in student performance. Just like in Washington, DC and Cleveland, private school vouchers in Milwaukee failed... MORE
Heck: DC Mayor Vince Gray Wants To Punish Kids Who "Survive The Abortion Holocaust"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 05/09/2011, 4:41pm
During the heated fight over the federal budget, Republicans won a compromise that stopped the city of Washington D.C. from using its own tax dollars to help low-income women access reproductive health services and added more funding to a DC private school voucher program opposed by local officials. Strongly objecting to the House GOP’s blatant encroachment on home rule, which included financing an ineffective voucher program while taking away crucial funding for women’s family planning, DC Mayor Vince Gray and a number of Council members were arrested during a protest. Anti-... MORE
Pro-Voucher Group Working Against Recall of Union-Busting Wisconsin Republicans
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 03/22/2011, 12:40pm
An organization that backs private school vouchers is campaigning against the recall of the eight Republican Wisconsin senators who backed Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union legislation. The so-called American Federation for Children (AFC) is an ardent supporter of the voucher scheme in Milwaukee, the unsuccessful voucher program which Walker and his GOP allies want to export to other parts of the state as part of bolstering the Republicans’ attacks on public schools and teachers. Listen to their robocall defending GOP Senator Sheila Harsdorf: At the same time that Walker and the... MORE
2012 Candidates Weekly Update 12/28/10
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 12/28/2010, 10:37am
Haley Barbour Mississippi: Uses private jet for political and entertainment outings, state spent over $500,000 for his air travel (Politico, 12/27). Race: Controversy over Barbour’s Citizens Council “whitewash” continues (Christian Science Monitor, 12/22). John Bolton Government: Says government should not cut defense spending to shrink the deficit (TPM, 12/27). Social issues: Denounces non-binding treaty on the rights of indigenous people (Fox News, 12/25). Mitch Daniels Social issues: Stands by his support for a “truce” on social issues (Politico, 12/... MORE
'Patriot Pastor' Televangelist’s Voucher-Funded School Employs Uncertified Teachers
, Wednesday 05/02/2007, 12:23pm
Although Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) has said he wants to eliminate the state’s troubled private-school voucher program, the Republican-controlled state House yesterday passed a budget maintaining the program, and the state Senate is apparently poised to do the same. The Columbus Dispatch reports on one parochial school that fails to meet the lowered requirements for private schools to receive state money: Harvest Preparatory Academy, operated by televangelist Rod Parsley’s World Harvest megachurch. About 500 students attend Harvest Preparatory Academy. Thirty-... MORE
Little-Known Group Spends $1 Million on Offensive Ads to Lure Blacks to Vote Republican
, Thursday 10/19/2006, 4:31pm
A group called America’s PAC has raised almost $1 million to run highly inflammatory radio ads targeting African American voters, urging them to vote Republican in November, according to the New York Sun. One ad, called “Don’t Go There,” features an exchange between two men. The first man says the second man has no reason to vote Republican because he is unemployed, an adulterer, and won’t serve in the military, and finally he comes to abortion: Michael: And if you make a little mistake with one of your ho’s, you’ll want to... MORE
Under the Rubric of Education Rights, Lawsuit Seeks to Undermine Schools
, Monday 08/14/2006, 9:13pm
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. MORE