The Tearing Down Of Public Schools

The voucher system is designed to bring the demise of public schools. Florida just created the most horrible voucher system.

Critics say voucher law will hurt public schools — yet 3 School Board members at signing
Miami Herald
By Sommer Brugal
April 7, 2023

When Gov. Ron DeSantis’ took the stage at a Catholic all-boys private school in Miami to sign into law one of the largest private school voucher programs in the country, the Miami Dade School Board chairwoman and two board members were in attendance.

Mari Tere Rojas, the chairwoman, and board members Roberto Alonso and Mary Blanco took photos with the governor, shortly after DeSantis touted the new law, HB 1, which will soon make every school-aged child in Florida eligible for vouchers regardless of the family’s income levels.

Ding, ding, ding… not school bells but warning bells. What set off the bells for me was “family’s income levels” do you think that low and moderate income levels would be able to afford a thousand dollars in tuition every year? And if they have more that one child that would be “thousands” of dollars.

So what is wrong with vouchers?

Since House Speaker Paul Renner introduced the voucher bill in January, public school advocates have argued the initiative will divert money from public schools without having many of the accountability requirements that traditional schools must meet.

Following DeSantis’ bill signing, Florida Education Association (FEA) President Andrew Spar said in a statement the now-law “will siphon billions away from the schools [...and] will leave children with fewer resources in their already underfunded classrooms and fewer teachers and staff to meet their needs.”

Special needs students… Nein at private schools. Special needs students are too costly for private schools and too much of a trouble.

Under achievers… Nein at private schools. They lower the school’s GPA and they lower the school’s percentage of students going on to college.

Others argue the bill will benefit affluent families already attending private schools. At Christopher Columbus, where the bill was signed, tuition is $15,400.

Karla Hernandez, Miami-Dade teachers union president, in a statement last month said the bill “amounts to welfare for many wealthy parents who spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on private education and will now use this to subsidize that education.”

And then there is fact that they can refuse LGBTQ+ students.

Schools can refuse blacks because the a private company,

Religious schools can refuse students for other religions.

Religious schools can refuse students from unmarried couples.

Private schools can hire non-teachers to teach.

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The National Education Association (NEA) list problems with the voucher system.

Vouchers

December 2, 2023

Vouchers take scarce funding from students in public schools and give those resources to unaccountable private schools.

Moreover, there is ZERO statistical significance that voucher programs improve overall student success, and some programs have even shown to have a NEGATIVE effect for students receiving a voucher. 

Furthermore, vouchers have been shown to not support students with disabilities, they fail to protect the human and civil rights of students, and they exacerbate segregation.

Here in Connecticut we had a court case about discrimination in school systems, Sheff v. O'Neill that said that the schools were racial discriminating minorities. In January of last year the case was finally settled.

As a results that case charter schools were born, they are private schools but are under “charter” to the State board of Education so that means that they have to obey all state laws.

[…]

ROOTED IN SEGREGATION AND RACISM 

 Vouchers were first created after the Supreme Court banned school segregation with its ruling in Brown v Board of Education. School districts used vouchers to enable white students to attend private schools, which could (and still can) limit admission based on race. As a result, the schools that served those white students were closed, and schools that served black students remained chronically underfunded.  

The pattern of discrimination continues with vouchers today. Unlike public schools, private schools can (and some do) limit their admission based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and any other number of factors. Furthermore, vouchers rarely cover the full tuition, so families who were promised a better education are left footing the bill.

Vouchers is the tool that the Republicans are using to dismanttle the public school systems.

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Updated April 15, 2023 5:00 PM

Another article about vouchers just came out...

Private school vouchers are shaping up to be huge part of the 2024 election as GOP candidates work to 'one up' each other on the issue

• The GOP movement toward "school choice" is gaining momentum in many states.
• GOP presidential candidates have promised to send more public money to private schools.
• Educators are worried about diverting funds from under-resourced public schools.

Business Insider

By Kimberly Leonard

April 15, 2023

The Republican Party is accelerating its push to remake public education, and it's already becoming a key piece of the 2024 presidential nomination contest.

While battles over how classrooms should teach about race and LGBTQ topics have fired up the GOP base, the expansion of school vouchers is taking hold in red states. The vouchers use public dollars to move K-12 students out of public schools and into private, charter, and magnet schools — and sometimes even offset homeschooling costs. 

Iowa, Utah, West Virginia, Florida, and Arkansas have moved to make vouchers widely available. North Dakota, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee could be next. 

Democrats and teacher's unions view the vouchers as a devastating attack on underfunded public schools, and as yet another issue broadening the differences between red and blue states.

I look at it as an attempt to defund public schools!

They skim the cream off the top and point to the high graduation rates… But they are high because they kick out low achievers and do not accept any special ed students. And the white middle class is eating right up!

One past recipient of the voucher program was Hera Varmah, who attended a private Catholic school for high school and middle school. She grew up in a large family — with 12 siblings — and her parents were immigrants to the US who couldn't have afforded the school without Florida's tax-credit scholarship.

She and eight of her siblings used the vouchers, while three attended public schools outside of the ones they were zoned for.

Great for her, but what will happen if they were LGBTQ+… they wouldn’t be allowed to attend the school. But that is okay because it didn’t happen to them since we only make up 10% of the population.

Lawmakers in Tallahassee are still crunching the numbers for its voucher program, but the Florida Senate is estimating it'll spend more than $800 million on new vouchers and is planning to put aside another $305 million in reserves. That means the total spending on vouchers, with existing students, would be $2.2 billion.

Teacher's unions say the money would be better spent on existing and under-funded public schools that are facing dire staff shortages.

And then there is what I have been saying…

Other than the financial aspect, critics of vouchers have raised concerns about discriminatory practices at non-public schools, where admission can be denied or revoked to LGBTQ students or based on other factors such as religion, academics, or disciplinary records. 

Public schools also have numerous requirements, standards, and regulations to abide by, including staff credentialing, in contrast to the schools getting vouchers. Spar said vouchers amounted to "using taxpayer money to go to private schools and home schools with practically no accountability."

BINGO! 

No accountability, able to discriminate, do not have to accept special needs students, and they can kick out under performers. No wonder that they have a high graduation and college acceptance rates.