Here’s what Jeb Bush really did to public education in Florida - The Washington Post

If you care about your child's education or your grandchild's, this is not the way to go.

Now that Jeb Bush is officially in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, expect his campaign to talk a lot about school reforms he spearheaded in Florida when he was governor from 1999-2007, and about his role as a leader in the national corporate school reform movement. You will hear about his reforms — standardized test-based “accountability,” for example, and “school choice” — along with claims of success in helping to transform schools. But there are big questions about his claims: Did his Florida reforms really accomplish what he says they did? When he talks about helping schools, which ones is he talking about?

Here’s what you won’t hear — and what is vital to know to fully assess Bush’s education reform record and to understand why his critics call him a privatizer — and not a reformer — of public education.

Here’s what Jeb Bush really did to public education in Florida - The Washington Post

See also:

The Big Jeb Bush Charter School Lie: Why His Florida Education ‘Miracle’ Is Hogwash

In 1996, Liberty City was the place Jeb Bush chose to introduce his big change — charter schools, the privately managed, publicly funded schools that operate outside the oversight of democratically governed school systems. Bush created Florida’s first charter school in Liberty City in an attempt to salvage a faltering political image by building credibility on both the education and civil rights fronts. But Liberty City Charter School proved to be much more than a campaign prop, sparking as it did a bushfire of charter school startups across Florida that continues to this day. Now there are over 600 charter schools in the state, and Florida's policies for charter school governance – ranked in the nation's top 10 by charter industry advocates — are touted as models for the rest of the nation.
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 As charter schools began to pop up here and there around the country, there’s no doubt Bush was aware of the trend. In fact, according to a recent article by Alec MacGillis in the New Yorker, the same year Bush founded his own advocacy group, he also "joined the board of the Heritage Foundation, which was generating papers and proposals to break up what it viewed as the government-run monopoly of the public-school system through free-market competition, with charters and private-school vouchers."

7 Most Absurd Things America's Kids Are Learning Thanks to the Conservative Gutting of Public Education | Alternet

Although I agree with the premise of what the author is trying to show, and she does admit to just sampling, I wish she would have gone a bit deeper into the atrocities that are passing for education under these programs. A good overview but something feels missing and I can't think what

Conservatives are masters at using distortion and subterfuge to sell people on things they would never buy if properly labeled. Nowhere is this more evident than in the arena of “school choice” -- a conservative euphemism for "gutting public education from the inside out."

According to its major proponents, like the late Milton “Pinochet es mi amigo” Friedman, “school choice gives parents the freedom to choose their children’s education, while encouraging healthy competition among schools to better serve families' needs.” Sounds lovely! But, it turns out, there are plenty of well-documented problems with school choice, especially when it comes to the school voucher system, which provides families with public funds to send their children to private -- often religious -- schools.

Voucher programs in particular have been proven to be largely ineffective; they weaken the public school system, and fail to address inequality, which may be why their supporters, like the Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity and Dick Morris, love them. Through their concerted efforts, vouchers are on the rise: In 2013, 15 states started or expanded their voucher programs.

7 Most Absurd Things America's Kids Are Learning Thanks to the Conservative Gutting of Public Education | Alternet

Alexander Proposes 11 Million $2,100 "Scholarships For Kids" - 01/28/2014 - Chattanoogan.com

More follow up that needs more digging into,,,

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) Tuesday introduced legislation that would allow states to create $2,100 scholarships out of existing federal education dollars to follow 11 million low-income children to any public or private school of their parents’ choice.

The Scholarships for Kids Act would redirect $24 billion, or 41 percent of the dollars now directly spent on federal K-12 education programs. Senator Alexander unveiled the proposal during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute alongside Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who has introduced legislation that would create similar scholarships for children with disabilities.

