Letters: Trump’s voucher plan will hurt poor students
https://www.thestate.com/opinion/letter ... 61404.html
COLUMBIA, SC
The president’s proposed budget cuts federal education spending by $9 billion or 13.5 percent. The two-page budget summary said it will shift $1.4 billion into charter schools, private-school vouchers and portability while eliminating $2.4 billion in teacher training and programs that serve low-income students.
Three big problems with school ‘choice’ that supporters don’t like to talk about
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ans ... d734d34070
Privatized school choice, in its various forms, has been rapidly gaining ground in many of our states. The thinly veiled agenda of privatized choice is the destruction of public schools, which Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her allies refer to as “government schools.”
1. Privatized school choice will inevitably reduce funding for your local neighborhood public schools
A recent study by Innovation Ohio demonstrated the loss of millions of dollars intended for the Van Wert County local public schools (recently visited by DeVos) that instead flowed to charter schools. As the study’s authors explained, the burden for financing charter schools has shifted to local taxpayers, resulting in steep increases in taxes.
As charter schools and voucher programs expand, the public school system has to reduce services, enrichment programs and sports, or it has to raise local taxes, or both. This negatively impacts the community at large and has a negative effect on home values
As charter schools and voucher programs expand, the public school system has to reduce services, enrichment programs and sports, or it has to raise local taxes, or both. This negatively impacts the community at large and has a negative effect on home values.
ESAs give parents 90 percent of public education costs on a debit card in exchange for not sending their child to a public school.
Another Arizona voucher program, the education tax-credit program, is no more than a gift of public funds masquerading as a “good cause.” Contributors get a dollar-for-dollar credit for making their donation. Because every dollar given is returned to the donor, all of the state’s taxpayers are footing the bill for the vouchers. It has been likened to a money-laundering scheme.
A similar program in South Carolina can be manipulated so that high-income taxpayers can make money by getting all of their money back and then receiving federal deductions. A wealth management firm in Virginia explains how you can use these tax credits to make money. The wealthier you are, the more you can make.
3. Additional administrative costs coupled with a lack of transparency waste taxpayer dollars and open the door to excessive legal and fraudulent personal gain
A lack of transparency not only allows exorbitant administrative costs to be veiled; it makes fraud and abuse far more difficult to detect. Every week brings news reports of scandals involving charter schools. There were six reports in a recent one-week period, including a charter principal engaged in credit card fraud, a charter management company that left a school stranded midyear, and the Celerity charter chain, which is under investigation by the FBI for years of questionable spending and conflicts of interest. ProgressOhio recently recounted dozens of charter-school scandal reports that have taken place in that state from 2013 to 2015, describing their list as incomplete.
And the ESA voucher programs are also ripe for abuse. The Arizona ESA program, the oldest in the nation, has been associated with numerous cases of fraud.
Betsy DeVos' School Voucher Plan Hurts Poor Kids. PERIOD.
https://www.yourtango.com/2017299885/be ... ren-period
Dismal Voucher Results Surprise Researchers as DeVos Era Begins
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/upsh ... egins.html
Top 10 Reasons School Choice Is No Choice
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/to ... e1e0e20be3
1) Voucher programs almost never provide students with full tuition.
2) Charter and voucher schools don’t have to accept everyone
3) Charter Schools are notorious for kicking out hard to teach students
4) Voucher and charter schools actually give parents less choice than traditional public schools
5) Charter Schools do no better and often much worse than traditional public schools
6) Charters and voucher schools increase segregation
7) Charter and voucher schools take away funding at traditional public schools
8) Properly funding parallel school systems would be incredibly wasteful and expensive
9) School choice takes away attention from the real problems in our public schools – poverty and funding equity
10) School choice is not supported by a grass roots movement. It is supported by billionaires.
In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.
