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