Alexander Proposes 11 Million $2,100 "Scholarships For Kids" - 01/28/2014 - Chattanoogan.com

Daily Kos: Senate "CHOICE" bill would pulverize Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Follow up to previous post,,,

There bares watching as so far this is the only article I have found discussing the nefarious nature of this money grab or as one commenter suggested, "commoditizng [of] public schools". Going to have to do a bit more digging to get a better handle on some of the details.  The author focuses on point number three, students with special needs.
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It didn't get a lot of attention, but U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) declared war on public education for students with special needs last month when he introduced the CHOICE Act (S. 1909, "Creating Hope and Opportunity for Individuals and Communities through Education Act").

He's actually proposing three voucher programs. One would expand the failed D.C. voucher program. A second would create a new military-kids voucher program.

The third would undermine the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act beyond all recognition, by directing IDEA funds into existing voucher programs for students with special needs, but stripping the funding of any requirement to actually abide by IDEA.

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So students with disabilities surrender all their IDEA rights and protections when they take a private school voucher, and private schools cherry-pick which students with disabilities they wish to serve. That means the public schools, who have to accept and educate everyone according to IDEA, wind up educating the students with greater challenges - with less and less money as the private voucher schools hoover up an increasingly greater share.

Until now, the voucher programs couldn't access the funds attached to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. While federal IDEA funding has routinely fallen short of necessary levels, at least the dollars have been firmly attached to IDEA being carried out in the schools that take the dollars.

ALEC, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and the usual cast of radical GOP Senators co-sponsoring the bill, want to change all that. They want IDEA money for private schools, but they don't want the private schools to have to follow IDEA law.

Daily Kos: Senate "CHOICE" bill would pulverize Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Bad Ideas and Principles During "School Choice Week" | American Civil Liberties Union

Two more pieces of legislation that will bare watching

,,,To understand the perils of public funds going to private schools, we can simply look to the fact that these private schools take taxpayer dollars and then can decide to exclude students based on sex, religion, academic achievement, sexual orientation, and even economic status. Not only that, but voucher programs also discriminate against students with disabilities and are mismanaged.

And what about academics? Voucher schools are often low-performing. Voucher programs don't improve reading and math achievement, and students interested in careers in the STEM fields could be at a significant disadvantage as many voucher schools reject evolution and teach creationism.

Yet, those who want vouchers continue to promote these misguided policies. Last week, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) introduced the CHOICE Act, a bill that would authorize a range of bad ideas, including creating new federally funded vouchers for students with disabilities (even though students with disabilities often reject or drop out of voucher programs) and expanding the deeply troubled Washington, D.C., voucher program. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), introduced the Scholarship for Kids Act, which could potentially deprive $24 billion from public schools and put it into the hands of private and religious schools.


Bad Ideas and Principles During "School Choice Week" | American Civil Liberties Union

School Choice: Tax-funded private schools should be accountable, test | New Republic

Unusually, this particular debate has sprung up among supporters of school choice. In the present instance, the issue is whether private schools that take public funds—school vouchers—should have to report the results of state standardized tests. Experts like scholar Jay Greene, Education Week columnist and chief of the American Enterprise Institute’s education center Rick Hess, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn have all weighed in.

This is an important question. It gets to the incentives of private providers of public services. It also reflects the more fundamental debate over the role of government and the private sector. Opponents of testing/reporting requirements argue that the “market” for school services will provide enough of a check to ensure high quality. Proponents counter that government oversight of private school performance is a reasonable condition under which such schools decide to accept public funds.

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Here’s why: One of the major arguments for requiring voucher schools to report test results is not to cast doubt on the private sector as a whole, but to flag particularly ineffective private schools (just as public accountability systems flag failing schools). A couple of weeks ago, Zack Kopplin noted in Slate that some Texas charter schools were teaching creationism in science classes. This week, Slate released an interactive map showing creationist teaching not only in charter schools but also private schools receiving public vouchers. A handful of these were located in Milwaukee.

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The voucher program, like most others in the country, is directly targeted toward low-income families in urban settings—the vast majority of whom are African American or Hispanic. I happen to think there is a role for school choice to play in these settings, to the benefit of students who are desperate for high quality schools. But without public reporting, how will the parents of these students know which private schools are worth choosing and which should be avoided? If we ask them to trust that the market will work, why not let them verify? The choice may not, as I have, pit creationist schools against other voucher providers. Parents could weigh any criteria they wanted in their school selection. They might not want to make a comparison at all, but to simply see for themselves how one school is performing before they commit their child’s education to it.

School Choice: Tax-funded private schools should be accountable, test | New Republic

6 Biggest Religious Right Threats to America

Lawmakers like Fiscus often push their agenda in defiance of established constitutional law, and sometimes hope they can create a case to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn previous decisions that contradict their personal beliefs. Americans Uni­ted combated a wide array of state-level leg­islative schemes in 2012 that sought to tear down the critical safeguards that keep church and state separate,,,With most state legislatures starting their annual sessions this month, here is a look at some of the top threats to church-state separation expected in 2013, including school voucher bills, creationism ploys, “conscience” exemptions, anti-shar­iah legislation and so-called “religious freedom” and “prayer” caucuses.

[,,,]  Advocacy groups have worked hard to build support for vouchers. StudentsFirst, the Memphis Commercial Appeal says, has given thousands of dollars to candidates in legislative campaigns in the last two years. The newspaper said that group donated $427,000 through its Tennessee PAC between January and November 2012 alone.

[,,,]  “If a student thinks something isn’t true, then they can question the teacher and the teacher would have to come up with some kind of research to support that what they are teaching is true or not true,” Kruse told the Indianapolis Star,,,But Micah Clark, executive director of American Family Association of Indiana, was a little more forthcoming about the bill’s true intent. He told the Star that he sees the proposal as a form of protection for teachers who want to discuss creationism and intelligent design.

[,,,]  Legislators regularly come up with new schemes to allow coercive prayer and proselytizing in public schools, and Americans United staffers expect this year to be no exception,,,In Virginia, a proposal was filed just ahead of the 2013 legislative session that would create a state constitutional amendment to “secure further the people’s freedom of speech and right to acknowledge God” on public property and presumably in public schools.

[,,,]  The news media has reported widely on the campaign by the Cath­olic bishops and the Religious Right to win “conscience” exemptions from provisions of the Obama health care reform, but this issue has also filtered down to the state level. Sectarian lobbies want to exempt religious institutions and individuals from a broad range of laws that ensure civil rights and civil liberties,,,A leading proponent of this type of legislation is the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a Washington, D.C., group that advocates public policy based on the “Judeo-Christian moral tradition.”

[,,,]  A similar movement to the one orchestrated by the EPPC is under way thanks to the efforts of U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.),,,That may not sound so sinister, but critics say it’s every bit as misleading as the EPPC “religious freedom” caucuses. The CPCF claims to encourage state lawmakers to “partner with churches and para-church organizations, and ultimately preserve faith in God as lifeblood of America.”

[,,,]  The U.S. Constitution already prohibits government enforcement of religious law, but right-wing groups are insisting that legislatures take the extra step of banning shariah – Islamic law,,,As of press time, anti-shariah legislation had been pre-filed for the 2013 legislative sessions in Alabama and Florida. Texas has pre-filed a bill proposing a ballot measure to amend the state’s constitution to prohibit enforcement, consideration or application of any “religious or cultural law.”


6 Biggest Religious Right Threats to America

Keeping Watch: The Latest, Biggest Threats From The Religious Right

These are very real threats to real religious freedom. Make no mistake, there are groups of fundamentalists who have the agenda of dominionism, to create a Christian nation in America. They have no thought for the Constitution. No respect for other faiths. No love for democracy. They are backed by powerful monied interests. Some of the things I’ve written about are simply religious nuts trying to force their faith on the rest of us. But these Christian Reconstructionists are dangerous. We must know and understand the difference while resisting all attempts to align U.S. laws with religion – any religion. When it comes to government, the only thing we should worship is the Constitution. Outside of that, hey, whatever floats your boat. Just don’t try to sink mine.